“When d’ya think he’ll hit us?” Slim asked.
“In the late morning, when the sun is high enough to be out of his men’s eyes.”
“Perhaps by then,” Natcho said thoughtfully, “the reinforcements from Bakaskaya will be here. They shouldn’t be too far away by now.”
And then Shad broke in. “However that may be, we gotta hit that bunch as hard as we can all by ourselves. F’r example, we’re gonna put three kegs a’ gunpowder up on the slope. That’ll do notable damage if we c’n blow ’em at the right time.”
“Why not all four kegs?” Big Yawn rumbled.
Shad frowned, searching for his own answer. And then he said, “Dunno, Yawn. Just feel like savin’ one.”
An hour or so later there was a half-moon throwing dim black-gray shadows on the earth. And in those shadows, I went with Shad and Slim to take three of our four kegs of gunpowder a hundred yards or so up the slope.
At three of the widest, easiest possible places for galloping horsemen to come down on us, we half buried the kegs in the ground, packing dirt up around their far sides so they couldn’t be seen from the top of the long slope. But at the same time, about half of each keg was left visible downhill so that those of us who would be at the bottom of the slope could put a bullet into it to blow it sky-high.
When we at last slid back down and over the rocky breastwork after that spooky detail, I felt kind of like a hero, half thinking somebody might have a good word for our work.
But maybe by then my pounding heart was beating too loud in my ears to hear what everybody else was listening to.
Eager hands helped us down, but we sure weren’t the center of attention. I looked at Shad, and for one grim moment his face seemed dark and old as night. “One horse up there,” he said.
And I suddenly knew what he and Rostov had been quietly talking about before, that had made them walk away from the rest of us.
The hoofbeats became louder, and a little later that one horse came galloping down through the shadows on the slope.
It was a frightened skewbald mare, and she raced down and jumped half over us into the hollow, where some of the men grabbed her and held her and brought her back.
It was Pietre’s mare, and his body was tied over his saddle.
At that moment the one overwhelming thought in my numb mind was so simple. I just wished to God I had given him that last big bear hug, like I almost did.
Because after what they’d done to Pietre, there wasn’t enough left of him to hug.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
WORKING BY the dim light of the moon, a few of us buried Pietre near the edge of the grassy hollow, while the others stayed on guard. Then, in groups of two and three, everybody had finally gone over to the grave to pay their last, silent respects.
By then it was as dark as it was ever going to get, and Rostov sent two more cossacks, Dmitri and Yakov, to try to get to Bakaskaya. They were to go back through the rocky rear entrance to the hollow and then keep going back for another mile or so. Then they were to split up, one going far north and the other far south, to make a several-mile-wide circle around the Tartars ahead of us.
After looking down at Pietre’s grave for a long, silent time, Igor had volunteered to go, but Rostov had said no because he needed him.
As the two other cossacks rode silently away in the dark I said to Igor quietly, “Well, that’s what ya’ get for knowin’ both languages. Miss out on all the nice, pleasant rides.”
He knew I was just trying to be helpful, and he forced a small, tight grin. But the truth was that none of us held out much hope for those two fellas. Or for ourselves either, for that matter.
So that long, dark night wasn’t altogether too cheerful of a time.
Some of the cossacks bedded down fairly early, but around midnight the only Slash-Diamonder who was sleeping was Chakko. Shad left the breastwork and the men on guard there to come over to the rest of us sitting silently around the low-burning fire. “Anybody here got a ribbon?” he said in a quiet, easy way.
This was an unlikely request, and Big Yawn muttered, “Huh?”
“If y’r gonna give Kharlagawl a present, ya’ might as well tie it up proper.”
Slim nodded, understanding. “Rate we’re goin’ we’ll be too damn tired t’morra t’ even see straight, let alone shoot straight.” He stood up. “I’m gonna git me some sleep if it kills me.”
Embarrassed into turning in, like all of the others, I crawled into my bedroll, but I was absolutely certain I wouldn’t get ten minutes’ sleep.
