“Christ,” Dixie said in a low voice. “Why don’t he just marry his goddamn horse and get it over with?”
Nobody laughed and Slim turned to Dixie. “How’d you like t’ get your head handed to ya’ on a tin plate?”
We were silent for a long moment as the cossacks very gently put ropes beneath the animal and, with men holding them at each side, started lowering him slowly into the grave.
It was quiet while the cossacks filled the grave in over that good horse, Spotted or Spot, or whatever his name was.
Shad hadn’t spoken all that time. As they were finishing filling the grave he said to me, “Go tell Rostov I want Igor riding with me in front of our bunch.” He called to the rest of the outfit, “Get ready to move out!”
I rode Buck the little ways over to where Rostov had just mounted. “Captain Rostov? Mr. Northshield, Shad, suggests that Igor ride with him. That way you’ll both have somebody you can send messages back and forth with.”
Rostov glanced at me with those hard, dark eyes. “He suggests?”
“Somethin’ like that.”
“Tell him I think it’s an excellent idea. I’ll send Igor over.”
I rode back to Shad. The other hands had left, and I told him that Igor riding with him was okay with Rostov. And then I said, “Listen, boss. There’s one more thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Well—” I couldn’t quite find the words. “Blackeye kinda’ belongs t’ me. Right?”
“He’s your second-string pony in the remuda.”
“But, I mean—” It was hard to say.
“Yeah? What d’ ya’ mean?”
“I mean—I want t’ give Blackeye t’ Igor. That’s what I mean.”
Shad looked at me with those tough eyes of his for a long, hard moment, and I couldn’t help wonder whether it was rougher being looked at firmly by him or Rostov. He said, “Blackeye belongs to Joe Diamond and the Slash-Diamond outfit.”
After that burial, I was somehow rough-out determined. “Then take Blackeye outta my pay! It’s a gift I wanta give!”
Right about then Igor came trotting up to us on his little pack pony, so I couldn’t say any more about the subject. He pulled up and said to Shad in that funny one-note way of speaking American that he had, “I am to report to you, sir.”
“That’s right!” Shad spoke so harshly, almost snarling, that it scared the hell out of both me and Igor. “And you don’t call me sir, you call me Shad!”
All in all, Igor had had enough hard time already. And now this sudden attack of Shad’s made his language go away. Struggling the best he could, he stammered, “I—I—am—to report to you—Sir Shad.”
“You’re goin’ t’ ride with me.” There was no mercy in the iron voice.
“Yes!” Igor was plainly trying to do the best he could, and yet it was clear at the same time that he was getting about ready to fight if nothing reasonable worked out. “Yes! Sir Shad.”
Shad looked at me with his eyebrows pulled down tight. “I hate bein’ called ‘Sir Shad’ even if it’s by accident.”
“You’re bein’ awful hard on Igor!” I said. “He’s just tryin’ t’ be polite!”
“An’ I’m gonna be even harder.” Shad glanced at Igor’s scruffy little pony. “Nobody can keep up with me or this outfit without a fair horse. Levi?”
“Yeah?”
“Go break out Blackeye.” Shad was sure a surpriser from time to time.
“Huh? Ya’ mean—”
“An’ bring ’im back for this cossack t’ ride. If he can.”
He was saying quite a bit, and I knew it, though he wouldn’t let on.
I welled up a lot more than I wanted to, so I didn’t say anything, but just rode over and roped Blackeye and brought him back.
Igor sort of got the idea when I came back with that feisty pinto on a rope. He still wasn’t too sure, but as we switched the saddle and harness from his raunchy packhorse to Blackeye, he began to realize what Shad was doing and it hit him kind of hard. With his black eye, Blackeye looked fairly ridiculous, but otherwise he resembled Igor’s dead horse in looks, fire and spirit more than any other pony in our whole string.
We switched the saddle and gear, and Shad swatted the packhorse on the ass, sending it back in the direction of the cossack remuda.
Igor swung up onto Blackeye and just sat there for a minute, feeling the pinto’s muscles between his legs. Then he said, “I will take good care of this horse.”
