She smiled at me and nodded and Dixie said, “By God, Levi’s blushin’!”
I wasn’t, but when he said I was, it got me started, and despite trying desperately to control that terrible reaction, I could feel my face getting fiercely hot and flushed. Powerless to say even one word just then, I clenched my teeth and managed to nod back at Irenia.
And then, with or without meaning to, Ilya saved me from dying of sheer mortification right on the spot. He struck up a quick, lively tune and sang a very short, happy song to Irenia. It was only a few lines, but it must have also been kind of funny because as he stopped she giggled, putting her hand over her mouth, and hurried back out of the room.
As Natcho and Igor poured drinks around, Dixie said, “That song on that there Russian guitar wasn’t half bad.”
Finally daring to try my voice again I said, “It’s a balalaika, stupid. And you’ll never guess how goddamned lucky you are to’ve lived long enough t’ hear that song!”
“Hell,” Dixie protested innocently. “Who coulda ever imagined that you was s’ awful girl shy?”
“I ain’t!”
“All right,” Shad said with firm easiness, and Dixie and I let it go at that, but it seemed to me I could still detect the shadow of a self-satisfied smirk on that bastard’s face.
Rostov glanced at the two of us with faint amusement and raised his glass. “There is some further good luck we can drink to. Vostrovia!”
I knew damn well that he and Shad, like me, were thinking of the last time we’d made that toast in this room, and thinking back to that good time I couldn’t just take a sip but downed the whole glass.
Neither Dixie nor Natcho had tangled with a glass of vodka before. Natcho winced a little, but Dixie was almost strangling, his eyes watering.
He blinked his eyes rapidly against the wetness in them, and I said sympathetically, “You just remember a sad story, Dixie?” He couldn’t yet reply, so apropos of my earlier blushing I added, “A little healthy red in a fella’s colorin’ sure does beat a bilious green.”
Shad said to Rostov, “What more luck?”
“Genghis Kharlagawl and his Tartars have been seen heading north toward the Stanovoi mountains. On our route, skirting the Kamchatka Territory, we should miss them by more than two hundred and fifty miles.”
“Unless they change direction.”
“That’s always possible, of course. But at least they’re not aware of us yet or they’d be out there laying in wait for us now.”
Dixie was finally getting almost back to normal, so I immediately started to pour another round, generously filling his glass first and right up to the brim, at the same time giving him a nice, friendly smile, which he seemed to somehow mistake for gloating, and to which he therefore responded with a still slightly damp glare.
Yuri was pouring at the other side of the table, and Igor was speaking to Ilya and him in a low voice, probably telling them what Shad and Rostov were saying.
“Any idea of how many Tartars with him?” Shad asked.
“Evidently fewer than usual. Between two and three hundred.” Rostov shrugged. “But whoever actually saw them probably left rather hurriedly, instead of taking the time to make an accurate count. Then too, Kharlagawl usually has a number of raiding parties ranging out from his main force, which makes any estimate of his total strength questionable.”
“Well,” I said, “however many there are, thank God they’re headin’ off north.” Giving Dixie a pleasant look, I raised my glass. “I pr’pose we all drink t’ that!”
“Why not?” Dixie managed to say in a slightly strange voice, and we all drank.
I had to give Dixie credit for seconding that or any other toast, and he did down his glass this time with a little more style, but he still couldn’t completely hide his relief when Shad told him he didn’t necessarily have to drink the whole thing every time.
Old Keats and the others, the day before, had picked up all the supplies the Slash-Diamond needed, but there were still a couple of things Rostov wanted, so a little later he and Yuri left the rest of us for a while to go get them.
And then, as Ilya started quietly strumming his balalaika, Irenia came to the table again with two more bottles of vodka and said something to Igor. This time I could talk at least, so I took the bull by the horns and said right out, “Hello, Irenia.” My timing was kind of off, saying “hello” that way, like I hadn’t happened to notice her up until now. But I figured better late than never, and anyway there was nothing much else I could say to her. She gave me the kind of a look and smile that I guess is what tends to turn bachelors into married men. Then, timidly and cautiously, she said, “Hay-loh, Lay-vee.” And with that she turned quickly and fled back through the door.
