Rufe spoke for a number of us when he said, “Yuck.”
Rostov glanced at him, then looked at me and saw that I felt the same way. There was a tiny flicker of dark but somehow warm humor deep within his eyes. “It requires a powerful cut or thrust to make a body wound fatal, and it takes a moment to get your saber back into use. The neck and the throat are the most vulnerable to a relatively light, fatal slash.” Rostov gave me and Rufe another brief look. “It’s not difficult to decapitate a man, but in a battle it takes too much time and effort.”
“So them fellas out there,” Slim said, “are just cuttin’ deep enough into their pine cones, without loppin’ ’em off.”
Rostov nodded. “These are just a small part of Dzhigitovkas, our war games on horseback.”
“Of Diggy—” Crab started, but then gave up on the word. “Well, anyhow, when ya’ explain it like that, it’s kind of interestin’.”
Rostov put his thumb and little finger in his mouth and gave a sharp, blasting whistle that brought his cossacks up short. Their sabers held out at an angle before them, they all rode back to where we were sitting our horses near the big rock.
When they’d pulled up near us, Ilya asked Rostov something in a respectful, quiet voice. It was so respectful and quiet that both Slim and I knew right off what he’d said.
“Captain,” Slim said, “is that expert on various-sized horseshoes askin’ whether or not we’d care t’ try?”
“Yes,” Rostov said.
“Well”—Slim rubbed his jaw—“tell ’im when he can lasso a flea at full gallop, we’ll take up with them Mexican toothpicks.”
While Rostov was translating, as best as anyone could, what Slim had said, the rest of us looked around at each other and wordlessly agreed to go against Slim.
“Fuck that!” Rufe said.
“Right!” Crab agreed, and Dixie added, “Damn right!”
Natcho and Purse were nodding, and Chakko hadn’t silently ridden away, which was as close to his saying “Yes” as was needed.
“You’re outvoted,” I told Slim, but he’d known that was going to happen all along.
“I was afraid of that,” he grumbled. “Just don’t break them pigstickers, especially on yourselves.”
At a word from Rostov, the cossacks offered us their sabers, handle first.
I took Igor’s, and he almost winced as he let it out of his hand.
Rostov said in a quiet voice, “This is a challenge. But it’s a compliment too.”
We understood how it was about their letting us use their blades, and in case we didn’t, Slim had already just told us.
There were five of us now holding those unfamiliar weapons, getting the feel and balance of them. Chakko, though his presence showed he agreed in principle with what we were doing, hadn’t accepted a saber. As for Slim, the question never even came up, any more than it would have with Shad or Old Keats if they’d been there. Sort of realizing that this meant they were smarter, I said, “Well, it’s just us fearless dumbbells against all that water an’ all them pine cones.”
Two cossacks still held their sabers, and they now cut their wrists slightly before putting them back in their scabbards.
“Just exactly what the hell we gonna do?” Crab asked.
“Leap the stream and slash the water without disturbing it,” Rostov said. “Then, both going and coming back, strike each pine cone so that you cut it without taking it off. To cut it off is the worst thing you can do on the ride. Then cross the stream one more time and come back here.”
“Wait!” Rufe said. “Shouldn’t we be racin’ some a’ these cossacks?”
“I suspect you’ll have your hands full,” Slim said, “racin’ yourselves. Get ready!”
The five of us put our horses into a rough line.
“Go!” Slim yelled, and we charged toward the quiet part of the stream.
When I jumped it and slashed, my saber sent up enough water for an average-sized man to take a bath in. Out of the corner of my eye it looked like Natcho and Dixie both did a lot better than me. But Crab and Rufe, it turned out in later conversations, both fell upon evil times. Crab went so deep he brought up some mud. And Rufe swung wild and missed altogether. The only thing he did hit, toward the end of his swing, was Bobtail’s ear. Luckily, he just nicked the tip of it, though Bobtail didn’t consider it particularly lucky, and shied off to one side, breaking his stride and obviously wondering who the hell, and for what possible reason, was attacking his ear.
Natcho went into the lead with Dixie a little behind him and me and Crab neck and neck for third and fourth. By the time Rufe got Bobtail straightened out he was about three lengths to the rear.
We didn’t do as bad as I thought we would on the pine cones. That had to do with a little bit of instinctive skill and a whole lot of instinctive cheating. After using the sabers on the water, it was clearly true that they weren’t all that simple to handle at a full gallop. So, for myself, I took what I hoped seemed to be genuine swings at the first three pine cones, but I was trying my level damnedest to just tap them as lightly as Queen Victoria might do upon knighting some old fella.
If there was one honest rider among us, it was Natcho. From fairly close range, I could see that he was sending chips out of the pine cones without even coming close to knocking them off the poles they were stuck on. Right then I’d have bet Buck and myself both against a plugged nickel that that smooth Mexican bastard had handled sabers before, while in my whole life I’d never had anything but a pocketknife.
He was already halfway back along the pine cones on Diablo, while Buck and me, stretched full out, were halfway into them.
“Cuidado!” he yelled, which was sometimes his way of saying “Look out!” as he almost ran me and Buck down. And before I had a chance to yell anything fitting back at him, he was long gone.
Then Dixie, who was about a hundred feet ahead of me, made an unforgivable mistake that I cherished a lot. He got carried away and cut the last pine cone and slashed right through it, sending the pine cone itself flying three or four feet into the air. A little later, looking madder than thunder, he sped back past me.
I felt much better. Rufe and Crab were a little behind me, and Dixie’d just chopped off a head, which kind of disqualified him. Things were looking up.
So, continuing at full speed, I knighted the last standing pine cone as gently as possible and whirled Buck to charge back the way we’d come.
I roared back past Rufe and Crab and could see that except for Natcho I could win. And Buck was just as fast as Diablo, so if Natcho made a mistake, I could even beat him too.
Also going as fast as I was, I was picking up time on both Dixie and Natcho.
I really did saber the next pine cone neatly, sending a few chips flying, and then there was only one more pine cone between me and Buck and the stream, and we were going like greased lightning.
Old Keats told me once about a Greek word called “hubris,” which he said meant false pride. Or a sort of stupid confidence that gets turned inside out and comes out arrogance.
Anyway, I really whacked at that last pine cone and damnere got jerked out of the saddle as I realized how tough a two- or three-pound pine cone can be. My blade had gone about halfway through the cone, and between the sudden pressures being exerted, my arm almost came out of its socket, and would have except that the goddamn pole came out of the ground instead.
I guess that was better than me being ripped off old Buck, but not much better. He went into a circle, and I was left leaning about parallel to the ground, with my arm stretched out, and the saber after that, and then the pine cone, and then the trailing pole. I grabbed for the saber with my other hand too and cut it trying to get free.
Then, about the time I struggled back to a sitting-up position, Rufe and Crab hurtled by me on their way back, but I still had that awful problem.
Finally, with both hands, I pulled the saber loose from that heavy, sticky pine cone.
Humiliate
d as hell, I still made the best ride I could on the way back.
The others were there before I jumped Buck over the stream, but I didn’t pick up too much water with the saber this time and I at least got back in while everybody else was still breathing heavy.
I gave Igor his saber, handle first. As he took it, I said, “You can put it back. It’s not only drawn blood, but pine-cone sap.” As I started to hold my other hand to stop the bleeding, Igor grinned slightly and put his saber in its scabbard. Then he handed me a handkerchief to hold against the flowing blood.
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.
The Cowboy and the Cossack (Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries) Page 20
