Shad and Rostov, for reasons that will become apparent, take our original thirty-one men and make them seem to be sixty for a while, and finally, accidentally, more than eighty. All of which ain’t too easy, though it is highly interesting and sometimes even fairly amusing.
And while they’re busy trying to make our bunch seem larger than life, some of us cowboys and cossacks are busy trying to cut our overall numbers down by inflicting death or at the very least severe bodily injury upon each other. This usually takes place in the form of friendly, healthy, good-natured competition that the cossacks jokingly refer to as war games, but not too jokingly.
And finally, under dire and very pressing circumstances, we have to suddenly and swiftly take our best shot at crossing the Amur River in the middle of a stormy night to get the hell out of Khabarovsk with all possible speed.
Sammy the Kid is still nervous about going near any water in general, and about crossing the Amur River in particular. But I try to cheer him up by telling him that, all things equal, we probably won’t live long enough to even get to the goddamn river in the first place.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LOOKING FAR down and away from the high crest of that green mountain, Khabarovsk was, even at such a long distance, a big and impressive town.
Rostov and I, ahead of the others, had pulled up and were watching from the trees, where we could see but not be seen.
He’d already signaled the others to hold back.
Aside from the hundreds of small huts and shacks trailing and dwindling off from its center, there were fifteen or twenty main buildings, some of them two and even three stories high, that made up the inner hub of Khabarovsk. It was exciting as hell, and was surely the biggest place we’d come upon since we’d left Seattle.
Two huge rivers flowed together there, meeting and growing twice as large on the far side of the town from us. On the nearer side of the town, away from the water and stretching high up toward us, were large fields and hilly forests.
Rostov finished studying it through his telescope. He said, “No threat of Tartars.” And then he handed the scope to me.
Looking through the glass, that fact about Tartars was one of the best things that struck me about the town. People were moving around free and easy down there on the streets and didn’t seem to be too fearful.
I handed Rostov back his telescope, and then he gave me one of those long, dark-eyed, hard looks of his that somehow always made a fella wonder whether to smile or duck or just leave town at a full gallop. Finally he said, “Would you consider Khabarovsk a safe town, Levi?”
In my experience, it was an almost unknown occurrence for Rostov to ever ask an easy question. So I hedged it as best I could. “Sir?”
“Do you think that it’s a safe town for us to go into?” The way he said it made me think that maybe he wasn’t asking a question so much as he was wondering if he’d ever managed to teach me anything.
After a moment I said, “I don’t know about that, sir.” And then I added, “But right now it’s the only town we got.”
He nodded briefly, and I think there was some kind of quiet approval, and maybe even a hint of faint amusement, in that nod.
But somehow I knew that something was wrong.
And then Shad came galloping up from behind us, madder than hell. He was pushing his big Red full out, yet even in that brief, speeding time I couldn’t help but notice that Shad managed to keep himself just as invisible as Rostov and I were, making sure that he and Red were always out of sight from anyone who might be watching from the town far below and off.
“What’s the hang-up here?” he demanded angrily, slamming Red to a damnere skidding halt.
For a man of his own somewhat fiery temperament, Rostov did a strange thing then. First off, he didn’t get in the least mad back. He didn’t even bother to answer.
And second, he got off his big black stallion and hunched down among the trees, still studying the far-off town. Finally, he pulled a blade of grass and started to chew on it idly, thoughtfully.
In a funny way just then, hunched quietly down on his heels like that, Rostov reminded me of nobody else in the world quite so much as Shad.
Igor now came tearing over the hill, following behind Shad. He kept pretty well out of sight too and pulled up on Blackeye as Shad dismounted and stalked toward Rostov, his chaps slapping angrily against his legs as he walked. He stopped near Rostov and said harshly, “My herd’s been held to a halt back there! Why?”
Rostov didn’t answer for a long moment. He slowly shifted the blade of grass in his mouth and then said in a low voice, “Because I’m afraid of that town.”
Those words got to Shad. And they sure as hell made Igor and me stop and think. Because if there was one thing in this world we were all damn sure of, it was that Rostov wasn’t afraid of anything that either this world or even a Holy Christian Hell had to offer.
