Then, finally, he murmured a few broken words in Russian to Rostov. I was pretty sure he was asking if he was going to live.
And I was damn sure about it when Rostov now grinned easily down at the hurt man and answered him with a quiet, rough humor in his voice that made his reply cheerful and encouraging. And speaking in those easy, almost joshing terms, he pointed to Kirdyaga’s freshly bandaged wound and then at his own stomach.
Kirdyaga wasn’t strong enough to talk anymore, but he did manage a small grin as he realized that he and Rostov were now both packing a bullet somewhere in their gut.
There was the sound of someone approaching and we stood up, looking off.
It was Nick, who was striding toward us through the moonlight, effortlessly dragging behind him the body of a Tartar that he was holding by one foot.
When he got near us, he let go of the roughly sandaled foot, dropping the Tartar sprawled on his back behind him. “This one’s still alive, Captain.”
We stepped over to look down at the wounded man. Even unconscious, his lips were curled back in a silent half snarl. He was wearing a crudely made wolfskin jacket with the fur outside, which made his shoulders seem broader than they were. And after that, except for some leather knee-length pantaloons and those beat-up old sandals, he was as naked as the wolf he’d gotten the jacket from. There was a kind of a scabbard sewed into the waist of his leather pantaloons, and in that scabbard was a curved dagger with a handle that was inlaid with some fancy stones and what I guessed to be strips of ivory.
He had been shot high up on the left side of his chest. That part of his body, and some of his long, dark hair, was covered with hardening blood that looked black in the moonlight.
Nick leaned down and took the dagger from the nearly dead Tartar, and as he stood back up Kirdyaga suddenly went into convulsions behind us.
Lying a few feet away, every muscle in the giant cossack’s body began to jerk and throb so fast and hard that he was almost rolling around on the ground.
All five of us were with him in an instant, trying from both sides to hold his powerful, twisting body down. And even though his eyes were getting glassy and he was only barely conscious, it still took all five of us to do it. There was just no doubt that the huge cossack was dying, his body thrusting and surging for life violently and senselessly.
Once we got him halfway nailed down on his back, Rostov gave a command to Nick and the sergeant leaped over toward his horse. The rest of us fought like hell to keep Kirdyaga down, and a moment later Nick hurried back with what Rostov had told him to get.
All he’d brought was a little tin cup and a small bottle of vodka, which in those deadly circumstances sure didn’t look like any great help to me.
But Nick took over Kirdyaga’s thrashing left arm that Rostov had been holding down, and Rostov went swiftly to work. He took a rifle cartridge out of his belt and bit fiercely down on the lead slug. Then, with his teeth and his good left hand, he pulled and twisted fiercely, jerking the lead bullet out of the brass cartridge.
Doing the best I could to hold Kirdyaga’s massive, kicking right leg down, and watching Rostov working feverishly, I thought for sure he’d gone crazy. But glancing at Shad’s grim eyes, I could see that he had a strong hunch that something right, whatever it was, was happening.
Rostov poured a huge slug of vodka into the tin cup. Then he poured all of the black powder from the brass rifle cartridge into the vodka, stirring the awful mess up swiftly with the cartridge case that was still in his hand.
Then Rostov leaned forward over Kirdyaga, who was twisting and wrenching at our holding hands with all his might. His face only inches from Kirdyaga’s, Rostov roared a command in Russian with such explosive fury that for one brief instant Kirdyaga just barely managed to force himself to hold still and open his mouth. And in that instant Rostov didn’t pour but damnere threw the mixed vodka and gunpowder down his throat.
Kirdyaga strangled, gasping frantically for breath, and in that desperate gasping he accidentally swallowed the whole goddamned ghastly drink.
A few seconds later he went out like a small lamp in a high wind, and every powerful, straining muscle in him suddenly was as limp as an old wet piece of cloth. For one awful minute, I was sure he’d died of a heart attack from that horrible mixture he’d drank. But he was staying warm and breathing a little, even though his heart was beating like the wings of a moth trapped inside his enormous chest.
