Russian Amerika: Chapter Nine

9 - Construction Camp 4

    Those without weapons carried bundles of clothing and other Russian supplies. In addition to a rifle, Grisha claimed a small, sharp knife with a curved blade. The camp lay completely stripped of useful material.

    Barrels of petrol provided incendiary preparation for each structure. Finally Slayer-of-Men whistled. The Dena' and their new recruits followed him into the forest.

    Paul stayed in the camp to finish preparing the welcome for the Russian relief forces.

    As he followed the man in front of him, Grisha ate steadily from his small bag of "squirrel food" given to him by the small, pretty woman called Cora. The squirrel food consisted of dried berries, small bits of dried fish, a variety of seeds, and clumps of congealed grease. It was the best meal he'd eaten since his arrest. He compared it to the iron rations given the Troika Guard in the old days and graded the squirrel food superior.

    Paul caught up with them and they kept as fast a pace as the exhausted ex-prisoners could sustain. At one point the distant pulse of a helicopter put them on nervous alert, but the craft receded to the southeast. After nearly two hours on the trail they heard the distant crack of explosives.

    "They pulled the trigger," Paul said. Everyone stopped to listen. Suddenly a quick, staccato rip of explosives coalesced into a gigantic roar, silencing the birds around them.

    "My God," somebody said.

    "Did you use all of your stuff?" Slayer-of-Men asked.

    "Why not?" Paul shrugged "We're going home aren't we?"

    "What, exactly, did you do?" Nik asked.

    "I placed petrol bombs in every building, used a Kalashnikov in the middle of the square as a trigger. When they picked it up, everything went off at once."

    The column stood quietly, each one imagining the destruction for them self.

    "You've just pissed on their boots," Nik Rezanov said.

    "Maybe scared them, too," Grisha said, smiling.

    "I don't understand this pissed business," Andreivich said in a querulous tone.

    "If you piss on somebody's boots, you have given them great insult," Nik said. "Unless they have no honor they will do their utmost to kill you."

    "Actually, I'm worried," Paul said. "I didn't think they'd get anyone into the camp before tomorrow."

    "Let's go," Slayer-of-Men said. "We have a long trip ahead of us."

    Just before dark the column reached a cache of food and equipment. Each former prisoner collected a backpack, sleeping bag, rubberized ground cloth, small ax, and a sheath knife. Grisha felt fully equipped, but bordered on total exhaustion from carrying the heavy load of two Kalashnikovs since morning. In addition to observing his rescuers, he had spent the day dropping back into the mind set of a major in the Troika Guard, Imperial Russia's slavish copy of the French Foreign Legion.

    He dispassionately assessed the soldiers around him.

    The largest and most fearsome of all the Indians, Malagni, built a small fire. The muscular man radiated energy. His long hair clouded around his head as he effortlessly preformed one task after another, never resting, never asking for assistance.

    Grisha decided the man had at least five years of paramilitary service behind him and no doubt improved the morale of the other soldiers by his mere presence. Malagni didn't trust any of the newcomers. He watched them carefully, but not openly.

    He had yet to speak to any of the former prisoners.

    With the help of Heron and Lynx, the two women, Cora and Wing, quickly made a stew using meat from a moose hindquarter they had previously covered with moss, wrapped it in a shelter half and tied it high in a tree.

    Any one of them would have done well in the Troika Guard.

    Cora's quiet appearance hid a reservoir of strength, which she applied to the task at hand. Her small stature and limitless energy produced an appeal not apparent if a man only looked at her surface. Far from unattractive, her inner glow enhanced the promise she carried like a badge.

    Wing strutted, proud of her well-developed body, carrying herself with an authority backed up by a willingness to kill in an instant. The knife scar down her left cheek didn't mar her beauty - rather it heightened the observer's appreciation for her finely chiseled features. When she grinned, which was often, the scar writhed and bent double.

    Grisha felt an instant attraction to her and quickly quashed it. He wasn't twenty any more and his recent experience with women kept him at a remove. Still assessing recent events, he no longer trusted himself, let alone women.

    The position of the others in the column didn't allow close scrutiny. Grisha spent most of the day perversely wondering what it would take to interest a woman like Wing. He ate constantly, glad his diarrhea had eased.

    The moose stew registered somewhere between ambrosia and soporific. Grisha snored in his sleeping bag within minutes after eating his fill.

    An insistent hand shook him out of sleep. When his eyes popped open, he thought for a long moment that he was still in the cossack camp. The sleeping bag brought him back to reality. The morning air felt good and smelled of fall.

    Everyone else was up and moving about. He quickly pulled on his boots and packed his gear, bothered that he hadn't heard the general movement without being awakened. Cora came down the line handing out small bags.

    "Here's your breakfast," she said as she passed.

    More squirrel food. He grinned in the weak morning light when he realized he had confidence in these people and finally felt safe from those owned by the Russian government.

    Lynx suddenly hurried into camp and murmured to Slayer-of-Men. The older man moved to the middle of the group and spoke in an urgent low voice.

    "We're being followed. Lynx picked up a party of cossacks and promyshlenniks about a kilometer behind us."

    Grisha felt alarm stab through him. Promyshlenniks seemed to be half man and half forest beast. Adventure tales about them had been in vogue in Mother Russia for decades.

    Although skilled forest hunters and trappers, they would also kill their mother for a ruble. More often than not, they were the collectors of the czar's share of half a man's yearly production.

    "We have to split up now, they can't follow everybody," Slayer-of-Men said.

    Samis, the woodsman, grinned at the Dena'.

    "Why not just shoot these people rather than leave them to those animals?"

    "We won't leave you. We're just going to separate into smaller groups."

    After a quick consultation, the Dena' strike team broke into pairs and hurried over to the released captives. Wing and Claude came up to Grisha. "You and the soldier are going with us, now," Wing said.

    Nik looked troubled. "Would it be possible for me to go with…"

    "Either get in front of me or be rear guard," Wing snapped.

    "By all means, lead."

    Grisha had no idea which direction they took. He glanced back once at the camp, but the forest had already swallowed the others. He could hear Nik behind him, muttering under his breath.

    He wondered how many were following them. Didn't matter, he decided, they would deal with the problem when they had to.