“With much more of it, boss, we figure we c’n build an ark.” He looked at me and I added, “Slim an’ Keats’s idea.”
“Sounds like.” Shad squinted briefly up against the rain and the sky. “If this was Montana, it’d quit t’day. In five, six hours.”
He rode away, and before spurring on to join Rostov I looked up where he’d been looking. The sky was a million ugly miles of gray-streaked, rain-swept blackness, and it hadn’t changed one damn little bit since yesterday or any of the days before.
Five or six hours later, the rain stopped.
Rostov and I had been mounting a low rise about two miles ahead of the herd, which was still out of our sight beyond some rounded hills behind us.
And then, as though an invisible giant had suddenly put a protective hand over us, the torrent of falling rain was instantly gone. It happened so fast I didn’t quite believe it, especially with water still dripping off the front of my hat, and tending to fool me.
But the noise and the darkness were gone. The abrupt silence was so complete that I thought for a moment I’d gone deaf. And the sudden light of the sun was blinding in its brightness. Rostov pointed off, and I turned, blinking, to see the damndest sight. There was an immense, solid wall of dark, almost impenetrable rain that stretched and roared as far as the eye could see, and it was rushing away from us more swiftly than any horse could ever gallop. One instant an entire plain would be drenched and nearly invisible and in the next moment, as that final, black curtain of rain swept over and beyond it, the plain would be a soggy, muddy field of grass that was now, suddenly, basking in the sun.
“An interesting phenomenon,” Rostov said.
All I could think of to add was “Jesus.”
And by then the great black wall of rain, with occasional bolts of lightning flashing briefly within it, was already a mile or so away as it receded swiftly in the distance.
The huge, burning sun went to work quickly in the now clear blue sky, and by nightfall most of the world around us was just about dry again. At supper our spirits were way up, and Old Keats and Slim had to take a lot of criticism about the idea they’d had that morning. Crab pretty much summed it up over a serving of beans that had stayed steaming hot in the plate for the first time in a week. “All right, you dumb bastards. If we’d gone ahead an’ built us that goddamned ark this mornin’, what the hell’d we do with it now?”
“Christ, that’s simple,” Slim said. “We’d make the world’s biggest outhouse outta it. At least a thousand-seater.”
Old Keats nodded. “Of course if we put in different levels, it’d be better to be sittin’ t’ward the top than t’ward the bottom.”
I turned in early, my bedroll warm and comfortable around me. For about two seconds I considered the beautiful difference between wet and dry, and then I was out.
Slim woke me for my turn on the herd, the late graveyard. I rode out to relieve Purse, and an hour or so later Shad suddenly appeared alongside me.
Out there in the wide, dark meadow stretching below us, even the cattle were now feeling a hundred percent better, and a few of them were grunting and lowing back and forth in quiet, contented cow talk.
“Couldn’t be more peaceful,” I said to Shad. “Why don’t you go back an’ grab forty winks?”
He was silent for a long moment. Then, leaning forward and rubbing Red between the ears, he said, “No—not yet.”
From the far side of the herd Big Yawn softly sang a couple of choruses of “I’m Leaving Ohio,” which would normally be enough to make anybody leave if they were free to.
But still Shad remained, watching and listening, and seeming to almost be damnere smelling at the clear, unmoving air.
And then, very quietly and without saying anything, Rostov rode his big black out of the night and up to us.
Both of them just sitting there silently was getting kind of spooky. After a long moment I said, “Much as I’m enjoyin’ all this cheerful company, you fellas know somethin’ that I don’t?”
They both ignored me, and Shad spoke in a low voice to Rostov. “I c’n feel somethin’ out there, but it ain’t nothin’ I know about.”
Rostov nodded. “I believe I do. But we’ll both know soon.”
This was getting downright scary. In my mind’s eye I could see an entire army of Tartars sneaking up on us through the dark so stealthily that they made absolutely no sound, but moved along like ghosts.
