The Winter Horses

by Philip Kerr

The stallion, Temüjin, looked up from the hay he was eating and gave the old man a look of near contempt, as if to say, “Your trouble is that you have no faith; she said we’d be here and we’re here.” In spite of this, Max still adopted a degree of caution when inspecting Börte’s wound, for Przewalski’s stallions are jealous of anyone looking at their mares, even humans.

  “Now don’t kick me,” he told the stallion, “for my shins and my backside are too old to learn a lesson I thought I already knew by heart.”

  Max was pleased to see that the wound showed no sign of infection, but all the same he cleaned and disinfected it again, just to be on the safe side. Then he fed the horses some more oats mixed with rice and went back to the cottage to wake Kalinka with some breakfast. He brought her a little inlaid wooden tray with hot porridge, sweet Russian tea and some black bread and a piece of honeycomb.

  “I must be dreaming,” she said sleepily.

  “No, it’s not a dream,” he said. “You’re here, all right. And I’m glad of the company. Which is not something I’ve said in a long time.”

  Kalinka glanced at the black window with her one open eye. “It feels like it’s still the middle of the night.”

  “Aye, it’s still dark, right enough,” admitted the old man. “But I want to move you and the horses to the waterworks before it gets light, in case that German captain appears on his morning ride. He doesn’t often come this way. But he might. Just out of pique. On account of how I didn’t go and have dinner in the mess with his men the other night.”

  “A free meal? Why didn’t you?”

  Max shrugged. “I had my reasons. And it’s just as well I stayed here; otherwise I might have missed meeting you and the horses.”

  “Who would have been out on a night like that?” said Kalinka.

  “Suppose I’d been like those villagers and turned you away?”

  Kalinka ate a spoonful of thick porridge, pulled a face and shook her head. “No. That wasn’t a possibility.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because of the horses. Maybe I didn’t explain things properly. It was them that brought me to your door. It was the horses that were rescuing me, just as much as I was rescuing them. I suppose they knew I couldn’t have survived another night in the woods. Not in that blizzard. They knew you weren’t going to turn me away; otherwise they wouldn’t have brought me here. In the same way, they knew that you could dig that bullet out of Börte’s shoulder. At least that’s the conclusion I’ve come to. I know these horses, and I think they just know things that you wouldn’t expect horses to know.”

  “Yes, I’ve always thought that’s true,” admitted Max. “Yes, they’re very smart. As you must be yourself, Kalinka, to have remained at liberty for so long.”

  She shrugged. “It’s not so difficult to be on your own.” She shrugged again. “Sometimes it’s more difficult to be with people, you know?”

  “That’s true, right enough. There’s nothing as queer as other people, I reckon.”

  “After I got out of Dnepropetrovsk, I was with the partisans for a while. In the forest. Resistance fighters. But they wanted me to wash and cook for them. Anyway, after they tasted my cooking, they gave me a gun and told me to come and fight with them. They said if I was going to kill people, then it might as well be Germans. But I didn’t want to kill people, even Germans. So one night I ran away.”

  “Sounds like you have plenty of horse sense of your own, child.”

  “Maybe. My father used to have several horses for his work. Big draft Vladimirs. There was one called Shlomo—I used to talk to him a lot. He was a very sensible horse.”

  “What kind of work did your father do?”

  “He worked for the state fuel merchant, delivering wood and coal to people. He used to say that sometimes he thought the horses could have done the job themselves. They knew their routes the way I know my alphabet. But sensible as he was, Shlomo was a dunce next to the two outside. They might be a bit untidy-looking, but underneath their shaggy coats, they’re as smart as a crow with a top hat and a fancy gold watch.”

  “You know, you’re a little untidy yourself,” observed Max. “I bet that underneath all that grime, there’s a pretty girl. I shall have to find you a brush and a comb, a toothbrush and some clean clothes. You can wash when we’re in the waterworks.”

  Max glanced nervously at the window. A bar of red had appeared on the horizon, indicating that dawn was just around the corner.

