The gun had misfired. Andrei Pochepnya’s last fully realized thought may well have been the sickening realization that his father’s gun had betrayed him. Burukhin cleared the snow from the barrel, reloaded the same bullet, and pulled the trigger. This time, it fired perfectly. Pochepnya’s father was standing next to Burukhin, and there is no way to know now what went through his mind, or his heart, as that deafening report echoed through the forest. But he took the gun from Burukhin and, after walking a short distance, heaved it into an open stretch of the Takhalo where the water ran deep and
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