The River of Bones v5 (16 page)

They rattled their way into Kansk, almost four hours being spent on the roughest road she’d ever ridden on, along with her wild shootout with the
Mafiya.
  The train had just pulled into town as well, so Sasha and she had plenty of time to board and get to their berth, both now feeling better than before.  The godfather wouldn’t be following them anymore, not for a week or two, and then he’d have to guess which way they went.  Siberia wasn’t a small place.  Nevertheless, Sasha wouldn’t be able to return to Akademgorodok, and she would have to stay hidden for the rest of her life.

When she paid the cab driver the additional money she owed him, he grinned and chattered gobbledegook for the longest time.  Now what did he want?  Hadn’t she paid him enough?

Sasha laughed.  “He wants to know if you’ll marry him?  He says he’s great in bed.”

Molly couldn’t help laughing as well.  Finally, something had come along to chase away the troubles of the past two days, and none too soon.  Life must be like that for a temptress like her, so deadly with a gun, in the middle of a dangerous mission.  Naturally men would want to make love to her.  She felt her imagination run wild once more.

“Tell him no because the marriage would end badly.  He’s seen what would happen whenever he let me down, and no one should have to make love under such stress.”

After Sasha translated, they laughed.  Molly let the cab driver kiss her on both cheeks and shake her hand.  They would always remember each other because both were kindred spirits, thrown together under the worst of circumstances.  Maybe both dreamed too much for their own good.  She waved good-bye and led Sasha back to their berth.

They watched the scenery pass by on the ride to the Baikal-Amur Mainline terminal at Tayshet.  Then darkness fell and they boarded their new train for the north end of Lake Baikal.  Now there would be nothing to see but the streetlights of Bratsk when the BAM stopped there, in the blackness covering the countryside.  They would have to wait until the train stopped in the morning at the small village of Severobaikalsk.

“Once we reach Severobaikalsk,” Sasha said, “we’ll see the most beautiful sight in Russia, the oldest and deepest lake on earth.  It holds almost twenty percent of the world’s freshwater and many animal species all its own, like the
nerpa
, a seal imprisoned millions of years ago.  Maybe we’ll see the oddest creature of all as well, the six-toed bear.  Wildlife biologists argue the bear is fictitious, but one never knows around Lake Baikal.  It’s a very special place.”

Morning came, and they saw Severobaikalsk in the distance, sitting alongside the frozen lake that Sasha had talked so much about since they’d boarded the Trans-Siberian Railway.  It lay there like a sea, four hundred miles long and fifty miles wide, surrounded by cliffs of black rock, forests of birch, pine, and spruce, and hillsides of meadows, waiting for the first flowers of spring.  Now they’d catch the bus to Baikalskaye, a village an hour or so down the coast.

When they got off the train, Molly saw Severobaikalsk was by far the smallest place she’d visited, with its single street, post office, exchange bank, cafe, and small market, although the prettiest place as well.  Its carved cottages and log homes were adorable.  Could Baikalskaye be as beautiful?  She would soon find out.  They had arrived in time for the first bus.

Another rough road, she told herself, as they endured the awful beating the bus received from the frost heaves and potholes left by the wintertime.  Hadn’t Russia heard about asphalt?  Not one road she’d ridden on had been paved.  All Siberia seemed like she’d moved back in time.  The other passengers began groaning in harmony as the bus hit bottom again and again.  Sasha and she laughed and joined the chorus.  Their gaiety rose higher as they neared Baikalskaye, with only twenty more kilometers to go before they reached their rendezvous with Jake and Simon.

They saw Baikalskaye was an oldfashioned fishing village in the midst of the most beautiful scenery in the world.  Snowy mountains and green pinewoods stood all around and the wonderful lake lay at its doorstep.  Colorful fishing nets hung between homes built of logs, some with carved shutters, doorways, and gables.  Wooden boats, painted every color of the rainbow, rested upside down everywhere, waiting for the summer.  Molly wanted to stay because she’d found Valhalla.  Then she remembered the native Buryats who had lived beside the lake for thousands of years believed the lake was sacred and had always worshiped and taken their holy sustenance from it.  Maybe she had found real heaven.

