The Nagyvradi Brothers

by Laszlo Endrody

  We could see the castle and the fort long before we came out of the trees and went up to the pass on the road. We had our sheepskin coats on, along with our bearskin caps. We looked like a couple of Cossacks. Our carbines were under the canvas covers on the packs where we could get to them if needed, and we had our swords strapped on us. We each had a pistol under our coat that we could get out fast and we also had our double-barrel pistols in our saddle holsters. They were partially covered by a blanket rolled up in front of the saddle.

  As we rode up, three Austrians came down from their shacks. One was a sergeant and he had a pistol; the other two had rifles. I said, “Guten Tag” to them. They spoke back in German telling us that the border was closed. I told him that we were going home. A Polish colonel riding a beautiful spotted Arab stallion came riding down. He said something in Russian. We did not reply, so he hollered at his men in German to shoot us down. This we understood and were ready for. My left hand was right next to my left saddle pistol. Luke had a packhorse between himself and the soldiers. He had his saddle pistol in his hand but they couldn’t see it. The second that the sergeant reached for his pistol, Luke started shooting and I started right behind him. I got the colonel and a private. Luke got the sergeant and a private. I moved out right away and Luke rode over to the Arab horse and picked up the reins and led him behind us. We rode into the pass hoping that they didn’t hear the shots at the border. We pulled up as we went around a corner and reloaded our pistols.

  Twenty minutes later, we came out into a clearing. There was a small building and four men were sitting on a bench outside eating. There was a pole across the road about shoulder high. The men started to get up. They were polish soldiers. I pulled a piece of paper out of my pocket and held it up. They didn’t know what to make of that. One of them held a rifle while the other came down the road. He had a pistol in his belt. The other two went back to eating. They didn’t have any weapons in sight. Luke and I shot about the same time. Luke hit the pole with his horse and shattered it and we rode into Romania with our seven horses.

  There was a Romanian border guard in a shack that stepped out but then went back in. He didn’t want to fight a couple of Cossacks. We got behind some trees and kept riding. Luke said, “They had no right to close the border.”

  We rode until midnight and then made camp. I made a small fire and made some tea. We unsaddled everything and tied up the horses close to us and then went to sleep. That next morning we had some bacon, saddled the horses and fed them the rest of the oats that we had. Luke showed me the beautiful saddle pistols the colonel had on his Polish saddle. In his small saddlebag he had some powder and bullets for them, along with a bottle of vodka. His horse was probably the nicest Arab stud that I had ever laid eyes on. Luke put his saddle on the Arab and the Polish saddle on his gelding. We rode out and were making good time.

  After we had a little lunch, we went on. We came out into a nice meadow, so we stopped and let the horses graze. Luke led the Polish horse around and we hobbled the others. I made some pancakes and sliced up some ham. Finally, we hobbled the Arab too, since he didn’t want to fight my stallion. We were there for about four hours and then we rode on.

  I figured we had about four more days before we got to Count Rukovsky’s castle. My dad told us that it had a great wall around the place that dated back to the ancient Polish or Bulgar days. My cousin was married to Rukovsky. I figured we would visit and resupply, and then go on to the Black Sea from there where we would take a ship to France.

  We stopped late that night and rested until late that next morning. Luke was making some bacon in a skillet and some tea. I rolled out and started with taking the horses to water. I saw a huge brown bear drinking up stream. I definitely did not want to mess with him. I wasn’t sure if our rifles would even be able to stop him or not.

  When I got back to camp, I took my 10-gauge shotgun out of my pack. I figured if that bear got close to us, my shotgun was the best chance we had at stopping him. We rolled up our blankets and sheepskins that we slept on and started out again. I saw the bear on the other side of the stream. It looked like it was following a scat trail like a dog.

  We came to a wooden bridge that the stream went under. Then we saw a man walking. He had a rifle. A little while later he had become aware that we were behind him, so we went off the road. We saw that he was in a Hungarian hussar uniform, except for his cap and boots. He had on a bearskin cap and his boots were French. His rifle was resting on his left arm ready for fast action. His sword was tied to his blanket roll for easier walking, but he could get to it easy enough. We could see that he was a senior lieutenant. Luke started whistling a popular hussar song and soon a big friendly smile broke out on the man’s face.

  As we pulled up he said, “You two look like a couple of cossacks.”

  I asked him, “What happened to your horse, Lieutenant?”

  He said, “He broke his leg and I had to shoot him.”

  He introduced himself as Lieutenant Rakosy Miklos. We then introduced ourselves to him.

  I told him, “Instead of looking at our spare horse, why don’t you climb onboard, that is if you still remember how.” He gave a big smile and put his blanket roll behind the saddle on Luke’s gelding. He had a bloody package of meat that he fastened to the saddle. He then mounted up.

  The horses were very nervous. I looked back and that big bear was heading right for us.

  I said, “We had better move, unless you want bear for lunch.”

  The lieutenant asked, “Where did he come from?”

  Luke told him, “He has been following you and that meat you’re carrying.”

  We started to ride. I looked back and saw that the bear was now standing on his hind legs looking at us.

  Luke said, “We sure cheated that bear out of his lunch.”

