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far. He would know what to do when his time came, and his time was now.
There had been much blundering. First, Zamatev had not wanted to advertise
that a prisoner had escaped him or that he even had prisoners. He had held
back, expecting a quick capture.
Bringing soldiers into the field had been a mistake, also. If they had had to
bring soldiers, they should have been a detachment of Siberians, not men from
the Ukraine. Good men, no doubt, but flatlanders, unaccustomed to Arctic
mountains.
The trappers had been a wise move on the face of things, but as Alekhin would
know, the trappers were half in sympathy with the American. Not that they were
in any sense disloyal, simply that he was one of them, a hunter and a trapper
who handled himself as such, and they took pleasure in seeing him outwit the
city men who organized the pursuit. The American had used their country as
they might have used it, and so when they went into the field they did not
look too hard.
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Joe Mack studied the distance with care, his eyes sweeping the country bit by
bit, missing nothing, remembering everything. He could read terrain as a
scholar reads a rare manuscript or a jewelsmith studies a diamond for the
cutting. Much of his life had been spent in wild country, and for nearly a
year now he had lived in the taiga, learning its moods and its whims. Long ago
he had learned that one could not make war against the wilderness. One had to
live with it, not against it.
Somewhere out there, before or behind him, was Alekhin, closing in, making
ready for the capture or kill. And Alekhin had had time to study him, while he
knew little of the Yakut. Now he must learn or die.
Joe Mack knew that every move he made must be calculated, yet he must never
establish a pattern of behavior. He must not allow Alekhin to guess where he
might be at any given time. He must vary his campsites, be careful of his
kills, change direction often.
Above all, he must be prepared for a fight to the death. Alekhin would
understand nothing less.
Carefully, from his shadow atop the low ridge, he studied the terrain and
plotted his route. There was easy cover ahead and to his right, so he must
avoid it. That would be the best way, the likely way, so he must choose
another. Yet even that procedure must not become a pattern.
Criminals were almost invariably stupid in this respect. If they escaped from
the law, they returned to familiar surroundings to be close to those they
knew, people who could help them and conceal them, people with whom they were
comfortable. Of course, the law knew this and knew where to look for them and
whom to question, and there was always somebody who would talk or who would
drink too much and say too much.
Willie Sutton, that skillful escape artist, had rarely made that mistake. He
would lose himself in a totally unexpected environment where nobody knew him
and nobody would look for him.
So far he had kept to the highlands. Now, for a little while at least, he
would take to the low country. Consequently, he must avoid being seen from
above.
Seated in his shadow he worked on the moosehide, scraping fragments of flesh
from it, allowing the warm sun to reach it. The hide would make excellent
moccasins, and he would be needing them.
Nothing moved in the terrain before him. Working on the hide, he took time to
watch, ready to catch the slightest movement. He saw nothing but a bird now
and again, and just before the sun disappeared he saw three moose come from
the willows and amble slowly across the terrain. He stopped his work to watch,
for if they were frightened while en route it would reveal a presence there.
They walked across the area and disappeared into the trees. Rolling up his
moosehide, he added it to his pack, and shouldering it, he left the trees and
went down a dry watercourse toward the river.
That night he found an overhang by the river where the rocks had been
somewhat warmed by the brief sun. There he bedded down and slept. Before dawn
he was moving again.
A narrow stream flowed north through the tundra. There was a film of ice
along its banks, no more. Here and there was a patch of thin snow. There were
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willows in plenty and occasional poplar or larch. He wandered on, pausing at
intervals to listen and to watch the flight of birds or the movements of
animals. He found no tracks of men, only animals.
It was very still, not a breath of air stirring. He walked through the day
and into the early evening. At night he found a place on a south-facing slope
under some larch. There had been a blowdown there some years before and many
of the trees stretched out above the bank of a watercourse, forming a roof.
Beneath them he found a place for his camp.
Colonel Arkady Zamatev landed in Chersky. Lieutenant Suvarov awaited him as
the plane landed. He led the way to a Volga parked near the airfield.
"No question about it, Colonel Zamatev. He has been seen in the forest. He
was spotted by a high-flying plane, crossing a clearing."
"You reported this to Alekhin?"
Suvarov s lips tightened. "Comrade Alekhin says it was not him, but who else
could it be?"
"Why does he not think it was the American?"
Suvarov shrugged. "He says the American would not cross a clearing at this
time. He would go around it. That's absurd! Why go the long way around when he
is obviously in a hurry?"
Zamatev said nothing. The Volga was taking them down a bumpy, icy street. Big
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