"Damn, but I'm hungry," Vaccaro said. "Do you think roasted wolf is any good?"
Cole shrugged. "I could skin it out and—"
Vaccaro raised a hand. "I'm joking, Hillbilly. I'm not going to eat a wolf."
“It would be damn stringy, anyhow. Maybe we can do better than wolf meat." Cole looked over at Vaska, who nodded. The Russian understood just what Cole had in mind.
For the next couple of hours, they dozed, keeping one eye on the shadows beyond the fire. Near daybreak, when there began to be enough light to navigate the woods, Cole and Vaska moved into the trees to set snares.
A snare was the simplest of traps. A loop of thin wire was draped across a rabbit trail, with one end tied to a sapling. Even during the snow, rabbits had left a few tracks. When the unsuspecting rabbit ran its head through the loop, its struggle to get away tightened the noose. Within minutes, they had four snares set around the woods near the camp.
Cole wasn't satisfied with the possibility of a few rabbits. Looking around, he spotted a windfall log that had caught against another tree so that it hung a few feet above the ground.
"Vaska, what do you say we try to catch something bigger?”
“What, like a deer?”
“Like a Russian.”
Cole explained what he had in mind. A deadfall trap.
If a snare was simple, a deadfall was only slightly more complex. Vaska built them all the time to trap sables in the north country. The deadfall they built now was intended for larger prey. Vaska took a stick four feet long and cut it to a flat point, like the tip of a screwdriver. He then cut a notch in another stick that ended in a fork.
They recruited Vaccaro to help pull the windfall log free and lift the one end high over their heads while Vaska carried out the delicate act of supporting the log using the two sticks — one end of the stick with the screwdriver point was on the ground, the point itself jammed into the notched stick, which at the forked end supported the log. The tip of the notched stick extended downward a few inches, and Cole baited it with an empty cigarette pack. Then he disguised their handiwork with a few well-placed branches. It was good enough to fool someone careless.
The trio stepped back to admire their handiwork. Vaska was grinning for the first time since the wolves had killed his dog.
"Whoever grabs that cigarette pack is going to end up with one hell of a headache," Vaccaro said, looking at the log overhead. At the slightest touch, it would come crashing down.
"With any luck, it might take out one of these Russians and even the odds for us," Cole said.
They moved back to the campfire, hoping that the rabbits would soon be stirring to forage in the new snow. After an hour, they checked the snares, but came up empty.
"I reckon it's chewing gum and cigarettes for breakfast," Cole said.
When they returned, the campfire was only smoldering now that the others were preparing to leave. Cole looked around the group. Samson was limping. Ramsey was being propped up by Whitlock, who looked rejuvenated for a man who had only recently escaped being both drowned and frozen. Inna must have been a mighty fine nurse.
The morning light usually meant that they were greeted by the sound of pursuing dogs. This morning, there was only silence.
"Maybe the Russians gave up," Vaccaro said.
"Barkov does not give up," Inna said.
"Then what happened to their dogs?"
"The same thing that happened to our dog. Wolves."
Although it was some relief not to hear the dogs on their trail, it was also disconcerting. In a way, the dogs had helped them keep tabs on their pursuers. The Russians could be miles away — or else creeping up on them.
"Better get a move on," Cole said. His belly clenched in hunger, but there was no choice but to ignore it. He had a sudden recollection of the many hungry nights he had spent as a boy in Gashey's Creek, where he had learned to ignore the rumblings of an empty belly.
Food was more than mere comfort; out here, it was fuel. They still had many miles to go. If there was time later, he might try to circle back and check Vaska's snares.
“Maybe there’s a diner up ahead,” Vaccaro said.
”Short of that, the best we can hope for now is to get across that border as fast as possible,” Cole said.
CHAPTER 27
Not more than a mile away, Barkov was up at first light, kicking his men awake. They were down to one bottle of vodka, so he let them all have a swig along with their hunk of cold black bread that served as breakfast. It was just below zero degrees celsius. Typical autumn weather. In a few weeks, it would be so cold that a cup of water froze instantly when poured onto the ground.
“No sign of the dogs?” he asked the Mink.
The Mink shrugged.
Last night, a she wolf had come to the edge of camp and lured the dogs away. Barkov suspected that she had been in heat. How could a wolf be so clever? It almost went beyond animal cunning.
Since they had seen no sign of the dogs since then, Barkov assumed that the wolves had gotten them. There had been two dogs, but a dozen or more wolves in the pack that they been roaming around them. Not good odds.
He liked to think that the dogs had escaped the wolves and run back home. Maybe they had run all the way to Moscow. Barkov wished them luck.
Without the dogs to do their tracking, he was worried about losing the prisoners’ trail. The snow was deep enough that it had buried any trace of their footsteps. All that Barkov could do was head west from the last point where the trail had left off. The good news was that if they found the trail this morning, it would be a simple matter of following the prisoners’ tracks through the snow.
As usual, the Mink seemed to sense what Barkov was thinking. He nodded, as if in agreement to Barkov's thoughts.
"If we find their tracks, we won't need the dogs," the Mink said. "A child could follow their trail."
"Even Dmitri could follow their trail in the snow!" Barkov said, and laughed. The clear, bright weather, and the promise of another day of hunting, had put him in a good mood.
First, they had to find the trail.
Barkov ordered them to fan out, each man about twenty meters apart, so that they could cover the most ground in hopes of picking up the prisoners’ tracks. All around them, the taiga was covered in a blanket of unbroken white.
Barkov did not mind the cold or the snow. He did not mind having to find the escapees’ trail. It was much better to be the hunter than the hunted. And the day was young.
It was clear by now that Ramsey wouldn’t last long. There was something wrong with his lungs. His breath dragged in and out, rattling like chain being dragged down a gravel road. Ramsey had seemed to rally after the wolf attack, but that had sapped all his energy. Now he was wrapped in a blanket. Inna had put his head in her lap, in the way that one might comfort a child. Every now and then his eyes fluttered open.
You didn’t need to be a doctor to know he had pneumonia, or something just as bad. Whatever was wrong with Ramsey, it wasn’t something they could cure a hundred miles from nowhere.
None of them was in great shape. They were a cold and miserable bunch. Samson nursed the leg where the wolf had ripped a chunk from his calf. Vaccaro nervously scanned the horizon, clutching his rifle. The wolf attack had left him more shaken than an artillery barrage. Honaker was even more jumpy and irritable than usual. Whitlock huddled beside Inna and Ramsey, shivering.
Only Vaska and Cole seemed calm, both men sitting apart from the others. Vaska scraped out his pipe and tamped it full of tobacco again, making a ritual out of lighting it. Cole had an unlit cigarette clenched in his teeth. He was convinced that cigarettes were leaving him too winded, so he was giving them up. Both men kept rifles across their knees.