  Miklos replied, “I could have used a bear rug to sleep on.”

  “We would be glad to take you back and drop you off if you want,” I commented.

  “No,” he said. “I would just as soon ride along with you two.”

  We stopped after a couple of hours to fix something to eat. Miklos said that he could donate the meat if we had a pot to cook it in. He said that he needed to use it up. I took out our goulash pot and some paprika and other seasonings, along with three potatoes. While Miklos was cutting up the meat, Luke and I let horses graze. Then we tied the horses up and sat around listening to our new friend’s stories while the food was cooking. He wanted to get to France by way of ship too. He had a sister in France. After we ate, Luke told Miklos how tasty the meat was.

  Luke then asked him, “What kind of meat was that?”

  Miklos replied, “It was a stupid Austrian major’s stupid Austrian horse that must have been raised for city riding.” Luke turned white and I just laughed.

  Luke said, “I don’t know if I want to give you my horse to ride or not. You’ll probably end up eating it.”

  Miklos told him, “I would never eat a real Hungarian horse.”

  Miklos then asked me about the saddle pistols. Luke told him that he could have them, but only if he promised to use them on as many of our enemies as possible, and Miklos promised.

  When we arrived at Count Rukovsky’s castle, we rode through the gate in the big wall and found a dirty little village with dirty people wearing rags. There was loitering all over the narrow streets. We could see a huge house past some old ruins of a fort, so we headed up to a road leading to it. There was a big 20 foot iron fence surrounding it. The iron gate was closed so we banged on it. There was a little boy playing by a rose garden and he came up to us and asked us in French who we were. In French I told him that we were relatives of Mrs. Rukovsky’s. He said, “Okay, I will go and get my mother.”

  Pretty soon we saw some servants running to the gate. We rode in and went up to the big house. My cousin was waiting for us at the steps. She was very happy to
see us. We went in the castle and met her husband, Count Rukovsky. We were shown to some fine rooms where we cleaned up. Dinner was excellent.

  We were very happy with our stop until the Count’s oldest son rode in with five men. All of them were tough Cossacks in the Czar’s service. At dinner he announced that he would be replacing our horses with the best of his stock. I told him in no uncertain terms that our horses were not available for trading. He said, “I am very sorry, but I have to seize your horses in the name of the Czar.” He then left the room and his father followed him.

  We heard some shouting in the next room. My cousin told me that her son was a very important official and they have laws to seize all incoming breeding stock from Hungary. When we went to our room that evening, we decided to depart that night. We were planning on leaving at 1:00 a.m. Luke told me that he knew where our packs and saddles were. They were all in a separate room in the stable. Miklos then told us that the two stallions were out in a corral with some mares close to the stables. He didn’t say anything because he figured that we already knew about it. It made no difference. All of our weapons were with our packs except our swords and Luke and I also had our belt pistols. We only had two shots and three swords.

  After midnight, we eased out my window to the balcony. There was some lattice work for some plants and we climbed down that. Miklos spotted a Cossack sitting by the door with a carbine. We had to be very careful in getting to the stables. Before we got there, we spotted another Cossack at the stables. We stopped and watched him for a while. Both doors on both ends were open and the Cossack came out one end and looked around, then a little later he would go out the other end and look around. He was walking back and forth. When he disappeared inside, Luke ran to the one door, looked inside, and then went in. There was an oil lamp burning inside. When the Cossack turned at the other end, Miklos and I went to that door. I looked in and the Cossack was laid out neatly on the floor close to Luke’s door. Miklos picked up the Cossack’s carbine and walked out the door. He looked around and then came back in. Luke used a hammer to knock the Cossack out. I went to the room where our saddles were and found a padlock on the door. Luke went back to where he got the hammer and came back with a steel bar. He wedged it in the lock and put his weight on it and it opened.

  I started saddling up. I saddled one of the mares and so did Luke. Then I saddled the gelding for Miklos. After that, I put the packs on the two mares and two nice horses in the stable. I wanted to be ready to ride the minute we had our stallions. When we were ready, I got the two halters that I took off the Count’s horses and got the two shotguns from our pack. I handed a halter and shotgun to Luke. I asked Miklos where the stallions were and he came to the other door and pointed to the corrals. We let Miklos go to the other door and step out and then we went to the corrals. My horse came to me right away and he had his halter on. I just put the rope over on him and opened the corral the minute I saw Luke. Three minutes later I saw Luke. He left his gate open and I did too. Miklos saw us coming and he turned all of the horses in the stables loose. Luke and I tied the stallions to two packs and we rode out of there and one of the horses from the corral was following behind us.

  We were almost to the iron gate when two Cossacks came out of some blankets. I let go with both barrels of my shotgun and both Cossacks went down. Luke jumped off his horse and slammed down on the lock on the gate with a hammer. I jumped off the mare I was on and put my shotgun in one of the packs. I then picked up a carbine that was lying next to the Cossacks and went to help Luke open the gates. We swung them open and got back on our horses and rode down the hill as fast as we could. We rode back towards Hungary for an hour and then turned into some woods and headed south. We rode until morning and then we made camp.