“You better,” Shad said. And then he nailed it. “Because he’s yours.”
“He is mine?”
“That’s what I said.”
Igor couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. Holding any possible emotion back, he rode Blackeye away a little bit, just sort of taking the top of him, and Shad and I were alone.
“I think, if you’re not careful, you just may make a friend,” I said.
“Fuck that.” Shad swung up onto his big Red. “He lost a damn good horse protecting our cattle. And this outfit always pays its own way.”
“Shad,” I reminded him, “I wanted t’ just give him that horse, before. And I wasn’t tryin’ to pay nobody’s way for nothin’.”
“Then it’s done both ways.” Red reared a little under him. “You outta friendship, and me because it just seemed like the fair thing t’ do. It’s his horse.”
“Okay.” I swung up on Buck. “Does Blackeye come outta my salary or the Slash-Diamond?”
Shad turned Red and looked back at me. “It was my decision and it comes outta my salary.”
Igor was riding back, and Shad called, “Come on with me, you goddamn Russian!” He spurred Red away.
Igor pulled up beside me briefly. “What is a ‘goddamn’ Russian?” he asked, toying with Blackeye’s reins and patting the horse.
“One of the best kind a’ Russians,” I said.
And then I rode toward the cossacks far ahead, as Igor joined Shad and the cowboys started whooping and hollering to move the herd.
In the next couple of weeks we went through some of the most beautiful country I ever saw. It was mountainous, some of it pretty rough, covered by vast but never crowded forests. And there was damnere every kind of tree you could think of, from oaks to birches and maples, from aspens to poplars and elms. And everywhere you looked, there was a green blanket of high grass. And just about every time you were thirsty, you came upon clear, sweet water, a lake or stream or creek. Those cows never had it better, nor probably as good, in Montana and they were getting fat and sassy and contented, even making about twelve miles a day. And some of the big bulls were getting rambunctious as hell. I could double guarantee, for example, that we had a whole lot more pregnant cows after those two weeks than we’d had at Vladivostok. And all too often, singly or in groups, those longhorns would up and decide that they just wanted to go their own way and the hell with the rest of the world. When that happened, it took some artistic, persuasive cussing and hard whacks on their asses with lariats to finally get them back to following the main herd and Old Fooler.
But those were the problems of the average, dumb cowhand. As an average, dumb messenger boy, I was spending all my time trying to keep up with Rostov. Whenever he stopped long enough to talk, he talked pretty freely now. One time, when we were riding far ahead of all the others, he spotted two big deer, far off. By the time I’d seen them, now bounding away, he’d pulled up, jerked out his rifle and fired twice. They both went down, and at that distance that was some kind of shooting.
“One of them is for the Slash-Diamond outfit.” He lowered his rifle.
“I don’t know how Shad’ll take that. He likes t’ make do on his own.”
“Tell him it’s a gift. In partial repayment for the pinto he gave to Igor, after you made him do it.”
“How’d you know it was anything like that?”
Rostov glanced at me briefly with those damned dark, piercing eyes as he reloaded his rifle to full-up with cartridges from his bandolier. “You
wanted to in the first place. He knew you were determined, and somehow right. Therefore, he made the gift.”
“You sure are jumpin’ to conclusions.”
“I looked at you the night Igor had to shoot his horse. Right then you were almost ready to give him your own.”
“I hadn’t even thought about anything like that.”
“Yes. You had. Whether you know it or not. You couldn’t even look at me, or Igor. You understood.”
“Well, when you get right down to it then, Shad finally understood everything. And a whole lot better than me.”
Rostov finished reloading his rifle. “That’s right. He’s not a bad fellow. Except for being opinionated and prejudiced.”
I started to get mad, but Rostov didn’t give me time. His deep eyes fixed on mine with a certain sadness in them, he shoved his rifle firmly back into its saddle holster.
“I hope not, but one day I may be forced to kill him.”
That was a stopper.
Getting mad went clear out of my head, and I wanted to say a thousand things against that idea but couldn’t think of any one thing to say in particular.
But it was too late anyway.
Rostov had already spurred his horse off at a gallop toward the two deer.