  “Come on. We’d better get moving.”

  They went outside to the stable, where the Przewalski’s were already waiting patiently by the door.

  “See what I mean?” said Kalinka. “They just know what you’re thinking.”

  But Max wasn’t listening. His eyes were on the horizon. His neck might have been next to useless, but there was nothing wrong with his eyesight and he had already spied a dot that was moving rapidly toward them from the direction of the big house.

  “What is it?” asked Kalinka.

  “That SS captain—Grenzmann,” said Max. “Up and around much earlier than usual and coming this way at a gallop. Come on, back inside the stable. Before he gets near enough to see you.”

  “Maybe that’s why he’s galloping,” suggested Kalinka, herding the horses back into the stable.

  “No. He gallops because he’s a German. The Germans do everything at a gallop. Maybe if they stopped and took some time to think before they did something, they wouldn’t be in the mess they’re in now. And more importantly, neither would we.”

  “Perhaps I should just make a run for it. With the cave horses.”

  “No,” said Max. “You wouldn’t make it. The horse he rides isn’t called Lightning for nothing. Besides, the captain carries a sidearm. And I don’t think he’s the type who’d hesitate to use it.”

  “It’s all my fault,” said Kalinka. “I should never have come here. I’m going to get you into trouble, aren’t I?”

  “You keep these two quiet, if you can,” said Max. “And I’ll try to get rid of him.”

  “Suppose he leads his horse in here for a drink or some feed?” asked Kalinka.

  Max shook his head and tried to conceal the panic he was feeling. “Just do as I say and everything will be fine,” he said. But he wasn’t at all sure about that.

  The old man went out of the stable, picked up his axe and began chopping wood while he waited for the captain to arrive at the cottage; he wondered if he might after all be capable of using the axe against the captain if Grenzmann threatened the girl and the horses.

  Finally, the captain arrived and, as usual, he was full of smiles and impeccable good manners.

  “Isn’t it a wonderful morning, Max?” he said, breathing heavily.

  Max looked up at the sky almost as if he hadn’t noticed it before and nodded.

  “You’ve brought the sun with you, sir,” he said agreeably.

  Captain Grenzmann turned in his saddle and looked behind him.

  “Yes, you’re right, Max, I think I have.” He lit a cigarette and smoked it thoughtfully. “I wanted to see the steppe in the dawn while the snow was still perfect.”

  “I expect that’s the artist in you, sir,” said Max. “Not the soldier.”

  “Yes, you’re right about that, too. Sometimes, I think I should like to come back and live here, after the war, and paint this wonderful place. The colors here are always changing, just like an artist’s palette. I’ve never painted landscapes and I have an idea I’d be very good at it.”

  “I’m sure you would be, sir.”

  “I would have painted it before but I don’t have any paints. Just my pen and my inks. And you can’t do justice to a dawn like that with just pen and ink. Can you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You know, I’m a little disappointed in you, Max. I thought we were friends.”

  “It’s kind of you to say so, sir.”

  “Well, yes, it is, under the circumstances. It’s not every Russian peasant w
ho gets asked to dinner by an SS battalion. We missed you last night, Max.”

  “I would have come but for the blizzard, sir.”

  “I wonder about that. I mean, I know you have a pocket watch, Max. And I noticed it didn’t start snowing until well after eight o’clock, by which time we’d already begun to eat.”

  Max shrugged. “That’s true. But I took one look at the sky and I just knew it was going to be bad. So I stayed home.”

  Grenzmann jumped down from the saddle and tossed the reins behind him.

  “Well, then, it’s lucky for you that I feel able to ask you again for tomorrow night.”

  “Tomorrow night?”

  “Yes. I believe we’re having goulash, made from horse meat, of course. But you won’t know the difference, believe me. Last night, the cook made sauerbraten and I couldn’t have told you if it was horse or beef he used. Really, I couldn’t. So. Will you come?”

