Shad was standing just behind Rostov, and though there was no way for it to mean that much to Verushki’s men, his right thumb was hooked casually in his belt, just a few short inches away from the worn walnut handle of his revolver.
In the silence, Dixie leaned close to my ear and whispered, “Igor says that big one’s a ringer.” I frowned, not understanding, and he added, still in a whisper, “He ain’t never ever been beat. He wasn’t even here that night Big Yawn an’ Kirdyaga was puttin’ fellas down.”
Igor guessed what Dixie was whispering and nodded grimly at me. And all of our other fellas were looking just as grim as Igor.
But Rostov and the moose were now locking hands, their elbows on the table, and as they started putting pressure against each other, it looked like all the brute strength in the world was being centered right there on that table. Finally, the moose slowly closed the doors of that barndoor grin of his, and still neither man’s hand had budged a fraction of an inch. I half expected the thick oak table itself to split in half under the sheer power of our big man and the giant.
From where I was, behind Rostov, I could tell more what was happening from the moose’s face than from their hands. Rostov’s hand must have given way so slightly that it was impossible to see, and could only be felt by his opponent, because the moose’s barndoor grin opened just a crack. But then it slammed shut again as Rostov evidently got him back to even, or maybe a little more.
About then, my head finally clearing after the rough time I’d just had at that table, I began to realize more fully why Shad’s hand wasn’t too far from his gun. Any idea of Rostov crying out in defeat or pain was too absurd to even think about. But we sure as hell wouldn’t stand by and let the moose make minced meat out of Rostov’s hand. And by the same token, those phony goddamned Tzar cossacks probably felt the same way about the moose. The single and only possible way not to have an all-out war on our hands was for Rostov to win and for the moose to give a quick yell, so that this stupid, cruel game would be finished for once and for all.
Then, for the first time, their hands moved enough to be seen. And they moved in Rostov’s favor.
“Damn, damn, damn,” I whispered, dumfounded, knowing it had to be raw willpower Rostov was using more than strength.
The giant leaned his head forward and down, as though to gather even more force, and for a backbreaking moment he held Rostov’s hand motionless. But then, as though he were a silently roaring, irresistibly powerful storm bending a huge tree before him, Rostov again moved the massive hand and arm back and back and down.
The giant’s hand went down onto the ugly, broken circle of sharp glass until it had been cut about the same as mine had been, and then Rostov let his bleeding hand back up and away from the glass.
And that damned stubborn moose did not yell. His teeth were tightly clenched against any sound at all.
To one side, Natcho muttered an odd thing in a low voice, “The moment of truth.”
All of a sudden now, it was easy to see that Verushki’s men felt exactly the same way that we did. They weren’t about to stand by and let the moose get his hand maimed, either, and there was a change of feeling in the air, a very slight, but damned ominous shifting of weight and position among them.
There was one rule we’d forgotten, since it hadn’t even come close to showing up between the moose and me. The one about mercy. Rostov now let go of the moose’s big, bleeding hand and said a few easy words that had to mean he was being merciful, and their game was done.
But with a swift, furious move, the giant again slapped his hand against Rostov’s, grabbing it to start all over.
As Rostov bent into it again, Shad said to him quietly, “This dumb bastard’s dead set on either cuttin’ your hand off or losin’ his. An’ no matter which way it is, it’ll sure cause a bloody mix-up around here.”
Rostov was too hard put with the giant’s massive hand and arm at that time to make any kind of an answer. And now, for the second time, he started making headway, very slowly moving that great mass of muscle back and down.
“When ya’ cut ’im again,” Shad said, still quietly, “be pr’pared that same instant t’ take on the rest of ’em with us, ’cause that’s sure as hell what’s gonna happen.”
And then, for no reason, Shad did such a strange thing that I could have sworn on a stack of Bibles that those two were reading each other’s minds again. He touched Rostov’s mightily straining shoulder briefly and gently, almost the same way Shiny had touched Dixie’s shoulder before, and said mostly to himself, “Yeah.”
