David Healey - Red Sniper

Cole bit off a bit of jerky. He had perfectly formed teeth, although he had never been to a dentist before the Army. It was one benefit of growing up in a place where sweets and soda pop were unobtainable luxuries. “You want to make something of it?”

Honaker seemed to think it over, then looked away. “You aren’t worth it, you goddamn hillbilly.”

“Maybe I am, and maybe I ain’t,” Cole said. “What I do know is that if we hurry and get across that border, you won’t have to worry about me no more. How does that sound to you?”

Honaker didn’t respond, but struggled to snap off a piece of jerky, yanking at it with his teeth without success. “You think you’ve got all the answers. We’ll see about that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Honaker gnawed his jerky, his jaw muscles working and popping under the skin. “You’ll see.”

Morning dawned cold and bright. The sun and sky hinted at warmer weather. And yet it was a cheerless dawn, without anything to eat. Breakfast consisted of a few handfuls of snow. For Cole, it was like old times growing up in the mountains during the Depression with a father who spent most of his days and nights deep in the hills, making whiskey and drinking as much as he sold, not much caring if his children went hungry.

“What I wouldn’t give for some hotcakes and sausage right about now,” Vaccaro said. “Hell, I’d settle for a cup of coffee.”

Cole threw a snowball at him. “Shut up, Vaccaro.”

Cole’s joints ached and creaked in the morning chill, like he was an old man. He would have welcomed some coffee and maybe some bacon to grease himself up good. Vaccaro had the right idea. His belly rumbled at the thought.

Even their cigarettes were gone. Vaska still had his pipe. He cleaned out the bowl with a short-bladed knife, carefully tamped it full of tobacco, and then puffed away.

Cole glanced toward the horizon. Most of the trees had disappeared, leaving a snow-covered plain before them. It was a barren, unwelcoming landscape.

The only good news this morning was that Finland was a day’s walk, if they pushed it.

“May as well get to it,” Cole said. “No sense in burnin’ daylight.”

Vaccaro groaned. “You are like a regular goddamn rooster, Hillbilly.”

“You are a ray of sunshine yourself, City Boy.”

Cole’s attention had been on the horizon to the west. Now he looked back toward the east. What he saw made the frigid air catch in his throat.

Russians. Moving down the face of a long, low slope that Cole and the others had crossed just before dark. He didn’t need binoculars or his rifle scope to count five of them. The bigger one out front would be Barkov.

The Russians had not seen them yet because they had made camp for the night in the lee of a spill of boulders. But all that Barkov had to do was follow the tracks right to this spot. Easy as pie.

He considered the rifle in his hands, but this was no time for a last stand. If Barkov was worth anywhere near his salt as a sniper, out here in the open, he could pick them off just as easily as Cole could. No, now wasn’t the time to fight.

It was time to run.

Cole sprang to his feet. “Ya’ll got to move. Now!”

Honaker seemed annoyed. “What?”

Cole pointed. “The Russians must have kept moving during the night. They come right up on us.”

A shock of urgency jolted the team to action. They hastily rolled their blankets and lashed them to the tops of their packs. Whitlock and Inna rolled up their own blankets, and then tackled Cole’s blanket while he kept watch on their pursuers through his rifle scope. Within two minutes, everyone was on their feet and ready to go. Honaker was the only one who didn’t seem satisfied.

“We ought to stay and fight,” Honaker said, gripping his own weapon.

“If we can keep our distance from them, ain’t no need to fight,” Cole said. “Our mission is to get Whitlock across the border, not do a version of Custer’s last stand.”

“I agree with Cole,” Whitlock said. “Stopping to fight is just what they want. They must have been on the go most of the night. They’ll be tired. We have a head start.”

“Enough yammerin’,” Cole said. “Let’s make tracks.”

Barkov spotted the Americans right away. One moment there was nothing but empty landscape, and the next, there were figures moving in the distance. They stood out against the whiteness of the snowy taiga, but too far to really tell the figures apart.

They must have made camp there for the night. If Barkov and his men had arrived earlier, the Russians would have walked right up on them in the dark.

Too far to get a clear shot. The American sniper had already proven that he could return fire with deadly accuracy. So now, it was a race. The Americans were close to the border. If they pushed it, they might very well might make it across.

Barkov was not about to let them do that. He had chased them too far to let them escape now. The Mink had died because of them.

“Faster!” he shouted at what was left of his band. “Are you going to go faster, or do I need to use the whip?”

Barkov moved quickly for his size. He was longer through the torso than the legs, yet each step covered nearly a meter of snowy ground. The others had to take an extra half step for each one of his strides.

Since the Mink had not returned, Barkov had been in a bad mood. The others picked up the pace, knowing that he would be more than happy to use the Cossack whip at his belt.

Now it was Barkov who stopped. He unslung his rifle.

Through the magnification of his telescope, he could see the Americans. They looked like ants, or less than ants. Fleas, perhaps. Insignificant. Too far for serious shooting. But the sound of a gunshot would give them something to think about.

He placed the reticule high above their heads to compensate for the distance, and pulled the trigger.

The message was clear. Barkov is coming .

The echo of the distant gunshot rolled across the taiga.

“He is shooting at us!” Inna said, panic in her voice. She started to trot through the snow. Not that it would do her any good if Barkov had them in his sights. There was nowhere to hide.

Cole caught her arm.

“Ain’t nothin’ to worry about,” he said. “He’s too far off to hit anything.”

Whitlock muttered, “That’s just what General Reynolds said at Gettysburg.”

Cole snorted. “I reckon my great uncle might have been the one that shot him. I hear tell that he was a Reb sharpshooter. I think he was a lot closer than Barkov, and a better shot to boot. You would have to be a damn sight unlucky for that Red Sniper to hit you at this distance.”

“You ought to take a shot at him,” Whitlock said, through chattering teeth. “Give him something to think about.”

“Too far,” Cole said. “Ain’t no point in wastin’ a bullet. I only got a few left.”

Cole pondered how things had come full circle. He had just spent several months taking part in some of the most brutal fighting that could be imagined across France, Belgium, and Germany. The Germans might have been low on planes, but they always had plenty of ammunition, and so had the Americans. If bullets were seeds, there would have been fields of lead sprouting all across Europe.

Things felt different now, closer to his roots. Cole had grown up in the mountains, during the Great Depression. Rifle and shotgun shells cost hard cash that nobody had, although sometimes his pa traded moonshine for a handful of shells.

There had been times when Cole had just one bullet, and if he missed, it meant that he and his brothers and sisters would go hungry that night. When missing a shot meant nothing to eat, you learned not to miss. You learned not to waste a bullet that you might need later.