Russian Amerika by Stoney Compton Page A

willow thickets and stands of birch stood naked waiting for new spring leaves. The tamarack and spruce appeared furry and deceptively warm from this distance. Already the temperature hovered at minus twenty degrees Celsius and only the exercise kept their faces from showing the cold.

    "What's that?" Nik asked, breaking Grisha's reverie.

    "Where?"

    "On the river."

    A row of dark spots well out on the ice snaked into view from behind the next ridge.

    "Dog team," Grisha said, squinting mariner's eyes.

    "Yeah, it is. I wonder."

    "Don't you have your field glasses with you?"

    Nik pulled off his backpack and unfastened the top cover, rooted frantically through the contents before triumphantly producing binoculars. He dropped the pack and focused on the distant team. The sled cleared the ridge, becoming visible on the seemingly glowing ice.

    "The wide-shouldered Indian at the Cossack camp, what was his name?" Nik asked.

    "The brother of Slayer-of-Men, you mean?"

    "Da."

    "Mugly? No. Malagni!"

    "Da, Malagni. He's driving the sled. Looks like he has a passenger, full load anyway."

    Grisha watched the sled move steadily down the river ice. Another dark object popped from behind the bluff.

    "What's that? Sure isn't a dog team."

    "Where?" Nik pulled the glasses away from his face.

    "There, about two hundred meters behind Malagni."

    The glasses went up to his face again. Grisha watched Nik chew his lower lip. The tall man suddenly grinned.

    "Wing! It's Wing on skis!" He lowered the binoculars and grinned like an idiot. "She's back."

    "Nikolai, my friend, don't get your hopes up. She might not stay, and if she does, she might not help you with Cora."

    A shadow moved across Nik's face.

    "You're right, damn it. I can't take anything for granted. I must stalk Cora like the woods creature she is." He bent over and put the glasses back in his pack, closed it, and lifted the straps over his arms.

    "But I'm sure Wing will help me."

    Even though Grisha managed a ten-meter lead on Nik, the man passed him within minutes. By the time Grisha reached the bottom of the ridge only shoeprints remained to keep him company.

    "God," he muttered to himself, "I hope she can match them up."

    He maintained his pace and covered the last mile in under an hour. The unloaded sled lay on its side. The dogs, staked out and fed, slept curled on pallets of dried sedge with noses tucked under tails.

    Grisha unstrapped his snowshoes and stepped away. He felt as if he could fly without the awkward bulk of them anchoring him. Leaning them against the wall, he pushed into the lodge.

    "Here's Grisha, now," Chan said. Beside him, Nik, Malagni, and Wing faced the door. About half the village stood around the first two tables. All went silent.

    A man Grisha didn't recognize turned to peer at him. The man's small stature, coarse, dark hair running down to the backs of his hands, and a clean-shaven, weather-beaten face that barely contained bright blue eyes gave him a fairy-tale aspect.

    Grisha immediately thought of a gnome.

    "So yer the Cossack killer, huh?"

    The clipped aggressiveness sounded like an alien variant of Tlingit. Grisha knew it to be a dialect from the eastern part of Canada or the United States. He once served with a sergeant who spoke with the same choppy-flat speech.

    The room seemed to hang there, waiting for his response. Abruptly Grisha felt nettled for being singled out.

    Probably more training for the ex-officer.

    "I have killed one Cossack. I was terrified at the time," Grisha said.

    "Then yer nae fool. Good." He pronounced it "gud."

    "Is there food?" Grisha asked the group, ignoring the little man.

    "Haimish McCloud," the man said, holding a hand out to him. "Late of the great state of Vermont, U.S.A., proud ta be a Green Mountain boy."

    "You fled the United States to live in Russian Amerika?" Grisha asked. The fellow didn't look like a boy to him, not with those raven's tracks around his eyes.

    "I've come ta help