Novel 1986 - Last Of The Breed (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Page B

was deep, a man in a ragged fur cap, a motheaten fur coat, and thick pants stuffed into clumsy-looking boots. He had started around a small bend in the path when he saw a foot.
    He stopped, looking carefully around. Nobody else. Nobody near, at least. He listened again and heard a faint snore. From under his coat he took an AK-47, and the gun gleamed brightly. His clothing was ragged, but there was nothing wrong about the gun.
    Stepping around the tree, he saw a man asleep against a rock, a man emaciated and worn. He saw the pack of smoked meat, the spear, the sling, and the bow without a string and without arrows.
    Yakov moved quietly to a seat on a rock facing the sleeping man. Then he picked up a pebble and tossed it against the man’s face.
    Joe Mack awakened with a start, but with every sense alert. His opening eyes looked into the muzzle of the AK-47.
    Chapter 7
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    T HE MAN’S CHEEKS were chubby and he looked fat, but Joe Mack was not deceived. He had seen such men before and knew that what looked like fat was the natural muscle of an extremely powerful man, one naturally strong, born to the strength he had.
    For a moment each measured the other, and then the man spoke in what Joe Mack knew was Russian, although he knew no more than a few words of the language.
    “I do not speak your language,” he replied.
    To his surprise the man’s face lit up with humor. “Engless!” he said, astonished. “Spik Engless!”
    The AK-47 did not waver. “Who you are?”
    “I am an American”—he spoke slowly—“traveling in your country.”
    The man’s eyes made a point of looking him over. “This clothes? It is tourist fashion?”
    Joe Mack grinned suddenly, and the man’s face lit up again. “Tourist the hard way,” he said.
    For a moment the man puzzled over that, and then he smiled again. “Why you here? This is far-off place.”
    Joe Mack was puzzled. The man was no soldier, yet he carried an AK-47 and gave every evidence of being ready to use it. His clothes were nondescript, his manner as guarded as his own. Was this man also a fugitive?
    “It is better I travel in far-off places,” he spoke slowly again. “I eat what the land provides.”
    The man’s eyes searched his. “I am Yakov,” he said.
    “I am Joe Mack,” he replied.
    “Where you live?”
    “In America. Until I return there I live as I can, where I can. Soon winter comes. I have no home for winter.”
    “Ah?”
    Yakov was ten feet away, and the AK-47 did not waver. There was no way he was going to cover that ten feet and lay a hand on that gun without catching four or five slugs, and the man was no fool.
    “Why you not go down there?” Yakov waved toward the distant village.
    Joe Mack took a chance. After all, what was Yakov doing up in the mountains with an AK-47? “They would put me in a house with bars.”
    “Ah! An American? A prisoner? In Siberia? Russia is not at war with America!”
    “No?” Joe Mack lifted an eyebrow. “Tell that to Colonel Zamatev.”
    Instantly, the man’s manner changed. “Zamatev? You spik Zamatev?”
    For the first time the muzzle of the gun lowered. “Where you spik Zamatev?”
    “West of here, many miles. I was his prisoner.”
    “You escape? He look for you?”
    “He looks.”
    Yakov was silent, obviously thinking. He pointed to the crude sheepskin vest. “You make?”
    “I did.”
    Yakov indicated the bow staff. “What that?”
    “A bow. I am making a bow. Then I shall make arrows. I need to hunt.” Joe Mack lifted the sling, and the AK-47 covered him again. “The bow will be better than this.”
    “How you kill sheep?”
    Joe Mack indicated the sling. He took from his pack a piece of the smoked and dried mutton. He extended it to Yakov. “You like? It is sheep.”
    Yakov accepted it, and Joe Mack went to the pack for another piece. They chewed in silence.
    “You no look American.”
    “I am an Indian, a Red Indian.”
    “Ah! I see Indian in film. Cinema.”
    “I’m no cinema