Kowel.”
“Of course I do. Every day of my life.” Gallatinov struggled to his feet, balancing on his cane. His face had become mottled with angry red. “What’s the meaning of this, Lieutenant Schedrin?”
“Oh, no.” The other man extended a finger and wagged it back and forth. “I’m simply Comrade Schedrin now. My friends Anton and Danalov were also at Kowel.” Gallatinov’s gaze flickered to the two faces; Anton’s was broad and heavy-jowled, and Danalov’s bore a bayonet scar from his left eyebrow up to his hairline. Their eyes were cold and only slightly curious, as if they were examining an insect under a magnifying glass. “We’ve brought the rest of our company with us as well,” Schedrin said.
“The rest of your company?” Gallatinov shook his head, not comprehending.
“Listen!” Schedrin cocked his head as the breeze keened through the woods. “There they are, whispering. Listen to what they say: ‘Justice. Justice.’ Do you hear them, General?”
“We’re having a picnic,” Gallatinov said firmly. “I’d like for you gentlemen to leave.”
“Yes,” Schedrin said. “I’m sure you would. What a lovely family you have.”
“Dimitri!” the general shouted. “Dimitri, fire a warning shot above their-” He turned toward Dimitri, and what he saw closed an iron claw around his heart.
Dimitri stood about fifteen yards away, and hadn’t even cocked the rifle or lifted it to a firing position. He stared at the ground, his shoulders stooped. “Dimitri!” Gallatinov shouted again, but he knew he would not be answered. His throat was dry, and he grasped Elana’s chilly hand.
“Thank you for bringing them here, Comrade Dimitri,” Schedrin told him. “Your service will be noted and rewarded.”
Mikhail, moving swiftly through the forest in pursuit of his kite, thought he heard his father shouting. His heart hammered; his father had probably awakened and was calling for him. There was going to be a switching in Mikhail’s immediate future. But the kite was falling now, the string snagging in the top of an oak tree. Then the wind kicked it loose, and the kite rose again. Mikhail pushed through dense brush, soft spongy masses of dead leaves and moss, and kept following. Ten more feet; twenty more; thirty more. Thorns grabbed his hair; he pulled free, ducked his head under the thorn branches, and dropped another stone to the ground to mark his way back.
The kite dipped, fell into the arms of an evergreen, and teasingly floated free once more. Then it was rising sharply into the blue sky, and as Mikhail watched it go his face was dappled with sun and shadow.
Something moved in the underbrush, less than a dozen feet to Mikhail’s left.
He stood very still as the kite picked up speed and floated away. Whatever had moved was silent now. Waiting.
There was another movement, to the boy’s right. The soft crackle of weight settling on dry leaves.
Mikhail swallowed. He started to call for his mother, but she was too far away to hear him, and he wanted no loud noises.
Silence, but for the wind hissing in the trees.
Mikhail smelled the aroma of an animal: a rank, bestial smell, the odor of a creature that had decayed meat on its breath. He felt something-two somethings-watching him from opposite sides, and he thought that if he ran they would leap on him from behind. His impulse was to scream and turn and flee headlong through the woods, but he struck it down; he could not get away by running. No, no. A Gallatinov never runs, his father had once told him. Mikhail felt a droplet of sweat trickling down the center of his back. The beasts were waiting for his decision, and they were very close.
He turned, his legs trembling, and began to walk slowly back, following the trail of lakeshore stones.
A Gallatinov never runs, Fyodor thought. His gaze swept the meadow. Mikhail. Where was Mikhail?
“Our company was slaughtered at Kowel.” Schedrin leaned forward, hands clenching the saddle horn. “Slaughtered,” he repeated. “We were commanded to run headlong across a swamp into a nest of barbed wire and machine guns. Of course you remember that.”
“I remember a war,” Gallatinov answered. “I remember one tragedy tripping on the heels of another.”
“For you, tragedy. For us, slaughter. Of course we obeyed orders. We were good soldiers of the czar. How could we not obey?”
