Last of the Breed, a book by Louis L'Amour, tells the fictional story of Native American United States Air Force pilot Major Joseph Makatozi (Joe Mack), shot down by the Soviets over the ocean between Russia and Alaska and then captured. Although the exact time is never stated, it appears to be the mid- to late 1980s, the time Mikhail Gorbachev was in power.
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The start of the book chronicles Joe Mackatozi (Mack) daring escape from captivity, but also introduces another captive, an English chemist whom the Soviets believe is working on chemical warfare agents. The chemist is mentioned later, as the first of their captor Zamatev's mistakes, because it turned out he was after all only working on developing insect repellents.
The success of his subsequent foot travel across Siberia to the Bering Strait is dependent on his Native American hunting, tracking, and evasion skills. It is mentioned several times in the text that these skills were learned by his people, and taught to each generation across thousands of years. Now the skilled flyer of aircraft must remember and practice bow and arrow, fire-making, tracking, stalking, hunting, skinning, and ambush skills taught by his elders. Knowing that "a man with a knife can survive," he sneaks into a miner's cabin, and leaving no evidence he was there, he steals preserved food, a heavy sweater, and a knife. Although this knife is needed for Mack to survive in the wilderness, his stealing of the knife gives the Yakut tracking him a clue as to where to begin searching for Mack.
He also has strong attachments to his people's discipline and self-mastery. When he comes upon an army patrol he crawls inside in an old hollow tree to hide. His pursuers make camp in the same area, and he must remain motionless until it gets dark and only the sentries are awake. When captured, he receives a very rough beating from his pursuers, but true to his heritage, he never makes a sound. A man who previously informed on him unlocks the shed he is in and allows him to escape. He ends up killing Alekhin the Yakut, who was following him, and sending his scalp back to Colonol Arkady Zamatev with a note written on birchbark that reads "This was once a custom of my people. In my lifetime I shall take two. This is the first."
At the end of the book, the success of Joe's 90-mile kayak ride to Alaska (given a good kayak) is left unresolved. The resolution of the story is left to the imagination of the reader.