Survivalist - 17 - The Ordeal Page 5

  Chapter Ten

  Snow was falling heavily in the lower elevations and, as they had pressed on throughout the waning daylight hours, they penetrated more deeply into the storm. With the cover of the snowfall, it would be less likely they could be spotted from the air by the Soviet airpower. With no radiation detection equipment available to him, it would be safer to melt snow for water than avail himself of the local water supply, albeit that a bushel’s worth of snow was needed to produce a pint of drinking water. With the lack of appropriate shelter materials and the coming of the colder temperatures of the night, the snow would serve as insulation and artificially elevate the temperature, and could possibly be utilized to insulate what shelter he would fabricate.

  He left Natalia in a niche of rocks protected from the wind, wrapping her in the blanket, half tempted to leave his parka over her as well. But reason prevailed over emotion—should he become ill, her chances of survival in her present state would be zero.

  The snow fell in large flakes which clung to his eyelashes and his hair, the hood down, the skin of his cheeks tingling with the cold, but his body warm from exercise.

  John Rourke’s right fist clenched the haft of the Life Support System X, handmade for him five centuries before by the Weatherford, Texas knifemaker Jack Crain. He brought the primary edge down against the base of the five-foot pine

  tree’s trunk, then once more and finally a third time, toppling the fir easily, heaving it into the pile with others he had already cut.

  The pine trees, abundant here, would suffice to form the bare necessities upon which he could expand.

  He didn’t resheath the LS-X knife, because of the pine tar on the blade that would have to be removed.

  As he began hauling the trees toward the site he had picked for their shelter, he realized the snow was falling more rapidly, more heavily …

  Michael Rourke, brushing the snow from his eyes, squinted down into a depression where perhaps centuries ago a river had run, below the rocks in which he and Annie now lay side-by-side. Men and equipment—Chinese, but from the Second City—were moving downward along its course. Annie was speaking into her helmet radio, although she did not wear the helmet. “Paul—we have a concentration of troops from the Second City closing in our direction. We may have to evacuate this position. Any word on Daddy? Over.”

  Faintly, just well enough to be intelligible, Michael could hear Paul Rubenstein’s response. “There’s no sign of them ever having been in this vicinity. We’re crossing the river at the earliest opportunity. Snowing there too? Over?”

  “Yes—very heavily. Don’t cross the river—you could—” The radios were constructed so that sending and receiving was done on separate bands and hence it was possible to interrupt a transmission. “We have to. If they’re in trouble, with this snowfall it will only make things worse for them. We’ll be out of radio contact in another few miles. We’ll need a rendezvous. Over.”

  “I know you have to do what you think is best. But how—” “We need a rendezvous,” Paul interrupted again. “Have Michael check your map. I’m thinking of G-7 on the revised grid your dad made over the German maps. The prominent

  feature—I don’t want to get more specific in case we’re being monitored.”

  Already, Michael was folding the topographic map into the proper segment. There was a structure atop a plateau of modest elevation, the river running past it in a lazy snake shape. “Tell him I see the spot. Set a time, Annie.”

  “Paul—Michael has the location pinpointed.” She was looking over Michael’s shoulder now. “When? Over.”

  “Twenty-four to thirty-six hours from now is the latest we’ll be. Over.”

  “That’s too long—if the Russians knock out the Second City, there should be scattering Chinese troops all over the area, not to mention the Russians themselves. Over.”

  “Twenty-four hours then. I need that. Over.”

  “Affirmative on that. I love you. Tell Otto to be careful, too. And find Daddy and Natalia.”

  “I will, sweetheart,” Paul’s voice came back. “Out.”

  Michael Rourke looked into his sister’s eyes. They were tear-rimmed. “I’m really afraid,” she whispered, her voice breaking a little.

  “I know that. So am I. But if anybody can do it, Paul can. And as soon as we reach the rendezvous, you and Maria can keep an eye on Prokopiev and Han and I can join the search.” Michael Rourke’s eyes were drawn back into the gulch below them and the Chinese forces—withdrawing or moving into some new strategic posture?