“We all obeyed the same orders that day.”
“Yes, we did,” Schedrin agreed. “But some obeyed them with the blood of innocent men. Your hands are still red, General. I can see the blood dripping off them.”
“Look closer.” Gallatinov stepped defiantly toward the man, though Elana tried to hold him back. “My own blood is on there, too!”
“Ah.” Schedrin nodded. “So it is. But not enough, I think.”
Elana gasped. Anton had withdrawn his pistol from his holster and cocked it. “Make them go away!” Alizia said, tears in her eyes. “Please make them go away!” Danalov pulled his pistol out and eased the hammer back.
Gallatinov stepped in front of his wife and daughter, his eyes black with fury. “How dare you raise a gun to me and my family!” He lifted his cane. “Damn you to hell. Put down those pistols!”
“We have a proclamation to read,” Schedrin said, undaunted. He removed a rolled-up piece of paper from his saddlebag and opened it. “To General Fyodor Gallatinov, in service to Czar Nicholas the Second, hero”-he smiled thinly-“of Kowel and commander of the Guards Army. From the survivors of the Guards Army, who suffered and were slaughtered by the ineptitude of Czar Nicholas and his imperial court. Since we cannot have the czar, we will have you. And so the case will be closed to our satisfaction.”
An execution squad, Gallatinov realized. God only knew how long they’d been tracking him. He glanced quickly around; no way out. Mikhail. Where was the boy? His heart was beating hard, and his palms were sweating. Alizia began to sob, but Elana was silent. Gallatinov looked at the guns and the eyes of the men who aimed them. There was no way out. “You’ll let my family go,” he demanded.
“No Gallatinov will leave this place alive,” Schedrin replied. “We understand the importance of a task well done, Comrade. Consider this… your private Kowel.” He unstrapped his rifle and pulled back the bolt to chamber a shell.
“You goddamned dogs!” General Gallatinov said, and stepped forward to strike the man’s face with his cane.
Anton shot him in the chest before the cane was swung. The pistol’s crack made Elana and her daughter jump, and the noise echoed across the meadow like strange thunder. A brooding of ravens leaped from a treetop and winged for safety.
Gallatinov was hurled backward by the force of the bullet, and fell to his knees in the grass. Crimson was spreading across the front of his uniform. He gasped, could not find the strength to stand. Elana screamed and fell down beside her husband, her arms around him as if she could protect him from the next bullet. Alizia turned, began to run toward the lake, and Danalov shot her twice in the back before she’d gotten ten feet away. She tumbled, a sack of bloody flesh and broken bones.
“No!” Gallatinov said, and got his good leg under him. Blood was creeping from his mouth, and his eyes glinted with terror. He started to rise, Elana still clinging to him.
Schedrin pulled the rifle’s trigger, and the bullet hit Gallatinov in the face. Bits of bone and brain splattered over Elana’s dress. The jittering body fell backward, carrying Elana with it, and they fell over the picnic baskets, bottles of wine and crumb-flecked platters. Danalov shot Gallatinov in the stomach, and Anton fired two more bullets into the man’s head as Elana continued to shriek.
“Oh dear God,” Dimitri said, choking, and he ran down to the lake’s edge to be violently sick.
Mikhail heard a series of high cracking noises, followed by a scream. He stopped, and the beasts that were tracking him also halted. His mother’s voice, he realized. His face tightened with fear, and he began to run through the forest heedless of the danger at his back.
Vines gripped his shirt and tried to trip him. He followed the trail of stones through the underbrush, his boots slipping on moss-covered rocks and sinking into ankle-deep pools of dead leaves. And then he burst out of the forest into the meadow and saw three men on horseback and bodies lying sprawled. Red gleamed on green grass. His stomach knotted, his knees seized up, and he saw one of the men pull back the bolt of his rifle and aim at his…
“Mother!” he shouted, his voice echoing horror across the meadow.