It was a mystery to me, but it was soon solved.
The moose, his lowering hand getting closer and closer to being cut, was putting all the desperate last strength he had within him against Rostov.
And then, just short of those final jagged edges of blood-red glass, Rostov instantly switched every bit of power in his arm full backward into the opposite direction, which was the same direction that the giant’s total strength was aimed at.
The combined result was an extraordinary sight to witness.
The moose, with Rostov’s help, went flying in what would have been a complete somersault except that he hit the floor too fast, primarily on his head. And as he raised his head, shaking it a little, Rostov was already standing over him with the point of his drawn saber pressing against his throat. Rostov said a quiet word or two, and the moose said one strangled word, which was “Dah.”
The point of Rostov’s saber now moved in a blindingly swift, short arc that drew what seemed to be exactly one drop of blood from the giant’s throat. In another swift move, his saber flashing almost invisibly, Rostov returned his blade to its sheath.
And then, maybe best of all, he reached down and helped the moose back to his feet.
Old Keats had once remarked to me, “It’s generally hard t’ lose. But if ya’ lose t’ a certain kind of a man, who ya’ know t’ be one hell of a man, then ya’ can take a certain kind a’ proud joy in the pure pleasure a’ havin’ done your best against ’im.”
It seemed to me that maybe that was the way the moose felt about Rostov just then. After having had that saber at his throat, he knew as well as, or better than, the rest of us that he was a dead man who’d been given a second chance at life. He looked at Rostov for a long, silent moment, and then finally moved off, most of the Imperial Cossacks following him out of The Far East.
Igor came up and said, “Come with me,” and I did, as the others sat down to finish their vodka the way Rostov had said, without hurrying.
With Igor leading, we went through the door to the kitchen, which I wouldn’t ever have done without him, because it looked to me like it was being kind of pushy.
But just behind the door, standing there beside a basin of water and some clean pieces of cloth, with tears running down her cheeks, was Irenia.
“She wants to take care of your hand,” Igor said.
He was feeling more than he let his voice show, and so was I. “Ah, heck,” I said, somehow switching to softer words in her presence, even though she couldn’t understand them. “Tell ’er I’m just fine.”
He told her what I’d said, but she only shook her head in an impatient way that meant absolutely not. So he just kind of pushed me toward her and went back out the door, and there we stood.
She reached toward my hurt right hand and I didn’t move it fast enough to suit her so she took it and raised it toward the basin of water and started to bathe it.
Her hands were so gentle that it was hard to be equally gentle back. But it seemed to me there was something that had to be done, and with that damned bandaged, roughed-up and weather-beaten left hand of mine, I reached out as soft as I could and brushed those tears of hers away.
She stopped bathing my hand and looked up at me.
And I swear sincerely, by all the gods that ever may be, past, present or future, that our eyes said more to each other in that fleeting little moment than most two people can ever say to each
other in their whole, entire lifetimes.
And then she lowered her eyes, but that shouldn’t have been the end of the conversation, because we still felt each other so much.
She was tying the bandage when Igor came back in. “We’re going now.”
“Igor,” I said, “will you tell her—”
“What?”
How can you say a lifetime of words, especially through another fella, in the time it takes to walk from a basin of water to a door? So I just gave up and looked at her and said, “Nothin’.”
But she understood.
And then we were gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE NEXT day three of our fellas and three cossacks, with Sergeant Nick in charge of them, went into town. None of our men, Mushy, Sammy the Kid and Chakko, had been in before, and it was the same with the cossacks, so except for Nick they were all new faces.
Before they left, Shad told the Slash-Diamonders not to mess around with the Imperials in any way, shape or form, and particularly not to do any arm-rassling. But after that bout between Rostov and the Imperial moose, it just never came up again anyway, as though everybody on both sides realized that any further contest would just have to be plain silly by comparison.
