The Sojourn - Andrew Krivak [42]
And yet, it seemed hopeless. “We’ve had a good run,” I said to Zlee. “If he doesn’t show in the morning, or the wind is even trickier, we’ll pack up and move north, or west. It’ll be spring soon, and this war has got to come to an end someday. We wouldn’t be the first soldiers to have shed a uniform and disappeared.”
His face as blank a slate as ever, Zlee just shook his head, and I didn’t know if it was out of disappointment for his own failure or my suggestion that we desert.
“If only for the wind,” he said, “if only for the wind. I could see that bastard’s shoulders sticking up above those boulders like he’d been trained to shoot at a carnival. Hell, let there be more fog. I could see his muzzle flash. What a shame, Jozef, if we have to end it like this.”
We sat in our hide the entire morning, melting snow into a cup of pine needles until we knew that we had waited too long, and there was nothing left for us to do but to stay and hope we’d get one more chance to face our antagonist, for that’s how we thought of him now, this actor who opposed and called into question our very selves. In the meantime, we listened for the dogs and the party of soldiers we thought would be sent out to find us, but no one or thing stirred. And when the sun disappeared behind the highest peak, Zlee said out loud and to no one, “Because you are neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out.”
High clouds rolled in without precipitation that night and the air warmed. We slept in hour shifts, and, after 0300, spotted in intervals of thirty minutes to keep our eyes sharp. At first light, the clouds began to disperse, and by the time dawn shone, the same stalking mist rose from the snow, although appearing lighter, so that visibility was improved. I glassed the hide from where the shooter had fired the day before, and there he sat, looking like a man in his own library.
Zlee woke up and took a mouthful of water, and then, fully alert, said, “Tell me.”
I confirmed the range of eleven hundred yards and noted that windage was zero across the entire distance, and, through the light mist, the target was in our direct line of sight. Zlee nestled into his stance and began to breathe steadily. I continued to observe and watched the target turn in our direction, as though oblivious to us and our purpose, and noted to myself that he was right-handed, so that when he turned back to take aim at someone or something at Fort Cherle, his cheek and face were covered by the gun stock. And yet he looked oddly familiar, until I realized that he was one of the Tiroleans from our sharpshooter school who had been returned to his regiment, and by the time this was clear to me, Zlee had already adjusted his sight for the distance, drawn breath, and said, “Christ forgive me.”
And I heard him exhale with a grunt and felt the warm, moist touch of blood on my face, head, and hands, the report echoing a few seconds later in the high mountain air.
I dropped my field glasses and rolled as the next shot shattered the scope on the Mannlicher, but I knew that it was meant for me. It had come from behind, at four o’clock to our position’s twelve. We’d been set up between two shooters, and caught in their cross fire with a ruse that made ours pale, and all I could do was keep moving fast and low as I scrambled along the ground and kicked up snow. I moved crabwise around to the front of the stone that shielded us to the south and got into a position that protected me from the shooter behind but left me exposed to the one who had been sniping at Cherle across the mountain. I crawled over the rock and back into our hide, propped Zlee’s inert and lifeless bulk against it, and pushed him over the top and down the other side. I spoke to him as I worked, told him who had hit him, that the useless jokers were pretty good after all