The Cowboy and the Cossack (Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries) (26 page)

At an order from Rostov, two of the cossacks rode down to the meadow to undo the damage Dixie and I had caused to their poles and pine cones. Dixie watched after them, still with a hint of that same dark thunder in his eyes.

“Well, Rostov,” Slim said, “what was the order a’ winnin’ among these fellas?”

Rostov said, “Natcho, Crab and Rufe were first, second and third. Then Dixie and Levi.”

I was surprised at Slim asking such a question, and his next line made me wonder even more. “Umm,” he nodded. “Kinda’ thought maybe ol’ Levi’d won.”

“Levi?” Crab said as we all frowned at Slim.

“Yeah. Downright spectacular.”

I began to sense Slim’s devious mind at work, so I didn’t say anything, but Rufe now got sucked in along with Crab. “What d’ya mean?”

“I doubt if in the history a’ them war games nobody ever b’fore took both a pine cone an’ a pole prisoner simultaneous like Levi just did.”

I looked at Slim and pretended to be mad, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t be because I suddenly knew that bighearted bastard was putting pressure on me to make it easier on Dixie, who’d not only lopped a pine cone clean off, but also lost a fairly rough scrap just before.

“You think you’re jokin’, you dumb sonofabitch,” I told Slim. “But it takes years a’ hard practice t’ perfect a saber blow like that.”

Rostov, who somehow understood everything that was going on, said, “How long do you think it would take you, Levi, to teach my men that fantastic saber thrust?”

“A lot more’n the week or so we’ll be here, sir.”

“A pity,” Rostov said. “Not knowing the Levi Dougherty thrust will probably set back cossackdom a hundred years.”

All the others were grinning now, at my expense, and it was cheap at twice the price because Dixie was now grinning too.

“This is all very goddamn fuckin’ funny,” I said. “But in the meantime I’m sittin’ here bleedin’ t’ death.”

Slim looked at my cut hand. “Ya’ got some sap in the cut, along with the blood.”

“No foolin’?” I said dryly. “An’ it just happens t’ sting like hell.”

“Go back t’ camp an’ wash it out,” he told me. “Put a little Jack Daniel’s on it, but don’t waste any, an’ wrap a piece a’ tape around it. An’ chances are you’ll survive.”

“Thanks a lot, doctor,” I said. And then we both knew what the other one was going to say. “Ya’ think I can manage t’ do all that by m’self?”

“Frankly, I doubt it.” Slim turned to Dixie. “Think ya’ can help this poor wounded fella long enough t’ see he gets patched up?”

Everything was working fine and Dixie even started to go along with the fun.

“I’ll try m’ best, if he don’t bleed t’ death on the way back.”

So Dixie and I rode off, with him helping me.

And it was hard to tell, right then, whether or not Dixie knew or didn’t know, that it was really him who was being helped.

But be that as it may, you had to chalk a good thing up for Slim. And for Rostov. And if it can be construed to my credit, I whined and grumbled a whole lot more than necessary while Dixie washed out the cut, put a dash of Jack Daniel’s in it for health, and taped it to stop the bleeding.

One thing that kind of interested me. Chakko rode into camp just behind the two of us. He went over to where his bedroll and his gear was and got out something that was long and slender and wrapped in canvas. He took it and rode off again toward the meadow, without a word to anyone.

Even in his sleep, it seemed like Shad was aware of everything that was going on. He sat up now and tipped his hat up away from shading his eyes. “What did ya’ do t’ your hand?”

“Cut it.”

Maybe it was the fact that of all people Dixie was taping it, and maybe it had to do with an instinct that went far beyond that, but I swear to God that Shad read my mind just then, and pretty much knew everything that had happened. He stood up and stretched his shoulder muscles. “If Levi’s gonna go through life bein’ s’ goddamn clumsy, Dixie, maybe ya’ oughtta just amputate while you’re at it an’ have done with it.”

Somehow, just like Slim had done, he was making it seem like I was the biggest jackass in the world, who was lucky as hell to have a good friend like Dixie.

And also, somehow, that’s exactly the way they made it work. While Dixie was bandaging my hand, I can guarantee he was just
about ready to adopt me. Funniest damn thing that way, about two men fighting each other and helping each other, because if those two men are worth anything at all, both the fighting and the helping, in about equal measure, can make them closer.

