From sunset until first light, Zlee and I watched from a tight grouping of rocks just above the tree line a mountain away, expecting the shooter to be hiding in a slow-rising forest of firs that began at an elevation slightly higher than Cherle, about six hundred yards east-southeast of the fort. If we were right, we’d have a long but clear shot across the valley, a distance of almost eleven hundred yards, we reckoned, the longest we’d ever attempted, longer than any Austrian sharpshooter had ever recorded, but the closest we could get to this enemy who knew those mountains better than we did without letting him know that we were there, too.
There was a long and deceptive silence then on that battlefield of peaks and crags and valleys, as the sky lightened and the snowcaps reflected changing hues of rose, until, within minutes, as though the curtain had lifted on a play we’d written below, we heard the crack of a rifle and a distant more urgent cry of “Scharfschütze!” and then another crack, soon after which (too soon by my count) artillery let loose a hurried salvo into Italian territory, and everything was quiet again.
Zlee never took the shot. With the rising mist came a breeze, strong enough to make his long-distance attempt no more accurate than if he had been looking down the barrel of a musket. As for me, spotting into that dawn from a distance too great, I could see nothing of what was unfolding down below, and so we were caught not knowing what to do. If we abandoned our hide and reported back to Prosch, we’d be marked ourselves, and not likely to get another chance to outshoot our shooter. If we stayed put, there was no guarantee he would return to the same position for more hunting the next day, or any day after, and Prosch would certainly believe that we had deserted. He’d only be happy only with the head of some foe on a silver platter, a dish we might just be able to deliver, though, if we trusted our instincts, and luck did the rest. What did we have to lose (besides our lives) by staying put for another twenty-four hours and finding our man before he could strike again the next morning?
And yet, it seemed hopeless. “We’ve had a good run,” I said to Zlee. “If he doesn’t show in the morning, or the wind is even trickier, we’ll pack up and move north, or west. It’ll be spring soon, and this war has got to come to an end someday. We wouldn’t be the first soldiers to have shed a uniform and disappeared.”
His face as blank a slate as ever, Zlee just shook his head, and I didn’t know if it was out of disappointment for his own failure or my suggestion that we desert.
“If only for the wind,” he said, “if only for the wind. I could see that bastard’s shoulders sticking up above those boulders like he’d been trained to shoot at a carnival. Hell, let there be more fog. I could see his muzzle flash. What a shame, Jozef, if we have to end it like this.”
We sat in our hide the entire morning, melting snow into a cup of pine needles until we knew that we had waited too long, and there was nothing left for us to do but to stay and hope we’d get one more chance to face our antagonist, for that’s how we thought of him now, this actor who opposed and called into question our very selves. In the meantime, we listened for the dogs and the party of soldiers we thought would be sent out to find us, but no one or thing stirred. And when the sun disappeared behind the highest peak, Zlee said out loud and to no one, “Because you are neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out.”
High clouds rolled in without precipitation that night and the air warmed. We slept in hour shifts, and, after 0300, spotted in intervals of thirty minutes to keep our eyes sharp. At first light, the clouds began to disperse, and by the time dawn shone, the same stalking mist rose from the snow, although appearing lighter, so that visibility was improved. I glassed the hide from where the shooter had fired the day before, and there he sat, looking like a man in his own library.
Zlee woke up and took a mouthful of water, and then, fully alert, said, “Tell me.”
I confirmed the range of eleven hundred yards and noted that windage was zero across the entire distance, and, through the light mist, the target was in our direct line of sight. Zlee nestled into his stance and began to breathe steadily. I continued to observe and watched the target turn in our direction, as though oblivious to us and our purpose, and noted to myself that he was right-handed, so that when he turned back to take aim at someone or something at Fort Cherle, his cheek and face were covered by the gun stock. And yet he looked oddly familiar, until I realized that he was one of the Tiroleans from our sharpshooter school who had been returned to his regiment, and by the time this was clear to me, Zlee had already adjusted his sight for the distance, drawn breath, and said, “Christ forgive me.”
And I heard him exhale with a grunt and felt the warm, moist touch of blood on my face, head, and hands, the report echoing a few seconds later in the high mountain air.
I dropped my field glasses and rolled as the next shot shattered the scope on the Mannlicher, but I knew that it was meant for me. It had come from behind, at four o’clock to our position’s twelve. We’d been set up between two shooters, and caught in their cross fire with a ruse that made ours pale, and all I could do was keep moving fast and low as I scrambled along the ground and kicked up snow. I moved crabwise around to the front of the stone that shielded us to the south and got into a position that protected me from the shooter behind but left me exposed to the one who had been sniping at Cherle across the mountain. I crawled over the rock and back into our hide, propped Zlee’s inert and lifeless bulk against it, and pushed him over the top and down the other side. I spoke to him as I worked, told him who had hit him, that the useless jokers were pretty good after all but that I’d have him out of there and out of danger soon, so that we could go back to the fort, finish the war, and get home, and I crawled over that rock and out into the open myself and waited for the next shot to hit me.
When it came — from the south this time and the shooter in the valley — I had Zlee over my shoulder just as I was about to drop down an embankment for cover. I felt the force of the bullet as it slammed into his side at the height of my neck and I fell off balance and rolled toward a cliff and tried to grab at the ground with one hand while holding on to Zlee’s body with the other, but our weight gathered too much speed and momentum on the incline, and as I approached the sheer edge, I grabbed a scrub pine growing from a crack in a formation of rock and let Zlee’s body tumble down into the ravine.
I HUNG ON TO THAT TREE FOR SOME TIME, WONDERING IF I shouldn’t let go, let go and remain with my brother, rather than having to trek again through the mountains and snows of a hostile and desolate country, until my arms began to grow tired and that weariness shook me hard, and I found the will and enough strength to swing my legs and mantle my body up onto the ledge. I sat there, willing grief and sorrow as the sun began to bend to the west and I felt a chill, knew that there was no time now for grief, and realized that I had lost my hat and gloves, canteen, field glasses, and rucksack, and could find only my knife still sheathed where I kept it tied to my leg.
In my mind, I climbed with stealth and nothing but a good coat and that knife to the side of the shooter to the north, caught him by surprise, and slit his throat. Then I walked back south to where his twin waited for him, approached from behind the boulders that gave him shelter, whispered “Boom,” and in the confusion slid into his hide and thrust my knife — still soaked with the blood of his comrade — into his chest. And with two rifles and two days’ rations, I hiked north and east — not west but east — back into the Karnische and through the lands of the empire, toward the only home Zlee had said he’d ever known, or wanted to know.