The Winter Horses (9 page)

With Grenzmann close on his heels, Max hurried around the corner just in time to see Molnija turn into the stable. Surely, he thought, the game was up now; with any luck, Kalinka would have had the presence of mind to hide herself in the loft, but there was no way that Grenzmann was going to overlook the presence of two “forbidden” horses in Max’s stable. He would very probably shoot the horses and then Max himself.

But when the old man reached the stable door, he found Molnija with his muzzle in a bucket of fresh feed—placed there, he imagined, by Kalinka—with no sign of Temüjin or Börte. Astonished, he glanced around the stable several times but, as if by magic, the two horses had vanished.

Grenzmann caught up with the old man and smiled. “I can see you were expecting us, Max.”

“Sir?”

“The feed you had prepared. That was most thoughtful of you. A peace offering, perhaps?”

“Er, I did wonder if you might ride out this way, sir,” said Max. “It being such a beautiful morning.”

Grenzmann looked about him and took a deep breath.

“I wonder, how many more such mornings will there be for us Germans?”

“Many more, I hope, sir.”

“What do you think will happen to Lightning when I leave, Max?”

“I haven’t given it much thought, sir.”

“Well, I have. Since that awful business with your
Przewalski’s horses, it’s been on my mind a lot. Shall I tell you what I think will happen to him? To Lightning? To all of your precious animals here at Askaniya-Nova?”

Max shrugged. He might have reminded the captain that almost all of the animals—the deer, the llamas, the bison, even the zebras—had been shot by the Germans for their kitchen, but he hardly wanted to provoke an argument with Grenzmann. Not when he was being so friendly.

“I think the Red Army will butcher this horse and then eat him. That’s what will happen to him.”

“Then why not take him with you, sir? When you leave.”

“I’d like to, Max. Really, I would. But even a horse as fast as this couldn’t keep up with a motorized group of SS. Especially as we may have to try to fight our way out of here.”

Grenzmann let Molnija finish the last of the feed in the pail and then lifted his head into his hands.

“So what will you do, sir?”

“Only one thing I can do, really.”

To the old man’s relief, Grenzmann took hold of the horse’s reins and then led him outside, where he mounted the animal again and turned him toward the big house.

“I shall shoot him myself.” Grenzmann patted the horse on the neck and then smiled sadly at Max. “It’s the kinder thing to do. That an animal as fine and noble as this should end up on some Russian peasant’s plate is an unbearable thought to me.”

Max said nothing.

“But that’s not for a while yet.” The captain nodded. “Don’t forget about tomorrow night, will you, Max?”

“No, sir. I won’t forget. And thank you.”

Grenzmann galloped away, and for quite a while after he’d gone—until he realized it was the sound of his own heart beating—it seemed that Max could still hear the horse’s hooves on the snow.

T
HE OLD MAN WATCHED
Captain Grenzmann gallop away until he was just a dot on the snowy horizon before turning back to the stable. Still more than a little puzzled—for he had seen no tracks in the snow leading away from the stable to persuade him that Temüjin and Börte had ever left there—Max looked up at the loft and called out Kalinka’s name.

“Kalinka,” he said. “You can come down now. He’s gone.”

For a moment, Max thought there must be an earthquake—these are not uncommon in that part of the world—because the straw-covered floor of the stable seemed to shift before his eyes; the next second, Kalinka stood up, followed by the two horses.

“That was close,” she said. “There was one moment when his stupid, great horse almost stepped on me.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Max, for it was now apparent to him that all three of them had been hiding under a layer of straw.

She grinned. “We really fooled him, didn’t we? That German. And his German horse.”

“How did you do it?” he asked the girl.

“Believe me,” she said, picking straw off her clothes, “I’ve hidden in a lot of hayricks since I left Dnepropetrovsk. More than I care to remember.”

“I’m sure you have. But what I mean is, how on earth did you persuade these two horses to lie down and let you cover them with a layer of straw?”

“Actually, it was their idea,” said Kalinka. “They lay down and started to pull the straw across themselves, like they were going to bed. I just helped finish the job. You know, I’d say they’ve done this sort of thing before: hiding. I mean, they seem pretty good at it. As good as me, I reckon. Maybe better.”

“For years, I’ve been telling people that these horses are as clever as foxes.”

“I reckon they are, you know. Not that I know many foxes.”

“I used to say that there was a very good reason why they had a fur brush for a tail instead of just hair.” Max rubbed his silver beard thoughtfully. “I guess I should have listened to myself, eh?”

He laughed, clapped his hands and stamped around the floor with delight. This prompted Temüjin to utter a
whinny and hoof the straw, which seemed to amount to almost the same thing.

“I always knew they could find the right spot to stand in that helped them blend in with a bush or a tree,” added Max. “There are plenty of stories in the books about how they were able to evade Mongolian hunters who were just a few steps away from them. But I didn’t realize how far they could take something like that. I never heard of a horse doing what I witnessed in here.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” said Kalinka. “Isn’t that what people say?”

“For everything except a miracle, perhaps.” He shook his head. “Come on. I won’t be happy until I’ve got the three of you hidden away again.”

Max led them outside; the sun was properly up by now, and they could see a clear trail left by Grenzmann’s horse as far as the horizon, which prompted Max to find something new to worry about.

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” he said.

“What is it?”

He pointed at the Hanoverian horse’s hoofprints.

“If we walk on this snow, there will be an obvious trail from here to the waterworks. For any German soldiers looking for more horses to shoot, it would be like drawing them a map.”

“We could walk single file,” suggested Kalinka. “Like Saint Wenceslas’s page.”