Sasha interrupted her muse.  “Let’s hire a horse-drawn sled to take us across the lake, then we can get to the dacha before dark.  It will feel like a winter sleigh ride.  Wouldn’t you like that?  Otherwise, we’ll have to take a motorcar.”

Molly smiled.  Why would Sasha even bother asking?  She hadn’t ever ridden on a winter sleigh, probably a sacrilege in Texas.  What a fine way to end their long journey, and by far the best means to see the sights along shore.

“I’ll wait here with our things and you go find one.  Have them throw hay on the sled so it feels real.  I don’t care what it costs.  I’d like to have Jake and Simon see us coming across the lake in style.”  She laughed because her crazy journey had become fun again.

She stood in the afternoon sun, watching the locals who had come to greet the bus.  None seemed very interested in her, though she must, at least, look like a Muscovite.  Maybe they didn’t care.  They had their wonderful home and meant to keep it.  She could tell by their hands and weather-beaten faces that life was hard for them, fishing for a living, fighting the wilderness for their place on earth.  Still, peace prevailed all around them.  Bliss was what God had given them.  Why should they fight for prosperity when their poverty was so rich?  She started seeing a solemn message in their eyes, one she needed to remember.

She saw Sasha coming toward her, riding on a horse sled with yellow hay stacked on it.  An old man sat up front, looking sleepy, wearing the quintessential Russian fur hat.  Absolutely picturesque, she thought to herself, everything set against the green pines and white mountains, backlit by Lake Baikal.  How could anyone ask for more?

They helped the elderly man load the luggage, sat on the hay, and watched him swing his horse toward a rugged headland a few miles away.  He whistled and the horse started trotting, heading for their new home high above everything, where they could see great distances.  Molly guessed Jake and Simon were watching them . . . always on guard, those two.  She could hardly wait to see both, and saw Sasha felt excited, too.

At last the horse driver stopped below the high bluff, unloaded, and turned back to Baikalskaye.  They watched him grow indistinct in the vastness.

“I wonder why Jake and Simon haven’t come down to help us,” said Molly.

“It’s getting dark,” Sasha answered.  “Maybe they missed seeing us.”

They left their luggage on the ice and climbed the narrow footpath leading up the precipice the log dacha stood on.  When they reached the front yard, both stood still and listened, eyeing the place.  It looked like a morgue at midnight.

PART THREE—THE WANDERERS

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE SAKHA REPUBLIC

Five thousand
reindeer, clicking fetlocks and piggish oinks harmonizing with their drumming hooves, trotted out of the taiga, then, after the lead cows saw themselves clear of the trees, they slowed down.  The great herd had finally reached its calving grounds, the rolling tundra sweeping north to the More Laptevwych, the icy sea off the Lena River delta.  Now the pregnant mothers could drop their newborn calves and the summertime could start again.  Pawing at the lingering snow of the past winter, some nibbled on lichen and others rested in the sun.  Calling geese wheeled overhead, cupping their wings.  They had come north to raise their young as well.

Yuri Pavlov rode his bull deer to a nearby hilltop, stopped, and gazed across the land.  The plains of Siberia spread before him.  He watched the Nenet herders come out of the forest, driving the reindeer that were pulling the tribe’s camp sleds, and steer for a small river, overflowing because of the spring breakup.  They would soon have their skin
chums
up and
chayneeks
boiling water, preparing their tepee-like homes for the night.  The Evenki shaman named Wolverine rode up, reining his bull like an expert horseman.

“White man, what do you think of this?  A person’s spirit is never truly free until he rides the tundra.  The Nenets know how to live, don’t they?  Look at them.  They’re like my ancestors.”

“It’s wonderful, but I still miss my daughter and Akademgorodok, and I wonder if I’ll ever see either one again.”

“Your life is done back there and so is mine.  We’re destined to stay with these people or die the moment Zorkin finds us.  He’s too smart to believe we’re dead, and he’ll hunt us forever because we cost him a fortune.  You and I are the only outsiders who know about the sacred place.  The Nenets will even kill us if they learn we know their secret.”

“What makes you think they know about the pink diamonds?  Why would they live like this and work so hard?”

