Last of the Breed

Last of the Breed By Louis L'Amour (Contains Affiliate Link)

    The hero of LAST OF THE BREED is one of L'Amour's most memorable characters: U.S. Air Force Major Joseph "Joe Mack" Makatozi, part Sioux, part Cheyenne, a near Olympic-caliber athlete who is as proud of the long-nurtured legacy of his Indian ancestors as he is of his place in the white man's world. After his experimental aircraft is forced down over the Bering Sea by Russians starved for military secrets, Joe Mack soon makes a spectacular escape from a secluded Soviet prison camp. He flees into the vast wilderness of Siberia- a prison with wall of ice- where his pursuers expect him to perish.
      But Makatozi is a true Indian born out of his time. Without food, shelter, clothing, weapon or ally, he is at last free to shed his twentieth century sensibility and summon up the noble calling of his Sioux warrior forebears.  To survive he must call upon the ancient skills he learned as a boy: to hunt game with only hand-carved weapons, to make moccasins and outer garments from animal skins and to find shelter in a barren landscape.  Most of all, he must continue to be invisible to the relentless pursuit of the agents and soldiers under the direction of Colonel Zamatev, the ruthlessly efficient GRU officer whose career rests on recapturing the escaped American.
     But Joe Mack is not always a man alone. He is befriended by a band of exiles in a nearly forsaken outpost and drawn to their leader's beautiful daughter, Natalya, whose spirit and yearning for liberty matches his own.  Yet even in those rare moments of comfort and safety, it is the Yakut native Alekhin, his Siberian counterpart, whom Joe fears most. A legendary tracker who knows every natural and manmade hiding place on the Siberian frontier, Alekhin understands that to trap his quarry he must think like a Sioux.
     Only one route lies open to Joe Mack- to retrace the path of his ancestors to America overland through Siberia and across the Bering Strait. But first he must avenge the honor of his people and his country - face to face, man to man. (From flaps of jacket cover.)