I was so overwhelmed I almost fell out of my chair. “My God! Did ya’ hear that? She spoke t’ me!”
“Way I got it,” Dixie said, “she was tryin’ t’ ask ya’ t’ please not get s’ goddamn drunk this time.”
“No.” Natcho shook his head and stretched his sense of humor to the breaking point. “They have just become engaged.”
“Now c’mon! She said plain as day, ‘Hello, Levi!’” I turned to Shad for support. “Boss?”
He nodded. “That’s the way I heard it, more ’r less.”
Working hard at holding back his laughter, Igor now said, “She asked Lieutenant Bruk how to say that yesterday.”
Still pretty much in a delightful state of shock I muttered, “Well, ain’t that nice!”
Before Dixie or Natcho could give me any more hard times, Shad now turned dead serious. “Igor? Did you or Rostov order those two bottles?”
“No. They’re from Anna and Irenia and the other people who work here at The Far East.”
Shad said quietly, “Givin’ us presents ain’t too healthy a practice around here.”
Igor understood Shad’s concern. “Believe me, it’s not the same as with those two men. No one will know. And in a small way, like those two men, they want to pay honor to Bakaskaya, and to Captain Rostov and his father.”
“Rostov’s father?” Dixie’s speech was beginning to sound slurred. “I didn’t even know he had one.”
“The captain’s father was one of the first high-ranking Kuban Cossacks in European Russia to defy the Tzar. He gave up everything, great wealth and power, and moved far east into the wilderness to try to establish a free, independent state. With a few loyal followers, he founded Bakaskaya many years ago, when his son, our captain, was still a very young man.”
“Just what the hell,” Dixie wanted to know, “has all a’ that got t’ do with these here bottles a’ vodka?”
“Since his father’s death, our captain has gone on to become even more of ”—Igor frowned, searching his mind for the right word—“of a legend. Many people have much respect for him, his name, and what they stand for.” As he looked around at us, his eyes began to grow impatient and even angry. “You just don’t know, and can’t know! The false papers that had to be drawn up to make the officials in Moscow think that the cattle were going to the good Tzar city of Irkutsk! The fact that less than three thousand of us in Bakaskaya, men, women and children, have been starving for over five years to put every kopek we could gather together into this purchase! I honestly do not know what the herd means to you, except that delivering it is a matter of pride. To us it is a matter of life and death! And the principle of what the term ‘cossacks,’ long ago and originally, stood for—‘a society of free people’!” He took a deep, long breath. “Some of the people here in Khabarovsk understand what I speak of.” He hesitated again and then said, “That is the reason for these two bottles.”
Right about then I think Igor was ready to fight all of us at once if we’d gone against him or anything he’d told us. And I, for one, was too much on his side to do anything like that.
Shad looked at the bottles thoughtfully and then finally said, “All right.”
Dixie and the vodka were getting used to eac
h other. He started to open a bottle. “No point lettin’ it git spoilt fr’m ol’ age.”
Natcho said, “Where did the captain learn such perfect English, Igor?”
“As the son of a wealthy landowner, he was educated in many schools in Europe and England. He speaks seven languages.”
“Jesus Christ!” Dixie muttered, making some headway at opening the bottle. “I didn’t know there was seven languages!”
Some more customers had been drifting into the big room, two or three at a time, every now and then. And now, for whatever reasons, the Imperial Cossacks suddenly started swarming into The Far East.
“My God,” Dixie mumbled. “They’re showin’ up faster an’ thicker than flies around a fat ol’ hog gittin’ slaughtered.”
Within a couple of minutes the big room was packed with those loud-talking, boisterous bastards, and half a dozen girls, including Irenia, were running all over the place to serve them.