Later that afternoon, a bunch of mounted Imperials were doing some sort of a toy-soldier drill just outside of Khabarovsk on that huge meadow, so Rostov and Shad decided it was time to show them a reversal of our first all-cossack performance, just for the hell of it. Us cowboys outfitted the cossacks as best we could. Shad and me gave Rostov and Igor each spare jackets and pants and boots and bandannas. The thing we were shyest of was hats, because most of us had only one. But Big Yawn was a help there. He always wore a kind of a hunting cap with a visor in front of it and ear flaps on the sides that you could pull down if you wanted to against the cold. And for some reason he was packing half a dozen spares that he passed out among the cossacks.
So it came to pass that over twenty cowboys rode up against the skyline, just briefly, to watch the Imperials drilling far off on the meadow. And then, as though we were almost immediately bored by what we were watching, we soon drifted back away and out of sight again.
Our men came back from Khabarovsk just after nightfall, and the most exciting thing they had to report was that Mushy had caused a mild sensation by finishing his last drink at The Far East, and then eating the glass. Mushy did that every now and then, especially after a few too many. Damnedest thing, he’d chomp down and bite off a chunk from the rim, chew it slowly and thoughtfully, and then swallow it. And he’d just keep that up until the whole goddamn glass was gone, except that he usually left the bottom of the glass because it was thicker there, and he also claimed it didn’t taste as good.
I kept waiting for one of them to pass on some word to me from Irenia, but nobody said anything.
I did let my pride go down a peg by saying offhandedly to Mushy and Sammy, “Ya’ talk t’ anybody in town?”
“How the hell could we?” Sammy said. “Ain’t nobody in there can talk American.”
“That’s right.” Mushy nodded. “Nick did all our talkin’ for us.”
At supper, Slim and I wound up sitting beside Nick, and I finally couldn’t stand it any longer. “Did ya’ see that girl, Irenia?” I asked Nick casually.
He nodded, and kept on eating.
After a long time, I said, “She—say anything?”
Between mouthfuls he said, “She ask how your hand. I say fine.”
“Well, goddamnit, why didn’t ya’ say so?”
He finished eating and turned his massive face toward me with a hurt expression. “I say so. Just now.” And then he got up and walked away.
“Stupid goddamn cossack,” I muttered.
“You been slightly an’ subtly had by that stupid goddamn cossack.” Slim grinned. “He told me all about that more’n an hour ago.”
“Oh.”
The following day I rode the morning stretch on the herd, and the sun was a little past high noon when Crab relieved me. I swung around by the big rock on the war-games meadow to see if anything might be going on, and on this day my timing wasn’t too good because I got stuck in a race that was about to begin around that tough damn course.
The good part was that it was a relay, with four men on each team, so we’d each have only about half a mile to go, instead of the whole rugged two miles.
The bad part was that instead of each racer passing on a baton, or something light like that, to the next fella, what we were supposed to carry and pass on was a large, rounded rock weighing over twenty pounds. And if anybody dropped it, that would probably lose the race for his team because he’d have to go back to get it. And it was easy to drop because just standing there on the ground holding that rounded rock in one hand wasn’t all that simple.
“Jesus,” Dixie said, “whoever invented this idea musta been mad as hell at somebody.”
“Well, Dixie, you can see how it’d help train ya’ for warfare,” I said dryly. “If you ain’t got a cannon, you just ride up carryin’ the cannon ball and throw it.”
“This is child’s play compared to some of the games,” Rostov told us. “Such as racing the entire course with a sharp saber clenched between your teeth.”
“Yuck,” I said.
“However,” he continued, “this race will do. Particularly in deference to Northshield’s common sense, and also the fact that right now we can’t afford to have anyone get his head cut off.”
This sounded pretty grim, but Purse managed to take it lightly. “Put a saber in Mushy’s mouth,” he said, “and he’d probably eat it.”
