His head sagged. Wisps of steamy vapor seeped from his torn stomach.
“God forgive me, I helped them, I did. Why, I even thought of the psych… psychological angle. It was my idea to help your girlfriend stow away on the sub. A woman can really work on your mind, I know. Really get you dizzy when you’re about to set in motion something really wild, like this project, even if they never say a word. She didn’t, did she? She was something, Mister Frazer. The regulator screw-up would have given you an excuse to back out.
“Aw, damnation, I’m nearly a deacon and it’s just beyond me to do things the wrong way for long. Lord’s truth. Dep, my old woman, she’ll understand and forgive me, I hope. I just bided my time and trusted in Grandpaw and Uncle Ho.”
He read the question in my expression.
“Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? What I mean is, I pulled back in the face of a superior force—guerrilla style and waited for an opportunity. You know, playing it the way Uncle Ho—or really General Giap, I guess—told his troops to play it against our conventional ground-pounders. It was a strange feeling having to fight those fellows, Mr. Ackert and the others, that way. I waited and then on the submarine I saw my chance.
“You know my grandpaw was an old gimlet-eyed circuit preacher. Well, he used to say as a good Christian he couldn’t pass judgment on a fellow mortal, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t put that mortal in a position where the scales of right couldn’t make their own decision. I unhooked Lutjens’s safety line—but no mortal’s hand swept him overboard.”
It was an unusual way to justify a killing in self-defense and in the defense of others. Puckins was an unusual man, a man of hard courage and convictions.
“Well I’m glad Lutjens and his friends failed. Bullheaded officers like you, Mister Frazier, are just a nuisance to try to stop. I was glad when we landed on the ice, that meant there was nothing else they or I could do.”
So there it was, all laid out neatly.
“The whole thing’s kind of funny.” He laughed, and then choked weakly.
“How’s about wrapping me with a little belt of that leftover C-4, and unscrewing the detonator from one of these grenades? I might as well take a Russki or two with me.
Wickersham brought over the plastic explosive. With his massive hands he worked it around Puckins as tenderly as a mother would with an ailing child. He handed Puckins the grenade works. When it was over, the chief threw back his head and sighed.
“I’m sorry….”
“Cut it out. If you wanted to screw us over you would have! You didn’t.”
He grinned halfheartedly.
“Chief, here take this,” Wickersham said. It was an old coin with a square hole in the center. “It’s for luck.”
Then Wickersham walked away. He began picking up paratroopers’ rifles mechanically. One by one he smashed them into useless chunks of wood and steel against a large tree. His eyes were moist.
As were mine.
An hour or so later we heard an explosion behind us, up the valley. Whether he had taken a Russki or two, or whether he had just passed out and taken pressure off the grenade spoon, I would never know.
Chamonix placed his hand on my shoulder. “In a way, our betrayals have something in common. We men of causes and violence exist in their eyes to be used, expended, or betrayed. Oh, their glorious manipulations through things or people! The only ones we can trust are one another. Now they want to use and destroy that small bit of solace, too.”
Puckins didn’t owe me a thing. Ackert was another matter.
The fresh snow drove down in large, awkward flakes, as if churned in some giant glass paperweight. The visibility was fifteen feet, which, given the speed of our withdrawal, meant we were skiing blind. With the snow and direction of the wind, it was understandable why Gurung didn’t notice the dark forms ahead of us. The forms congealed into a herd of reindeer, the cattle of Siberia. Nearby an Evenki drover and his son loomed out of the swirling snow. Unfortunately they saw us at the same moment we saw them.
Instantly they stood at the convergence of five gunsights. Chamonix looked back at me. He had already sized up the situation. The Evenki drover could give pursuing Russian patrols details of our strength and direction of movement. Additionally, none of us was wearing an exposure mask, so the detected presence of Caucasians might upset our China ruse.
Chamonix ran his finger across his throat quizzically. The cold, rational, old-school decision would be to dispatch any witnesses. Chamonix had been through a rough school in the Congo and knew the price of leaving talking trail markers. Shaking my head, I beckoned to Matsuma. After a few false starts, it was soon clear these Evenki did not speak Russian. Fortunately Matsuma knew their language from his early fishing days and his stay with the Evenki after his escape.
The drover and his son had at first assumed we were a Soviet patrol, since the Chinese and Russian winter camouflage uniforms were very similar. Our wounded, and our worn-out condition, aroused their suspicions. They questioned Matsuma, and at the same time he questioned them. The drover and his son huddled together. The father’s face was round with flattened cheekbones. The son, about ten, looked like an Eskimo cherub. Though his father was transmitting caution signals, the boy was overwhelmed by the curiosity these white-suited strangers aroused.
I pulled Matsuma aside. “What do you think?”
“Poor, hardworking Evenki drovers. They get nothing from Roshiajins but a visit from the agriculture commissioner once a year and many publications—which they can’t read but burn well—on reindeer husbandry. They need all this kind of help like they need a ten-kilo block of ice. Kremlin, to them, is as remote as Argentina.”
I studied their faces for any sign of duplicity.
“Frazer Commander, I will tell him we are deserters and corrective labor camp escapees, all right? They are not to mention anything to any soldiers unless asked. I will request they give us food. We need food, rest, shelter, many things. Without them escape can still be very difficult. Vyshinsky is very weak, ne?”
I nodded. Chamonix nodded in agreement. He had fulfilled his duty as devil’s advocate.
Matsuma talked with the drover for a long time. Finally the father indicated that we should all follow him. His son trudged alongside us, his eyes wide and inquiring. We moved into an open area in the taiga and soon I lost all sense of direction. It was reassuring to know that if the snow didn’t cover our tracks the reindeer herd would. In less than an hour, we reached a deserted cabin ornately trimmed with Siberian gingerbread.
Matsuma searched in his jacket for his survival kit. When he found it, he pulled out several ruble notes. As he did this he winked at me. The drover deftly palmed the notes, pulled off his cap, and said something with a little hop.
“We are welcome to share this humble dwelling with him. He plans to graze his reindeer here for a week or so. By then his brother will have returned with his dogsled. You can trust him, I think. He has no use for Roshiajin, either.”
We brushed the snow from our boots, clothing, and equipment and entered the cabin. It had no windowpanes—either they had been taken out or never installed originally. Slat shutters, closed against the wind, helped to keep some heat within the cabin—but not much. The drover and his boy had a pile of reindeer hides in one corner, which they used for bedding. A small-hearthed fireplace that did not draw correctly provided the only heat. The fireplace was constructed in the massive Russian style. Its flue did not rise straight up but wound upward in the ancient labyrinthine manner of tradition. In this efficient way each brick managed to capture some heat and radiate it into the cabin. As time had destroyed portions of the cabin’s wall and roof, and its windows were nonexistent, it was a wonder this fireplace could keep the cabin habitable at all. The drover lent us a few hides but we found the best protection against the cold was huddling together like beach seagulls on a rainy night.