For a long time, no one said anything.
Then, finally, Shad spoke, both his frown and his voice still hard as ever. “That’s one of your own goddamn Russian towns! What the hell you got t’ be afraid of?”
Rostov stood up quickly, so that the two of them were now suddenly facing each other, which was a thing that always tended to make me, and anyone else who happened to be present, somewhat ill at ease.
But Rostov was still thoughtful, more than angry. “I suspect my men and I won’t be overly welcome there.”
Shad stared at Rostov, his frown deepening, and then Slim and Old Keats rode up to us through the trees.
Slim said, “Just wanted t’ let ya’ know, boss, them cows’re temporarily circled an’ settled.” He glanced back and forth from Shad to Rostov. “Well, boss, we goin’ on down there t’ that town over yonder ’r not?”
Shad turned toward Slim, but before he could make an answer there were the sudden sounds of still other horsemen coming quickly through the trees. Lieutenant Bruk and the big sergeant, Nick, rode toward us, Yuri and Vody following hard behind them.
“Christ!” Shad muttered as the four oncoming cossacks sped up to join the rest of us. “This a cattle drive or a goddamn Sunday social?”
The newly arrived men dismounted, all four of them looking troubled and uneasy. Lieutenant Bruk stepped to Rostov and said, “We’ve placed double lookouts, Captain.”
“Double lookouts!” Shad’s eyes swept angrily over the cossacks. “What the hell for?”
Rostov said quietly, “Because we need them.”
Shad stared at Rostov, looking about half puzzled and about half ready to erupt like a volcano.
Old Keats, seeing Shad’s expression, put in quickly, “There seems t’ be some kind of a confusion here, Captain. We’ve been led to understand all along the way that Khabarovsk was a safe place.”
“That’s correct,” Rostov said very quietly. “And that’s what my men and I had thought, too.”
“What the hell d’ you mean,” Shad growled, “about had thought?”
I doubt I should have raised my voice in that edgy situation, but all of a sudden there it was coming out, and it sounded just as confused and uncertain as I felt. “You just said there ain’t no Tartars down there, Captain. What the hell else is there t’ worry about? They got the plague down there or somethin’?”
“It’d take at least that.” Slim grinned a little, but his words came out flat on the level. “After all this time way out in the lonely—clean all the way from Seattle—them fellas a’ ours back there takin’ care a’ them cows ain’t gonna be all too keen about passin’ up this here town.”
Shad’s earlier anger had diminished by about one-half of a shaved inch, and he was still ready to explode, but his voice was controlled as he now spoke to Rostov. “Let’s get back to that ‘had thought’ bullshit. What’s the problem you got?”
Rostov’s eyes matched Shad’s, evenly controlled and evenly hard. “There’s a reinforced contingent of cossacks down there in Khabarovsk.”
This statement took a
while to sink in, and I for one was vaguely aware of my mouth sort of hanging a little ajar, due to general astonishment.
And then Shad did explode. “Well what the fuck difference does that make? You’re cossacks!”
Rostov still spoke quietly. “There’s a difference.” And somehow, from the way he said it, you could tell that whatever that difference was, it was gigantic. And you could also tell that the problem on Rostov’s mind had walloped him severely. On the outside he was still as hard and tough, and his mind as keen as, say, that great steel saber hooked onto his belt. But inside him, there was an intense sorrow that went deep and couldn’t be hidden because, somehow, it came out of his eyes.
Lieutenant Bruk, whose clear old eyes were now filled with the same dark sorrow, had filled and lighted the long clay pipe he carried with him. Now, he silently handed it to Rostov, who took it and said, “I honestly couldn’t foresee this, Northshield.” He took a puff on the pipe and passed it back to Bruk. “Otherwise, I’d have warned you.”