  Had it not been for his concealed guests, Max would certainly have refused, but all he could think of now was how to get rid of the captain as quickly as possible.

  “Yes, sir. And it’s kind of you to ask me. Of course I’ll come.”

  “Good.”

  Molnija lifted his nose in the air and snorted; then he clapped his hoof on the snow and lowered his head as if trying to find some grass. If Max hadn’t known that the big Hanoverian stallion could smell the two Przewalski’s horses, he might have said he was hungry.

  “All that talk of food has made Lightning hungry, I think,” said Captain Grenzmann.

  Max threw down his axe. “If you’ll wait here a moment, I’ll bring him a bucket of feed, sir.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself, Max,” said Grenzmann. “We can help ourselves, can’t we, boy?”

  “It’s no trouble at all,” he said, hurrying toward the stable. But Molnija was already trotting there on his own ahead of him.

  “Really, Max,” said Grenzmann, striding after him. “I can do it. You’re not my servant. Not when you’re here, at your own home. As I said before, you and I are friends. I feel there’s a bond between you and me. Perhaps it’s because of the way you speak German, I don’t know. It’s strange. But there it is.”

  With Grenzmann close on his heels, Max hurried around the corner just in time to see Molnija turn into the stable. Surely, he thought, the game was up now; with any luck, Kalinka would have had the presence of mind to hide herself in the loft, but there was no way that Grenzmann was going to overlook the presence of two “forbidden” horses in Max’s stable. He would very probably shoot the horses and then Max himself.

  But when the old man reached the stable door, he found Molnija with his muzzle in a bucket of fresh feed—placed there, he imagined, by Kalinka—with no sign of Temüjin or Börte. Astonished, he glanced around the stable several times but, as if by magic, the two horses had vanished.

  Grenzmann caught up with the old man and smiled. “I can see you were expecting us, Max.”

  “Sir?”

  “The feed you had prepared. That was most thoughtful of you. A peace offering, perhaps?”

  “Er, I did wonder if you might ride out this way, sir,” said Max. “It being such a beautiful morning.”

  Grenzmann looked about him and took a deep breath.

  “I wonder, how many more such mornings will there be for us Germans?”

  “Many more, I hope, sir.”

  “What do you think will happen to Lightning when I leave, Max?”

  “I haven’t given it much thought, sir.”

  “Well, I have. Since that awful business with your Przewalski’s horses, it’s been on my mind a lot. Shall I tell you what I think will happen to him? To Lightning? To all of your precious animals here at Askaniya-Nova?”

  Max shrugged. He might have reminded the captain that almost all of the animals—the deer, the llamas, the bison, even the zebras—had been shot by the Germans for their kitchen, but he hardly wanted to provoke an argument with Grenzmann. Not when he was being so friendly.

  “I think the Red Army will butcher this horse and then eat him. That’s what will happen to him.”

  “Then why not take him with you, sir? When you leave.”

  “I’d like to, Max. Really, I would. But even a horse as fast as this couldn’t keep up with a motorized group of SS. Especially as we may have to try to fight our way out of here.”

  Grenzmann let Molnija finish the last of the feed in the pail and then lifted his head into his hands.

  “So what will you do, sir?”

  “Only one thing I can do, really.”

  To the old man’s relief, Grenzmann took hold of the horse’s reins and then led him outside, where he mounted the animal again and turned him toward the big house.

  “I shall shoot him myself.” Grenzmann patted the horse on the neck and then smiled sadly at Max. “It’s the kinder thing to do. That an animal as fine and noble as this should end up on some Russian peasant’s plate is an unbearable thought to me.”

  Max said nothing.

  “But that’s not for a while yet.” The captain nodded. “Don’t forget about tomorrow night, will you, Max?”

  “No, sir. I won’t forget. And thank you.”

  Grenzmann galloped away, and for quite a while after he’d gone—until he realized it was the sound of his own heart beating—it seemed that Max could still hear the horse’s hooves on the snow.