  “Damn,” he hissed.

  Chapter Eleven

  From the bark of one of the larger pines he had ventured deeper into the treeline to topple then had, with some difficulty, taken the main trunk out with him, over his shoulder, John Rourke cut several large pieces. As he walked out, he checked the fresh snow for signs of rabbit or anything larger, remembering once again the tales told by Han Lu Chen of the Chinese wolves. Tracks of woodrats and mice could be seen occasionally, but nothing he looked forward to eating. It was hard to imagine that the Chinese of the Second City had saved such humble creatures throughout the centuries for release into the wild by design, so he presupposed poor management instead.

  But there was no sign of larger animal life.

  Confident that he had enough bark to satisfy his perceived needs, Rourke pushed one end of the log—shorter in length than half a telephone pole but nearly the girth—into the fire he had built just outside one end of the shelter he had fabricated of pine boughs and bared branches. The tree trunk began to catch with the aid of fat lighter he had gathered from nearby pines earlier and with which he started the fire originally. It was crystallized pine tar, one of nature’s great combustibles. Rather than utilizing a match, since these might be precious later, and his Zippo so soaked that it would not light, he had made a bow-shaped fire-starter aided with magnesium shavings from the stick of magnesium he carried in his musette bag.

  Natalia still rested. With a flaming ember, John Rourke lit a cigar, this one of the ones in the waterproof case he carried in the musette bag as well. It was warm enough beneath the pine bough shelter that he had removed his coat, and he rolled up his shirtsleeves as he set to work with the bark. The old woodsman’s method had been open to him, but he had never liked it. To boil water by hollowing out a segment of log, then fire-heating stones and applying them with improvised tongs to a container of water until the temperature was elevated to the boiling point had always struck him as doubling the work, and at any event it was necessary to avoid stones which would either burst or turn to slivers when quenched in the cold water. And his greatest problem was the water itself, since he was utilizing snow. He began roasting some of his materials over the stone-encircled fire, whittling with the Crain knife on small pegs of pine.

  And the former method presupposed a kettle of some sort in which to heat the water. Instead, he opted for the more esoteric, yet, to his reckoning, practical method, making a kettle and simply heating it with the existing fire. For this, he needed the thinner inner bark of the tree which he had worked to separate from the coarser, uneven outer bark, using the Crain LS-X. After some careful cutting, he had a roughly square sheet, nearly twelve inches on a side, which was roasted to the point now where it had become suitably malleable. Folding the opposing corners together to form a triangle at the newly formed apex, he folded once again. Eyeing the creases carefully, Rourke turned the bark section over, then began the next sequence of folds. Now folding along the scribed lines made by the folds, he formed overlapping corners, securing them with one of the suitably sized slivers of pine he had previously sharpened to have points at one end. He did the same with the other set of corners, forming a box-shaped object under six inches square and less than four inches deep.

  He had constructed the fire with an eye toward the kettle, and the most important factor to remember in its use was that

  the flame could only contact that portion of the kettle where there
was actually liquid. If it touched the sides, the kettle would burn. He set the kettle into the snow beside the fire, then proceeded to pack snowballs, impaling these on forked branches scavenged from the fabrication of their shelter, then allowed these snowballs, near the heat, to melt into the kettle. It was a tedious process, but necessary. Once there was a sufficient amount of water that he could leave a residue in the pot, it would be simpler.

  While the snowballs melted, he b«gan working other sheets of bark into needed utensils, namely a drinking cup and a water bucket. He had taught Michael and Annie, years ago, how to make such items, although Annie had been quite young. After he awakened them from the Sleep and before he himself returned to it, he retaught such skills. Annie had seemed particularly fascinated with the crafting of a folding bark cup (they had used paper, more abundant there near the Retreat and just as useful, even to use as a kettle). Little better than half the size needed for a kettle, the method was basically similar, the volume of the cup approximately one-quarter pint, or as he had explained it to them when they were little, half as much as a school milk carton. The cup was easily folded and could be closed against dirt from the pocket.