And then the peaceful silence was suddenly shattered by the fiercest, most horrifying and earth-shaking noise I’d ever heard. It sounded like a thousand cougars lined up side by side and roaring furiously in perfect unison.
Buck reared nervously out of his half sleep, and you could sense the startled herd starting to mill around, instantly spooked.
Holding Buck down as the noise abruptly stopped I said, “What the Christ was that?”
As I was speaking, the nearly full moon appeared quickly from behind scudding clouds, filling the meadow and surrounding hills with sudden, silvery light. Beyond the herd, on the crest of a hill, I had a brief glimpse of some kind of a huge beast before it streaked out of sight over the far side of the crest, moving with incredible speed.
Rostov said to Shad, “Once you gave me a Montana puppy.” He nodded toward where the beast had disappeared. “In return, I’d like to present you with a Siberian kitten.”
“Thanks,” Shad said dryly. “Who’s gonna put the pink ribbon around its neck?”
“What the hell is it?” I asked.
“A Siberian tiger. They’re larger than Bengals or any other species.” Rostov was studying the far moonlit hills keenly. “That one over there will weigh approximately a thousand pounds.”
Shad rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “All these strange smells, an’ then the moon comin’ out bright, maybe scared ’im off.”
Rostov shrugged slightly. “He’s probably hungry from not hunting during the rains. Also, at this time of year he has a mate and possibly some youngsters to take care of.” He hesitated. “And these snow tigers are very brave.”
“Then let’s go check ’im out.”
Shad rode down the moonlit slope with Rostov at his side, and figuring I was somehow included, I spurred after them.
The three of us were pushing our way through the now close-packed, defensively grouped cattle when the tiger hit the herd. Moving silently, but with the speed and impact of a cannon ball, he appeared from nowhere and charged a big bull longhorn standing a few feet out and away from the others. And that particular bull, for whatever personal reasons, felt like standing its ground instead of running, so it whirled swiftly toward the big onrushing cat.
And longhorns, if they feel like fighting, are among the toughest creatures that the Good Lord ever created. With their powerful hooves and sharp, raking horns, they’ve been known to battle grizzly bears to a standoff. And one of them, in a belligerent mood, actually routed and damnere demolished an entire regiment of General Winfield Scott’s army on its way to Mexico.
So that unsuspecting cat was running up against a whole lot more than a simple Guernsey milk cow.
But by the same token, that bull longhorn sure as hell didn’t know what it was facing either.
The whole fight, including everything, lasted maybe as long as one second. The longhorn swung at empty air with its great horns and the flying cat whacked him on the side of his massive head with one huge paw. The longhorn may have been dead, its neck broken, as it hit the ground. But one way or the other it was surely dead an instant later as the tiger whirled and crunched his teeth down into the back of its neck. And then, though it was hard to believe, that big, powerful cat actually started trotting away, half carrying and half dragging the huge, lifeless carcass of the bull.
It had all happened so fast that Big Yawn, even at a full gallop around the edge of the herd, was still a distance away. He fired a wild shot toward the tiger, and at the unfamiliar sound of the gun, the big cat dropped the longhorn, hesitated briefly, a
nd then dashed away.
A few moments later six of us, including Sergeant Nick and Igor, who’d been on lookout, rode up to the dead bull. Behind us, the herd was uneasy but not panicked. The tiger’s earlier roar had scared them more than the quick, silent death of one of them. They were settling back down, and it looked to me, all in all, like we’d gotten off pretty easy.
But Shad, mortally hating to ever lose one of his head, was quietly furious. His eyes hard, he glared from the dead bull to where the tiger had disappeared. Then, jerking his rifle from its scabbard, he rode swiftly off in that direction. And the rest of us followed him.
Just naturally, we fanned out behind Shad in the moonlight so that pretty soon, between all six of us, we were covering a pretty wide swath. And about a mile from the herd we rousted out the tiger. He’d been holed up in some rocks at the beginning of a wide plateau that narrowed down to a point farther on. Big Yawn, riding not far from Sergeant Nick, accidentally busted him out as he approached the rocks.
