glow from even more windows, curtained. The gusts of chill wind brought the murmur of voices, the rattle of utensils, the noises from other radios and television sets. The place took on life and peril.
He stood up, leaned against a fir, studied terrain, distances, the shapes and angles of the buildings. Listened intently, then began running, crouching low, rifle across his chest, safety catch off. His shadow, a deformed and dwarfish thing, scuttled beside him like a mocking effigy. Then he sprinted, his whole body tensed against the first cry of curiosity that would become alarm and challenge, the UAZ had undoubtedly preceded him, warned them to keep a lookout.
His back and shoulders banged concussively against the wooden Planking of the barn. The eaves threw down darkness like a cloak, 'is breathing was loud, too loud, and he stifled it as well as he Pould, dragging in slow, hard breaths through his teeth. He pressed cheek against the rough, cold planking, but there seemed no ^nd from inside the building. Ten yards from him, an ugly lean-to or storeroom. The huts with lighted windows were farther away than the shed. They formed an incomplete, untidy crescent, as if a builder had begun a town and failed to complete even a single street of it. A bankrupt, isolated place. Beyond the huts, the desert country undulated just perceptibly, raised banks and ditches and canals crisscrossing it; firs growing in clumps. He edged along the wall, pressing back into shadow, face averted.
He reached a blacked-out window; tried it, but it would not move. Continued. Halfway along the side wall, another window. He raised his arms, rifle now slung across his back by its strap, and pushed. The window frame cried out, as if to alarm the workers in their huts. Gant paused, his cheek distorted against the wood. He stifled his breath and listened more intently. Rough shouting that was louder — greetings, he recognized, a casual obscenity, then the banging shut of a door. He continued to hold his breath after that for a long time, fearing the noise of a dog or another door opening, a quizzical human voice registering alarm as it discovered his shadow crouched against the wall.
Eventually, he straightened in a continuing silence filled only by the loutish wind lurching against the collective's buildings. He gently, slowly so slowly raised the creaking, protesting window. He felt through the opening, his fingers touching some sacking material that blacked out the glass. He smelled gasoline like a heady, reviving drink. Vehicles. Oil, too, on the icy air before the wind snatched the scents away. He raised himself level with the sill, then levered his body across it, resting on his stomach as if stranded through exhaustion. He tore at the sacking, then let it fall. The darkness of the barn seemed impenetrable. None of the barn's windows let in the moon. Blinded or boarded? It did not matter. He grasped the flashlight and heaved his arm out in front of him, flicking on the thin beam. He played it waterily over the ground immediately below and in front of him.
Cans, empty tins, rubbish, bundled rags, a pitchfork, a workbench, concrete flooring. An inspection pit gaped like a grave. Vehicles. Oil stains. He flicked the beam of the flashlight farther into the room like a lifeline desperately flung. The beam wavered and darted like a small, feeble animal. He heard disturbed chickens somewhere outside. Someone coming? His body was weak, shivering. The chickens quieted, disturbed only momentarily. He grunted with relief.
A tractor's huge, ridged tire and red side — plowshare, the super' structure of a combine… no good. A covered truck — an open' backed pickup… yes. He held the beam steady, then played it like a voyeur's gaze slowly, caressingly, over the small gray truck. He inhaled the scent of gasoline. A pickup — flick of the flashlight, a crazy, wobbling search until… gasoline cans. Vehicle, fuel.
Gant was aware of his body straddled like a side of meat across the window's sill. He raised himself on his arms, began to swing one leg up to the sill, heard his boot scrape on the flaky wood. Wind snapped along the side of the barn. The dog's bark was on it, as if the animal itself were already rushing toward him. A human growl, questioning the dog or ordering it—
— frozen. Hands, elbows, wrists locked like a tumbler supporting the huge weight of the rest of his troupe. The quiver through his arms like a nearing earthquake. The dog again — where? Where? Wildly, he swung his head from side to side. Away to his left, back toward the half circle of huts and other buildings… the human voice was there, too. A door opened, someone yelled, the dog barked, an answer came on the wind:
He unfroze and dropped to the ground, still listening intently to the voice coming on the wind. He cowered in the shadows as he heard the conversation of the two men and the low, continual growling of the dog. His head was reeling with the sense of the truck in the barn behind him. He knew the dog would come, the man would probably be armed — even if only with a voice to cry out or give the dog the order to attack. Knew he must go, must.
