by Paul Park
Miranda had awoken with a sense of purpose, however, and when she looked up at the stars, when she thought about home, when she listened to the horses, when she examined the face of the sleeping girl, it was to prolong a moment of delay. Whatever dangers waited for her, she was comfortable here, lying with her hands behind her head. Now she sat up, put on her belt and boots.
If she was to function here, she needed to know about guns and horses, riding and shooting, which so far seemed to be the most important skills in this place. Her father was a general, her aunt had hunted ducks, and she too must have learned something when she was young—the language had come back, after all. In her dreams she had been riding, riding all night on the gray horse.
The most important thing was to be confident. And if she couldn't manage that, at least she could make her mistakes away from Ludu Rat-tooth. So she strode down to the pool and found the gray horse standing docile under the trees. The bridle hung from a branch. She put the snaffle into the horse's mouth, pulled the headstall over her ears, and buckled the strap under her cheeks. Miranda had studied all this carefully, had watched the girl the day before, and now she pulled on the saddle and tightened the girth, all the time whispering and talking. She let the horse smell her and then tugged her by the mouth, away under the trees.
When she tried to mount up, the horse walked a few steps forward. For a moment Miranda hopped awkwardly on one foot, but then she managed to drag herself into the saddle. The trees were big and widely spaced, but again the horse resisted. She found herself kicking at its sides. And then it broke away from the track they'd followed the evening before, and made its own big circle through the trees. She tried to pull it back in the direction she had chosen, and found herself yanking on its mouth, trying to muscle its head around without success. It was a matter of willpower, she remembered from her dream, and she found herself whispering and cursing. But the horse led her around in a big circle, and in a few minutes she saw the clearing up ahead.
She kicked its sides and it moved forward into the track again. "This time," Miranda told herself. At the same place as before, the horse turned under the trees, and in a few minutes they were back at the clearing, and there was a new horse.
Now it was lighter in the wood. Miranda could see the animal under the beech trees, a black horse even larger than the gray. Miranda pulled on her reins and her horse stopped short, while the black lifted his head and showed his teeth. He was a beautiful beast, but quite obviously exhausted: streaked with dust, and his eyes were bloodshot, staring. As she watched, the horse blew out his lips, then let his head sink down again. His tail and mane were long and tangled. There was an empty leather holster at his saddlebow where a rider might keep a long gun.
Miranda slipped out of her saddle and walked back, away from the two animals. Then she turned at the edge of the clearing. Under the dawn sky, beside the old stone wall there was a man standing over Ludu Rat-tooth. He was dressed in a dark uniform, and in his hand he held a short repeating rifle, pointed down.
The girl was awake. She lay on her stomach without moving and the muzzle of the gun was by her cheek.
Miranda had left her bag of money in her blankets, rolled in the shirt she'd used as a pillow. Now she saw it in the man's hand. As she watched, he slipped the purse into the leather pouch on his belt.
Guns and horses—Miranda hadn't been so stupid as to leave her pistol with her money. She'd slipped it into her belt as she got up. Now she pulled it from inside her shirt, pulled off the trigger lock. She checked the bullet in the chamber, while at the same time she was thinking about the vampire. She was remembering the stiff action of the trigger and the way the heavy gun had recoiled in her hand. She was remembering the smell of gunpowder, the ringing in her ears.
And maybe this was some kind of magic gun, and she could just point it at someone and they would disappear into a dream. That was what had happened on the moonlit road, and in the light of day it helped her to imagine the same thing: the soldier gone, the rest unchanged. He had his back to her, and she came forward as quietly as she could. She watched him push the muzzle of the rifle into Ludu's cheek, and make her roll onto her back. She watched him press the mouth of the rifle into the soft skin of her neck; he also was exhausted. His blue uniform was dirty, and one of the sleeves was ripped. He had a knot of silver braid on one shoulder, silver stripes on both his cuffs. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles and was wounded on his scalp. His short yellow hair was stiff with blood behind his ear. He had no hat.
