The Cowboy and the Cossack (Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries) (16 page)

Rostov stepped toward us, studying the savage-eyed but now motionless wolf.

Then he looked at Shad. “That was an interesting exhibition with your ropes. They’re very effective
.
”

“We brought this fella over t’ give t’ you,” Shad said quietly. Then he added, “It’s a Montana puppy.”

There was a whole lot being said there, and Rostov understood every word of it. Shad had put him in a tough, touchy spot to get out of.

Yet the way Shad had said it, he wasn’t being quite as mean as it might sound. It was more of a hard kind of a testing where the way a man responds can sometimes make a big difference in your judgment of him.

Right now it was up to Rostov to respond. But just how the hell do you respond upon being presented with a giant, killer wolf as a pet?

He looked at the big wolf and said, “I admire the way he protected the other two with him.”

“Admire!” Crab grunted from where the cowboys had gathered. “I think that’s the bastard that got my arm that night! Only one thing t’ do with that vicious sonofabitch! An’ that’s put a bullet through his head before he bites somebody else’s arm clean off, or tears their throat out!”

Rostov ignored Crab, and now did an amazing and downright terrifying thing, a thing that I’d never dream of doing in a hundred years.

He walked up to where the wolf was still strung out tight between the two lassos. He grabbed Slim’s rope with his left hand about two feet away from those savagely bared fangs and lifted the wolf up onto its hind legs by that rope on its neck. Then, as the wolf thrashed around violently, trying to get its teeth into Rostov anyplace it could, he grabbed it firmly by the
neck with his right hand, so that its slashing fangs couldn’t quite get at his arm.

“Slack off your ropes,” he said.

Shad and Slim both gave him slack in their lariats, and he managed somehow to get the nooses quickly off the wolf’s neck with his left hand without losing it.

Then with his powerful right hand still around the wolf’s neck, he lifted it completely off the ground as it snapped and thrashed violently in that iron grip.

It was a damn impressive, and frightening, sight to see.

Holding the wolf up almost at eye level, its fangs flashing only a few inches from his face, he said, “I appreciate your gift, Mr. Northshield. In return I’m going to give this Montana puppy a gift he’ll appreciate too—his freedom.”

With this, he threw the heavy wolf away from him. It landed about six feet from where he stood, whirled and charged away with blinding speed.

On its way out it sped by Mushy Callahan and Mushy leaped aside so fast that he damnere fell over.

Crab, whose arm still wasn’t completely cured, might just possibly have been mad about what Rostov had done, but nobody else was.

Even Shad had a kind of a good look on his face as he watched that big black wolf race off toward the darkening horizon, that one-half of a tail of his sticking straight and level out behind him at the speed he was going.

Rostov turned toward Shad. “I think both gifts that were given were rather interesting, in their own ways.”

Shad nodded briefly, impassively. “They weren’t too bad, Rostov.”

And then, with most everyone somehow feeling sort of good, we rode back to our camp to start supper.

It was two days later that I saw my first Tartars.

Rostov and I were far ahead, as usual, and were approaching the top of a high bluff. I don’t know whether it was out of instinct or because of something he’d seen or heard that I hadn’t, but he pulled up before we were on the skyline.

We dismounted and went up cautiously, finally lying down at the top of the bluff. And ahead of us, maybe two miles away on the flats, were thirty or forty riders that you could just barely see in the distance. Rostov studied them through his little telescope and then, handing the scope grimly to me, he went back down the hill to signal his men behind us to stop.

Rostov hadn’t told me they were Tartars, but when I looked through his spyglass I realized that he hadn’t had to.

In that little round opening I was staring through, the horsemen were brought up pretty close. And they were a scary-looking bunch. A lot of them had long, braided hair hanging far down their backs, and they were dressed every which way, some of them with almost nothing on, and others with dirty and ragged but colorful voluminous shirts and pants, and even some old robes that looked like tucked-in nightgowns.

Most of their weapons weren’t modern, but they sure as hell looked like they were made for killing. Among them they were carrying swords, daggers, spears, bows and arrows and a few rifles and handguns. Some of them were wearing big earrings and other kinds of jewelry. And a lot of them had painted their horses. Some of them were painted in white-and-black stripes, like zebras, and others were designed with blue or red polka dots.

But what got to me most, watching them silently riding along in much the same direction we were going, was the feeling I had deep down in my bones, even from this distance, of intense, animal savagery about them. With that black half-tailed wolf still in the back of my mind, it occurred to me that I’d seen wolf packs that seemed friendly and civilized compared to those deadly-looking Tartars up ahead.

They finally disappeared, moving north by east.

We let them get a good, long head start on us, and we never did see those particular Tartars again.

But late the next day we came upon a dreadful thing they’d left in their wake.

It was a fair-sized cart that had been carrying supplies and probably seven or eight Russians who’d been on their way to somewhere.

You couldn’t tell whether it was seven or eight because of the way they’d left some of their bodies. I can’t remember the scene Rostov and I came upon too well because my mind just sort of blacked out. All I can remember, and I wish I couldn’t, was one little baby of about three years old. It had been nailed to a tree.

Rostov and his cossacks started to bury them, and a little while later Shad, knowing that something was wrong, came galloping up with Igor.

After a long moment Shad said in a quiet, husky voice, “I once saw what was left after a Shoshone attack. But”—it took him a minute to get his voice firmly back—“Christ, even that poor damn little kid!

Rostov looked at him and there was almost a
camaraderie
between them because of this tragedy that would hit any man hard.

“The Tartars go by a saying they have,” he said quietly. “‘Let there be no eye left open—to weep.’ ”

We finally left that sad place.