  Luke helped me unsaddle the horses and then he took his carbine and went back a ways from the direction we had come from and listened. He wanted to make sure that we hadn’t been followed. When he came back into camp, he was leading the horse that followed us. Then we started breakfast. Miklos was feeding the horses with a half-sack of corn that he had taken from the stables. We rested for a couple of hours and then saddled up again and headed south.

  We rode south all day and then made camp. We still held onto the three horses, otherwise they would have gone back home since they were well-kept animals. One of the horses was a fine riding horse and the other two were probably carriage horses. We were short on supplies, so that next morning I saw a stag and shot it. After that, we skinned it out and cut it up so we could carry it. We each had two steaks. We wrapped the meat in the hide and tied it on one of the packs. Miklos boned out the loins and ribs, so we just had the shoulder and hind legs and a lot of stew meat.

  After about two hours heading south, we came to a trail going east. We stayed on the trail the rest of the day. The next morning we heard some dogs barking, so I sent Luke ahead to take a look. He came back 45 minutes later and told us that there was a farm ahead. Miklos suggested that he ride ahead and talk to them first. He told us that his Polish was pretty good and so was his German. He said, “If they are farmers, they are either Polish or German.”

  We talked this over and decided to trade horses for supplies. We rode up a ways where we could watch Miklos through our glasses. He went up to six people working in a potato field. One man came out and Miklos started talking to him. We saw the man point towards a house with a big barn next to it. Miklos rode over to the house and talked to a man there for a while. A woman then came out and she started talking to him too. They were clean-looking people, so I figured that they were probably Schwäbisch Germans.

  Luke and I fried up a couple of steaks while Miklos was talking to the people. I cut a couple for him too and then repacked everything. After a while, Miklos came riding back and started waving for us. We mounted up and approached the farm. When we got down there, Miklos told us that he could get four hams, four slabs of bacon, two sacks of corn, a sack of potatoes, a half sack of flour, and the woman would make us five loaves of bread. I asked him, “How about a saddle too, because now we are going to have a hauling problem.”

  While we were talking, a man hitched up a one-horse wagon and drove over to us. We showed him the team we would trade in exchange for the food items, but of course he wanted two of my horses. Miklos told him the team that was up for trade was the one that we showed him, no others. Then we asked him if he had a saddle or packsaddle and he did. Miklos told him that we needed that too. The mare that we were to trade started talking to the studs and they both started talking back. I asked the man which horse he liked best and he pointed to the Arab. Luke unsaddled him and led her gelding mate away and the Arab bred her. The farmer was all smiles.

  I asked him, “How far is it to Count Rukowsky’s castle from here?”

  He said, “Maybe five days on horses. No road. We do not do business with them. We have a village to the south.”

  I then asked him the name of the village and found it on my map. From there we could head east or ride into Romania. The Black Sea was about the same distance.

  The Arab bred the mare again and the farmer rode back to the house and people started to load the wagon up. We unloaded everything. We got an old packsaddle from him. It was ancient. We folded three blankets under it and put it on the new gelding. We grained the horses and then started to pack everything away. Three sacks would go on the new horse. The farmer started talking to Miklos and then stopped when his new mare started talking to the Arab again. Luke took the stud over to her and bred her once again. We then tied his two horses behind his wagon and he went back to the house. Miklos followed him and came back with about 20 eggs in a basket, along with a big jar of lard. We were just waiting on the bread, so we unsaddled and got busy doing everything else.

  About four hours later, the farmer loaded a big sack on his wagon and he brought us out five big round loaves of fresh bread. He also brought us a couple lengths of hard sausage. The farmer had a piece
of paper with him that he wanted Miklos to sign. Miklos made a big production out of it and signed it. We all shook hands and rode out of the valley heading south towards the village he told us about.

  After a couple hours, we pulled into some trees and made camp for the night. We had water and shelter from an overhanging rock. We had a feast of eggs, sausage, and fresh bread. The horses liked the corn too. We decided to stay there the whole next day as well. We grazed the horses.

  After our long stay, we pulled out early in the morning. We saw the village that afternoon. Just for safety sake, I sent Luke in to look around. He rode in on his old gelding. He was in his sheepskin jacket turned fur out, his bearskin hat, and had his sword on like a Cossack. He came riding back shortly. He told us that the count was in town with seven Cossacks. We went wide of the village and stayed in the trees.

  Night came and we kept going out on the road. The next morning we went off the road a ways but we could study the road in our glasses. We stayed there all day. We tried to make a lot of guesses on how he had figured us out so easy. The only thing we figured was that he had just eliminated all other possibilities.

  We decided to look at the border crossing and see what was there. That evening we eased up to the road and as soon as it was dark, we went out on it and headed south. Around midnight we saw a light ahead, so we went into the trees and rested until morning. As soon as it was light out, we looked the place over and it was the border. There were about 20 Cossacks on our side, with another three armed men on the Romanian side. I said, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  We went west until evening and then we crossed a creek that we assumed was the border. We camped over in Romania. That morning we headed south and kept going south all day. We were pretty sure we knew where we were on the map, so we tried to keep parallel with the road and then maybe angle closer to the road if the going was easier.