Exile Hunter (39 page)

Linder had nearly
finished packing his gear with these thoughts in mind when Yost
appeared beside him.

“Come along, Linder,”
the older man said. “I have something to show you.”

Linder followed to the
edge of the road, where Yost turned his back to the others so that
they could not hear what he had say.

“Scotty says he spoke
to you about your old chain mate, Rhee,” Yost began quietly. “We
all know that Rhee was wrong to kill that poor truck driver. And it’s
clear that we can’t ever let him do something like that again.”
At this, Yost stepped closer and gripped Linder’s elbow. “Now, I
understand that two wrongs don’t make a right. But if Rhee steps
out of line again, one of us is going to have to kill him. And that
probably means you or me.”

Yost seemed to have
expected Linder’s shocked expression.

“Listen, nobody in
his right mind wants blood on his hands,” Yost continued with an
intensity Linder had not seen before. “But believe me, none of the
others will do it. Kicking Rhee off the team isn’t an option here.
When and if the time comes, there won’t be time to hesitate.”

Linder nodded his
assent. Though the prospect was abhorrent to him, he knew that what
Yost said was true.

As if aware that he
might be under observation, Yost made a show of redirecting Linder’s
attention to some animal tracks close by. Linder knelt over the
tracks and made a show of inspecting them while Yost rejoined the
others.

“Now listen up,”
Yost addressed the group from the center of the road. “Most
escapees from camps in Alaska and the Yukon are caught heading west,
toward the coast. We’re heading northeast, which ought to buy us
extra time. Bracken and Holzer will have to bring in additional
trackers and dogs, which will set them back a while. If we can stay
ahead of the trackers for even two or three days, their theoretical
search radius will be so wide they won’t know where to begin
picking up our trail. That means we have to move fast, and keep
moving as long as we possibly can for the next forty-eight hours.”

At hearing this, Linder
and Burt exchanged glances. For someone who had joined the escape at
the last minute, Yost seemed to have given considerable thought to
the theory of escape, and his ideas made sense. To Linder, it seemed
a godsend that someone with fresh energy and clear thinking was ready
to step as team leader just as his and Burt’s energy had reached
low ebb.

“We have six men and
four sets of snowshoes,” Yost went on. “That means the last two
men will have to do without. We’ll move single file and follow the
buddy system. Scotty and Rhee will take the point, Browning and Burt
will follow, and Linder and I will bring up the rear. Every half
hour, as near as we can judge, the rear pair will take the lead and
the other pairs will fall back. Any questions?”

No one spoke.

“Okay, then,” Yost
resumed. “Browning will hand out snowshoes,” And while you’re
strapping in, Scotty has a few words.”

“Trackers use dogs to
find us,” Scotty announced. “If you leave your smell, dog will
follow and find you--or die trying.”

The old native held up
a faded orange prisoner’s hat that Rhee had discarded in favor of
the dead driver’s fur-lined aviator hat.

“Old clothing, take
it with you,” Scotty declared. “We burn it in campfire. Cut off
piece parachute cord this long and tie around wrist and ankle to keep
smell inside. Now put hood and face mask on and don’t take off
until I say.”

“What if we need to
piss?” Rhee interrupted with a smirk.

“Wait till all stop
together,” Scotty answered. “All piss at same spot, away from
trail. If you want piss now, piss on rock. This place stink from us
already.”

Next, Scotty held up a
fragment of a discarded and worn soldier’s sheepskin jacket
attached to a length of parachute cord. He tied the other end of the
cord around Yost’s wrist, dropped the sheepskin in the snow, and
told Yost to drag it along behind him.

“When we walk one-two
hour, we leave sheepskin behind on trail so dogs not know whose scent
they smell. It may not stop trackers from chasing, but it will buy us
time. Later on, we double back and walk in circles sometimes to trick
dogs even more.”

“What if the trackers
find things in our bunk with our scent on it?” Burt inquired. “How
do we throw them off our trail then?”

“Same thing. Once dog
know our scent, not easy throw him off,” the old native answered.
“Our job is stay ahead till handlers give up, because dogs never
give up. And to stay ahead, we go where dogs cannot, like big rocks
and cliffs.”

