us.”
“I agree,” Grisha said, scratching at his beard. “I was sentenced to thirty years hard labor on the RustyCan, I think that’s where they are taking us.”
“Thirty years!” the old man exclaimed. “What was your crime?”
“They convicted me of killing a Cossack. But I am innocent.”
The other nine all laughed until they gasped.
“What’s so fucking funny about that?”
The old man grinned at him. “Thank you, I haven’t laughed since they sentenced me to ten years. We don’t laugh at you, we laugh at ourselves. I doubt there are even two guilty persons in this truck.”
“Why are you here?”
“My politics didn’t hew closely enough to prescribed lines. I was the lucky one; they hanged three of my friends for treason.”
I thought they were commuting all capital offenses for a month. They did that to me.”
“Which only points to your true innocence. What is your name, young man?”
“Grigoriy Grigorievich,” he said with a laugh.
“And you laugh why?”
“I haven’t been called ‘young man’ for a very long time.”
“I am Andreivich, and I have sixty years. You are younger than I am.”
“By a third of your years, sir.”
“You both talk too much,” a burly, wild-haired man growled in a deep voice. “You should be trying to sleep.”
“What is your name, woodsman?” Grisha asked.
“My mother called me Basil, after the saint. She may as well have named me Satan, now that I am in hell.”
Grisha nodded in agreement.
“Thank your saint you are not a woman,” a large woman with a gap between her front teeth said with disdain.
Grisha noticed the women had pulled as far away from the men as the chains would allow.
“We won’t hurt you,” Andreivich said. “Nor can we help you.”
The woman pulled her haunted stare away from them, and looked out the back of the open truck at the cloud of dust billowing over the second truck. Equally great clouds of mosquitoes descended on them whenever the trucks stopped.
They arrived at Tetlin Redoubt and were pushed into a vast holding pen. The next morning they were fed and herded back into the trucks. Grisha found himself wondering where they would end their journey.
He was surprised that he cared.
A Zukhov K-28 tank followed the three trucks, one for army personnel and two for convicts, and Grisha wondered at the military decision behind its presence. Wherever they were going, a potential enemy lurked. Grisha smiled; it couldn’t be all bad.
After traveling half the day the truck jolted to a stop and the engine died. Grisha stirred from his semiconscious nap.
“Get out here, you scum!” a deep voice shouted. “Quickly, or you’ll miss dinner.”
They all heaved to their feet and followed the woman at the head of the chain.
“She’s mine, first,” the deep voice roared.
“No matter what else comes out that truck?” a second harsh voice asked.
“Yes!”
The next three women were also claimed by unseen men.
Then Grisha jumped down to the ground and turned to help Andreivich. A stunning blow knocked him into the dust.
“You don’t ever turn your back on me, slave, unless I tell you to!”
Holding his head so it wouldn’t split, Grisha staggered to his feet and stared at the burly, bearded man in front of him.
The Cossack sergeant grabbed him by the shoulder and thrust him away from the truck. “Keep moving, you dung-eater.”
In moments Grisha took in his surroundings. They were in deep woods but the glint of moving water could be seen through the far trees. Pravda‚
flashed through his mind but he wouldn’t hold on to the memory.
Two rough cabins sat at the edge of a large clearing where most of the trees still lay after harvest. A coffle of nine emaciated prisoners sat in the dust at roadside. Grisha decided they were being taken back to Tetlin to be strengthened.
“How many were you in the beginning?” Grisha whispered to the closest one.
“Thirty,” the man whispered back without moving his head. “The rest are dead.”
“Move out!” the Cossack sergeant bellowed.
The women shuffled toward the cabins.
Another Cossack screamed, “Not that way! That’s where we live.”
They were halted at a wide trench floored with packed wood rounds. A ladder was the only way down or up. Two of the Cossacks opened the heavy locks on each prisoner’s shackles.
The men were ordered into the trench and the women were led away by the crowing Cossacks. The soldiers who had traveled in the lead truck threw the men some food. They could hear the cries and moans of the women all night.
6
Ten meters above the ground, Slayer-of-Men shifted slightly to take the pressure off his left foot. The tree limb remained motionless as the tall man smoothly transferred weight to his right foot so he could flex the numbness from his sleeping leg.
The Cossacks below went about their wasteful ways, unaware of watchers. Not once had any of the bear- men looked up at the surrounding trees. They believed themselves complete masters on this part of the Tanana River. Soon they would know the truth. The Dena were reclaiming their ancestral homedespite the Czar.
Slayer-of-Men knew the location of all four Cossacks, as well as that of the ten soldiers with the tank who followed their orders, and the twenty slaves who labored for them. One of the Cossacks lay with a slave at the foot of the tree from which the Dena warrior watched. He glanced down with distaste at the couple.
The woman’s head angled away from the Cossack and the Athabascan Indian could easily see a dark bruise pushing her eye shut. If a man treated a free woman of the Dena like that, she would kill him or die trying. But then this woman was a slave.
The sound of hammers and saws echoed through the late summer foliage. A scattering of yellow and gold leaves heralded the imminent change of season; soon the birch trees wouldn’t hide a squirrel, let alone a man.
His long, black hair was tied back from the blotchy face paint matching his camouflaged dungarees. The sleeves of his shirt bulged over well-muscled arms as he braced himself. Slowly, carefully, he continued to flex his leg.
With a grunt the Cossack finished with the slave and pushed her toward the work site. The bear-man glanced around lazily, then lifted his gaze to the trees bordering the clearing. Slayer-of-Men thanked the spirits for his location at the man’s back. The Cossack strutted back toward the construction commotion and began shouting orders at those nearest him.
From his perch, Slayer-of-Men could see for miles over the wide, shallow Tanana River dotted with small islands scattered over the floodplain. The forest on the far bank presented a seemingly impenetrable wall to the uninitiated. Off to the northwest lay the Charley Hills and the great Yukon River.
