The Hunter From the Woods (4 page)

The chief abruptly stood up and advanced on the man from London, who held his ground as if rooted to the boards. A bulbous nose pressed up close to an Adam’s apple. “This is
my
village. You don’t come in here and tell me, I tell
you
. Now…I don’t know what he is, and I have never seen what some people
think
he is…but I am telling you, Mr. Englishman, that he belongs to
us
and he will not be leaving here with the likes of you.”

“And I can’t leave here without speaking to him.” The voice was calm, collected, cool. But the icy blue daggers were very sharp. “I
won’t
leave without speaking to him.” He offered a boyish smile, his specialty. “Let’s don’t be unpleasant, when it’s so terribly unnecessary. All right?”

“Show him,” croaked the wizened old woman. “He talks a storm of manure.”

“Well put, madam. I think this whole tale is a storm of manure.” He daggered into the bull-man’s eyes. “Show me.”

On the way through the village toward the ruins on the hill, a group of people got around them and followed. It was evident where the Englishman was headed. Suddenly a girl of about sixteen with warm brown eyes and curly golden hair beneath her woolen cap plucked at the man from London’s coat sleeve.

“Tell him Nena forgives him,” she implored. “He won’t speak to me anymore, but won’t you tell him?”

“I will,” the man from London promised. He saw that the girl’s right hand was heavily bandaged.

The group of people fell back and stood watching. The bull-man took his charge up almost to the ruins and then he too stopped and held his position. The man from London continued on alone, climbing up snow-covered stone steps to the onion-domed shell of what remained.

He entered the cold shadows, and listened to the silence.

Stairs led down. He followed them. The light that lived in this stone chamber was blue, and he could smell woodsmoke. He went on, into deeper blue. His boots clattered on the floor. Noise enough to wake anything that could chase down a caribou. He paused for a moment, because suddenly he was not so calm, cool and collected. He could see a small fire burning beyond an archway. Not much more than a bundle of sticks and brush, it appeared to be.

His heart was beating harder.

“Hello?” he tried. There was no answer. He decided to use his English. “Hello? Can I come in?”

Still, nothing. He could hear the fire pop and crack. He saw shadows scrawled upon the walls.

“Anyone here?” he asked, in the King’s tongue.

“
You
are here,” came the quiet reply, also in English, from beyond the archway. It carried a faint, menacing echo. “But you shouldn’t be.
I
wouldn’t be here, if I were you.”

The man from London cleared his throat. “Nena says she forgives you.”

There followed only the sound of the small fire burning.

“I’m from London,” said the man. “Originally, I mean. Today I came from Pruzhany. My name is William Bartlett.”

Again, there was no reply for a few seconds, and then the voice asked, “Is that your real name?”

It seemed the right time to be truthful. “No. My real name is Valentine Vivian.”

“Oh. Well, then…I understand the need for an alias.”

“Actually, my name helped toughen me. I had to be tough, with a name like that. I had to learn to be quick and sharp. To think fast on my feet.” He began to walk casually toward the archway. “You should see my father. His name is Mildred.”

“
Stop
,” said the voice, and Valentine Vivian immediately obeyed.

“I’d really like to see you,” Vivian offered. His throat was tight. “Won’t you let me come in?”

A few seconds passed, during which Vivian wondered if the young man—
if
the young man was really so
special
—could hear his heartbeat.

“Come in,” said the voice.

Vivian entered the chamber.

The fire was indeed small and made up of little broken branches. Several skeletons of rabbits lay about. There was a jug of something, probably water. The young man did his business over in a far corner, and the smell wasn’t very pleasant. Curled up in the opposite corner, close to the fire, was a bundle of dirty rags. Vivian saw a human shape in them. He saw dirty legs, dirty hands, a dirty mass of black hair and the smallest section of face with an eye peering out at him. The eye was bright and startlingly green. Its intensity made Valentine Vivian stop at the center of the room, because for all his experience and intelligence and bravado he was no damned fool.

“May I ask your name?” Vivian inquired, keeping his voice light.

“Mikhail.”

“Family name?”

It was a long time coming. Then: “Gallatinov.”

“How old are you?”

“How old are
you
?” came back at him.

“
Old
,” said Vivian. He tried for a smile that refused to stick. “Actually, I’m
Major
Valentine Vivian.”

“British Army?”

“In a manner of speaking. And may I ask how you speak English so well?”

“I had an excellent teacher,” Mikhail replied.

“Yes, you did.” Vivian knelt down on the floor. A small skull lay next to his right boot. A rat’s skull, perhaps? The young man was not a picky eater. “You never told me your age.”

“Old enough,” the mouth behind the dirty rags said. And then decided to say, “Seventeen.”

“And your birthday is when?”

There was a long pause of deliberation, or perhaps an attempt to jog a distant memory. “March. The seventh day.”

“Well,” said Vivian, “now we’re getting somewhere.”

The rags shifted and two green eyes stared at the major. “Are we? Getting where?”

Vivian eased himself down to a sitting position. He was always aware of where the pistol was and how fast he could get to it. “I understand,” the major said carefully, “that you have a very unique…” What would be the correct word here? “Gift,” he said.

“
Gift
,” Mikhail repeated, hollowly. 

“I’m just saying what I’ve been told. The details are sketchy. But I understand you are a…um…dedicated hunter?”

“I’m dedicated to not starving. Or letting my friends starve.”

“Yes, quite so. And admirable, too. Oh…by the way, I know about the murder. That incident…was it last summer? Something to do with a wrestler in a circus?”

Silence from the bundle of rags.