  THE OLD MAN WATCHED Captain Grenzmann gallop away until he was just a dot on the snowy horizon before turning back to the stable. Still more than a little puzzled—for he had seen no tracks in the snow leading away from the stable to persuade him that Temüjin and Börte had ever left there—Max looked up at the loft and called out Kalinka’s name.

  “Kalinka,” he said. “You can come down now. He’s gone.”

  For a moment, Max thought there must be an earthquake—these are not uncommon in that part of the world—because the straw-covered floor of the stable seemed to shift before his eyes; the next second, Kalinka stood up, followed by the two horses.

  “That was close,” she said. “There was one moment when his stupid, great horse almost stepped on me.”

  “I don’t believe it,” said Max, for it was now apparent to him that all three of them had been hiding under a layer of straw.

  She grinned. “We really fooled him, didn’t we? That German. And his German horse.”

  “How did you do it?” he asked the girl.

  “Believe me,” she said, picking straw off her clothes, “I’ve hidden in a lot of hayricks since I left Dnepropetrovsk. More than I care to remember.”

  “I’m sure you have. But what I mean is, how on earth did you persuade these two horses to lie down and let you cover them with a layer of straw?”

  “Actually, it was their idea,” said Kalinka. “They lay down and started to pull the straw across themselves, like they were going to bed. I just helped finish the job. You know, I’d say they’ve done this sort of thing before: hiding. I mean, they seem pretty good at it. As good as me, I reckon. Maybe better.”

  “For years, I’ve been telling people that these horses are as clever as foxes.”

  “I reckon they are, you know. Not that I know many foxes.”

  “I used to say that there was a very good reason why they had a fur brush for a tail instead of just hair.” Max rubbed his silver beard thoughtfully. “I guess I should have listened to myself, eh?”

  He laughed, clapped his hands and stamped around the floor with delight. This prompted Temüjin to utter a whinny and hoof the straw, which seemed to amount to almost the same thing.

  “I always knew they could find the right spot to stand in that helped them blend in with a bush or a tree,” added Max. “There are plenty of stories in the books about how they were able to evade Mongolian hunters who were just a few steps away from them. But I didn’t realize how far they could take something like that. I never heard of a horse doing what I witnessed in here.”

  “There’s a fi
rst time for everything,” said Kalinka. “Isn’t that what people say?”

  “For everything except a miracle, perhaps.” He shook his head. “Come on. I won’t be happy until I’ve got the three of you hidden away again.”

  Max led them outside; the sun was properly up by now, and they could see a clear trail left by Grenzmann’s horse as far as the horizon, which prompted Max to find something new to worry about.

  “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  He pointed at the Hanoverian horse’s hoofprints.

  “If we walk on this snow, there will be an obvious trail from here to the waterworks. For any German soldiers looking for more horses to shoot, it would be like drawing them a map.”

  “We could walk single file,” suggested Kalinka. “Like Saint Wenceslas’s page.”

  Max shook his head. “It would still make them curious.

  And that curiosity might lead them to the old waterworks. No, I think it’s probably best we keep its existence as secret as possible.”

  “So what are we going to do?”

  He glanced up at the sky again. “There’s only one thing we can do, I think, and that’s to wait for it to snow again before we go to the waterworks.”

  “Is it going to snow again?”

  “In this part of Ukraine, at this time of year, it always snows again,” Max said grimly.

  Kalinka shrugged and led the two horses back into the stable. “I suppose,” she said, “we could always hide under the straw if that captain or any of his men come back.”

  Max nodded. “If my old heart can stand it, I suppose you could at that,” he said.

  “Until then we could play chess, if you like,” said Kalinka. “I noticed that you have a set of pieces and a board.”

  “Do you play?”

  “A little.”

  It was several hours before it started to snow again, by which time Kalinka had beaten the old man at chess three times in a row.

  “You’re very good at that game,” he said irritably as he finally led the girl and the two horses across the open steppe to the smallest lake, which was where the waterworks was located. “How is that?”