That night I took one of the deer back to camp tied behind the cantle of my saddle. It was dressed and bled and all ready to cut up and cook.
Every man there was really tickled at the prospect of fresh venison. Mushy and Link, who were on cooking duty, set up a Dutch oven by the fire to make two rump roasts with onions and beans, and a little bacon fat added for flavor.
Crab, who still had his arm in a sling but was feeling a lot better, said, “Hey, goddamnit, this is gonna be a goddamn feast!”
Shad said, “I heard two shots, Levi. Neither one came from your thirty-thirty.”
“Rostov got two deer. Gave one to us.”
“Why?”
He didn’t say it loud or hard, but it made everybody silent. “It was his way a’ thankin’ us a little bit—for givin’ Blackeye to Igor.”
Dixie frowned up from where he was working on one of his stirrups near the fire. “I ain’t so sure I want no goddamn cossack-shot venison.”
Old Keats raised his bad arm as high as he could in an exasperated gesture. “I imagine it tastes just about the same as if it was cowboy-shot.”
“Hell.” Slim grinned. “Meat’s meat. I just hope nobody else eats it, so then I can finish it all.”
The two roasts turned out really fine, and everybody did eat their share of them.
Except Shad.
After all of us others had helped ourselves, he just quietly took some beans and coffee and let it go at that.
On top of what Rostov had said before, that made me damned sad and thoughtful.
Later, after we’d eaten, Old Keats came over and sat down on the ground beside me. Sammy the Kid was idly fooling with his guitar, and a few of the others were playing showdown by the fire, laughing and passing the deal back and forth among them.
Off in the distance, from the cossack camp, we could dimly hear another string instrument, and some of the cossacks were humming a pretty, peaceful tune in a low, strong way.
“How ya’ feelin’?” Old Keats said quietly, and I knew that Shad was on his mind too.
“Sad an’ thoughtful,” I told him accurately.
“Yeah?” He hunched forward, clasping his arms around his knees. “Well, personally I’m not feelin’ too bad, m’self.”
“How come?”
“Shad didn’t eat any a’ that venison. But on the other hand, he didn’t send you packin’ right over t’ the cossack camp t’ give it back. I think there might be some hope there for that hardheaded bastard, somewhere.”
Shad had gone out to take a ride around the herd, checking it. He rode back in now and took care of Red. Then he poured a cup of coffee and came over to sit beside us.
After he’d settled down and taken a couple of sips, he said, “Somethin’s botherin’ you, Levi.”
“I dunno exactly how ya’ know, but damn right there is.”
“What?”
“Rostov.”
“Why?”
“He—He’s got an idea that—sometime you an’ him may come t’ tanglin’ ass. And that wouldn’t be any fun at all, for anybody.”
“Hell.” Shad took another slow sip of coffee. “Didn’t you know about that possibility up front, Levi?”
“Not the way he said it!” I kept my voice down so that it was just the three of us in the conversation, but I couldn’t keep the worry out of my voice. “What he said about you, word for word, was, ‘I hope not, but one day I may be forced to kill him.’ An’ that Rostov’s sure as hell one tough sonofabitch!”
Shad shrugged very slightly and drank some more of his coffee.
Old Keats frowned. “What the hell’d he say a thing like that for? He knew ya’d have t’ tell Shad.”
“It’s pretty easy,” Shad said. “He figures we’re gonna come up against some tough times. And he thinks that as bosses he and me may have some strong differences of opinion on what t’ do under certain circumstances.”
“Well, then—” Keats hesitated. “What he told Levi wasn’t so much a threat as a friendly warnin’.”
I nodded. “I think maybe so. He sure looked unhappy as hell when he said it. Maybe if you just tried to cooperate with ’im—”
Shad ignored what I was suggesting. “One way or the other, I won’t lose much sleep over it.” He finished his coffee and stared quietly at the cup. “All I want is t’ get those longhorns delivered. If there’s need for any fights along the way, then they’ll be fought.”
“Maybe he didn’t actually mean nothing,” I said hopefully, without really believing it. “Maybe he was just kinda foolin’ with me a little.”