“Could I ask…just a favor, you see. A small favor.” Vivian’s smile blinked on and off. “If you can. Really,
anything
you can. But…would you show me…
something
?”

“This,” said Mikhail, “is not the circus.”

“Of course not. No offense intended. But…really, I’ve been asked to come here and see you…
talk
to you…get a sense of
who
you are.” Or
what
you are, he nearly said.

“You were seen…last October…in…how shall I put this? Oh, dear. You were seen…supposedly…changing your
form
,” said Vivian. His smile this time was very tight. “The man who witnessed this does not drink. He is not given to visions of fantasy. He is what we call a
drone
. Drones do not embellish nor do they otherwise distort. They observe and they report. So…you see…we’re a bit curious about this.”

“We?” An eyebrow lifted. “We
who
?”

“Oh, pardon me for not giving a complete introduction. I’m a major in the British Army, yes, but I am a fulltime field operative for the British Secret Service. Special Operations Branch. Which brings me to why I’m here. You see…I’m
recruiting
.”

The body shifted a little under the rags, but there was no comment.

“Recruiting special branch operatives,” Vivian continued. “We were wondering…if you were so inclined, and you were to show an interest and be educated, then…ah, but first I have to be shown something.”

“Shown what?”

“Something amazing,” said Vivian. He waited. Nothing happened.

“I’m Russian,” Mikhail said, behind the rags. “Why would I want to leave Russia and go to England?”

Valentine Vivian drew his knees up to his chin. His eyes sparkled in the low firelight. “I can make you,” he said, “into a citizen of the world. You could walk as a man in any country on earth. Walk as a
gentleman
. You could walk with honor and grace. You would have a purpose, Mikhail…do you mind if I call you Mikhail?”

Did the rags shrug? Maybe.

“You would be trained and educated and fashioned into a…a very unique weapon, Mikhail. A very unique
tool
, if you will. You know there are great changes coming in this world, don’t you? Well, you would be there to see them happen, and you would be there to make a
difference
in their happening. To
prevent
them from happening, if that’s what was called for.

“Now…if you wish to stay in this little fire-lit hole in Russia,” Vivian went on, “that would be your future. Feeding these villagers…it’s very noble, but it’s not much of a future. I can tell you that if you show me something, and I am amazed by what I witness, and you leave with me today for Warsaw—and I can get us across the border tonight, no doubt—then I am authorized to pay these villagers of yours enough money to rebuild this church many times over and buy an armored car or two to protect it. Then your future would be out there, in the world.” Vivian let that hang for a few seconds. “I believe you’re a very intelligent and capable young man. Whether you’re what we’re looking for is yet to be seen. But I can tell you—and you already know—that if you stay in this country it will eat you alive. If you come to England with me, and you have the right ability, you will have the chance to become one of the greatest hunters who ever lived. Is that a challenge you have any interest in taking?”

Mikhail was silent and motionless.

There is nothing here, Vivian suddenly thought. There is only a young man in rags, curled up on the floor. But how could the drone have been so wrong?

“Shakespeare’s country,” Vivian heard Mikhail say quietly. “The blessed plot. Someone told me that. He was a great man. He was…” Something came up and choked him. “I feel…
alone
,” he said, but now his voice was under firm control. “Did you know…that Nena used to come visit me…and bring me wild berries? Did you know that one day…she was feeding them to me…and I licked her fingers…and then…something came over me…a terrible thing…and I bit off the first joint of the little finger on her right hand?”

Mikhail lowered the rags enough for Vivian to see his full, gaunt and haunted face. The green eyes glowed like spirit lamps.

“And I crunched it between my teeth,” Mikhail breathed, “and I
swallowed
it.”

Neither man said anything for awhile. Then Valentine Vivian stood up from the floor, more carefully than he’d planned, and he said, “But she forgives you.”

“I don’t forgive myself,” said the young man. “I hurt her. I will never forgive myself.”

“Then show me something,” Vivian told him, nearly begging. “
Show
me! If you show me, we can walk out of here together, and you can work to make sure many, many people in this world are
not
hurt, and that those who
are
hurt find justice.
Show me
.” 

Moving slowly and deliberately, Mikhail pulled the rags over his face and he was gone from sight.

Vivian sighed. What a waste of time this had been! A certain journalist was going to get his ass scorched over a bed of charcoals. Damn, and now back to the jingle bells!

He needed to get out of this stinking hole. Out of this ruin. Out of this village. Out of this country.

At the archway, Vivian looked back at the motionless bundle.

He said, “Goodbye…” And decided to use the English name: “Michael.”

He walked out through the blue light and ascended the stairs, and halfway up he heard the engines.

He could see them coming across the snowscape. He knew who they were coming for.

There were three of them. Three white-painted aerosans with red stars on the sides. They were wooden, box-shaped contraptions meant to carry three or four men in each enclosed cockpit. They travelled on four large, pontoon-like skis. On the rear of the vehicles were aircraft engines and a single pusher propeller shoving the aerosans forward at about seventy kilometers an hour. Behind them spun banners of snow. Atop each aerosan a soldier sat in a hatch manning a bolted-down machine gun on a swivel. The vehicles were almost to the village, and already the sleigh horses were panicked and running and all the driver could do was hang on. The aerosans came on with a noise like hornets from Hell.

Oh my God, Vivian thought. Obviously all the loose ends had not been tied up after all. But still…he might be able to talk his way out of this. His charm knew no limits. He straightened his overcoat and walked down through the village to meet the aerosans as if taking a Sunday stroll in Piccadilly. But as the machines slid to a halt, the engines wound down and the exit doors were unbolted from within, Vivian suddenly found himself looking at the barrel of a Nagant revolver aimed at his stomach.