Feeling kind of good about the way Dixie felt, I said, “Amputate ’em both, Dixie. Always wanted t’ go through life bein’ spoon-fed.”

Shad came over and said quietly, “How’d ya’ cut it?”

All of a sudden it wasn’t quite so funny, and I wet my lips a little. “Saber.”

“Kinda’ thought so.”

“It was an accident, boss.” Dixie finished the bandage and stood back. “Coulda happened t’ anybody.”

Shad gave Dixie a look. “Like you?”

“Well”—Dixie hesitated—“yeah. Five of us made a run with sabers. You wouldn’t want us t’ back down, boss, in some kind of a coward’s way?”

Like Slim, Shad rarely chewed tobacco but he nearly always carried an ancient plug. He took it out now and bit off a chew. Then he handed it toward Dixie and me. I shook my head and Dixie took a chew before passing it back.

Pocketing the plug, Shad said, “Let’s take a ride over there.”

A little later the three of us arrived at where the others were by the big rock. The two cossacks had finished fixing the poles and pine cones down in the meadow and were on their way back.

Shad pulled up near Rostov and spent a moment studying the many poles that made up the racetrack layout and the six pine-cone-topped poles in the middle of the meadow. I wish he’d said almost anything else for starters, but he chose to say, as a flat statement of fact, “These games a’ yours, Rostov, got one a’ my men hurt.”

The hard way he said it, and further the simple fact that it was true, left a kind of a hole in the conversation because there wasn’t much for Rostov to say by way of an answer. Shad turned
from studying the meadow and faced Rostov, and again there was that feeling of two earthquakes about to happen all at once.

“It was my own damn fault, Shad,” I said. “An’ I ain’t hurt hardly at all.”

“Coulda been worse, just as easy.”

Rostov finally spoke, his voice quiet and flat. “Getting hurt, as Levi did, makes a man stronger and wiser.”

“I’d hope my men are both strong and wise already.”

Neither one of them was about to back off, and since it was my fault, right or wrong, I had to throw the rest of my two-bits’ worth in. “Not me, Shad. Maybe them others are, but I ain’t nowhere near neither strong or wise enough. Igor did me the honor a’ lendin’ me his saber, an’ I plain fucked up by gettin’ carried away and not usin’ it right.” I added lamely, “You know I ain’t goin’ against ya’, boss, but—”

Instead of getting mad, which I fully expected and probably deserved, Shad gave me a look of such quiet patience that I knew that somewhere, and somehow, he was righter than I was. Then he turned back to Rostov, more thoughtful now than angry. “My men will compete too hard.”

Rostov nodded, and the brief, dark feeling that had been between them was gone now. “Perhaps you should forbid your men from taking part.”

None of us said anything about that, but our expressions showed how we felt.

Looking around at us, Slim said dryly, “Seems ya’ got your choice of a bunch a’ cripples here, boss. Broken bones on one hand, an’ broken hearts on the other.”

With similar, grim humor, Rostov said, “Perhaps we should adopt the Tartar method.”

“What’s that?” Shad asked.

“The Tartars divide their warriors into groups of ten. And if any one man in that group of ten is hurt or killed, the other nine are hurt in exactly the same way, or killed in the same way.”

“Jesus!” Rufe muttered.

“Seems a little drastic,” Shad said. And then, “I guess the best we can do, all things equal, is try t’ at least keep these games down to a goddamned dull roar.” Rostov nodded.

“Well,” Slim said, “by any standard a’ measuring the cossacks sure came out on top t’day.”

“That’s hardly fair,” Igor said. “We’ve used sabers all our lives.”

Chakko was now unwrapping his long, slender piece of canvas, and within it there was an unstrung bow and a quiver of arrows.

“Pine cones,” he muttered, quickly stringing his bow. “Fuck ’em.”

When Chakko said four words, he meant exactly four words, and with those particular four words he galloped to the meadow at a full dead run. And shooting from impossible positions all over his horse, even shooting from beneath its neck, and managing always to keep his body partially or completely hidden from the “enemy” by his own mount, he in blindingly swift succession put six arrows through the six pine cones. And he’d already spun his pony and was racing back as his last arrow pierced the last pine cone.

Every deadly, lightning move Chakko had made from beginning to end was a thing of pure beauty, and so in his own unique way, he rode out of the meadow as the undisputed champion of the day.

In the awed silence, Slim finally muttered, “Well, that goddamned simple Sioux bastard!”