And on top of everything else, as though somebody up off there on the flats was reading our minds, that huge goddamned drum began its slow, measured booming again. “Dirty bastards!” I mumbled to no one in particular. And Rufe grumbled, “They’re tryin’ t’ drive us crazy!”
A few feet away Chakko raised his head slightly and yawned. Then he said, “Fuck it,” turned onto his other side, and went back to sleep. That sonofagun sure got a lot of good mileage out of that one expression.
I decided that about the best thing I could do was close my eyes and pretend to sleep.
So it came as something of a shock when I blinked my eyes back open to see the clear light of dawn around me. Some of the others were waking up now, too.
The drum was still booming out its slow thunder, and from near the fire, where he was pouring coffee, Slim grinned toward us and said, “That poor damn drummer’s gotta be the tiredest bastard in Siberia.”
Going to sleep on Chakko’s words and then waking up to Slim’s line was just about the best thing that could ever happen to a fella. Being faced with fear is a funny thing. It’s like walking a tightrope inside your own head. On the one hand, if you fall, you can become a bawling, panicky coward or just a helpless, soggy bowl of cold mush. But if, somehow, you can stay balanced on that rope, then things aren’t too bad. And both Chakko and Slim had been real helpful as balancers. Matter of fact, that morning’s cool air seemed to taste sweeter than any I’d ever breathed, and even Slim’s coffee was downright delicious. Looking around at the others, I had a strong hunch they were feeling the same sort of way.
From where they had been watching the slope above, Shad and Rostov now left the men who were there on guard at the breastwork and started over toward the fire.
“After all that good advice t’ us,” I said, “I doubt either one a’ them closed their eyes all night.”
Old Keats nodded quietly. “I’m beginning to believe those two men aren’t made of muscle and bone. Something more like leather and iron.”
A little later, sipping his cup of coffee, Shad glanced around at us. “Well, you fellas seem t’ be fairly bright-eyed an’ bushy-tailed this mornin’.”
“Goddamn drum put me right off t’ sleep,” Mushy said.
“As f’r me,” Big Yawn rumbled, “it pissed me off s’ much I swore t’ git m’ rest just t’ spite it.”
“Exactly,” Natcho agreed. “I can understand perfectly their wanting to kill us, but trying to disturb our sleep is going too far.”
That was one of Natcho’s better shots at humor, and we were all proud of him for it.
For his part, Rostov now said quietly, “Kharlagawl’s tactics of terror weaken most men.” He looked back toward the tip of the rising sun and added thoughtfully, “But they strengthen strong men.”
By the time the sun was gaining a little toward breaking loose from the far horizon on its way up into the sky, we were all ready and waiting there at the breastwork. The way the mathematics figured out, there were just exactly twenty of us, including Kirdyaga, who was propped up with his shoulder against a rock, sitting there with his rifle in hand, ready to fire against whatever might come down upon us.
Of our original thirty-one men, three were dead, six were on guard around the hollow behind us, and two were, hopefully, on their way to Bakaskaya.
As the sun got nearly halfway to high noon, the monstrous drum stopped, and when its echoes were gone, ther
e was a moment or two of complete, dead stillness.
Then we heard the damnedest last noise on earth anybody could ever have expected. From just beyond the top of the slope there was suddenly the vast tinkling sound of a thousand sleigh bells. Then, along with the jingling, there was a long, booming blast from the war horn.
“Show time again,” Slim said.
Rostov, understanding the meaning of the bells, called out, “This will be a small exploratory attack, some of their best men testing our strength.”
“In that case,” Shad said, “don’t nobody blow up those kegs a’ gunpowder on the slope. We’ll leave them f’r when they throw every damn thing they got at us.”
Now, as if by magic, about a hundred Tartar riders instantly appeared all at once on the far top of the slope. Many of their horses were painted in strange colors and designs, from zebra stripes to red and yellow polka dots. Countless bells were jangling, hanging from the stirrups and other horse furniture.
