David Healey - Red Sniper

They took stock, nursing their wounds. Inna and Harry emerged from the shelter, tugging on clothes. Ramsey followed soon after. Even after hours of sleep, he could barely stand.

“Are you hurt?” Cole asked them.

Harry shook his head. “Scared the hell out of us, but the worst that happened is that the wolf chewed a hole in our blanket. Look at you—Jesus, Cole, you’re bleeding.”

Cole touched the place where the alpha male’s teeth had raked him. “It ain’t deep. I just hope that damn wolf don’t have rabies.”

Samson came hobbling over. He had gotten the worst of the attack. He leg bled freely where the wolves had ravaged it. Seeing the blood and torn flesh, Inna attempted to choke back the sound of dismay in her throat, then set to work binding up the wounds.

Cole looked around. “Where’s Vaska at?”

In the aftermath of the fray, they had forgotten about the Russian hunter. They found him kneeling in the snow beside his laika. Buka lay motionless, his throat and side torn. Nearby was the body of a wolf.

Cole felt a chill in spite of himself—even in death, the wolf looked menacing. The beast’s mouth gaped open, revealing strong, sharp teeth. Even Vaska’s tough laika had been no match for it. A wolf that big could easily have dragged Inna from the shelter. It must have weighed almost as much as Cole.

Beside him, Vaccaro gave an appreciative whistle. “Look at the size of that motherfucker.”

“Vaska, are you hurt?” Cole asked.

“No,” he said without looking up. With a bloody hand, he stroked the ruff of the dog. “When the wolf went for me, Buka fought him. He was a good dog.”

A tear streaked the leathery face of the Russian hunter.

Honaker appeared, standing apart from the group, his weapon half raised toward the others. Something about the way he was looking at them made the hair on the back of Cole’s neck stand at attention. He suddenly felt naked—not because he was only wearing a blanket across his shoulders, but because his rifle was still in the shelter. Again, Cole wondered why he felt that Honaker was trying to get the drop on them. It didn’t make sense—they were all on the same team here.

Then Honaker looked off into the shadows. “Maybe we should risk building a fire,” he said. “We don’t want those damn wolves coming back.”

“Maybe a small fire,” Cole agreed. It was a risk, but they had all seen the size of the dead wolf. “We can warm up, dry out, and keep the goddamn wolves away until first light.”

“What about the Russians?” Vaccaro asked. “What if they see the fire?”

“You want a two-legged problem or a four-legged problem? Take your pick.”

Vaccaro’s eyes went to the dark trees surrounding them. Dawn was still hours far away. “Let’s build that fire.”

Cole had a fire burning within a few minutes, having scrounged dry wood from deep within a windfall. The shelters were abandoned in favor of crowding around the fire, not so much for the meager warmth it offered, but for the circle of light it cast. None of them liked the idea of going beyond the firelight, where a wolf might be lurking in the shadows.

It was also the perfect time to eat an early breakfast, but Honaker had some bad news for them.

“There’s a problem with the rations,” Honaker announced, once they were all gathered about the fire.

“What problem?”

“The food is gone. I had everything in my rucksack, and now it’s gone. A wolf must have dragged it off.”

“Maybe you dropped it back at the bog,” Inna said.

“To hell if I know,” Honaker said. “All I’m sure of is that our food is gone.”

“We could go look for it,” she suggested.

“What’s this we business?” Honaker snapped. “I’m not going anywhere until it gets light. Those wolves would like nothing better than to turn us into food.”

They had to admit that Honaker had a point. Nobody blamed him for the loss of the rations—Whitlock’s near drowning, followed by the wolf attack, had created utter chaos. It would have been easy enough to lose the rations.

They took stock of what they carried in their pockets. Vaccaro had a chocolate bar, Inna had a handful of foil-wrapped beef bouillon cubes, and Vaska had a pouch filled with jerky. Everybody had a few cigarettes or sticks of gum. It was all enough to stave off hunger for a few hours. Nobody had any real food.

“Damn, but I’m hungry,” Vaccaro said. “Do you think roasted wolf is any good?”

Cole shrugged. “I could skin it out and—”

Vaccaro raised a hand. “I’m joking, Hillbilly. I’m not going to eat a wolf.”

“It would be damn stringy, anyhow. Maybe we can do better than wolf meat.” Cole looked over at Vaska, who nodded. The Russian understood just what Cole had in mind.

For the next couple of hours, they dozed, keeping one eye on the shadows beyond the fire. Near daybreak, when there began to be enough light to navigate the woods, Cole and Vaska moved into the trees to set snares.

A snare was the simplest of traps. A loop of thin wire was draped across a rabbit trail, with one end tied to a sapling. Even during the snow, rabbits had left a few tracks. When the unsuspecting rabbit ran its head through the loop, its struggle to get away tightened the noose. Within minutes, they had four snares set around the woods near the camp.

Cole wasn’t satisfied with the possibility of a few rabbits. Looking around, he spotted a windfall log that had caught against another tree so that it hung a few feet above the ground.

“Vaska, what do you say we try to catch something bigger?”

“What, like a deer?”

“Like a Russian.”

Cole explained what he had in mind. A deadfall trap.

If a snare was simple, a deadfall was only slightly more complex. Vaska built them all the time to trap sables in the north country. The deadfall they built now was intended for larger prey. Vaska took a stick four feet long and cut it to a flat point, like the tip of a screwdriver. He then cut a notch in another stick that ended in a fork.

They recruited Vaccaro to help pull the windfall log free and lift the one end high over their heads while Vaska carried out the delicate act of supporting the log using the two sticks—one end of the stick with the screwdriver point was on the ground, the point itself jammed into the notched stick, which at the forked end supported the log. The tip of the notched stick extended downward a few inches, and Cole baited it with an empty cigarette pack. Then he disguised their handiwork with a few well-placed branches. It was good enough to fool someone careless.

The trio stepped back to admire their handiwork. Vaska was grinning for the first time since the wolves had killed his dog.

“Whoever grabs that cigarette pack is going to end up with one hell of a headache,” Vaccaro said, looking at the log overhead. At the slightest touch, it would come crashing down.

“With any luck, it might take out one of these Russians and even the odds for us,” Cole said.

They moved back to the campfire, hoping that the rabbits would soon be stirring to forage in the new snow. After an hour, they checked the snares, but came up empty.

“I reckon it’s chewing gum and cigarettes for breakfast,” Cole said.

When they returned, the campfire was only smoldering now that the others were preparing to leave. Cole looked around the group. Samson was limping. Ramsey was being propped up by Whitlock, who looked rejuvenated for a man who had only recently escaped being both drowned and frozen. Inna must have been a mighty fine nurse.

The morning light usually meant that they were greeted by the sound of pursuing dogs. This morning, there was only silence.