Russian Amerika: Chapter Twenty

20. Near the East Fork of the Toklat River

    Grisha and Nik sat and ate a cold lunch on a pile of needles under an unusually large spruce tree. After swallowing his last bite of moose jerky, Grisha said, "I want some fresh meat."

    "We don't have any."

    "I know that. I want to hunt for awhile. This is a game trail."

    "Not now. Maybe tomorrow."

    "You don't have to hunt if you don't want to, general," Grisha said. "But I'm hungry for rabbit."

    "But."

    Grisha abruptly stood and secured his poles to his pack before swinging it onto his shoulders. He put on his skis and finally picked up the recurve bow and his quiver.

    "Grisha, please let me be in front."

    "I'm a better hunter than you are," he said with a grin. "Better shot too. Besides, you've been in front all day long. It's my turn."

    "Tomorrow you can be in front. Today I want to be first."

    Grisha stared hard at his companion.

    "I heard a saying once that they use down in the American countries. 'Go fuck yourself,' is what they say. And that's exactly what you can do." He skied away, pulling an arrow out of the quiver as he went.

    The game trail wound through the woods and curved into a cut separating two ridges. He decided there could be game in the heavy brush at the cut. He nocked an arrow and skied as quietly as he could into the entrance.

    Abruptly a snowshoe hare bolted out of the brush ahead and ran toward him for three lunging strides. Suddenly the animal saw Grisha and veered off to the man's right. For five seconds the hare presented an easily accessible target before disappearing in the timbered flank of the ridge.

    Grisha didn't shoot. His heart thundered in his ears and he concentrated on maintaining his grip on the bowstring.

    What scared the animal? Wrong time of the year for bear. Nik is behind me. Maybe a moose? St. Nicholas, please let it be a moose.

    He crept forward a step, then hesitated. He glanced behind him. In the distance, Nik slid into his pack and took his first sliding stride toward Grisha.

    He jerked his head around to face the cut again. The slightest breath of a sound carried across the snow to his ears. The bow suddenly seemed like a child's toy as he recognized the protest of oiled metal against metal.

    Another glance over his shoulder. Nik moved forward swiftly, craning his head to get a better look at Grisha.

    Good. He knows something out of the ordinary is happening.

    Slowly, quietly, Grisha eased the skis backward. No good - he had to keep looking back to judge his steps. He bent down and rapidly unfastened his bindings.

    He pulled the skis up and jammed them butt down in the snow. Watching the cut as closely as possible, he carefully retreated back down the trail. Nik slid to a stop ten meters away and waited.

    Grisha got to his friend's ski tips before he allowed himself to whisper.

    "There's somebody in the cut."

    "How do you know?" Nik stared past Grisha, watching the cut.

    He told about the snowshoe hare, hesitated.

    "Then I heard someone chamber a round."

    "Your hearing must be extraordinary," Nik said softly, "or else you're imagining things."

    Grisha felt his jaw muscles go taut and he squinted at the man.

    "I know what I heard," he hissed. "There's somebody in there."

    "Well move then, let me see."

    Nik swung a ski pole up and smacked it across Grisha's left arm. Instinctively, Grisha jerked away from the pole just before it made contact and fell flat in the slightly softer snow at trail's edge.

    Nik skied for the cut. Grisha stifled a roar of anger and, gripping his bow and arrow in one hand, flopped through the deep snow to the relative firmness of the trail. He scrambled to his feet as Nik passed Grisha's skis, standing like silent sentinels.

    The Russian disappeared into the cut. Grisha ran to his skis, quickly dropped them on the trail and snapped down the spring-loaded clamp over the front lip of his boot soles. Then he was gliding along, smoothly, silently, swiftly, arrow nocked, adrenaline charged. He skied into the cut.