Dog distressing the chickens, growling with movement, the man thanking Sergei, exchanging friendly obscenities, calling the dog, which therefore could not be leashed—
He staggered out of the shadows of the barn and ran hunched across moonlight that lay like a pale carpet. His blood rushed in his ^S so that he could hear nothing else. He dared not pause to try to Pick up the first noises of the pursuit, as if the distance behind him threatened like a jagged crack in thin ice pursuing him as he ran. He Cached the darkness of the trees but even so did not pause, his thoughts filled with the dog and its freedom, its strength and speed. Panic filled him. He could not stop running.
Trees, the narrow track, moonlight, cloud, moonlight again, a long, slow rise in the track, then a steeper dip, then the false horizon of more trees, their shadow—
He staggered, the breath knocked out of him. He leaned heavily against a tree and looked around him. A thin belt of trees beside the straight track. A windbreak for more buildings, another collective? Dogs?
He knelt down, squinting into the darkness. He could see no lights. Rising to his feet, he began to jog cautiously, as if testing either his body or his resolve; or both. Evidently, the dog s discovery of his scent had been dismissed, the opened window investigated and considered an accident. Or perhaps the man who had exchanged ribaldries with Sergei had no interest in anything beyond the limits of his reluctant patrol. Whatever, there was no pursuit. They might have called the army; probably not. It did not matter. For the moment, he was still safe. Reassured, he jogged on.
The building had a lean-to on one side of it. It was barnlike but lower than the collectives barn. It was lightless and silent. Locked, too, he saw in the moonlight. Cautiously, avoiding any delay, he crept toward it. A row of smeared windows. Open, flat landscape beyond, itself deserted. What was the place? There was only the single building. It might be an implement shed, some kind of store — a vehicle? Unlikely. Not this far from the collective. He moved on, regarding only his own footsteps and their exact, soft placement.
He rested in the shadow of the lean-to. His boot had kicked a tin hidden by the longer grass around the building. An oilcan; empty-He heard, then saw, a length of corrugated iron sheeting tremble in the wind. It was rusty and hung away from the lean-to. His listened, then got down on his stomach and crawled through the gap* Smelled, tasted rust. Smelled — smelled gasoline… no. Kerosene? Oil, too. Rubber, dust, concrete. His eyes became accustomed to the faint light through the dirt on the windows. Cans on shelves, tools, oil drums, fat-tired wheels — a vehicle! He grabbed the flashlight firmly, tugging it from his pocket. Ran the watery beam over the room. Found a door. A machine shop, a garage — another garage? He moved quickly toward the door, turned the handle. opened it. Flung the beam of the flashlight like a challenge into the darkness. Dared not breathe. Dusty, kerosene-smelling silence.
Oil drums, tool cart — his throat was tight, he could not swallow — a metal blade? Wires gleamed like spiders threads. The moonlight from small windows in the eaves was faint, he had to wait until his night vision adjusted to it. Meanwhile, he flicked the beam from spot to spot. Another knifelike blade, hanging in darkness. Wires, the dull flank of some machine.
Propeller blades. The fuselage of an aircraft. It was, it was— Christ in Heaven, it was almost that aircraft! He saw vividly the dust rising in a cloud from the road, saw his younger self looking up from his book, rising in astonishment from the slouch he had adopted outside the gas station's small office — that aircraft! An old biplane, prop-driven, just like the crop duster that was the first, the very first he had flown.
His mouth was dry with excitement, even as in the same moment his eyes were wet with disappointment. He had identified the pieces of the airplane's jigsaw puzzle, and seen its engine lying beside the fuselage on the concrete floor, the biplane's panels and flaps littered around it like the debris of a wreck. It was an airplane, but he could not use it.
