Clair Huffaker - The Cowboy and the Cossack

“Which just goes to prove a simple fact!” I said loudly. “Those dumb wolves must be about the same level a’ cowhand as this here old fella Crab Smith! Equally dumb and grouchy! No wonder one of ’em tried t’ take over his horse an’ ride it! Probably wanted his job!”

Mushy picked it up and half yelled, “Hell, yes! That goddamn wolf no doubt rides better! And sure as hell’d be worth more salary at the end a’ the month!”

And now with his quick, powerful and yet at the moment very delicate hands, Shad had finished sewing the gaping flesh of Crab’s arm back into place. He knotted the thread in place and bit it off and leaned back to take a deep breath.

I’d thought Crab had passed out two or three times, but he managed to raise his head slightly, knowing that it was over. “That wolf might a’ killed me,” he said weakly. “But with you fellas, an’ the jokes ya’ come up with, I’ll damn well never have t’ worry about laughin’ m’self t’ death!” And then he laid his head back down and closed his eyes.

Shad looked at us with grim, hard approval. “He’s right about your humor not bein’ too vital of a danger.” Then he took the bottle of bourbon and poured it on the sewed-up wound, gently squeezing as much of it as possible into the places where the closed flesh had been torn open. “He’ll be okay now.”

“No he won’t.” Rostov’s voice was very quiet and dead on the level. “The arm has already been infected.”

Crab’s arm did seem a little bigger.

Old Keats stood up. “We’ve done all we can for him, Captain.”

Rostov shook his head and said very simply, “No.”

Shad turned slowly and faced him, and as always there was the feeling between them of an earthquake about to hit the whole area. “The sewin’ was good, and bourbon’s a good outside cure.”

None of us, except maybe Shad, could get mad at what Rostov said, and the way he said it. “Those wolves don’t have the cleanest fangs in the world. Infection has set in.”

Shad nodded. “That’s always possible.”

“Whatever poisons are in there must be drawn off.”

They both meant every word they said, and for the first time this was a quiet, thoughtful duel between the men, backed up by the things that each man knew.

“If his arm swells any more,” Shad said, “we’ll make a poultice outta cowshit. That’ll draw everything but a man’s bones out.”

“You need a simple, swift thing, now. ” Rostov stepped to Crab, kneeled down and put his hand on his forehead, then his hurt arm. “Otherwise he’ll lose this arm, or die.”

I loved Shad for saying what he said then.

He said, “This man means more to me than any fifty men you’ll ever know.” Then as Rostov looked up at him with those damned, dark, piercing eyes, he said, “He’s only twenty-three years old, and he hasn’t had as much trouble and fun as he ought to, and if you got anything constructive, I’ll listen to it.”

“What medicines do you have?” Rostov asked.

“Just two. Quinine, for the fever, and whiskey.”

Rostov was already working with Crab, rubbing his wrists hard between his powerful hands, and then putting his right hand very softly and lightly over Crab’s heart and on his forehead. With all his obvious concern for Crab he suddenly said a thing that shocked and almost stunned me. He said bitterly, “I’d have expected more from the modern, up-to-date United States of America!”

Rostov was leaning down over Crab, and Shad now leaned down over him again, one of them on each side of the hurt man. “All right,” Shad said, his jaw hard, “I told you this man means somethin’ to me! You and your goddamn Russians come up with somethin’ that’ll help him more than me and cowshit and bourbon can help him!”

Rostov put his hand on Crab’s face and worked with it softly. “Come awake. Be aware. I need one thing from you. Saliva.”

Crab kind of woke up but didn’t quite understand what was going on. He mumbled something, but nobody knew what it was.

“I can use my own, or others’, but it’s best from you,” Rostov said.

“This dumb bastard says he needs your spit!” Shad told him.

Chakko, Indian-like, nodded and grinned at this.

“Hell, I ain’t got any left,” Crab whispered.

“Then make some!” Rostov lifted him, cradling him in his arm.

“You make some!” Old Keats leaned down near Crab. “It may have t’ do with havin’ one arm or two—or bein’ dead!”

In just a little while I was really proud I hadn’t fought with Crab last night, because with no spit left in him, and too tired to hardly breathe anyway, he spit a handful of spit into Rostov’s hand. Part of it was natural and part of it was choking, but it worked either way, I guess.

And Rostov just mixed that spit with a little dirt he picked up from the ground in his other hand. And finally Rostov had a little handful of sort of wet spit and earth, and he said in a very soft voice to Crab that it was okay for him to go to sleep again.

And that American spit and Russian ground was the poultice.

Shad didn’t complain and he didn’t cooperate either. He stood back while Rostov and Old Keats bound the poultice around Crab’s arm with a piece of fairly clean cloth.

When that was done Rostov said, “If the swelling goes down within three hours, his arm will cure itself and he’ll live.”

It seemed a hundred years longer, but the top edge of the sun was just coming up over eastern hills now.

“Get ready to move when all of that sun’s in sight,” Shad said.

Rostov swung up onto his horse before replying. “No.”

“Why not? My men’ll be ready!”

Rostov took the time to swing his big black around. “My men have to attend a burial.”

“Burial?” For a moment Shad was really concerned. “One of your men—”

“No. One of our horses.”

“One of your horses !”

I somehow knew Rostov was talking about Igor’s horse, and I couldn’t help but agree with him, though I said nothing.

Rostov said patiently, “A warrior’s burial. He died bravely, and with honor. We’ll dig a grave for him and bury him with the honor he has earned. And after those things are taken care of, we’ll be ready to leave, about noon.”

He turned and rode away.

THAT WAS some kind of a funeral.

Those cossacks always looked pretty shiny, but that morning they turned out with more gleam on their boots and their saddles and sabers than ever before.

Some of them had dug a grave, which was quite a job in itself, since it was big enough for the horse. It was more than six feet deep and about four by eight in top size.

Midmorning they were all on horseback, gathered around the grave and the dead animal. Us cowboys, not used to such a ceremony and mostly not putting a whole lot of stock in it, hadn’t fancied ourselves up at all, naturally. We just rode over partly out of curiosity and courtesy, and partly killing time until we’d get the herd moving.

But like I said, all those cossacks were scrubbed and polished up fit for the burial of a king. They were circled around the grave, so Shad and the rest of us just sat on our horses a little distance away, watching and listening.

Igor had ridden up on a kind of a scrubby-looking little splayfoot pony that was obviously second-string and had probably been a packhorse up until this morning. Slowly, with a ceremonious feeling about it, he and Rostov dismounted to stand at the head of that big grave.

Rostov started to speak. And somehow on that lonely Siberian plain, even with his tough voice, it sounded like Rostov was speaking in church. His voice was deep, resonant, and filled with emotion.