Those men were probably the best-armed fighters Kharlagawl had. About half of them carried old single-shot rifles of some sort or another. One real puzzle. In addition to the weapons they were packing, every man up there, regardless of what else he might be wearing underneath, was wearing a white kind of long, lacy shawl draped down around his shoulders, with little bells on it.
“What the hell,” Yawn mumbled, “’r them white things?”
Instinctively, somehow, I knew that might be a good question not to know the answer to, but it had already been asked. “They’re symbolic wedding dresses,” Rostov said quietly. “Those men up there are prepared to be wedded—to death.”
That was a grabber. And we were all silent with our own grim thoughts until Crab finally wet his lips and said harshly, “Them bastards c’n do however they feel like! But I’m too young t’ git married!”
A big, heavyset Tartar now rode into sight at the left end of the long line of riders. It was too far away to make out his face, but he looked very strong. He was wearing a sort of cloak that looked like bearskin, and he had some kind of a strange, round metal hat on.
“Kharlagawl,” Rostov said.
Shad raised his rifle, but before he could line up on the distant, almost impossible shot, Kharlagawl rode back out of sight. Then the thunderous war horn boomed out again, and in its booming, the mass of Tartars, bells jangling shrilly in what was now one high-pitched scream of sound, lunged their horses at full speed down the slope toward us.
“Well,” Slim shrugged, spitting some tobacco onto the ground, “like the man says, ya’ can only die one time.”
“Trouble is,” I muttered, “that one time ya’ die is often fatal.” Which was about the best I could come up with, considering how shaky that tightrope of courage in my head was getting. Watching those warriors come at us hell-bent for election, that hideous screaming racket of theirs getting louder, the thought briefly crossed my mind to throw down my gun, turn around real fast, and outrun everything that ever lived.
“Forget it,” I muttered angrily to myself. “You ain’t fast enough, Levi.”
Shad heard my low mutter and glanced at me, seeming to look right into my mind. And he did, for he then gave me a wooden sliver of a grin and said quietly, “Nobody is.”
The charging Tartars were halfway down the slope toward us now, about a quarter mile away.
“Any man waits t’ see the whites a’ their eyes,” Slim said, “will more’n likely wind up bein’ dead.”
“Each man be his own judge,” Shad said. “And start shootin’ when ya’ won’t be wastin’ bullets.”
With that, he raised his rifle, fired and brought down a distant Tartar who’d taken a slight lead over the others.
Before that first far-off warrior had hit the ground, Rostov’s gun roared and a second warrior was sent spinning wildly off his horse.
Within a few seconds we were all blasting away. Not being the world’s greatest shot, I held off longer than most. But with my first five rounds I brought three Tartars down, hitting either them or their ponies, or in one case maybe even both at once. It was still too far away to know for sure.
But that distance was closing awfully fast.
Twice I ran out of bullets and swiftly reloaded. The rifle breech and barrel were now so hot that the metal was burning blisters on my fingers, but I didn’t notice.
When I raised my rifle to start firing again, that bunch of Tartars looked damnere close enough to spit at. But we just naturally started shooting faster, and at that closer range hitting our mark more often, so our bullets were tearing them to pieces.
Finally those still in the charge were close enough to start shooting back, and they handled their weapons in first-class style. A bullet whanged against the rock in front of me and flying bits of stone cut the hell out of one side of my face, but I didn’t notice that pain any more than the heat of the rifle barrel.
Funny, but the two things I remember most right then were an ant walking across the back of my thumb and the overwhelmingly bitter smell and blinding smoke of burnt gunpowder. I saw the ant, a little red one, marching across my left thumb as I was gripping the rifle barrel with that hand and about to aim. And all of a sudden, I looked at the whole goddamn roaring mess from that poor little ant’s point of view. Fantastic, monstrous giants all around him, trying to blow apart the entire world. And all he wanted in that entire world, most likely, was to get back home in one piece, sit down with his ant friends, and hopefully take one huge, long sigh of relief.
So I gently brushed the ant off my thumb.
And then very quickly, to make up for that lost moment of time, I shot my next Tartar, who was less than a hundred yards away and coming on at full speed.