Not yet knowing it was in a trap, the tiger bounded away from the rocks to the triangular plateau beyond, making a good thirty feet with that first effortless leap of his, and then speeding on across the moon-drenched earth.
We followed as fast as we could, riding closer in together as the slice of land grew narrower. And finally, slowing down, the big cat got as far as he could go and saw that there were only two things he could do. He could charge right back through us or take what was roughly a two-hundred-foot sheer jump off that final small piece of plateau where he was.
At the edge he turned back, snarling, and we pulled up in a ragged line about a hundred yards away from him.
He was dead, and somehow he realized it.
But he wasn’t afraid.
That big, beautiful bastard was going to go down fighting. His eyes were alive and glowing, even in the cold moonlight, as he slowly shifted his majestic head to size us up, taking in a thousand small details that would make him determine any possible chance of escaping through us.
And God, how beautiful and brave he was, roaring defiance and majesty toward us in what I swear he knew to be his final dark moments of danger and death.
Near Shad, Rostov said, “There is your Siberian kitten, Northshield.”
Shad raised his rifle. The rest of us were silent, and I was busy getting a lump in my throat.
Then, sighting in on the magnificent tiger, he called to Big Yawn, who was off to the far left. “Yawn! Come ’ere!”
And as Big Yawn was riding over toward us, Shad fired. His bullet slammed into and whined off a rock near the rear end of the tiger, and that made the giant cat’s mind up. My guess was that flying pieces of rock stung the tiger’s butt and tail, but however that may be, he took off like striped lightning on greased wheels at the empty space that Big Yawn had just vacated.
And he was gone so fast that the human eye could hardly keep up with him and watch him go.
Shad slowly returned his rifle to its saddle scabbard. “Goddamn,” he said quietly. “Missed.”
No one said anything, but I couldn’t help but think of the long ago time when Rostov had given the Montana puppy its freedom.
And after that, there was nothing left to do but ride back to the herd, which was settled down as though nothing had ever happened.
It was almost breaking daylight by then, and we were ready to move out within the hour.
There was only one problem, and that was the dead longhorn. I’d already joined up with Rostov, and we rode over to where it was lying after being dragged halfway up the hill by the huge tiger.
Shad got there at about the same time, and the two men studied each other for a moment.
It was Shad who first spoke. “Your kitten will be back.”
That was a lot of beef, a lot of meat and life lying there, and Rostov knew it. “He will be back. But that kitten is not mine. He’s yours.”
Shad shrugged. “I got a strong hunch he thinks he’s his own boss.” And then he swung down from Red and glanced at the dead bull. “We’ll leave this carcass for ’im. It’ll keep him an’ his family in groceries for a week or two—plenty a’ time for us t’ be long gone from here.”
“Sure.” I nodded. “An’ I guess, boss, that’s the only reason for leavin’ it then?”
He gave me a hard look. “That’s right.”
Rostov said quietly, “That’s an excellent way for a man to handle the situation we have here.”
Shad remounted. “It’s just a natural man’s way, anywhere in the world.” He rode down to the herd, and the cattle now started moving out with whoops and hollers from the cowboys encouraging and pushing them along their way.
As Rostov and I galloped to our point position far ahead, four of the words that Shad had used kept ringing in my mind. Those were the words “anywhere in the world.”
Shad had somehow come to be anywhere, and everywhere, in the world.
After riding in silence for a long time, Rostov finally said, “Northshield gave a full bull to the people of Vladivostok, and now to the tiger. In both cases, he was right.”
“He mostly tends t’ be right,” I said. And then I couldn’t help adding, “But he’s also kinda partial t’ that tiger.”
Rostov looked at me with those dark, penetrating eyes of his. And then he said quietly, “He’s not just partial to that tiger, Levi—he is that tiger.”
