Red Sniper

“Listen, I wanted to thank you for sticking up for Ramsey back there,” Whitlock said. “He’s tough, but he hasn’t been well. It doesn’t help that these goddamn Russians have been working him nearly to death and feeding him scraps. I know Honaker isn’t thrilled about it, but I couldn’t leave Ramsey behind.”

A few paces back, they could hear Ramsey coughing. He moved quickly enough, keeping up, but he walked with a stiff gait.

“You done the right thing,” Cole said.

“So what’s the plan?”

“We walk east for the next six days. When the sun comes up, that’s the direction we move in. We stay ahead of the Russians, then get across the border into Finland. Simple. Sound all right to you?”

Whitlock nodded. “Simple is good,” he said.

They continued to walk mostly in silence, until faint streaks of pink showed on the horizon. The wind had a bitter edge, chilling them all to the bone, despite the exercise. On the Russian plain, the weather felt more like December than mid-October.

Finally, Honaker called for a halt. “Let’s get some sleep, maybe get some food,” he said. “It looks to me like Whitlock and Ramsey could use it. Hell, we could all use it. Then we’ll head out again when we have some daylight.”

The group flopped down as if the ground was covered with a rich carpet, rather than the brown and withered grass. Samson broke out some food, just black bread and cheese courtesy of Mrs. Vaska, but the two former prisoners devoured it. Their faces had that too-thin look brought on by constant hunger. Cole had seen plenty of that among the mountain people before the war. The Depression had hemmed them in, starving them out. He reckoned there were all kinds of Gulags in this world.

Cole sat apart from the others and put his rifle to his shoulder, scanning the horizon through his scope. Although it was dark, he figured that whoever was coming after them would have lights. Vaska lit a pipe and stationed himself a few feet away, his ancient hunting rifle across his knees.

“You need to relax, Hillbilly,” Honaker complained. “There’s no way they caught up to us that fast.”

“I just want to see them before they see me,” Cole said.

As the light grew, the surrounding taiga was revealed for the first time. Since leaving the village, the landscape had grown more hilly and rugged. Rocks and boulders pushed up from the frozen ground like the knuckles of an old man’s hand. In between the high ground lay swaths of swampland. Nearby, a pool of standing water had formed between the rocks. A skim of ice reached most of the way across. Trees marched down the slopes toward their camp: spruce, pine, and a kind of tree that Vaska had told him earlier was a larch. In the United States, it would not have been unusual to find a few hardscrabble homesteads in the most remote area, but most Russians lived in villages. Away from the village, the land was an uninhabited wilderness.

Vaska sucked at his pipe. He had noticed Cole surveying the landscape. “It is what we call pustynya,” he said. “Nothingness.”

Cole nodded. He didn’t mind pustynya. He thought that he and the Russian taiga would get along just fine.

Honaker got them all up an hour after sunrise. Cole had never gone to sleep, but had kept watch. They were still too close to the Gulag camp for comfort.

He hadn’t been alone. Vaska sat nearby, nursing his pipe, his old rifle across his knees. Watching the horizon for any sign of light or movement.

“Barkov will be the one coming after us,” Vaska explained. “It would be just like him to come sneaking through the dark. He moves quietly, for such a big man.”

Cole kept his eyes trained on the darkness. “Just who is this Barkov?”

“He is a deadly shot. In Stalingrad, the Germans called him the Red Sniper.” Vaska spat. “He is also a throat cutter.”

Cole thought that Barkov cast a long shadow. Inna clearly feared him, and he even seemed to worry Vaska. It would be just fine with him if he never got to experience Barkov for himself.

Now that it was full daylight, they felt more secure. The horizon was nearly unbroken under low clouds. They would see anyone coming from a long way off.

The laika dog raised his head and sniffed the air. Vaska nodded. “He smells the change in the wind.”

“Coming out of the southeast now. Smells like snow.”

“We will get some snow, maybe a dusting. That will help to cover any tracks that we left.”

“Early for snow,” Cole said.

Vaska laughed. “You are in Russia, my friend. First it will snow a little, then it will get cold. If the wind shifts around to the northeast we will have a bigger snow. That is how the winter begins.”

“Good thing I wore my long johns.”