Free The Sea Runners by Ivan Doig Page B

Wennberg, darkness thinned toward dawn's gray.
    Karlsson, glancing back to judge how far his eyes had accustomed to the coming of day, was the first to see the slim arc of canoe, like a middle distance reflection of their Own craft, closing the space of water behind them.

    "You long-ass bastard, Melander!" This was Wennberg. "'The Russians won't follow us,' ay?"
    "They haven't," Melander retorted. "Koloshes, those are. We'll see how quick they are to die for the
far white father in St. Petersburg, Braaf, load the rest of those fancy rifles of yours, then pass Karlsson his hunting gun."

    Carefully the Kolosh chieftain in the chasing canoe counted as Braaf worked at the loading, and did not like how the numbers added and added. The half-drunk Russian officer who had roused the Kolosh crew told them the escaping men were only three—Braaf at first had not been missed, his whereabouts as usual the most obscure matter this side of ghostcraft, Hut plainly there were four of the whitehairs, they possessed at least two firepieces each, and this one doing the loading was rapid at his task. Against the four and their evident armory the Kolosh chieftain had his six paddlers and himself, with but three rifles and some spears.
    "Fools they are, you'll skewer them like fish in a barrel," the Russian officer had proclaimed. "If they haven't drowned themselves first." Rut fools these men ahead did not noticeably seem to be. They had paddled far, almost a surprise how far. A canoe chief of less knowledge than his own would not have reckoned them yet to this distance. They seemed inclined to fight, and held that total of rifles in their favor. Tobacco, molasses, even the silver coins had been promised by the angry tsarman. Those, against the battle these whitehairs might put up. Once wondering begins there is no cure, and here was much, firepieces and molasses and Russians and the nature of promises and tobacco
ami coins and four steady-armed whitehairs instead of three exhausted timorous ones, to be wondered about.
    While the leader of the Koloshes sought to balance it all in his mind and the exertion of his crew shortened the water between the canoes, the craft in front suddenly began to swing broadside, a bold-necked creature of wood turning as if having decided, at last, to do fight even if the foe was of its own kind.
    As the canoe came around, the figure in its stern leveled a long hunting gun.
    Startled, the range being greater than they themselves would expend shots across, the Kolosh paddlers ducked and grappled for their own weapons. But the chieftain sat steady and watched. Here was an instant he owed all attention.
    The slender white hair swung his rifle into place, on a line through the air to the Kolosh leader.
    The chieftain knew, as only one man of combat can see into the power of another, what Karlsson was doing. The whitehair was touching across distance to the chieftain's life, plucking it up easily as a kitten, either to claim or to let drop back into place.
    The other three whitehairs aimed their weapons as well, hut not with the slender one's measure.
    Rattled by the turnabout of men who were supposed to be desperately fleeing them, the Kolosh crew were trying to yank their rifles into place, the canoe rocking with their confusion.
    The chieftain still watched ahead. He knew himself to be twice the watcher here, the one intent on the waiting rifleman across the water and the other in gaze
to himself at this unexpected seam between existences. There was this and that to be said for courage and a calm death; life was tasked with a decent departure, lint the fact was that here, straddled between the strange tribes of whitehairs and tsarmen, did not seem the ultimate site and audience a canoe warrior of his years had a right to expect.
    The decision was out of the chieftain's mouth before his mind knew it had concluded the weighing.
    The Kolosh paddlers slid their guns into the bottom of their canoe. Their craft steadied