And then, in silence, we continued to ride on.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE NEXT few weeks were about as peaceful and easygoing as any bunch of fellas could ask for. The weather stayed sunny and warm, and the nights were balmy and clear. The Siberian moon looming hugely over us was often so silvery bright you could read a book by it at midnight, if you had a book to read. Matter of fact, Old Keats proved the above fact by doing just the opposite. He went to doing a little writing while he was on the relaxed, contented herd at night and there was nothing much better to do.
I caught him at it in the middle of one brightly moonlit graveyard shift. Near camp I saddled Buck and rode out to relieve Keats, taking my time. From the top of a low hill, he could be seen easily, sitting his horse by the sleeping herd, his back to me. He was doing something with both hands, and I realized a minute later he’d been whittling with his pocketknife to sharpen the short stub of a pencil he sometimes carried on him. As I walked Buck on down the hill, his hooves nearly soundless in the soft earth, Old Keats stuck the fresh-sharpened pencil into his mouth to wet the lead. And then he started, or maybe continued, to put down something slowly and laboriously in a small writing tablet.
As I got closer to Keats, I heard him whisper two words to himself. “Beautiful...Beautiful.”
He was so wrapped up in whatever he was doing that I was just about near enough to reach out and touch him before he knew I was there. And when he finally did see me, his reaction was so sudden and startled that he damnere jumped out of his saddle.
“Goddamn it, Levi!” he grumbled, quickly putting away his pencil and writing tablet. “What’s the idea a’ sneakin’ up on me that way?”
“Well, hell,” I said, a little taken aback. “It just never occurred t’ me t’ fire some warnin’ shots.”
And then I suddenly understood, or at least was pretty sure that I did. Ever since I could remember as a kid, there’d been vague rumors that Old Keats, on very rare occasions when he was really deeply moved by something or other, actually did turn his hand to poetry. But if that was partly the reason for his nickname “The Poet,” he was awful secretive and touchy as hell about it. Nobody had ever been allowed to read one word of anything he’d ever written down, so that’s why after all those years the talk about him writing poetry had remained only a rumor.
But still, especially after that uncalled-for and strange reaction of his, I couldn’t help but ask him innocently, “What ya’ been writin’?”
“None a’ your goddamn business!”
For some reason, as grouchy and unreasonable as he was bein
g, I couldn’t bring myself to be mad back at him. “I guess you’re right. It ain’t.”
Still frowning, he muttered, “Just don’t care t’ be snuck up on.”
“I really am sorry, Keats.”
His anger eased off gradually now, and he started filling his pipe. “Didn’t mean t’ jump on ya’ that way.”
“Well, I guess I coulda said hello or cleared m’ throat ’r somethin’.”
“Oh, hell,” he said, lighting a match. “Truth is, I’m just gettin’ old an’ crotchety.” He puffed on the pipestem until the tobacco was glowing, then blew out the match, broke it and threw it away. “It was me who was in the wrong, Levi. An’ I’m sorry.”
Before I could reply, he abruptly turned his horse and rode off back toward camp. And watching him go, I knew as plain as could be that neither one of us had been in the wrong. I’d just happened to catch him writing down something that was, somehow, so dear to him that he simply couldn’t bring himself to admit it, or even talk about it.
As he rode over the hill and out of sight, I murmured a thought to myself without even thinking about the fact that I was repeating the word he’d used earlier, “You beautiful old sonofabitch.”
Buck ignored what I said. I guess, by then, he was getting used to me talking to myself.
And then I shook the reins a little and began to walk Buck slowly around the edge of the drowsing herd.
During those easygoing weeks, Mushy, who was a sometime shoemaker, started using his spare time to fix our boots, most of which were getting pretty beat-up. To help in this worthy cause, Shad let him off night duty, so whenever we’d make camp Mushy would get out his trusty old dollar-fifty Economic Cobbler outfit, with its one upside-down iron foot sticking up, and hammer away at some needy person’s soles and heels.
The cossacks were impressed as hell with Mushy’s cobbling artistry, so he offered to repair any of their boots that needed work. He must have had requests for nearly thirty pairs to be fixed, all in all.
The Cowboy and the Cossack (Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries) Page 28