There was no longer any point in our holding him against somehow hurting himself. So we all released our grips on his arms and legs and quietly stood up, and Slim and Nick went to get some blankets to tuck around him.
“Jesus,” I finally whispered, “I’d think that cure’d kill ’im quicker than the bullet.”
Rostov said grimly, “Vodka and gunpowder is an ancient cossack remedy for internal wounds when a man is next to death. Kirdyaga will not go into shock again and there will be no infection internally. But right now—” Rostov left the rest unsaid.
Shad finished those unsaid words. “Right now it’s a matter a’ whether his heart c’n keep goin’.”
Rostov nodded.
As we stared quietly down at the giant Kirdyaga, silently holding on to what small edge he still had on life, there was a faint sound from nearby.
The Tartar, still unconscious, had moved slightly.
“Try to wake him,” Rostov told Nick.
Nick stood up and strode the few feet to the Tartar. He leaned down and slapped the man damnere hard enough to break his jaw, but the only reaction he got was a low murmur. He slapped him twice more, even harder, and it looked to me like he was going to kill him instead of revive him. But he was a better judge of how tough the Tartar was, and at the third mighty slap the man started to come around. He gasped slightly, shaking his head, and a moment later his eyes blinked open. His first move was to reach feebly for the knife Nick had taken. Then, with tremendous effort, he raised himself slightly. But even weak as he was, his slightly shifting head and darting tongue reminded me of a big diamondback about to strike.
Rostov stepped to him and asked him a question in a strange-sounding language. The Tartar thought about it for a glaring moment, and a blind man could see there’d be no way on earth to force an answer out of him.
But then, in a hissing voice that made him seem even more like a rattlesnake, he whispered a few words.
“He asks,” Rostov said, “to die by his own hand, and knife.”
Shad frowned at Rostov. “Your judgment, Captain.”
Rostov and the Tartar spoke in that language a little more, and I somehow had a feeling that the dying man was enjoying whatever he was saying. Then, choking feebly, the Tartar laid back flat on the ground.
Rostov took the fancy knife from Nick. Then, pulling his revolver with his right hand, he leaned down to hand the Tartar the knife. This was evidently Rostov’s part of the bargain. But the Tartar was so far gone he could barely hold the knife, let alone use it on himself.
Either way, I didn’t feel up to watching, so I started to turn back to Kirdyaga.
And in that instant a whole lot happened. A gun roared and I jerked around to see an impossible sight. The Tartar had lunged to his feet and toward Rostov with his knife. Rostov’s bullet caught him dead center and nearly point blank, and the Tartar was thrown back to the ground, the knife flying from his hand. In that same instant Shad had his gun out too, but he didn’t have to use it.
Finally, as the two men slowly put their guns back, I muttered in a stunned voice, “Jesus Christ! He was dead!”
“Not quite,” Rostov said.
And that closed the subject. But since a rattler has been known to kill a man with its head completely cut off, that snake comparison sure came unforgettably back to mind.
Slim had stayed near Kirdyaga, and as we now gathered back around him, Slim asked, “What’d that hardcase have t’ say, Captain?”
Rostov knelt beside Kirdyaga. “First, he congratulated us on
killing all of his group.”
Kirdyaga was breathing better by now, and Slim said, “Hell, maybe we ain’t in too bad shape then. Nobody t’ carry no tales.”
Studying Rostov, Shad said, “There’s more.”
Rostov nodded grimly. “The Tartar knew he was dead. And he spoke to us as one dead man to other dead men. Riders are already on their way north to Genghis Kharlagawl.” He paused. “Within two weeks his army will be upon us.”
That hit hard, and we were silent for a long moment.
Finally Shad said quietly, “How many?”
“Over six hundred.”
Shad now kneeled down beside Kirdyaga and near Rostov. The giant cossack’s breathing was becoming deeper and more regular. “Glad this big bastard’s shapin’ up,” he said. “With them kinda odds, we’ll need all the help we c’n git.”
As Shad helped Rostov wrap the blankets closer around Kirdyaga, the two big men’s broad shoulders touched and you could almost see and feel a kind of invisible power between them.