And once again my nostrils could almost sense that acrid smell of intense hostility. Those Imperials weren’t going to come right out and declare war on us, but they sure as hell weren’t about to go out of their way to avoid it. And if they could maybe push it a little, they wouldn’t mind that either. One of them, a gigantic moose of a fella with a voice like a cannon, was sitting at the table right behind me, and he kept leaning back hard in his chair, deliberately slamming into the back of my chair.
“Shad,” I said, “ya’ think we oughtta bust outta here?”
“We’ll wait.”
Then Rostov and Yuri entered and made their way through the crowded room to sit back down with us.
Pouring them both drinks, Shad said quietly, “What the hell is all this?”
“That gray mare just brought back the man Verushki had punished this morning—dead.” Rostov downed his drink calmly. “The ropes came partly loose while the gray was running, and with his head dragging on the ground the man’s neck was broken.”
“Then why don’t they go out an’ hang Verushki?”
“They consider us responsible.”
Looking around with an easy, level gaze, Shad said, “Tell ya’ the truth, Rostov, that ain’t too staggerin’ a surprise.”
Gradually realizing the spot we were in, even Dixie’s head was starting to clear up, and Natcho said, “Perhaps it would be wise to leave, now.”
Rostov said, “We will when, without hurrying, we’ve finished all the vodka on the table.”
But we were doomed to a different kind of time schedule than that. And it was my fault, but I couldn’t help it.
Irenia, carrying a tray of drinks raised high over her head so that she could squeeze through the crowd, hurried to the table behind me, where the cannon-voiced moose was thundering harsh words at her and leaning backward against me and my chair hard enough to damnere crush both it and me.
I’d spent a lot of my spare time in there trying to watch Irenia without seeming to. And it ain’t easy to somehow look at a girl and yet not look at her at exactly the same time. But now, moving the tilt of my head just enough to cheat a little, I saw out of the corner of my eye what happened.
As she was leaning over to serve the drinks, that big bastard reached out behind her and actually grabbed her with his oversized hand, right on the butt. I never was sure whether I was more mad or more stunned at such an unspeakable action, but things happened so fast afterward that it really didn’t matter.
She let out a little, breathless “Eek!” and jumped in surprise, accidentally tipping a few of the drinks on the moose. He reared up furiously, his cannon voice roaring, and shoved her away so hard that both she and her tray went flying to the floor.
And boy, that was that.
I was up while Irenia’s tray was still clattering, and I pushed that giant sonofabitch on his mammoth chest with a strength that nobody, including me, ever dreamed I had. Even so, as a matter of fact, it’s a good thing he was standing up. Because I could never have budged him if all that monstrous weight had been sitting down.
But as it happened to work out, he went sailing across the table, scattering drinks right and left, and finally, taking two friends on the far side down with him, he crashed thunderously to the floor.
About that time, both Shad and Rostov were beside me, each taking one of my elbows and almost lifting me off the ground. Right then I felt like a picture hanging on the wall. There wasn’t one goddamned move I had any chance to make, except possibly to fall down.
The moose came bellowing up to his feet, totally prepared and ready, and even anxious, to tear me in half, with absolutely no sportsmanlike regard for the fact that I was being held helpless.
He was about to walk right through that massive table at me when five or six of his men got ahold of him and managed to slow him down.
Rostov roared something in Russian, and the angry noise and confusion stopped as though somebody had pulled some kind of a magic cord. But the ominous silence wasn’t too cheerful, either. Later on I found out that Rostov had simply asked, a little harshly, how many of them wanted to die for the moose, though he evidently didn’t use that exact phrase of mine.
Old Anna did us some good at this moment. Helping Irenia to her feet, she shattered that grim silence with a few no doubt well-chosen screams directed furiously at the moose. Whatever she yelled made some of the men recognize their shame in siding with the man who had mistreated Irenia.
