Siberian Red

arrived, each carrying rifles they had taken from the guard towers.
    Now the four Ostyaks climbed on to their sledges, stepping roughly on the men who lay clinging to the wooden platforms.
    Huddled at the feet of his driver, Pekkala heard the crack of whips. As the sledge lunged forward, he dug his fingers between the boards and held on tight. Soon they were moving fast, the metal runners of the sledge hissing as they raced across the ground. Through a blur of snow dust, Pekkala could just make out the other three sledges travelling behind. The hooves of the caribou clicked as they galloped and the frost-caked harnesses shuddered with the motion of their bodies.
    Pekkala’s bare hands were beginning to freeze, so he tucked them inside the sleeves of his quilted jacket. Soon, he felt the burning pain in his fingertips as his nerves began to revive.
    The breakout had happened so quickly that Pekkala was uncertain how much time had passed since he left the barracks, but it did not seem like more than a few minutes. The sun was up now. Ice crystals glistened in the trees.
    He wondered how long it would be before Klenovkin sent out a search party. Knowing that the Ostyaks were involved, the Borodok guards would be unlikely to venture out beyond the camp any time soon.
    Only now was Pekkala able to focus on Stalin’s execution order. Assuming it was true, the day might never come when he would comprehend what path of twisted logic had led Stalin to turn on him without warning. Pekkala had seen things like this before, when hundreds, even thousands of men had gone to their deaths against the wall of Lubyanka prison, shouting their loyalty to the man who had ordered them shot.
    Pekkala felt lucky to be alive, even if it meant he would spend the rest of his life on the run. He did not care about the things he’d leave behind – the tattered clothes and well-thumbed books, the meagre bank account. But he wondered how Kirov would do. They will tell him I was a traitor, thought Pekkala. They will never let him know the truth about my leaving. There was so much he had not yet taught the young investigator. Feelings of regret rained down upon him. I was stingy with my knowledge, Pekkala thought. I was impatient. I demanded perfection instead of excellence. I could at least have smiled a little more.
    Lost in these thoughts, Pekkala was caught by surprise when the sledge turned sharply and began to follow a winding path up through the woods. The caribou struggled over the rising ground, the smell of its sweat mixed with the leather of the harness straps and the rank odour of the unwashed men.
    By now, the cold had worked its way into Pekkala’s feet and across his shoulder blades. He could feel the remaining warmth in his body retreating deeper inside.
    The Ostyaks halted in a clearing deep inside the forest. The men jumped down from their sledges, stamping the crust of snow from their legs.
    The sun had slid behind the clouds. Now it began to snow.
    Pekkala heard the noise of a stream somewhere nearby‚ flowing underneath the ice. Chickadees sang in the branches of the trees and it was not long before the fearless, bandit-masked birds arrived to inspect the strangers. Like little clockwork toys, they hopped along the backs of the animals.
    Sedov was lifted from his sledge. The silhouette of his body, outlined in blood, remained on the rough wooden planks. Pekkala and Lavrenov laid him down in the snow but he began to choke, nostrils flaring as he struggled to breathe. Instead they sat him with his back against a tree. Helplessly, they watched the wounded man, knowing that the help he required was beyond any skills they possessed.
    *
     
    Klenovkin crawled out from under his desk, a pistol clutched in his hand. When the attack began, the Commandant had been asleep in his office, head on his desk with a pile of requisition slips for a pillow. Jarred awake by the noise, he first thought was that there had been an explosion in the mine. His semi-conscious brain was already composing the damage report he would have to make to Dalstroy when, arriving in the outer office, he saw the main gates ripped from their mountings and Ostyaks waiting on the other side. At that point, Klenovkin grabbed his gun off the bookshelf, locked the door and took cover beneath the desk, determined to shoot anyone who tried to get in.
    But no one did.
    Now the shooting had stopped. The camp was silent again.
    Zebra stripes of sunlight gleamed through