Aside from Rostov, Slim and Nick, there were eight of us there, me being the lucky number eight who made the cowboy team complete. Dixie, Purse, Mushy and I made up our bunch, and Igor, Ilya, Pietre and Kirdyaga were the cossacks.
It was decided that Pietre and I were to ride the final heat for our teams, and we rode at an easy gait out to the fourth pole about half a mile off at an angle to the right.
We got there and pulled up to wait, giving each other a grin. I couldn’t help but remember some of that fancy riding I’d seen Pietre do and felt pretty outclassed. But then I shrugged mentally, thinking what the hell, at least old Buck was every bit the horse that Pietre’s fine skewbald mare was.
Looking back I studied the three final poles we had to race outside of on our way back to the finish line. The first was at a tricky outcropping of rocks, and the second was in a thick grove of trees. The third, and last, was that one next to that murderous ten-foot jump over the swift, rock-studded stream twenty feet below, which I had absolutely no intention of even trying to make. I figured I’d swing about a hundred feet down to the left of that pole. It would be safe to jump there, and I’d still be making pretty good time.
Everybody was in place by then, and at about that time I saw Shad ride up to join the others over near the big rock.
Igor and Mushy, the starters for the teams, were mounted, each holding a heavy rock in one hand and ready to go. Nick raised his arm and then quickly dropped it, signaling the two of them to bust out.
They took off like demons, and both of them made that first low jump over the stream all right, each of them holding their rock kind of up against their chests so they could hang on to it better. But by the time they approached the first relay point far across the meadow, where Dixie and Ilya were waiting and raring to go, Igor, on that fast Blackeye, had now pulled about two or three lengths ahead of Mushy. He handed his rock to Ilya, who in turn took off at full tilt. And then Mushy was there, passing his big rock over to Dixie. It looked like they damnere dropped it, but then Dixie was also on his way, galloping furiously to try to narrow the cossack lead.
Dixie was on his handsome Appaloosa, Shiloh, who could outrun damnere any living thing on four legs, and taking that second part of the course in almost exactly the same route Ilya used, Dixie picked up a couple of lengths.
The race was getting exciting as hell, and
was now suddenly half over as Ilya and Dixie barreled up to Purse and Kirdyaga with at the very most one second difference in their running time. With growing, eager excitement, Pietre leaned over and whacked me powerfully on the back, letting out a wild whoop that may have been Russian, but sure sounded like a pure cowboy yell.
And then Ilya, who was handier with balalaikas than rocks, dropped his as he was handing it over to Kirdyaga. The giant Kirdyaga didn’t even dismount to get the heavy rock. He spun his horse around and, leaning far down, did an almost impossible thing by simply picking it back up in one huge hand.
But just that brief time still lost them three or four lengths because Dixie had passed his rock to Purse and Purse was on his way. It would have been a shoo-in for us then except that Purse tried to gain even more time by cutting too close to a pole in some thick trees and he got slowed down for a long, maddening moment, so that when he and Kirdyaga came charging out of that grove of trees and onto the open meadow, they were as close together as the two sides of a silver dollar.
Pietre was going crazy, and I guess I was too, because all of a sudden I realized I was hollering at Purse, and urging him on, as loud as Pietre was yelling at Kirdyaga.
The two of us each got handed our rock at about the same time, and I damnere lost myself along with the rock as Buck, feeling all the intense excitement, roared away so fast he almost left me sitting there in midair.
Getting my seat back, I took the rough outcropping of rock closer to the first pole than Pietre did and for a few seconds had to slow down or Buck could have hurt himself. Pietre took a way that was farther around but faster, so we both galloped out of the rocks about even.
We exactly reversed that process going through the thick stand of trees farther on. Pietre elected this time for the shorter, more tangled route, and a grasping branch almost tore the rock out of his hand, slowing him briefly as he went ducking and weaving through. Playing it safer this time, I spotted a wide path forty feet to the left of the pole where I could charge through at a dead run, and I chose that way.
The Cowboy and the Cossack (Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries) Page 24