Rostov growled a few more words, and for a touchy, short while, it began to feel like the time of outright killing was beginning to ease off. The giant snorted angrily, and then looked around and saw that he wasn’t the most popular man in the house. In a deep, rumbling voice he said something to Rostov.
Rostov now let go of my elbow. “That big one just agreed not to kill you, Levi.”
Shad released my other elbow and said flatly, “Damn nice of ’im.
“But he’s challenged you. And you may get your right hand cut up.”
I didn’t yet understand, and I sure as hell didn’t mean it to be funny, but I guess it sort of was, as I raised my already cut and bandaged left hand and said, “I ain’t sure I can afford it.”
Dixie chuckled, but nobody else did.
And then, as a couple of Tzar cossacks brought over a smaller, regular-sized table, I remembered about the arm-rassling and the broken glasses. “Oh—that.” It was easy to see I was in trouble.
Rostov said, “I might persuade him to accept a substitute, in your place.”
I just looked at him and didn’t say anything, and I think he kind of liked that answer. “This is for blood, not drinks,” he went on. “It’s only over when the loser finally cries out or when the winner decides to be merciful and let go.”
With the moose laughing and saying loud, patently dumb things in Russian, they brought up two chairs and put two full glasses of vodka on the table.
“Drink it and then break the glass,” Rostov said.
The moose and I, still standing, downed the vodka and then smashed the tops of our glasses on the table. Trouble was, I hit mine too hard and the whole damn glass broke in my hand, cutting one finger slightly. This struck the moose and his friends crowded around as being hilarious as hell. They did everything but double up with laughter. And as Rostov handed me another glass, it seemed to me that this was turning out to be the pattern of my life. Not only forever getting somewhat mangled, but forever being highly embarrassed in the goddamned painful process.
My second glass broke all right and we placed the two jagged, vicious-looking broken glasses on the table. Then we sat down facing each other, our elbows on the table, and when we clasped hands mine went damnere out of sight, lost inside the moose’s huge grip.
The minute we started putting pressure against each other, his ugly grin got as wide as a barn door and I began to wish even more than before that I was someplace, anyplace, else.
With every damn bit of strength I had, and even with the added inspiration of that jagged glass waiting for the back of my h
and to be forced down on it, I just couldn’t hold him back. Very slowly, with salty sweat now starting to come down into my eyes from the immense effort I was making, I could see my hand, as though it belonged to someone else, going gradually over and down.
From what seemed a mile or so off, I heard Shad’s low voice. “Levi ain’t gonna yell, an’ that mean bastard’s out t’ go through bones an’ everything else an’ cripple ’im.”
From equally far away Rostov said grimly, “We’ll soon know.”
“I ain’t about t’ let that happen.”
“Nor am I, Northshield.”
And then the back of my hand went slowly down onto the jagged glass, and though I didn’t feel anything, blood began to appear on the table and within the glass.
Some kind of extra strength came from somewhere within me, and I forced the giant’s hand back up two or three inches. But I could see, hazily, that he was still wearing that barn-door smile, and he started crushing my bleeding hand back down once more.
Suddenly a hand swept that jagged, red-stained glass onto the floor and the moose glared furiously up, releasing his grip on me.
It was Rostov who had done it. And he now downed his own glass of vodka, smashed the top of it, and put the broken remainder down in the widening pool of blood where mine had been.
I didn’t know if that was a standard rule, and I suspected he’d just made it up on the spur of the moment, but it sure as hell didn’t need any clarification.
And now seeing that it was Rostov, the giant moose didn’t stay mad. Instead, he seemed happier than ever.
I was the only one who complained. “Goddamn it, Rostov. I was just about t’ take ’im.”
“Get out of the way, Levi.”
I stood up, holding my left hand against the right hand’s bleeding, and Rostov sat down in my place. And whereas the Tzar’s cossacks had been yelling and laughing before, it suddenly became as still and quiet as an empty church.
The Cowboy and the Cossack (Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries) Page 23
