Anatoly Rybakov - THE BRONZE BIRD

"What bandits can there be now?" Slava said.

"Listen to him!" Genka shouted. "'What bandits'! In the flesh, the real thing. And I bet they're the ones who killed Kuzmin."

Longshanks stopped rowing and looked at Genka with fear in his eyes.

"What makes you think they killed Kuzmin?" Slava asked.

"Who else? His brother?" Genka nodded in Longshanks' direction. "Tell us, Longshanks, did your brother kill Kuzmin?"

"No, he did not," Longshanks muttered, pulling at his oars again.

"Then who did?"

"I don't know."

"But I do," Genka said, stubbornly sticking to his point. "Bandits."

Misha kept out of the conversation. All that had just happened was so bewildering, so hard to believe.

The boatman had of course lied about Kuzmin's boat. It had only been a pretext to detain them. The boatman, if anybody, knew every boat in the village. Then why had he lied? Because of those two men? That was unlikely. Those men had vanished into the woods long before the boatman saw Misha and his friends. Yet all this might have a direct bearing on Kuzmin's murder. You could see by the boatman's face that he was the murderer. He had looked frightened when he saw Longshanks in the boat and realized that the lad was trying to get on the trail of the real killer. That was why he had wanted to turn them back.

What if... Misha felt a cold shiver run down his spine. What if this was connected not only with Kuzmin's murder, but also with the disappearance of Igor and Seva? Something had probably happened to them and that explained the boatman's action. Perhaps Igor and Seva had accidentally witnessed the murder or had run into those men in the woods and the latter, afraid of being exposed, had killed them. Anything could happen in times like these. A struggle was going on in the countryside. Every now and then you'd hear of a rural correspondent or activist being killed. There was no telling what mess the boys had landed in. What was to be done? They were in his charge, whatever way you looked at it.

At that moment, Genka cried out:

"Hut to starboard!"

On the bank, in the shade of a tree, stood a tiny hut made of branches and leaves. A fire was burning near it and by the fire sat a man and a woman.

"Let's ask them if they've seen Igor and Seva," Misha suggested.

The boys rested their oars on the sides of the boat and it slowed down. Misha cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted:

"Hello! I say there, on the bank!"

The man and woman looked round. Both wore thick horn-rimmed glasses.

"Could you tell us," Misha shouted, "if you saw two boys go by here on a raft?"

The man and woman exchanged glances. Then, as though at a signal, they turned their heads to the boys, but made no reply.

"Are they deaf, or what?" Misha said under his breath, then shouted again, "Did you see two boys on a raft?"

Once more the man and woman exchanged glances. Then the man rose to his feet and shouted:

"No understand."

The boys stared at him.

"A foreigner," Genka muttered in confusion.

Before them there was indeed a foreigner-a middle-aged, thickset, bald-headed man in horn-rimmed glasses, a shirt with short sleeves and golf pants reaching down to just below his knees over grey and obviously foreign-made stockings. There was no doubt at all that the man in the golf pants was a foreigner.

"No understand," the foreigner repeated, bursting out laughing and shaking his big, bald, round head.

"Should we go and talk to them?" Misha said indecisively.

"Why not?" Genka backed him up.

The boys rowed to the bank, climbed out of their boat and went up to the hut.

The man, a broad smile creasing his face, was looking at the boys. The woman was sitting by the fire and stirring something in a pot with a spoon. She gave the boys an attentive glance. Misha and his friends sniffed at the air: an aroma of chocolate was rising from the pot.

"You shout from far and we no understand Russian well," the foreigner said.

On the ground near the hut were two rucksacks with belts and shining clasps, two cameras with thin straps attached to them, a tin with a bright label, two thermos flasks and some other small articles of foreign origin.

"They're foreign tourists," Misha decided.

"You repeat question," the foreigner said.

The man was not as bald as the boys had thought when they first saw him from a distance. There was hair on his head, but it was sparse and fair, like fluff. On the whole, this fat, rosy-cheeked man looked like a big, well-fed boy.

"Did you see two boys pass by on a raft?" Misha said, repeating his question.

"Raft? What is raft?"

"Something like a boat," Misha explained, and drew a picture with his hands, "only it is square and made of logs."

The foreigner nodded happily.

"I see, I see!" He turned to the woman and said something to her, then he nodded his head again. "Raft, I understand. I understand. Here two boys were, Young Pioneers, tie." He touched his neck. "Young Pioneers, good Young Pioneers. They here were."

"When?"

"They sleep. Not last night, but before that night. Yesterday morning they swim away on raft. They fix raft and go."

Misha sighed with relief. At last! Igor and Seva were alive and well. Nothing had happened to them.

Further questioning revealed that on the evening before last, Igor and Seva had stopped and spent the night with the foreigners and that before noon yesterday they had mended their raft and had gone downstream. That meant that yesterday, on Wednesday, when Kuzmin was murdered, Igor and Seva were sitting here, talking with the foreigners, and had in no way been affected by the happenings in Khalzin Meadow. That was wonderful! So far as they were concerned then, everything was all right. Now it was only a matter of time before they would be overtaken. They had had a start of two days, and now that had been shortened to only one day. Misha was sure he'd find them by nightfall.

An appetizing aroma of chocolate was filling the air. The boys cast hungry glances at the pot and sniffed at the air unblushingly. Genka was simply trembling with greed.

The woman said something to the man.

With a smile he turned to the boys.

"Drink cocoa?"

Misha shook his head and was about to refuse politely, but Genka stopped him with a whisper:

"Let's have a bite, eh, Misha?"

Now that they had had news of Igor and Seva, there was really no hurry. Besides, they would have to stop for a meal just the same, and if they set about cooking it, they would lose more time. So Misha gave his consent.

The boys sat down round the fire. Longshanks alone remained standing. He felt very shy, for he had never seen foreigners before, and it was only when Misha ordered him to sit down that he squatted down on his haunches. Nevertheless, he kept at a respectful distance from the fire.

The woman poured the steaming cocoa into metal cups, which she produced one from another. From a leather dressing-case she took tiny spoons and a pair of sugar-tongs. She did all this quickly, but she neither spoke nor smiled. Her reddish hair was streaked with grey and she wore it bobbed. Around her eyes there was a network of fine wrinkles. Her arms were thin and sunburnt, but on her wrists there were white lines.

"Probably because she wears bracelets," Misha thought. Thin slices of bread, with a brown paste spread on them, lay on a table-napkin. Slava and Misha each took a sandwich and gave one to Longshanks. Genka, meanwhile, attacked the sandwiches and could not find it in him to tear himself away from them. In a minute, there was nothing left on the napkin. Slava nudged Genka a few times, but he seemed as though he were possessed. It was not that he was a glutton like Kit; he was simply famished.