All this Miranda saw as she came closer through the grass, her pistol out in front of her. The man didn't hear her, wasn't listening. He was distracted. He moved the rifle down the girl's long throat. Miranda could see her shirt was unbuttoned, and the man moved the rifle down her chest, pushing away the cloth flaps. Miranda saw him sway a little on his feet. His boots were black and scuffed.
He hadn't spoken. He stood with the mouth of his gun on Ludu's breastbone, as if uncertain what to do. But now the girl opened her mouth and turned her head, and then she saw Miranda. And her expression changed, and Miranda saw it change, and so doubtless the man would see it, too. Something had to be done right now, although in a sense the entire situation was idiotic, like something in a Western movie. What was Miranda supposed to say—"Hands up?"
"Hands up," she said. It didn't sound so foolish in Roumanian. The man turned his head.
Two nights before she had fired on the vampire in the dark. But that had been an unreal moment with unreal consequences, and it did not make this moment easier. Then she had fired in a panic at a grotesque, alien thing. This was a human being, even if he was a thief and worse, and it was horrible the way he'd touched Ludu Rat-tooth, caressed her with the muzzle of his gun.
She aimed for the middle of his chest, then raised her hands couple of inches. She would shoot him through the shoulder and disarm him. But she didn't, found she couldn't, though she could feel her hands shake with rage. She glanced into the man's face, glanced at Ludu's face, and watched the opinion solidify in each—she was not capable of this.
Why didn't the man bring up his gun? She wondered if it was even loaded. She had a lot of time to wonder as the man began to smile. But then he dropped his rifle and leaped for her, grabbed for the muzzle of her revolver. She pulled the trigger and her hands jolted back. Birds in the ruined hermitage, disturbed by the noise, rose suddenly into the sky.
Ludu rolled away, jumped to her feet. Then she knelt over the soldier and kicked up his rifle. "Stop," Miranda said.
"German pig!"
The girl was suddenly in tears. She threw the rifle away into the grass. Then she sat back on her knees and she was crying, her hands hiding her face.
The soldier lay without moving. His blue eyes were distorted by the lenses of his spectacles, one of which was cracked. Miranda had shot him through the shoulder under his collarbone. It was where she'd aimed. The cloth of his Uniterm was singed over a neat dry hole.
Miranda stood above him. She herself had no intention of crying. "He's got my money in that leather pouch."
The girl wiped her nose with her forearm. Her eyes were fierce, glinting with tears. "Finish it. He's a German."
"No."
"Let me get out of the way."
"No."
Miranda could still hear, ringing in her ears, the report the gun had made. She stood with its muzzle pointed up. "Please, miss," said the girl. "We'll take his horse. We'll leave him here."
"Oh, stupid!" said Ludu Rat-tooth. "A German officer. You think he's alone? He saw us and the horses."
When Miranda said nothing, she went on. "Miss—don't make me do your filthy work. It will be gone in a second—so!"
She spat, and the moisture sprayed across the soldier's face. His eyes, which he had closed momentarily, now opened again.
Again Miranda imagined a scene from a movie or a book. It was useless to talk about this. Miranda knew she couldn't kill this man or else allow him to be killed. She could be angr
y, too. "Get up," she said.
Now the soldier struggled to speak. His lips were dry and chapped. "Give me water," he murmured.
The girl spat across his open mouth. "Don't let him talk," she said, but it was too late.
"Please," murmured the soldier.
He spoke in Roumanian but with a strange, soft accent. "Leave is worse than dying, if you leave. Already they have found me gone the last three days. From this headquarters in Dobric. Give me to drink. I am not German."
The hole in his shoulder was wet now, and the frayed cloth around it was red. "Liar," hissed the girl.
Miranda knelt. She squatted over the man as he struggled to sit up. When he reached for the gun she shoved him back again with her left hand, so he lay flat.
"Dead," he muttered, "dead is better."
In a little while he went on. "You will open my shirt. There is an envelope. Take it out now. You will see."