“They have no interest in living in today’s world, and Moscow would take all the wealth for itself, anyway.  What makes you think the Nenets would ever see any money from a diamond mine?  The communists stole their reindeer and made them live on collective farms many years ago, locking up a race who had lived as nomads for thousands of years, and most died of tuberculous.  It’s only central governments that know how to be so cruel.  This clan survived because they stayed hidden and Siberia was so large.  I love them like my brothers and sisters.  Since Zorkin murdered my wife, these people are my family, and I will stay with them till I die.  Please don’t think I’d ever harm them.”

Yuri, not surprised by the subtle warning, shifted his gaze to the man beside him.  How old was Wolverine, sixty or seventy?  It was difficult to tell with the indigenous people of the North.  Whatever his true age was, he was as cunning, tough, and dangerous as the creature he’d been named after, the devil animal of the Arctic.  His friend exemplified the wisdom, witchcraft, survival skills, and bravery of a wild idolater of old, but with a modern twist.  Of all the men and women he’d worked with in the past, some of the finest minds in the world, the Evenki was by far the cleverest, especially when it came to staying alive in the harshest conditions.  The man was a magician.  Who else could have saved them from Zorkin?

“Wolverine, how did you get the helicopter to quit.  Why won’t you tell me?”

The shaman’s eyes beamed.  “I’m
so hurt.  You still don’t believe in my mighty powers, do you?  Why do you always doubt me?”

“Two turbine engines can’t lose power at the same time, not unless someone sabotages both.  I just can’t figure out how you did it.  I never saw you go near the engine nacelles.  You must have slipped something into the tanks when no one was looking, just before takeoff.  Mechanical things don’t fail because of sorcery.  Simple reasoning tells me that you did something to the fuel, and your foggymen had nothing to do with it.”

“Who makes the fireweed grow?  Isn’t it the spirits?  How does it know when to send out its seeds?”

“You’re speaking in riddles again, and why do you always tease me?  You know I’m a scientific man who only wishes to find the truth.  Tell me how you did it.”

“White man, I just did, but you are typical of educated people.  You’ve memorized everything but understand nothing.  If I take away your university, then you can’t live among true people, let alone survive in the real world.

“See the dead weeds around us.  They’re last fall’s fireweed.  Get down, pick a seed pod, and think for once, rather than memorize what others already know.  See if you can understand what I did and how the spirits must have helped me.”  Wolverine then kicked his reindeer with his heels and rode downhill to join the Nenets, his laughter filling the evening air.

Yuri slipped off his bull, tied its halter rope to a berry bush, and knelt on the ground.  Fireweed lay everywhere, smashed flat by the winter snow, then thawed and dried by the brassy midnight sun, which had begun swinging higher and higher with each passing day.  Already, there was little real darkness at night.  Siberia was magical in the spring, and he loved its spell.  Trouble was he’d only begun to realize how little he knew about the High Arctic, despite his powerful education.  His friend, the shaman, knew much, much more, and loved teasing him about being so uneducated.  But . . . he was learning slowly.

He pulled a pod off a dead stem and peered at it, turning the three-inch seed vessel in his fingers.  It had split lengthwise and white fuzz was visible under its skin, microscopic seeds, thousands of tiny cotton tufts if one opened the pod and tossed the flying fuzz into the wind.

Wondering, he gathered three of the largest pods and shoved them into his parka pocket.  The Nenets carried kerosene, which was almost the same as turbine fuel, as a disinfectant for their reindeer.  He would try an experiment later and find out about Wolverine’s magic trick.  Remounting his bull, he rode toward the Nenets, who were chattering and laughing below.  They were always happy.

After a supper of raw whitefish, bite-sized pieces sliced off at the mouth with a sharp knife, bread smeared with butter and sugar, and black tea, he found an empty tin can, filled it with kerosene from the supply sled, and dropped in the pods he had in his pocket.  They instantly burst open, blew out their fluffy seeds, and turned the clear liquid into mush.  Now he saw the consequences of tossing four or five in the fuel of the Mi-8 helicopter that Zorkin had hired.  No wonder Wolverine had thrown open the cargo door and screamed at him to jump after takeoff.  The Evenki had known the fuel system of the Hip would clog up in seconds, starve the engines until they failed, and send everyone in the Hip to their deaths.