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thought of ordering the servant to try to warn her brother Gregori. But she
could come up with no reasonable way.
Dismissing Evdokia with a few words of thanks and reassurance, Natalya
climbed back to her high observation post, reerecting the barriers behind her
methodically. She could see some of the policemen's horses being led to a
watering trough. It sounded, too, as if the uniformed men were being fed in
the kitchen; she could hear the high nervous laugh of another of the servant
girls.
So, it seemed they had really come for Gregori. The natural thing to suppose
was that someone had denounced Natalya's harmless brother though of course
that was not necessarily the case. The police could arrest anyone they liked,
for any reason or for none at all. As far as Evdokia could tell, they hadn't
even asked about Natalya but having remained out of sight until now, she was
certainly going to continue to do so, to be on the safe side.
Urgently the young woman in the loft wished that there was some way for her
to get word to Gregori, warning him to stay away. But there seemed to be no
way to do that.
Gregori and Sherwood on giving up the hunt rode back to the house, around the
middle of the day, talking together. They were greeted by the police, in their
official capacity, as soon as they arrived at the house. A conversation in
Russian ensued, which even a foreigner could tell was notably lacking in
cordiality on both sides.
Sherwood was naturally asked to present his papers, which he did.
But the visitors were really interested in Gregori, who was at once firmly
invited to the office of the local magistrate for questioning. For Gregori
this was totally unexpected.
Instinctively he asked them: Questioning about what?
But he ought to have known the question was a waste of breath. The men in fur
caps weren't going to tell him that.
The temper of the dogs did not improve when they returned to the vicinity of
the house. For whatever reason, the hounds continued unhappy, snapping and
snarling at each other. When they saw Maxim again and smelled him, they
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continued to demonstrate an open dislike, baring their teeth at this man who,
as his brother marveled, had usually had a way with dogs.
Maxim at first distanced himself from the police, in the presence of his
siblings and the American. Then he reappeared on the veranda, napkin in hand,
disturbed at his first good meal in a week, and stood by looking concerned, a
picture of the sympathetic brother.
Naturally Sherwood, who had come back to the house with Gregori, was
questioned too with Maxim, when Gregori was being kept busy by other
questions, now volunteering as a translator.
Then while the police were being distracted by their perceived need to bully
the servants, Sherwood exchanged a few words with his friend. "What can I do,
Greg?"
"Nothing no there is something. Get on with tracking the bear and kill the
damned thing, if you can. That way we'll have one problem solved at least."
"You sound like you don't expect to be back very soon."
"I hope to be, of course. There would seem to be no reason why I should not.
But one never knows, in these matters." The young Russian seemed completely
fatalistic. Then, gripping Sherwood by the arm, he charged him in a
near-whisper: "Look out for Natalya." Then added: "Don't trust Maxim."
Sherwood lowered his voice, too. "Gladly. Whatever I can do. But where the
hell is she?"
But there was no time for Greg to answer that question; perhaps it had been a
mistake to ask it. Sherwood wondered if the police were after her too, if
maybe she was hiding out somewhere.
Already the police had come bustling back into the room, upset that their
suspect, Gregori, and the suspicious foreigner had somehow been allowed a
moment alone to converse in secret, as they put it.
After reexamining Sherwood's papers yet again, they remained obviously unsure
of what to do about him. The man in charge kept saying that he would have to
consult his superiors.
Natalya, who was able to see Gregori's arrest and departure from her
childhood hiding place in the old theater, was worried and frightened at the
sight of her brother led away by uniformed police. They first manacled his
hands behind him, then had a hard time deciding whether they could or should
make him ride horseback in that condition. Eventually they boosted him into
the saddle. Sherwood stood by, looking ready to argue; but at the moment no
one was going to interpret for him.
The police and their prisoner were hardly out of sight before she came out of
the old theater empty-handed. Not wanting to look like an assassin or
terrorist when she emerged, she had left Father's rifle behind.
As she told Sherwood later, Maxim assured her that he would do his best,
using whatever influence he might have, to see to it that no harm came to
their brother.
To both his sister and their guest, Maxim pretended to think it likely that
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Gregori would be home again in a few hours, or in a day at the most.
Maxim seemed less concerned and angered over Gregori's difficulties with the
police than he was by the fact that the peasants were still on strike or, as
he put it, shirking their duties, glad of an excuse to be lazy. It was
something he hadn't calculated on.
Then Maxim left the estate, and started for town alone, on horseback, saying
he would catch up with the police, and that Natalya and Sherwood could depend
on him to do everything he could for his brother.
Night came, and morning after it, and there was still no word on what had
happened to Gregori.
The next morning Sherwood, keeping busy while he and Natalya waited for news
of Gregori, rode into the woods once more, looking for the bear. This time the
American had the dogs with him, and Agafon, and Agafon's grandson, Gleb.
And this time Natalya, who was torn between wanting to flee, and hoping to be
able to do something for Gregori, had jumped at the chance to come along. Now
the only interpreter Sherwood had available, she soon appeared dressed in a
pair of trousers, which caused old Agafon to look scandalized, and climbed
astride a horse, where she looked perfectly at home. Agafon's grandson was
less affected by the sight of a lady wearing pants.
The dogs soon picked up a good trail bear droppings, but Sherwood couldn't
find a clear track and after a chase of an hour or so the hunters tracked down
and brought to bay a fairly large, but quite ordinary, brown bear.
Sherwood raised his Winchester and prepared to shoot the bear when the hounds
brought it to bay. Natalya wondered aloud if the beast was going to climb a
tree; but of course, being a brown bear, it had no wish or capability for such
a tactic.
Amid hell's own uproar of growls and snarls, the bear was trying to protect
its flanks and rear by backing into a thicket, meanwhile sparring and slugging
with the dogs. In this endeavor it continued to have good success, as long as
it could keep the smaller animals in front of it. The three hounds in a frenzy
darted in and out, dancing and leaping, biting when they could, and howling.
Suddenly the biggest dog was on the receiving end of a left hook that sent it [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]