Without another word,
Scotty strapped on his snowshoes and stood at the roadside for the
others to fall in behind. Upon leaving the road, they headed south
through wind and falling snow, rotating their positions roughly every
half hour, and sitting down to rest about once an hour. Though at
times it seemed to Linder as if they were traveling blindly and
without direction in the dark, once in a while Scotty would pause to
inspect some moss growing on the sheltered side of a tree and order a
course correction.

At last, a few hours
after a barely perceptible dawn, when a watery sun appeared through
thinning cloud cover, Scotty called a halt. He led the shivering men
into a shallow bowl-like depression, where a moaning wind overhead
made tree limbs creak and snap. As if by animal instinct, Linder
trained his ears for the barks of pursuing dogs but heard nothing
more than the whispering branches and the labored breathing of his
teammates.

Without a spare word or
gesture, Scotty instructed his exhausted teammates in how to build a
native-style shelter at the base of a large tree. First, he burrowed
through the snow down to the tree’s exposed roots and hollowed out
an area covering little more than a square meter. Then he piled snow
into a low wall around the entrance and chopped some fir branches to
cover the opening.

“Snow? Who worry
about too much snow?” the native teased. “Just wrap it around you
like feathers and you sleep as warm as in sleeping bag.”

Without waiting for
more, each man set to work digging his burrow, much as the sled dogs
had done on the way north from Ross River. Linder did not know how
long they slept, although it seemed to him as if he had barely shut
his eyes and his legs felt even more stiff than before with cold and
fatigue. When Scotty woke them, the sun had already begun its low
sideslip along the horizon. For the remaining daylight hours, they
would be at heightened risk of detection from the air but could not
afford to stop moving any longer than was necessary to rest. Once out
of immediate danger from the dogs, the group would travel only during
the long-shadow hours around dawn and dusk and at night when
visibility allowed. Tonight their luck would be good, for the skies
were clear and the moon was nearly full.

Upon rising, they took
a few minutes to eat before moving on in single file, with Scotty and
Rhee in the lead. Climbing one hill after another and crossing
icebound streams in the valleys between them, the men noted no sign
of pursuit, and it occurred more than once to Linder that perhaps
this was because their pursuers expected them to die soon in any
event. Perhaps the reason why no prisoners had fled to the east
before was that it was impossible. But, as the hours went by, he and
the others pressed forward anyway, battling cold, pain, and fatigue
at each step. Burt and Yost seemed to suffer most. Yet, despite his
age, Scotty set the pace and uttered no complaint.

Traveling without a map
and trusting Scotty’s woodcraft and native lore, the men had only a
vague idea of how far they must go before the mountains would end.
Scotty said little in response to their questions. Linder surmised
that the old man was reluctant to tell them more for fear they would
lose heart. By the end of the second day, Linder questioned how much
further he could force himself without rest and something warm to eat
and drink. Yet, Scotty would not permit a campfire until they had
found a safe place to pitch camp, and each man’s rations had been
set at a mere half a meal bar or the equivalent each morning and
afternoon.

Linder remembered
little of the second and third days on the march, except that shortly
after sunrise on the third day, Scotty spotted a cave high in the
valley and led the men up to it by a serpentine route that required
more than enough rock-climbing to block even the most sure-footed dog
from following. Before entering the cave, the Kaska warned he must
first check for bears, and borrowed the team’s sturdiest knife and
Burt’s LED headlamp for the task.

“How can you be sure
you’ll find the bear before he finds you?” Burt asked as he
handed over the headlamp.

“Bear stink pretty
bad,” Scotty replied. “I know him. But bear wake up fast, too.
Fighting grizzly not so easy in small cave.”

“You mean to kill
him?” Burt asked in surprise.

“We need food,”
came the Kaska’s blunt reply.

Scotty entered the cave
and returned in less than a minute.

“No bear inside. Cave
too big,” he announced. “But good size for us. We stay, make fire
inside.”

Scotty showed the men
how to make sparks with a bent nail and flint, using dried tree
fungus for tinder. Before long, their campfire was hot enough to melt
snow in a pot for tea. Dinner consisted of military-style
freeze-dried entrees found in the truck’s emergency kit and warmed
in aluminum mess tins from the camp. Each item was dished out to the
men as it became ready.