So many things happened so fast then that it’s hard to keep them in order. But brave as they were, the Tartars in that charge had been slashed to ribbons. I doubt that more than thirty of them were still asaddle when they were within a hundred yards of us. And most of those survivors just couldn’t face our deadly, withering fire any longer. So a lot of them at last spun their horses, and in all that din and confusion and heavy smoke managed to get away and back up the hill.
But not all of them went back.
Seven Tartars galloped to and over the breastwork, and there was some brief, wicked close-hand fighting.
I’d run out of bullets in my rifle for the third or fourth time, and there sure as hell wasn’t time to reload now. So I jerked out my revolver, and that old Navy Remington .44 sounded like a cannon as I shot a Tartar dead center through the chest. It wasn’t all that great marksmanship on my part. His chest was only about a foot from the muzzle, and at the time, he was about to hit me with one of those razor-sharp, long-bladed battle-axes that some of them carried.
In almost that same instant, two of them leaped toward Rostov. He ran one through with his saber, but the other was already swinging at him with a viciously curved, two-handed sword.
Before Rostov could jerk his saber out, and even before I could aim the Remington again and pull the trigger, Shad was there using his now-unloaded rifle as a club. Holding it by the barrel, he hit that Tartar so hard that it not only broke his head but sent him rolling wildly far out into the hollow behind us.
And by then the other men had finished the other Tartars who’d made it to the breastwork.
In the sudden, deafening silence, Rostov and Shad looked at each other, and I knew that they were both remembering the time before, when Rostov and his saber had stopped another Tartar from killing Shad. And thinking back to that, Shad finally said, “Maybe a rifle only has a few deaths in it. But a rifle butt goes on forever.”
Slim stepped to them and said, “Lost three men, an’ Igor’s hurt.” Then Slim looked at my face. “An’ Jesus Christ, you’re bleedin’ t’ death.”
Gregorio had got an arrow right through his head, a mean-looking thing with ugly kind of fishhook barbs cut into the stone arrowhead itself, so it would tear the living hell out of anything it went into or came ou
t of. And poor old Essaul had been shot in the throat. It was a terrible wound that left a gaping hole where it had come out. Looking down at him Slim said with a quiet sadness, “Goddamn bullet musta been big’s a doorknob.”
And the third dead man, at the end of the line, was Mushy. One of the seven Tartars who got to the breastwork had driven a lance through Mushy as his pony was leaping over.
Taking the lance out wasn’t easy. Finally some of us held his body down and Shad started to pull it out, but at first it made a couple of snapping sounds, like some little bones were breaking inside there.
“Can’t ya’ be a little easier, Shad?” Rufe asked, his low voice kind of uneven.
“No, Rufe, nobody can.” My throat was dry. “An’ we can’t leave the goddamn thing stickin’ out of ’im.”
“Wanna pull it out yourself?” Old Keats asked him.
Rufe didn’t answer.
Shad pulled very quick and hard now so that the lance came out.
“Goddamn it all t’ hell anyway,” Rufe said, his voice getting more uneven than before. “Who the hell’s gonna fix our goddamn boots now he’s gone?” And then he couldn’t speak anymore.
Right then there wasn’t enough safe time to bury anybody, so we just wrapped our three lost ones in blankets, and as we were finishing that grim job, one of the cossacks on guard at the rear of the hollow came galloping up to us. It was Gerasmin, and without dismounting he spoke to Rostov briefly, then galloped back again.
“A small band of Tartars attacked from the rear,” Rostov said. “Our men killed three of them, and two others broke their horses’ legs trying to go too quickly through the rocks. They won’t try that area of attack again.”
Old Keats looked up at the wide, half-mile slope and the bodies of men and horses that were now scattered on it. Somewhere far up, one man was still alive, crying out in dim, delirious pain. As the man’s cries died away Keats said, “They came to bring death and destruction upon us. But so far, they’ve brought their own death and destruction mostly upon themselves.”
The Cowboy and the Cossack (Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries) Page 34