And right then, nobody else there had anything else to add.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

S
HORTLY AFTER
sundown, with our eight men still not back from Khabarovsk, Rostov sent out replacements for his guards, and after a while those who’d been on lookout rode back into camp. Sergeant Nick was among them, and he spoke briefly with Rostov. Then they left their fire and approached ours, where Sammy the Kid and Mushy, taking their turn at cooking duty, were starting beans and biscuits and coffee for supper.

Rostov said to Shad, “Verushki still has several small patrols spotted around us.”

“That ain’t hardly a surprise.”

“At least,” Rostov said, “they’ve been staying far away, well out of shooting distance, simply trying to discover what they can about us.”

“Which ain’t much in this broke-up country,” Slim said. “They can’t make a halfway educated guess how many we are. F’r that matter, even how many cows we got.”

“Tonight,” Nick rumbled, “they maybe come in closer, in dark.”

Along with some others, Rufe was listening. “They do,” he volunteered, “they’ll git their asses shot off.”

Nick nodded his big head heavily. “Right. But makes trouble.”

“What the hell.” Slim shrugged. “Even in the dark they won’t be able t’ come in near ’nough t’ see a whole lot.”

For a moment no one spoke, and then Shad changed the subject abruptly, almost angrily. “I wish t’ Christ those fellas’d get back.”

To use Shad’s words from a minute before, what he’d just now said wasn’t hardly a surprise, either. We were all feeling that same way, especially since the going of the sun, with the quick Siberian darkness moving like a sudden black wave rolling across the sky to sweep out all the light in the world.

“Well, boss,” Slim ventured to say, “ya’ told ’em t’ be sure t’ have a good time.”

“Not
that
good!” Shad tried to make his anger hide his deep concern, but we all could see it was there. He growled, “They oughtta be back here
right now
!”

And at that very instant Rostov’s guard on the point overlooking Khabarovsk called out in Russian, his voice dimly reaching us. Rostov looked at Shad and laughed one of his rare laughs. “Our eight men are on their way into camp.”

There couldn’t have been more than a millionth of a second between Shad’s growl and the yell from the hill, and it was somehow so funny we were all torn about halfway between sheer relief, and laughing our relieved heads off.

“By God!” Slim said with a broad grin. “When you say somethin’ boss, fellas really do jump!”

The sound of hoofbeats came closer, and the eight men rode into the light of our two fires and dismounted. The only sign of a problem I could see was that Shiny’s right hand was bandaged just about the same as my left one was.

Old Keats nodded at Shad and said, “It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”

Then, as Bruk told the cossacks what had happened in Russian, Keats went on to us. “First thing we did was pay Colonel Verushki a social visit, big as life an’ twice as brassy, Shad, like you said. He was madder’n hell about his man gettin’ shot this mornin’—in the leg incidentally. And we reminded him of the terms previously arranged, whereby we’ll soon go on our way in peace as long as he and his men don’t bother us.”

Sammy and Mushy brought up some cups and a pot of coffee.

“For our conquerin’ heroes,” Sammy said.

When Mushy poured into the cup Shiny was holding, I saw for the first time by the unsteady way the cup moved that Shiny was in worse shape than a simple bandaged hand would cause. All of a sudden, at ten feet away, I could sense that he’d
had as much white whiskey as I’d had and couldn’t hold it any better.

“Verushki’s still worried about us,” Keats went on, “but only just barely. He still thinks that somehow we’re bluffin’, but he ain’t quite prepared to move against us upon that hopeful concept.”

“Go on,” Shad said.

“So then, actin’ like we owned the town, we bought some supplies. An’ then went back to that same place for a few drinks.” He hesitated, a little sadly. “Maybe it had t’ do with the two big fellas who got hanged, but the place was pretty filled up with hostile Imperial Cossacks and they were lookin’ for trouble.” Keats shook his head in a brief, rueful way. “Right now, in that one place, I’ve seen glasses broken for the most beautiful and the most ugly reasons ya’ could imagine.”

Already Shad was glancing at Shiny’s bandaged hand. “Yeah?”

“They challenged us t’ some ‘friendly’ arm-rassling, for drinks. But they smashed off the top of two glasses an’ put them on the table where each man’s hand’d be forced down if he lost.” Old Keats gave Shiny a warm look. “He took on the biggest bastard they had.”

“And lost!” Shiny said cheerfully, holding up his bandaged and slightly weaving hand.