Shad’s reaction to this was both a relief and a surprise to me. Maybe it was because he too could see the hurt in these men. Or maybe it was because he was thinking on something he’d already somehow guessed about way ahead of the rest of us. In any case, instead of the anger within him growing, it now ebbed away as he reached slowly into his shirt pocket for the makings of a smoke, studying Rostov quietly. Working with the paper and tobacco, he said, “What couldn’t you foresee? That you could’ve warned me about?”
“The garrison in Khabarovsk has been undermanned for over a year. But right now there are two new companies of cossacks down there, who must have arrived within the last three or four weeks.”
Shad pulled the now rolled paper lightly across the tip of his tongue to firm his smoke together. “You’ll have t’ pardon my density,” he said dryly, “but it sure is a strange-as-hell thing, you fellas standin’ here passin’ that pipe back an’ forth like the end of the world happened yesterday.” He struck a match with his thumbnail and lighted his smoke slowly, thoughtfully, before shaking out the flame on the match. For him, he was talking at a damnere unheard of length. And more and more, I was getting a sneaking suspicion that he was about a mile ahead of the conversation. He dropped the no-longer-lighted match and ground it into the earth with the toe of his boot. “Hell, I’d think you’d be yellin’ an’ dancin’ an’ dashin’ down off there t’ celebrate with them other cossacks.” He inhaled on his smoke. “But then, you did mention somethin’ about a—‘difference.’ ”
Rostov spoke in a quietly hard voice. “There’s quite a bit of difference. We’re not taking this herd to Blagoveshchensk, as your papers show. We’re taking it farther north, to the people who bought and paid for it, in our own free town of Bakaskaya.”
“Well,” Shad shrugged. “The name a’ your town sure as hell is a lot easier t’ pronounce than that other one.”
I think Rostov was as surprised as I was at Shad’s calmness. But now, still quietly, he went on. “Those men down there are Imperial Cossacks. They belong to the Tzar.”
Slim’s face twisted into an almost painfully puzzled frown. “Well, Christ Jesus!” he finally said. “There ain’t nothin’ in all a’ Russia that don’t b’long t’ the Tzar!” He glanced toward Old Keats, looking for some kind of confirmation. “Or am I crazy?”
Keats was still frowning, too. “That’s sure as hell what we always been told.”
“Captain Rostov, sir?” I asked hesitantly, partly guessing about and partly hoping for the answer I wanted to hear. “If you fellas don’t belong t’ the Tzar, then who do ya’ b’long to?”
Rostov’s eyes, though they were still full of deep sorrow, bored into me. “If you still have to ask me such a question, Levi, then you’re not worthy of a reply.”
In his own way he’d given me the answer I was hoping for, but his own way sure was a killer. Blood rushed suddenly and hotly to my face, and right then I both felt like and wished I was the tiniest little pissant on earth so I could just shrink into practically nothing and disappear.
Whether or not he did it on purpose, Shad now saved me from dying of sheer, agonized embarrassment right there on the spot. He did it by saying a lot better what I’d meant to say myself in the first place. And something about the way he spoke made me know that there was much more, deep within him, than the words alone could say.
“I don’t mind a reasonable change a’ destination if the reason’s right,” he said quietly to Rostov. “But since it’s not with the Tzar, then just where, exactly, is your outfit’s allegiance?”
Rostov looked at his men gathered beside him. And then, finally, back at Shad. “Our allegiance is, Mr. Northshield, no more and certainly never less than to each other—and to our honor.” He hesitated, weighing each word slowly and carefully. “And to our homes in Bakaskaya, to the people there we love. And perhaps more than anything else, our allegiance is to the beautiful, fiercely independent and free spirit of all those who have the will and the courage to be a part of Bakaskaya.”
He stopped then, and in the long silence no one, including Shad, had anything to say. It might just well have been, for once, that Shad had gotten a lot more of an answer back than he’d expected.
So the way it finally worked, it was Rostov who at last spoke again to Shad. “Considering the—unexpected circumstances we’ve found here, you and your men have no choice but to get away and go back now, while you can. You’ll be safe. We’re the outlaws here, not you.”
Except for Shad, we all frowned at each other, and then Slim said the first thought that came to his mind. “Hell, what about that damned herd?”