“That man would never fool about fightin’, or killin’.” Old Keats had the same sense of foreboding that I had, and he looked grimly at Shad. “I’d sure as hell hate t’ see you two rough bastards go against each other. It’d have t’ be kinda like the earth itself gettin’ torn apart.”
Shad wasn’t all that impressed. He stood up, stretched and yawned slightly. “One thing I meant for damn sure. About not losin’ any sleep.”
He went over to get into his bedroll, and Old Keats turned to me. “You got an extra problem that I shoulda guessed by now.”
“Which extra problem?”
“Well, Shad’s like your big brother. But you’ve also gotten t’ kinda respect an’ like Rostov.”
“Oh, hell!”
“Don’t oh-hell me. That’s as it should be, and I know Rostov earned it.” He scratched his chin, frowning. “It’s just—If they do get around t’ getting into a scrap, don’t get yourself in the middle. That’d be awful perilous ground. With them two, only one of ’em would come out alive.”
Maybe what he said about not getting in the middle gave me the idea, or maybe I’d have thought of it anyway, but the next day I told Rostov what was uppermost in my mind. We’d ridden ahead and he’d paused at the top of a hill, so it gave me a chance to speak.
“Captain Rostov, sir?” I said.
“Umm?” He’d been intensely studying the far hills, and he turned to me.
“You—you said somethin’ about one day maybe havin’ t’ kill Shad Northshield.”
“Yes.” He was now studying me with that same intensity, and yet as always it was mixed with that strange kind of humor that seemed to forever be lurking somewhere in his eyes.
“Well”—I took a deep breath—“I just wanted t’ mention that even if ya’ could kill Shad, which is unlikely, that you’ll have t’ kill me first.”
Even though there was a tiny grin at one edge of his mouth, his gaze was still boring right through to the back of my head.
“And don’t tell me nothin’, please, about a puppy barkin’. I’m just tellin’ you right now. But I can bite, too.”
He looked at me for
a long, fairly spooky moment, and then his teeth flashed in an unexpected and totally genuine smile that damnere dazzled me. “Good for you, Levi. But I expected no less.”
Then he turned abruptly and rode off, and that was the end of the conversation.
“Well hell,” I muttered to myself and Buck. “Is Shad still in jeopardy, or me, or both of us, or whomever the hell ever?” Buck twisted his left ear back, thinking what I was saying was a little silly.
So after all my intended bravery, I had no choice but to let the talk stop there and follow Rostov, going at a full run to try to keep up.
Rostov had said his piece, and for damn sure meant it. I’d said mine, and meant it. And Shad hadn’t even bothered to put his two-cents’ worth into it, which in my mind made them about even.
I rode after Rostov knowing that he would never say anything more about killing Shad.
He might do it, but he wouldn’t talk about it.
And that was the hell of it. Just the idea that while he’d never talk about killing him again, he might just up, sometime, and take a crack at it.
CHAPTER NINE
ROSTOV NOW started taking even more of an interest in talking to me, telling me about things as we went along, and that tended to be one hell of an education all in itself. I guess he’d decided maybe I wasn’t a puppy.
I’d like to think that.
Also, he quietly saw to it that I gradually got to know the other cossacks.
Aside from Igor, the two others who spoke American, though they called it English, were Lieutenant Vassily Bruk and Sergeant Nikolai Razin. They hadn’t got the language down quite as good as Igor, but they held their own pretty well.
The lieutenant, Bruk, was the oldest man among the cossacks. He was lean and taciturn, and despite his age, which was probably pushing up over fifty, was as tough as a hardened old iron bar. Actually, I think our old man, Keats, had a few years on Bruk. But as Rostov later explained to me, in better words of course, when a fella’s as far advanced in years as either one of them was, and still banging around on hard, active duty, you have to figure he’s pretty special in the first place, and likely has that extra inner resilience of mind and body that can push a rare man clear up over the hundred-year mark and find him still raring to go for a good fight, a few drinks, and maybe even a lady or two.
The Cowboy and the Cossack (Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries) Page 9