  A sufficient quantity of snow had melted and Rourke began heating it on flat stones over the fire with a small gap through which the flame could reach only the base of the kettle, reducing the likelihood of burning to zero. As the water warmed, he added more snow, melting more snowballs into the bucket for future use.

  He began working with the remaining bark, grinding it with stones into something the consistency of rough flour. He gradually added melted snow until it became sufficiently doughlike that he could form it into crudely shaped tortilla-like sheets. He placed them aside for later cooking.

  A glance by the firelight at the black face of his Rolex told him it was about time to check the few crude traps he had laid

  earlier when he had gone into the woods for the larger tree. Adding more of the snowball drippings to his kettle, edging the log farther in, he was confident the fire was still low enough that he didn’t have to worry about total evaporation even if the water should begin to boil.

  Rourke checked Natalia, her condition unchanged, seized by a deep and restless sleep from which he prayed she would awaken restored—but he knew that she would not, barring miraculous intervention.

  Rourke rolled down his sleeves, donned his coat and picked up his knife, then passed the primary edge through the flames several times quickly, to burn off the pine tar, which was highly flammable, the steel not in the fire long enough to affect temper. He used a snowball to wipe it clean, then dried it on his trouser leg, resheathing. He gathered up several of the longer shavings from his all-purpose tree for use in short-term emergency lighting should such prove necessary.

  Quickly, Rourke left the shelter, moving through the deep snow now toward his self-styled trapline. If the snow persisted, by morning he would need to fabricate snowshoes, most suitable the tailless bearpaw design considering the mountainous terrain, their blunt toe shape useful in kicking to form a step in the snow. They were the simplest to use and John Rourke hadn’t been on snowshoes since the pursuit of his daughter and her kidnapper to Iceland months ago, and before that for five centuries.

  He slogged onward, moving deeper into the trees in the gathering darkness, mindful of the fact that his flashlight still worked but unwilling to waste battery power until and unless it were needed.

  Perhaps three hundred yards from the shelter, John Rourke stopped, frozen in his tracks by a sound he had not heard in five centuries. So much for Chinese wolves, he thought: these were feral dogs.

  The sound of the dogs was between him and the hut. And

  although the fire was essentially sheltered from aerial observation (by design), it would be visible when approaching from ground level. It would keep the creatures away from the hut, perhaps driving them toward him.

  His mind raced. Hunting? Perhaps, or fleeing the war between Russians and Second City Chinese, perhaps both? No tracks had shown such creatures in the nearby area earlier. A gunshot in these woods would be heard for miles, might be just enough to draw the attention of stray enemy forces, and with two enemies, double the chances of that.

  John Rourke unsheathed the Life Support System X. He looked quickly to right and left, then crouched and brought the twelve-inch Bowie-patterned blade down quickly against a sapling perhaps three feet in height, the sounds of the animals getting closer. With the LS-X he quickly chopped off the boughs, then stabbed the Crain knife into a nearby trunk. He reached under his coat, to the small of his back where he carried the little A.G. Russell Sting IA Black Chrome sheathed. He drew it out, fitted it to the base of the boughless pine, then drew the long, thin shavings from his pocket, his musette bag with his spare bootlaces back at the shelter. Quickly, but as stoutly as time allowed, Rourke bound the Sting IA to the shaft of the sapling, the howling and yelping blood-curdlingly close now. The improvised flexible spear in his right hand, he snatched the LS-X with his left, then withdrew into deeper treecover. What would slow his movement would slow theirs, what might all but discourage him might very well discourage them, unless they were very hungry indeed.

  And then he saw twin balls of fire looking toward him, growing in immensity, moving through the gray fog of dusk and swirling snow.

  Feral dogs, indeed, but as lupine in appearance as any true wolf he had seen.