Rostov spoke very quietly. “You’ve brought it almost halfway. And by any man’s judgment, that’s more than far enough. Especially when there are high rivers and the Tzar’s cossacks ahead.” His quiet voice became even deeper now. “My men and I will take the herd from here on.” He paused. “And we’ll take it alone. That’s as it will be.” Rostov was speaking gently, but gently as he spoke, that low, quiet voice of his somehow carried, without any chance of mistake, the hollow, black echoes of approaching death.
Slim said with growing amazement, “Goddamn! You bastards’re fightin’ a goddamn revolution!”
Rostov shrugged slightly. “I suppose you could say that.”
Old Keats leaned slowly forward on his saddle, resting his forearms on the pommel. “Tell me, Captain, is there, perhaps, some part a’ that very movin’ oath of allegiance you just talked about before that got left out?”
Rostov looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“Like workin’ overtime t’ get yourselves killed for a foolish an’ hopeless reason? Like I gather your town of Bakaskaya must be.”
“No attempt at a free society is ever foolish or hopeless.”
“And forgettin’ all about them Imperial Cossacks,” Keats went on, “you just for certain can’t handle that herd.”
Rostov’s jaw hardened. “My cossacks and I can handle the herd perfectly well.”
It was only then that Shad at last spoke again. “That’s very funny, Rostov,” he said. “And it’s always a joy to listen to a fella with a keen sense of humor.” Looking far off, at Khabarovsk, he dropped his now-finished smoke and started to absently grind it down into the earth with the heel of his boot. “Well, Captain, you want t’ stand around here all day bein’ hilarious?” He gave one final kick against the earth with his boot heel. “Or ya’ want t’ try t’ figure out how we can get them cattle a’ ours beyond that Tzar-held town an’ them flooded rivers?”
With those last few words, Shad had stated his position loud and clear. I was proud as hell about the simple, almost unsaid way he’d said the way he felt. But I didn’t dare show that pride by as much as half a blink.
For his part, Rostov didn’t show anything either. He took a long, deep breath. “There are probably over a hundred Imperial Cossacks down there.”
Shad nodded. “And if we hang around in these trees
much longer, all hundred or so of ’em will doubtless soon be up here. Let’s leave a lookout.” He corrected himself with a wry half-grin. “A ‘double’ lookout, and get back to the herd.”
We left Lieutenant Bruk and Vody on guard there and, keeping out of sight, the rest of us rode back over the mountain and down the mile or so slope to where the cattle were.
And back here with the herd now, as the talk continued, it was kind of interesting to note that Shad and Rostov not only weren’t right on the verge of killing each other all the time, but were actually somewhat in fairly civil agreement every once in a while.
“Hell, boss, why not cross the river t’night an’ get as far the hell north as we can?” Dixie asked. But he hadn’t seen the river.
Shad shook his head. “Right now it’s too wide, an’ too much current f’r safety’s sake.”
Rostov nodded. “The spring thaws are running later than usual. I’d estimate at least another week before horses and cattle will be able to get across.”
“Well,” Purse put in, “how about backing off and going a long way around?” But he hadn’t yet seen Khabarovsk.
“Too big a town,” Keats said. “Too many people. It’s a miracle we haven’t been discovered and attacked already.”
Rostov glanced toward the horizon and the lowering sun. “Tomorrow,” he said quietly, “will be the time.” Then he looked back levelly at Shad. “Believe me, by this time tomorrow there will be very few survivors. You owe it to yourself and your men to go back now. This is between Russians on Russian soil, and you and your men are foreigners.”
Dixie and a couple of the others looked like they were sorely tempted to follow Rostov’s advice, but it never even occurred to Slim. “Who the hell you callin’ foreigners, for Christ sake? We’re Americans.”
Shad, who’d been studying Rostov, now spoke in a quietly tough voice. “That’s downright goddamn inspirin’,” he said. “Tomorrow you an’ fifteen rebel cossacks’re gonna take on over a hundred a’ the king’s men. That oughtta be just one hell of a glorious battle.”
The Cowboy and the Cossack (Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries) Page 13