Holding the gun up, muzzle pointed to the sky, Miranda slipped her hand into his jacket. Some of the silver buttons were undone. He had some ribbons on his chest, which was thin and frail. "I tell you, dead is better," he murmured again.
"Do you two know each other?" asked Miranda in English, between her teeth. "You seem to have this all worked out."
She meant they both wanted her to shoot him. There was a rip in the silk lining of his jacket, and Miranda could feel the outline of an envelope. She drew it out and stood to look at it. Stepping back, she lowered her pistol, then drew out several sheets of crisp, official stationery. They were covered with smeared, minuscule typescript, in German.
Her words brought a new response from the wounded man. His English was better than his Roumanian, though he spoke with the same soft accent: "I am begging for your help if you are enemies of Germany. Not for myself, although I meant no harm and what I did you is repaid. Take the money back— I cannot stay here where my enemies will catch me. This is information I must bring to my own country. I was riding to Tulcea Crossing in the delta so to come to my own place. If I had not the strength, I must find the Russian attachee at Braila at the trade negotiation there. Her name is Djourek, and if you say you have a message from Alexei de Witte . . ."
"Why would I say that?" Miranda was studying the typescript as if it meant something to her.
"Please—my own life, it is gone. But I must bring these papers home. If you are a soldier in this war then you must help me, for this will mean a victory or a terrible defeat. I should have taken that bay pony and left my gelding, though he is worth ten times as much. I pay for that mistake. You have horses, and so take this document and do what I have said. It is cruel to leave me to be tortured in Bucharest or Berlin while you do nothing with this information. Cruel and stupid. If my country comes into this war . . . Please, give me some water."
Miranda shuffled the papers while the man turned his head toward Ludu Rat-tooth. "I know what side you are. She hates me when she sees the German uniform. I tell you if you take these documents, many Germans will die. Otherwise . . ." He broke off. "Ah, can't you see that I myself am a dead man? Promise you will do this thing. Anna Djourek, in Braila. Say the name! Ah, God, it's scarcely one day's ride. Will you promise? I am a desperate man!"
"What am I looking at?" asked Miranda.
"I must tell you. It is the order of the march. On June eleventh German infantry will cross the border into the Ukraine. So, in ten days' time. I was in headquarters of the Third Army Corps. They will go north from Focsani with two divisions. They will cross the river at the Cosmesti bridge. Everything is in those papers. I will go . . . ," and then he lapsed into a foreign language that Miranda supposed was Russian. He had raised himself onto his elbow and the grass under his back was touched with red. But he was in pretty good shape under the circumstances. He spoke for a long time. There was spit on his lips. "Please," he said finally. "Give me water."
Miranda slipped her pistol into her shirt, along with the letter in its envelope, and knelt over him again. She picked up Ludu's water bottle from the grass. What should she do? It was easy enough to give him water. But she could not forget the sight of him, swaying on his feet, opening Ludu Rat-tooth's shirt with the muzzle of a rifle.
She had the bottle in her hand. When she came close, he grabbed her. He was stronger than she'd anticipated, and he pulled her down onto the ground while he was fumbling for the gun. Because of her surprise, he almost had it when she caught hold of his wrist. It was thin in her hand. De Witte was a small man. She rolled onto his wounded shoulder, and she could hear him grunt.
But he had seized hold of her left hand with a grip she couldn't break. And she could hear his voice murmuring in her ear. "When you see her you must say I am not dead. And you must ask her to remember the May festival at Oberammergau when she came from the university. And if she asks how she can trust you, tell her she was wearing a blue dress, embroidered like a peasant. And give her this."
Miranda felt her left hand close on something sharp. At any moment she expected Ludu Rat-tooth to come and help her. But she looked up and couldn't see her. Instead she saw another pair of boots.
She let out her breath. And there were more pairs of boots, and other men in dark blue uniforms. One dragged de Witte away and held him down.
Miranda rolled onto her knees. She hunched her back, making her shirt billow out as she pushed the gun under her belt, the letter with it. She kept her left hand closed on the sharp thing. She was looking down, examining the long grass. There were some ants.