We got Kirdyaga, still wrapped warmly, up onto his horse. When he was in the saddle he slumped weakly forward over his mount’s neck, clutching the mane in one feeble hand.
Then, with Slim and Nick each riding on one side to hold him aboard, we started at a fast clip back to camp.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
WHEN WE were about half a mile from where the herd was bedded down, Old Keats and Igor rode swiftly out of the dark to meet us in the moonlit valley.
The sound of our gunfire had carried for miles through that cool, silent night and they’d heard the distant shots.
But from right up front not one word was said. They saw that we were all present and accounted for and that Kirdyaga was in a bad way. So without wasting time or slowing us down they edged out Slim and Nick to take over at holding Kirdyaga upright in the saddle, and we rode on silently past the sleeping herd to the two low-burning fires, where all the men except those on guard and on the herd were gathered. Every man here was geared for trouble too, guns and horses at hand, and ready to move out at any second to wherever fighting might start.
They all stood up as we rode in, silently taking stock of the situation. And some of them helped lift Kirdyaga from the saddle and lay him down near a fire for warmth.
Then, finally, Shad said, “There’s no immediate trouble b’hind us. But a lot of it’s on the way.”
A short distance from us, Rostov now started speaking in quiet Russian to his cossacks.
And Shad, building a smoke, told the Slash-Diamonders what had happened. He ended with the news of the oncoming Tartar army, and in the dead silence that followed he lit his smoke from the glowing coals of a half-burned branch in the fire.
After a while Crab said, “Six hundred?” Then he added with quiet sincerity, “That’s just too fuckin’ many, boss.”
“Hell,” Rufe grunted. “Might’s well be six thousand!”
“One thing,” I said, “from what we saw, they ain’t got one good gun among ’em.”
“Explain that t’ poor ol’ Kirdyaga,” Mushy growled.
Slim now spoke up. “’Nother thing. That there Tartar back yonder mighta been exaggeratin’. Or he mighta been plain lyin’ in his teeth t’ scare us.”
“Well as far as I’m concerned,” Crab grumbled, “he damn well succeeded.”
“Crab’s right,” Rufe said. “A fight’s one thing, but suicide’s another. It’s sure worth consideration t’ just haul ass out a’ here an’ leave ’em the herd.”
Shad stiffened very slightly at that suggestion and Old Keats noticed it. “If we all of us, cowboys an’ cossacks alike, felt that same way, it’d wind up with just Shad an’ Rostov drivin’ them five hundred cows all by themselves. Now wouldn’t leaving them all that work make you kind of ashamed of yourself, Rufe?”
But Rufe hung on. “I just said it’s worth our considerin’! If there’s that many, they’ll git the herd no matter what! So why not at least think about gettin’ out an’ savin’ our goddamned necks?”
“I’ll tell you somethin’, Rufe.” Slim took a bite off his plug and chewed slowly as he spoke. “Some of us tangled with them fellas t’night. An’ I c’n tell ya’ this about ’em. If we leave ’em the herd, they’ll come after us an’ kill us f’r our weapons. Leave ’em our weapons, an’ they’ll come after us an’ kill us f’r our horses. Leave ’em our horses, an’ they’ll come after us an’ kill us f’r our clothes.” He’d worked enough on the chew now to spit a charge into the fire, where it hissed briefly on the coals. “An’ if we fin’ly leave ’em our clothes, they’ll come after us an’ kill us f’r the pure damn sport of it.”
After a moment Old Keats said quietly, “We were all given our chance to pull out before Khabarovsk. But we’re too deep in now, and that chance just isn’t there anymore.”
Shiny nodded. “This ain’t the U.S.A., an’ there ain’t no safe train t’ Denver.”
“Hell,” Big Yawn grunted. “I’d ruther fight ’em doin’ m’ job than fight ’em runnin’ away.”
We all thought on that, and then Sammy the Kid ventured quietly, “B’sides, I’d hate t’ think a’ them cossacks havin’ t’ go it by themselves.”
Though it hadn’t come up until now, we all felt the same way, and that seemed to sum it up, for no one else said anything.
