Too far to get a clear shot. The American sniper had already proven that he could return fire with deadly accuracy. So now, it was a race. The Americans were close to the border. If they pushed it, they might very well might make it across.
Barkov was not about to let them do that. He had chased them too far to let them escape now. The Mink had died because of them.
"Faster!" he shouted at what was left of his band. "Are you going to go faster, or do I need to use the whip?"
Barkov moved quickly for his size. He was longer through the torso than the legs, yet each step covered nearly a meter of snowy ground. The others had to take an extra half step for each one of his strides.
Since the Mink had not returned, Barkov had been in a bad mood. The others picked up the pace, knowing that he would be more than happy to use the Cossack whip at his belt.
Now it was Barkov who stopped. He unslung his rifle.
Through the magnification of his telescope, he could see the Americans. They looked like ants, or less than ants. Fleas, perhaps. Insignificant. Too far for serious shooting. But the sound of a gunshot would give them something to think about.
He placed the reticule high above their heads to compensate for the distance, and pulled the trigger.
The message was clear. Barkov is coming.
CHAPTER 31
The echo of the distant gunshot rolled across the taiga.
"He is shooting at us!" Inna said, panic in her voice. She started to trot through the snow. Not that it would do her any good if Barkov had them in his sights. There was nowhere to hide.
Cole caught her arm.
“Ain't nothin' to worry about," he said. “He's too far off to hit anything."
Whitlock muttered, "That's just what General Reynolds said at Gettysburg."
Cole snorted. "I reckon my great uncle might have been the one that shot him. I hear tell that he was a Reb sharpshooter. I think he was a lot closer than Barkov, and a better shot to boot. You would have to be a damn sight unlucky for that Red Sniper to hit you at this distance."
"You ought to take a shot at him," Whitlock said, through chattering teeth. “Give him something to think about.”
"Too far," Cole said. “Ain’t no point in wastin’ a bullet. I only got a few left.”
Cole pondered how things had come full circle. He had just spent several months taking part in some of the most brutal fighting that could be imagined across France, Belgium, and Germany. The Germans might have been low on planes, but they always had plenty of ammunition, and so had the Americans. If bullets were seeds, there would have been fields of lead sprouting all across Europe.
Things felt different now, closer to his roots. Cole had grown up in the mountains, during the Great Depression. Rifle and shotgun shells cost hard cash that nobody had, although sometimes his pa traded moonshine for a handful of shells.
There had been times when Cole had just one bullet, and if he missed, it meant that he and his brothers and sisters would go hungry that night. When missing a shot meant nothing to eat, you learned not to miss. You learned not to waste a bullet that you might need later.
Cole wasn't about to waste any bullets on Barkov. When the time came, he only planned on needing one.
Whitlock noticed the way that Cole’s weird eyes glittered and involuntarily took a step back. "Now what?" Whitlock asked, startled.
"Now we walk."
With barely more than a breath of wind, the cold settled over them and seemed to weigh heavily on their movements. The Russians didn't shoot again, but he had made it clear that he was watching — and giving chase.
Cole hoped, at first, that it was some trick of the eye that made the Russians seem to be getting closer, like the way that, when you were hunting in the woods at dusk, a tree stump could seem to take on the shape of a bear. Imagination had gotten the better of more than one hunter. So he looked away from the distant silhouettes of the Russians. He gave it half an hour, timed on one of Vaccaro's wrist watches. Looked again. Definitely closer.
Vaccaro caught him looking. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"I reckon they're going to catch us before the day is out. Inna and Whitlock can’t go no faster.”
“Goddamn.” Vaccaro looked again. “You sure?”
“Well, maybe not catch us, but get in rifle range, which is the same thing."
"Let me guess, Hillbilly. You are planning on doing something about that."
Cole nodded. "It ain't much of a plan at the moment."
"Need some help?"
"I appreciate that, City Boy. But in the end it comes down to me and Barkov."
"God help Barkov."
“Them Russians don’t believe in God,” Cole pointed out. Cole was a believer, if not a regular church-goer. He appreciated a bit of fire and brimstone preaching to set one’s mind right. “They put you in a Gulag if you do.”
Cole thought he might have another couple of hours before something needed doing about Barkov, three at most. Maybe they could even stay out ahead of the Russians until dark.
As it turned out, they didn’t have nearly that long. They had only been on the move for ten minutes when Inna stepped in a hole and twisted her ankle.
She sat on a rock, grimacing in pain, while Whitlock wrapped the ankle with his leather belt and a scarf. Vaska cut her a sapling to use as a crutch.
"Goddamn," Honaker said, sounding disgusted.
"I am so sorry," Inna said.
"Don't worry about it," Cole said. "It could have happened to any of us."
Their lead over the Russians shrank while they slowed down for Inna, who hobbled across the snowy frozen ground on her makeshift crutch, clearly in pain. It was only a matter of time before Barkov had them in rifle range.
They walked for another hour. Inna did not complain, but she grimaced with each step.
Vaska pointed ahead. "That is Finland."
All that they could see was a blur on the horizon where the open plain met forest, like land glimpsed at sea, but they would take the old Russian's word for it.
The thing was, they weren't going to make it. The border was still a long way off. The Russians were going to catch them before that border came into sight.
Cole thought it over. Time for a change in plans. Time to settle this business with Barkov once and for all.
Cole looked over at Vaccaro. "You ever see one of them western pictures?"
"Cole, you are such a hillbilly. I know for a fact that the first time you saw a western flick was movie night in the Army."
"The one I'm thinking of has a shootout on the street of the town between the sheriff and the outlaw."
"I'll bet you were rooting for the outlaw," Vaccaro said.
"The outlaw gets to wear a black hat in them movies. Who the hell wants to wear a white hat?"
"Why the sudden interest in westerns?"
"In the movie, the sheriff stands in the middle of the street with his gun on his hip, and he waits for the outlaw to come to him."
"This is all very interesting, Cole. I didn't take you for such a movie buff. Maybe you've got a movie projector in your back pocket and you are gonna surprise us all with movie night."
"No, there ain't gonna be no movie night, but sure as shit there is gonna be a shootout."
Barkov felt happy from his fur cap down to the tips of his felt-lined boots. The sun was out and he turned his face toward it, enjoying the faint warmth. The morning cold was dissipating, but the crisp air made you want to inhale great lungfuls of it. The Americans were almost within his grasp.
He had no illusions that re-capturing the escaped American would do him any good. There would be no medals. He might even find himself tossed into the Gulag. That was life in the Soviet Union for you — one's circumstances changed like the weather. One learned to take both nothing — and everything — for granted.