  Coming, then another pair of eyes, the first pair’s body members and torso taking shape, then a third pair of eyes, the

  first pair’s attendant form now fully defined. Rourke edged back. If it would be life or death, he would use a gun, but it would have to be that.

  Three more materialized through the snow, making six in all. They were coming for him. He wondered if they smelled the same fear he smelled, which was his own.

  Coming.

  John Rourke moved as the pack leader, larger, as anticipated, sniffed at the snowy ground, as if scenting something which wasn’t properly there but seemed to be there all the same. And then the creature wheeled directly toward him, fewer than a dozen yards away.

  Rourke’s right hand tightened on the shaft of the makeshift spear.

  The creature lunged, Rourke’s right arm upthrusting, the Sting IA that was the point of his weapon penetrating the creature beneath the sternum, the animal’s own weight carrying the blade through to rip open the abdominal cavity, Rourke ducking left and down, rolling, the feral beast’s body tumbling into the snow inches from where Rourke had stood, the spear shaft gone now, the animal rolling in agony.

  The second of the wolves hinged for him, Rourke’s right hand going for the 629. As the animal’s arc of motion brought him within reach, Rourke’s right arm arced outward, backhanding the six-inch piece of stainless steel pipe which was the revolver’s barrel across the animal’s face. Rourke wheeled right, made a saber thrust with the Crain knife, in and withdrawn as the animal yelped in agony and fell.

  A blur of motion. He saw it, reacted, then felt the impact and smelled the odor as a third animal’s body crashed against his own. It was on him, Rourke’s right hand moving, ramming the muzzle of the revolver into the gaping wound of a mouth, no way to use the knife properly, but instead crashing the skull-crusher that was formed out of the double buttcap at the base of the pommel into the right side of the animal’s head,

  Rourke’s right knee smashing up into the trunk.

  The animal rolled away, Rourke to his feet, wheeling half right, as the animal made to lunge again, Rourke’s left leg snapping up and out, the toe of his left combat boot impacting the apex of the animal’s drooling muzzle, sending it rolling away into the trees, yelping maddeningly.

  The fourth animal and the fifth were coming for him, Rourke thrusting with the LS-X, catching one of the creatures in the torso and gutting it, averting his face as the spray of blood started. The fifth animal was on him and Rourke stumbled back, falling, the animal’s jaws snapping over his left arm, but catching clothin
g, not flesh—this time. Before it could bite again, Rourke crashed the butt of the 629 down over its skull, between the eyes, then as he was able to move his left arm, rammed the knife in through the right side of the creature’s neck.

  Rourke was on his knees, the blood-dripping Crain knife balled tight in his left fist, the revolver in his right. The sixth wolflike dog—where was it?

  Suddenly his breath was gone and he was gasping, falling, the revolver spilling from his right hand, the knife slipping away between the fingers of his left. The creature rolled over him, Rourke looking up just in time to see it impact, roll, then twist upward and lunge. John Rourke, choking, eyes tearing, scooped two handfuls of snow and flung them toward the animal’s face as he forced himself to his knees, then fell away left. The creature’s concentration seemed broken for only seconds. And as the animal came for him, Rourke bent forward, shrugging his parka from his shoulders, flinging it over the animal and blanketing the creature with it for an instant. His hands reached to the double Alessi rig, but grabbed at the harness halves instead of the twin stainless Detonics pistols the holsters themselves held.

  As the animal shook itself free of the coat, Rourke was on it, praying the harness coupling would hold, looping it over the

  creature’s head, then throwing his body weight back and left, the animal snarling, yelping, then a cracking sound so loud that it was almost earsplitting—the neck—and then all effort against Rourke subsided.

  John Rourke fell forward, face down into the snow.

  Six.

  On hands and knees, his right fist still clenched to his shoulder harness, he looked around him as much as the dying light would allow.

  None of the animals seemed particularly weighty—lucky for him, Rourke smiled—but it would be easy enough to make a quick post-mortem and separate the healthiest of the pack.