After a moment, Shad took one last drag on his smoke and tossed it into the fire. “I’m sure glad you fellas ironed our problem out all by yourselves.” He tried to make it sort of sound like he was kidding, but he wasn’t. And then he turned, kind of abruptly, and walked over to where Rostov had been talking to his men.
After a while the two of them came back over to us and Shad said, “Two things. One, Rostov’s sending a rider on ahead to Bakaskaya. By going like a bat out a’ hell, he can get help to us by about the same time that Kharlagawl catches up.”
“How much help?” Purse asked.
“Probably about five hundred men,” Rostov said. “They should be able to afford that many without leaving the town itself dangerously unprotected.”
“Christ,” Slim said, “that’s the only good news we’ve ever got in Russia.”
“They should join us about halfway between here and Bakaskaya,” Rostov continued. “Eight, perhaps nine days from now.”
“Which leads t’ point two,” Shad said. “We’re gonna drive that herd like a sonofabitch. Once we’re out a’ these mountains, it’ll be pretty clear goin’, so we’ll be pushin’ them hard as hell, night an’ day.”
We were all starting to feel a lot better about everything, and Natcho flashed that brilliant smile of his. “Excellent,” he said. “The herd has been getting fat and lazy anyway.”
“We’ll move out at first light,” Shad said, “so turn in while ya’ can, now. Nobody’ll be gettin’ much sleep later on.”
Fifteen minutes before, I doubt if anybody could have slept. But with help coming sooner or later up front and with a concrete plan of action, that Siberian night had suddenly become a whole lot more cheerful place, and Slash-Diamonders started turning in right and left.
Igor came over to where some of us were still standing by the fire, and he had Pietre with him. “Pietre is the one going on to Bakaskaya,” he said. “He wants you to know that he will go very fast.”
“Good man f’r the ride.” Slim nodded. “You tell him t’ make that skewbald mare a’ his git out an’ stretch ’er legs.”
And he sure as hell was a good man for the ride. As Igor told Pietre what Slim had said I remembered so clearly that blindingly swift race with him on the meadow outside Khabarovsk. And the fantastic leap he’d made high over the stream with that goddamned rock in his hands.
And Pietre was remembering it too. He smiled at what Slim had said, and then he looked at me. Leaning down, he picked up a small rock at his feet, held it out before him, and dropped it.
Christ, you can say a lot with no words.
I was so damned touched by his gesture tha
t I was sorely tempted to give him one of those big bear hugs that the cossacks sometimes give each other. But, especially with all those other fellas standing around, that might have seemed kind of much. So instead I put my hand on top of his shoulder and squeezed real hard.
He grinned, and about then they brought up his saddled mare and a fine deep-chested bay gelding on a lead. He leaped up into the saddle, sitting light as a feather and strong as steel. Then, with a small wave and one parting word, and leading his second mount, he raced out of camp fast enough to pass up any and every bat who ever came out of hell.
As the swift hoofbeats faded and then disappeared, far away in the darkness, those of us around the coals of the fire started to drift away to our bedrolls.
Shad’s bedroll was near mine, and as I got my head settled into the saddle, he came up silently and started to pull off his boots.
I was feeling so goddamned close to those cossacks right then. There was just no doubt that Pietre was prepared to ride two good horses, and maybe himself, to death to get to Bakaskaya. And he wasn’t just doing it for the cossacks or for the herd. He was doing it for all of us. And Kirdyaga, using his last ounce of giant strength to take that Tartar lancer off me, even with a bullet inside him. I reached up to my shoulder and touched the gash in my leather jacket that the lance had left.
As for that bastard Rostov, in one night he’d taken a spear thrust meant for me and, half bleeding to death, had cut down a mounted Tartar who was on the verge of killing Shad.
With all those mingled thoughts, what Rostov had once said about Shad came to mind again. About Shad “being” that big tiger. I’d never mentioned it to Shad for a number of reasons. Mostly, I guess, because it was said as such a damned huge compliment that it was kind of embarrassing to pass on. Rostov could say it to me. But I’d sound silly repeating it.
The Cowboy and the Cossack (Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries) Page 32