All of them knew from
experience the enormous numbers of calories required to traverse
mountainous terrain during the sub-Arctic winter and to heat each
breath of frigid air they inhaled. And all were well aware that their
collective food supplies, even with strict rationing, would not last
more than a few days. But for the moment, the hot tea warmed their
bones, the starchy food filled their stomachs, and the rest for their
weary legs helped them forget their pains. Having evaded pursuit for
two days and arrived at a place of temporary safety, their spirits
rallied. One by one, they found a comfortable position near the
banked fire, sipped their tea and waited for sleep to overtake them.

But as exhausted as
their bodies might be, their minds were too agitated for sleep.

“We’ll need to post
a watch,” Browning noted after a brief silence. “Who wants to go
first?”

“I’ll go,” Yost
offered.

“I’ll follow,”
Linder added.

“Come get me next,”
Burt chimed in, until the full rotation was settled and the group
fell silent. Then Browning spoke again.

“A doctor who
survived a German concentration camp many years ago wrote that those
who have a ‘why’ to live can bear with almost any ‘how.’ I
believe his point was that it’s not our circumstances that make
life intolerable, but our lack of meaning and purpose.”

The other seemed to
contemplate his words, yet didn’t volunteer a comment.

“It seems to me,”
Browning continued, “that for a man to survive what we’re up
against, he’s got to have a goal, something that makes his
suffering worthwhile. Otherwise, he’s just going to give up and die
like the goners back in camp. The trouble is, we can’t afford any
goners here. We need every man we’ve got. So my question is, does
everybody here have a goal? And would anybody like to tell us what it
is?”

“Sure, I’m headed
for Mexico. First bar I can find,” Rhee offered with half-closed
eyes.

“Anybody else?”
Browning added without rising to the bait. “Sam?”

“I’ll pass, if you
don’t mind,” Burt replied. “Maybe tomorrow, if I’m still
alive and can get my brain functioning again.”

“Warren?”

“I’ve got a sister
back in Cleveland I’d like to see,” Linder answered cautiously.
“But there’s someone in Utah I need to find first. I promised her
husband I’d help her if I ever got out.”

Yost spoke next without
prompting.

“Right now it looks
like I’ll be following Linder and Rhee as far as Salt Lake City,”
he said amiably. “I’ll be looking up the daughter of an old
friend. If I find her, I’ll do my damnedest to get her and her
daughter back east, where I have a shot at getting us out of the
country.”

“Wow, I like the
sound of that one,” Browning whistled. “Can I tag along?”

“It’s a bit out of
your way, isn’t it?” Yost teased. “I thought you were headed
back to the family spread in Montana?”

“I am. But the wife
and I have always wanted to visit Paris. I could pick her up in Butte
and join you in Salt Lake for the trip east.”

“You’re on, buddy,”
Yost replied.

“If you don’t mind
my asking, Charlie, just how do you plan to get out?” Browning went
on. “Last I heard, the borders were still locked down.”

“Well, now, that’s
for me to know and you to find out,” Yost answered with a sly
smile. “Come with me and I’ll show you.”

Linder felt gooseflesh
rise when Yost gave Utah as his destination. Since both men knew
Roger Kendall, the similarity of their goals was not likely a
coincidence. When Yost rose to sit watch at the cave mouth, Linder
followed and took a place beside the older man.

“Your destination
wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with Roger Kendall, would
it?” Linder asked.

Yost gave a knowing
smile.

“You don’t miss
much,” he answered amiably.

“I didn’t realize
you and Kendall were that close,” Linder probed.

“We weren’t. But
his father-in-law and I were.”

Linder gave a puzzled
look. “Letting it all hang out tonight, are we?” he asked.

“You know, it’s a
strange feeling to be outside the reach of Holzer and his stoolies,”
Yost mused. “It’s made me want to stretch out my arms and take a
deep breath. Back in camp, I didn’t dare talk about my life in
Cleveland. But now that I’m free, I’ve been feeling the need to
share it with someone because, frankly, it’s become more than I can
handle at times.”