And three days later, from the top of a green, forest-covered mountain, we first saw Khabarovsk.

PART TWO
ARMED TRUCE AT KHABAROVSK

Diary Notes

D
URING THESE
parlous and often downright spooky times, the Slash-Diamond outfit discovers among other things that there are cossacks—and there are cossacks. You can’t lump them all together any more than you can lump all birds together and try to pretend that a crow and an eagle are exactly the same thing.

Shad and Rostov, for reasons that will become apparent, take our original thirty-one men and make them seem to be sixty for a while, and finally, accidentally, more than eighty. All of which ain’t too easy, though it is highly interesting and sometimes even fairly amusing.

And while they’re busy trying to make our bunch seem larger than life, some of us cowboys and cossacks are busy trying to cut our overall numbers down by inflicting death or at the very least severe bodily injury upon each other. This usually takes place in the form of friendly, healthy, good-natured competition that the cossacks jokingly refer to as war games, but not too jokingly.

And finally, under dire and very pressing circumstances, we have to suddenly and swiftly take our best shot at crossing the Amur River in the middle of a stormy night to get the hell out of Khabarovsk with all possible speed.

Sammy the Kid is still nervous about going near any water in general, and about crossing the Amur River in particular. But I try to cheer him up by telling him that, all things equal, we probably won’t live long enough to even get to the goddamn river in the first place.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

L
OOKING FAR
down and away from the high crest of that green mountain, Khabarovsk was, even at such a long distance, a big and impressive town.

Rostov and I, ahead of the others, had pulled up and were watching from the trees, where we could see but not be seen.

He’d already signaled the others to hold back.

Aside from the hundreds of small huts and shacks trailing and dwindling off from its center, there were fifteen or twenty main buildings, some of them two and even three stories high, that made up the inner hub of Khabarovsk. It was exciting as hell, and was surely the biggest place we’d come upon since we’d left Seattle.

Two huge rivers flowed together there, meeting and growing twice as large on the far side of the town from us. On the nearer side of the town, away from the water and stretching high up toward us, were large fields and hilly forests.

Rostov finished studying it through his telescope. He said, “No threat of Tartars.” And then he handed the scope to me.

Looking through the glass, that fact about Tartars was one of the best things that struck me about the town. People were moving around free and easy down there on the streets and didn’t seem to be too fearful.

I handed Rostov back his telescope, and then he gave me one of those long, dark-eyed, hard looks of his that somehow always made a fella wonder whether to smile or duck or just leave town at a full gallop. Finally he said, “Would you consider Khabarovsk a safe town, Levi?”

In my experience, it was an almost unknown occurrence for Rostov to ever ask an easy question. So I hedged it as best I could. “Sir?”

“Do you think that it’s a safe town for us to go into?” The way he said it made me think that maybe he wasn’t asking a question so much as he was wondering if he’d ever managed to teach me anything.

After a moment I said, “I don’t know about that, sir.” And then I added, “But right now it’s the only town we got.”

He nodded briefly, and I think there was some kind of quiet approval, and maybe even a hint of faint amusement, in that nod.

But somehow I knew that something was wrong.

And then Shad came galloping up from behind us, madder than hell. He was pushing his big Red full out, yet even in that brief, speeding time I couldn’t help but notice that Shad managed to keep himself just as invisible as Rostov and I were, making sure that he and Red were always out of sight from anyone who might be watching from the town far below and off.

“What’s the hang-up here?” he demanded angrily, slamming Red to a damnere skidding halt.

For a man of his own somewhat fiery temperament, Rostov did a strange thing then. First off, he didn’t get in the least mad back. He didn’t even bother to answer.

And second, he got off his big black stallion and hunched down among the trees, still studying the far-off town. Finally, he pulled a blade of grass and started to chew on it idly, thoughtfully.

In a funny way just then, hunched quietly down on his heels like that, Rostov reminded me of nobody else in the world quite so much as Shad.

Igor now came tearing over the hill, following behind Shad. He kept pretty well out of sight too and pulled up on Blackeye as Shad dismounted and stalked toward Rostov, his chaps slapping angrily against his legs as he walked. He stopped near Rostov and said harshly, “My herd’s been held to a halt back there!
Why
?”

Rostov didn’t answer for a long moment. He slowly shifted the blade of grass in his mouth and then said in a low voice, “Because I’m afraid of that town.”

Those words got to Shad. And they sure as hell made Igor and me stop and think. Because if there was one thing in this world we were all damn sure of, it was that Rostov wasn’t afraid of anything that either this world or even a Holy Christian Hell had to offer.

For a long time, no one said anything.

Then, finally, Shad spoke, both his frown and his voice still hard as ever. “That’s one of your own goddamn
Russian
towns! What the hell
you
got t’ be afraid of?”

Rostov stood up quickly, so that the two of them were now suddenly facing each other, which was a thing that always tended to make me, and anyone else who happened to be present, somewhat ill at ease.

But Rostov was still thoughtful, more than angry. “I suspect my men and I won’t be overly welcome there.”

Shad stared at Rostov, his frown deepening, and then Slim and Old Keats rode up to us through the trees.

Slim said, “Just wanted t’ let ya’ know, boss, them cows’re temporarily circled an’ settled.” He glanced back and forth from Shad to Rostov. “Well, boss, we goin’ on down there t’ that town over yonder ’r not?”

Shad turned toward Slim, but before he could make an answer there were the sudden sounds of still other horsemen coming quickly through the trees. Lieutenant Bruk and the big sergeant, Nick, rode toward us, Yuri and Vody following hard behind them.