Max shook his head. “It would still make them curious.

And that curiosity might lead them to the old waterworks. No, I think it’s probably best we keep its existence as secret as possible.”

“So what are we going to do?”

He glanced up at the sky again. “There’s only one thing we can do, I think, and that’s to wait for it to snow again before we go to the waterworks.”

“Is it going to snow again?”

“In this part of Ukraine, at this time of year, it always snows again,” Max said grimly.

Kalinka shrugged and led the two horses back into the stable. “I suppose,” she said, “we could always hide under the straw if that captain or any of his men come back.”

Max nodded. “If my old heart can stand it, I suppose you could at that,” he said.

“Until then we could play chess, if you like,” said Kalinka. “I noticed that you have a set of pieces and a board.”

“Do you play?”

“A little.”

It was several hours before it started to snow again, by which time Kalinka had beaten the old man at chess three times in a row.

“You’re very good at that game,” he said irritably as he finally led the girl and the two horses across the open steppe to the smallest lake, which was where the waterworks was located. “How is that?”

“My father said I was a prodigy,” she announced matter-of-factly. “He could never beat me and he was
much better than you. Oh, I don’t mean that you’re no good at all. Just that you’re not half as good as he was. He was the regional state chess champion. He used to say that the secret of being a very good player is to think two or three moves ahead. Somehow, I manage to think four or five moves ahead. That’s all.”

“That’s all?” he muttered. “You manage to make that sound quite unremarkable, Kalinka.”

“Do I?”

Max turned and looked back at their trail, which was already being covered by a light layer of snow; in an hour or two, the trail would have disappeared for good.

“But maybe that’s how you’ve survived on your own for so long,” he said. “By thinking four or five moves ahead.”

“No,” she said. “I think I’ve just been lucky. That’s the difference between survival and chess. In chess, you don’t need any luck at all.”

“The way I play, you do.”

“True.” She paused for a moment and then added, “Being good at chess is a little like looking into the future. Mostly it’s about seeing things that other people can’t see.”

Max shook his head. “Chess is one thing. But I think you’ve also seen things that people are never meant to see. Such as your mom and dad being killed. That’s what makes you a survivor, Kalinka. That’s what makes you so strong.”

Kalinka didn’t answer; she didn’t feel particularly strong, but she felt that Max was probably right. Then again, it wasn’t like she had much choice. Going on with her life was the only thing that she could do now—and not for herself but for her mama and her papa. Her own survival was something she had dedicated to them.

They reached the smallest lake, where the forest was at its thickest and most overgrown.

“The waterworks,” he said. “It’s in those trees.”

Kalinka looked closely and then shook her head. “I can’t see anything,” she admitted.

“Good,” said the old man. “That means the Germans won’t see anything either.”

He led the way through some thick undergrowth to a doorway in a brick-built structure not much taller than Kalinka that was almost invisible underneath the snow-covered vegetation. Max opened the door and then lit a lamp that was hanging on a hook on the wall inside.

“The baron built this place because it’s difficult to provide a park of this size, surrounded by steppe, with enough water,” he said, advancing along a low passageway. “Down there is the old pumping station. And out here—”

He opened another door to the outside and pointed to what looked to Kalinka like two circular stone huts.

“These are the old storage tanks. Water from these used to flow all over the reserve in pipes and canals
that go underground. As you can see, we’re completely surrounded with trees and bushes. The only way you could see these is if you were to fly over them. The tanks were both completely watertight until the earthquake of 1927. That put a big split in the wall of each of them and that was the end of the waterworks. Over the last ten years, the splits have got bigger, until now they’re more like doorways. We’ll put you in one tank and the horses in the other. But I reckon the horses can come and go and do their business out here within the perimeter of the trees without anyone noticing. Not even you, probably. There’s an inspection window in the roof of each tank that should give you plenty of light in the day.”

Kalinka stepped through the jagged doorway of the water tank and looked around. There was an old mattress, some boxes of junk and the makings of a fire.

“Has someone been living here?” she asked.

“Just me. Like I said, for a while, I considered living in here instead of the cottage. Gave it a shot for a couple of weeks one summer. You’ll find some useful things in them boxes, I shouldn’t wonder. Candles, lamps, some blankets, a few tins of food. It’s quite cozy, actually. Light a fire under that window and the smoke will go up through the broken glass.”

“What changed your mind? About living in here? I mean, there aren’t any ghosts, are there?”

“Ghosts?” Max grinned. “Whatever gave you such an
idea? The only ghost around here is me. Since you ask, the reason I never stayed here was because it turns out I don’t much like enclosed places. There’s a name for it. Claustrophobia, they call it. So I stay in the cottage out on the steppe there, with all its faults. Besides, I like to see the birds on the lake in the spring. From my window, I have a fine view of all the ducks and geese that go swimming there. I especially like to watch the gray and purple herons that hunt for fish and frogs—from them, I think I’ve learned patience. It’s like going to the cinema for me, I reckon.” He frowned. “I know this place looks a bit grim now. But we’ll soon get it looking a bit more homey. And you can have old Taras here for company. I’ll bring some more stuff across from the cottage while it’s still snowing.”

“Don’t worry,” said Kalinka. “I’ve certainly stayed in many worse places since I left Dnepropetrovsk.”

Kalinka thought of the cemetery in Nikopol where she had slept for almost a week: German bombs had opened up some of the crypts, and she had lived in one for several days before the grave diggers had come and chased her off. That had been one of the worst places, probably; she was sure there had been ghosts in that crypt. Tolerable during the day, but not a place to stay at night. It’s hard to sleep in a cemetery because you always worry that you’re never going to wake up.