Now everything was quiet. Miranda watched the toes of a pair of black boots in front of her. The leather was worn, carefully polished.
When she raised her head, she found herself looking up into the face of a tall soldier. His hair was black, and he wore a small black moustache and beard. His face was long and showed his bones. The shape of his black eyes showed some Asian ancestry. "We came in time," he said, smiling, in Roumanian. "You are not hurt?"
"No."
"That is good." He spoke fluently, without an accent. "We were looking for this criminal. You have my thanks."
Behind the soldier, to Miranda's surprise, two others were kneeling over Alexei de Witte, and one was carrying the water bottle. The other had stripped off his jacket and was bandaging his shoulder with strips of gauze that were already wet with blood. A third stood at a distance near the crushed place in the grass where Miranda had spent the night. He was carrying the rifle.
"Now I am here to give you the thanks of my government and to ask if you've been harmed. What is your name?"
"Miranda."
"Ah, like the queen from your history books—Brancoveanu, is it not? Surely you are as beautiful as she was to have been. Did this man say anything to you?'
Miranda wished she'd thought to have invented a new name. Anna? No, that was the woman she was supposed to find.
"No," she said. "He attacked us as we slept."
"Who?"
"Me and my friend." Another soldier now appeared at the edge of the clearing, leading a subdued Ludu Rat-tooth.
The Eurasian man—an officer, Miranda supposed, though she couldn't tell it by his uniform—spoke a crisp command in German and the soldier took his hand from the girl's elbow. Smiling again, he reached down to help Miranda to her feet. She brushed his hand away as she got up.
"He did not say anything to you, or give anything to you?"
"No. We were asleep."
"And so the gunshot that we heard . . . ?"
He glanced down at her belt, where the butt of her pistol was protruding. Miranda said nothing—"This must have surprised him!" continued the man. "Please!"
He reached out his gloved hand. Miranda laid the gun into it. He raised it up, inspected it, spun the barrel so the bullets dropped into the grass. "Where did you come from? Why are you sleeping here?"
Miranda thought a plaintive tone was best. "Mamaia Sat. Two nights ago our house was burned. This was my father's gun. My uncle lives in . . ."
"Where?"
"In Carcaliu," said Miranda. The name rose from a hidden place.
One of the soldiers stood beside them, and the man asked him questions in German. He answered in the same language, and Miranda caught some proper names. Mamaia Sat. Zelea Codreanu.
The man with the moustache had been smiling all this time. But now he grimaced and screwed up his mouth. He snapped the revolver closed, then raised his hand, and the soldier broke off in midword. Behind him, the two others were still kneeling over Alexei de Witte, who was not conscious.
"Ah, I am sorry," said the man with the moustache. "On behalf of my government—these men are criminals. Believe me, you will not suffer long under their hands. In Bucovina we have thrown these scoundrels out."
Plaintive and defiant was the attitude Miranda wanted. She stared up at the moustached man, and he stared back. "My name is Arslan Lubomyr. He did not give you anything?"
"When?"
"After you shot him? Ah, I see. It is a joke."
The man grimaced, and turned to look at the black horse. A soldier—the one who had brought Ludu back—had stripped off the saddle and bridle. The horse stepped back. His head dipped down, and Miranda could see he was lame in his back foot.
With a pocketknife the soldier was ripping into the back of the saddle, splitting all its seams. He cut into the seat from underneath and ripped the small blanket in half. At the same time the two other soldiers tore the lining from de Witte's jacket, stripped off his boots, undid his pants.
Miranda wondered if the last time de Witte had grabbed her, wrestled with her, it was because he knew the noise of the gunshot would draw these men. He wanted them to think she was his enemy. Maybe the robbery, all of it was just his playacting—was it possible? So Lubomyr wouldn't search her. So he would let her go.
The soldier beside Miranda was talking again. Lubomyr raised his hand. "Where was she running?" he commanded, nodding at the girl. "She was afraid."
