Beyond the Great Snow Mountains (Ss) (1999) by L'amour Louis

Author:L'amour, Louis [L'amour, Louis]
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2010-12-12T06:26:13.109000+00:00

COAST PATROL

Dense fog blanketed the Siberian coast. It was cold, damp, and miserable. Turk Madden banked the Grumman steeply and strained his eyes toward the fogbound earth.

He could not see anything but the gray cottony thickness.

Occasionally a jagged peak of the Sihote Alins loomed through the clouds, black and ugly where the wind had swept the snow away.

It was warm in the cabin of the plane, and glancing over his shoulder, Turk smiled to see Diakov asleep. The Ussuri Cossack gunner possessed an amazing ability to sleep at any time or place. And he never dozed. He was either instantly asleep or wide-awake. Well, a few more miles of patrol and they could return to Khabarovsk, to food and a warm bed.

Turk swung the ship lazily, detecting a rift in the fog.

Then, quite suddenly, he saw the freighter.

She was moored fore and aft, just inside the river mouth. A freighter of no less than four thousand tons tied up at a rocky shelf in the mouth of a lonely stream on a coast that rarely saw anything bigger than a fishing smack or occasional whaler. Since the war had begun, even the few Udehe fishermen had gone back up the coast to colder but safer waters.

Glancing back, he saw Diakov was awake. The big Cossack's black eyes were alert. You see something?

What is it?

A ship, Madden said. A big freighter, tied up in the river.

No Russian ship would be here, Diakov said. I think not.

I'm going down and have a look-see, Turk said.

He rolled the plane around in a tight circle, heading upstream.

His sense of direction had always been his greatest asset. He remembered that river, too. For two weeks he had been flying over it every day, and before that at odd times. Upstream there was a wide bend with a little backwater where he could land . . . with luck.

He landed.

Fog was around them like a shroud. Diakov straightened, his face pale under the tan. Well, he shrugged, I tell myself it is your life, too, so why should I be afraid?

Nevertheless, I am afraid.

He leaped ashore and took a turn around a tree with a line, making the plane fast, then another tree, lashing it bow and stern. Then he got out skis and checked his rifle.

How far you think? he asked.

About three miles. Turk grinned at him, the smile making his lean brown face suddenly boyish. You stay here, Muscovite. If I don't come back, you go over the mountains to Sidatun.

The Cossack lifted an eyebrow. Even a ghost couldn't cross the Sihote Alins now, he said. We fly out, or die.

It would have been simpler to have flown to Khabarovsk to report the ship, but finding a thread of river on that coast in a fog like this would be harder now than finding a Jap in Chungking. This way he could investigate first and have something definite to report.

A snow-covered forest trail followed the river. An expert on skis, Turk made good time and in only a matter of minutes stood on the edge of the forest, not a hundred yards from the ship.

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