Anatoly Rybakov - THE BRONZE BIRD

"You, a working man? All you do with those hands is to count money! You have spun a web around the whole village and now you want to be called a working man!"

That started another hubbub. But this time resentment was levelled at Yerofeyev, the shopkeeper and the other kulaks. Long-standing grievances were aired, people recalled the injustices and humiliations they had suffered at the hands of the local rich. Misha watched Longshanks' mother: this was the moment for her to get up and tell everybody how Yerofeyev had tried to persuade her to betray her own son. But Maria Ivanovna sat silently in a corner, her sad eyes fixed on the speakers.

The chairman banged on the table with the palm of his hand.

"Citizens! Enough wrangling! The question is clear. We shall have former waifs living here in a labour commune. And if certain people are looking after their own skins, that is their own affair. All the working peasants, the poor and the middle alike, are eager to give a helping hand. Therefore, let us ask Boris Sergeyevich to tell us how he intends to organize the work o? the commune. In other words, we want to know what assistance is expected from us."

Boris Sergeyevich told the meeting what work the members of the commune would do, what crops they would grow, what orchards they would plant, what workshops and auxiliary enterprises they would have and how all that would benefit the people in the neighbourhood.

Everybody listened with close attention. Perhaps he did not win over all of them, but the majority felt that truth was on his side and not on the side of those who exploited them.

Misha and his friends skipped with joy. They thought Boris Sergeyevich's speech was wonderful. He had drawn such an alluring picture of the commune that all of them wanted to join it, to stay in Karagayevo, in a new place, and create a new enterprise of the "new," as Boris Sergeyevich put it, "communist type..."

When the meeting ended it was already dark. The rain had stopped, the sky was clear of clouds and myriads of stars were twinkling in it. Raindrops showered down from leaves and branches when the youngsters brushed against trees and shrubs.

Boris Sergeyevich and Misha walked behind the others. From the darkness in front came shouts and halloos, the loud laughter of Zina Kruglova, the hurt mumbling of Kit, and the indignant voice of the Bleater.

"What if the former owner of the manor suddenly appeared?" Misha asked. "Do you think he could hinder the commune?"

"How?" Boris Sergeyevich laughed. "The estate has been confiscated and now belongs to the state."

"Do you know where the former counts are?"

"The old count went abroad before the Revolution, but nobody knows where his son is. What difference does that make?"

It cost Misha a great effort to keep from telling Boris Sergeyevich what difference that made. He decided he would tell him if tomorrow the man in the green suit proved to be Count Karagayev.

"Have you ever given a thought to the Karagayev emblem?" Misha said. "What I wanted to ask you is if you know what the bird in the emblem is supposed to be."

"An eagle. Judging by the head it's a lammergeyer or bearded eagle. Something between an eagle and a vulture, a transitional species, so to say. True, the experts I've spoken to believe the body is of an eagle, while the head is definitely that of a lammergeyer. Here," he produced his notebook, "I have a description: 'Big head, flat in front and rounded at the back; covered with bristly, fluff-like feathers. Big beak, long and ending in a sharp hook. Base of the beak is surrounded by bristles, which cover the lower half of the beak. That is why the bird is also called a bearded eagle.' "

Misha listened tensely, but what he heard did not offer a clue. Lammergeyer, bearded eagle... Half-eagle, half-vulture... No, that led nowhere. Khalzan, kurgan, burial-ground-that was concrete. But bearded eagle meant nothing.

Had they made a mistake about the eagle as well? Was it on the emblem to no purpose and that their guesses were worth as little as the drawing of the route?

All the same, Misha decided to tell Genka and Slava what he learned from Boris Sergeyevich. When the camp grew quiet, he called them out of the tent, took them aside and said:

"Here's what, chaps. Boris Sergeyevich says that the bird has the head of a lammergeyer or bearded eagle."

"So what?" Genka said irritably. "Didn't I tell you the head is unusual, not like a real eagle's? It's quite possible that it's a lammergeyer's, I won't argue about that. But I can't see why that's so important. After all, except for the head, the bird's an ordinary eagle."

"What about the drawing?" Misha insisted. "On it the head of the eagle is black to distinguish it from the body and the legs. That means there's something special about it. And the head is of a lammergeyer."

Genka again winced irritably.

"I don't know. I don't know. What has a lammergeyer to do with it? In Russia, we hardly have any of those birds. You find them sometimes only in the Caucasus and in the Himalayan Mountains. If you want to know, the lammergeyer lives at a higher altitude than any other mountain bird-in the region of glaciers and eternal snow. Where could a lammergeyer appear from here, in the central belt of Russia? It nests only on cliffs. What cliffs are there around here? Not a single rock."

"Oh yes, there is! What about the rock we climbed today?"

Genka laughed.

"Call that a rock? Get this through your nut: it builds its nests on inaccessible cliffs."

"That makes no difference," Misha declared decisively, "but just look at what it all means. The eagle represents the Khalzan River, its head-the rock on the Khalzan, the paws-a burial mound...a grave on the rock. Does that penetrate? Khalzan-rock-grave."

Slava yawned noisily. He was dying to go to sleep. To be quite frank, he was tired of all these guesses and did not believe any of them. One eagle, then another, and so on to infinity. If it had only been a matter of eagles, the diamond would have been found long ago. The people who had looked for it had probably not been fools either.

"We've been on the rock today, but we didn't see any grave," Slava said, yawning again.

"That's true," Misha replied eagerly, "but we didn't look for it. We must go over the whole rock carefully."

"When?" Genka and Slava asked nervously.

"Now. At once."

But Genka and Slava flatly refused to go. What would they see at night? Exactly nothing. It would be just a waste of time. All that that would get them was the loss of a good night's rest. Besides, the man in the green suit was due tomorrow and they had to be fresh and ready.

"So you won't go?" Misha demanded in a threatening tone of voice.

"No!" his friends replied firmly.

"What if I order you?"

"You've no right to do that," Slava said. "If it concerned the troop, you'd be in your rights. But this is a private affair and you can't order us around."

For some time, the question whether Misha had the right to order them was argued hotly. Each stuck to his own opinion, but Genka and Slava refused to go to the rock.

Misha appealed to their reason, accused them of cowardice, promised certain success, threatened to go alone, argued that perhaps it would be too late tomorrow because the count would forestall them. But all to no avail. Genka and Slava refused point-blank to go to the Khalzan River. Slava no longer believed there was hidden treasure, while Genka refused to recognize that the bird had the head of a lammergeyer. He trembled with fury when he heard anyone mention a vulture. And both wanted to go to bed.

Grudgingly, Misha yielded. But he made his friends promise that they would go to the rock in the morning.