[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
"I have furs to contribute to Wulff and some to sell."
"Good! I thought as much. Bring them over very early, and we will see what we
can do."
Next morning before dawn he brought the furs to Baronas. Handing them to him,
he said, "Hurry back. I have much to learn."
Two others were going with Baronas, a short, heavyset man named Botev and his
partner, Borowsky. When they had disappeared from sight, Talya said, "I've
coffee on. Will you come in?"
When he was seated with a cup in his hand, she said, "You have done well with
the trapping."
"As a boy I knew little else. It was a way of my people."
"I do not know your people. "
"We were a nation of warriors," he said simply. "We had conquered more
territory than Charlemagne. Perhaps, had the white man not come, we could have
conquered it all." He paused. "There were, of course, the Blackfeet. They were
Page 65
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
warriors, also."
"You were defeated by the white man?"
"By our own ignorance and by our customs. The Indian thought of a battle as a
war. He did not think in terms of campaigns. It was a handicap. Also, there
was the matter of supplies. We had no extended plan. The white man thought in
campaigns, of a series of battles until an enemy was defeated. He did not
fight for glory, but for victory. The Indian could not adjust, not in time.
"Nor was he accustomed to fight in winter. When the white man attacked his
winter camps he was not prepared and was driven into the snow."
They were silent, and then she said, "And when spring comes, what will you
do?"
"Return to my country."
"It must be beautiful, your country. We hear much of it, and I would like to
see it, but I would be afraid of the gangsters."
He chuckled. "I lived there many years and I never saw one. There are thieves,
dope smugglers, the rats that always live on the fringes of what we wish to be
a civilization. They are something that exists and must be coped with, just as
you do here in Soviet Russia. "
He paused. "My country is beautiful, much of it. We have our sore spots, as do
all countries, but that is where I belong."
"Maybe I can go there sometime. I would like that."
He looked at her. "You could go. If you could leave Russia they would welcome
you. Maybe Russians will be free to travel someday, too. All things change. We
would welcome Russians as visitors. In the old days many Russians settled in
America and became good farmers, good citizens."
He got up. "I have much to do. May I come for coffee again?"
"When you wish."
At the door he paused. "It is better, I believe, if no one knows exactly where
I live, except for you and your father, if you wish to know."
"Perhaps."
A rough voice interrupted. "So? You have a visitor!"
It was the man Peshkov.
"Yes," Joe Mack said.
Peshkov scowled. "I do not know you."
Joe Mack suddenly felt good. "Oh, but you will! You will!"
Page 66
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Thirteen
Peshkov stared at Joe as he muttered a few words to Talya. He was a
powerfully built man with thick eyebrows and rather protuberant eyes. He had a
way of lowering his head and glaring from under his brows.
Joe Mack understood the sense of the words and suddenly realized why the
language had a familiar sound. Had those Lithuanian miners' children he had
known been speaking Russian? If so, he might recall a few words.
Peshkov spoke to Talya, speaking rapidly, irritably. Her reply was quiet but
firm. Of this exchange he understood nothing, but he knew trouble when he saw
it, and he stood where he was, making no move to leave.
Finally, obviously angry, Peshkov strode away, muttering.
"Trouble?" Joe Mack asked.
"He's a disagreeable beast," she said, "but we need him. He is one of our best
hunters."
"He does not like me."
"He likes nobody. He would like to take command, but it is my father to whom
the people look."
"And to you, I think."
She shrugged. "Peshkov wants to give the orders. He also wants me,"
"I suspected as much." Joe Mack turned to go. "If you have trouble I will
handle it. "
During the week that followed he saw nothing of Peshkov, but nothing of Talya,
either. He killed a wapiti and brought in more than three hundred pounds' of
meat. His traps yielded well, and in his cave he made two packs, one for Wulff
and the other to be sold for whatever the furs would bring. There was, he
understood, a black market in furs.
Now, with time in which to do so, he prepared his skins carefully, as he had
been taught to do. Each time he met any of the people of the commune he tried
his Russian upon them. It was true, as he soon became aware, that the miners'
children had been speaking Russian, and a few words came back to him now.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]