Clair Huffaker - The Cowboy and the Cossack

“What’s he sayin’?” Slim quietly asked Old Keats.

“Well—” Old Keats hesitated.

Mushy whispered, “He’s sure serious!”

“He’s prayin’ for that damn horse!” Dixie muttered. “He’s lookin’ at the sky an’—”

“Shut up!” Keats said. “If you dumb bastards all talk at once, I can’t make heads or tails out of it!”

And then he began translating haltingly, in a low voice, as best he could. “Captain Rostov says—that horse was—part of everything living.—Man, horse, or beast.—Or anything.—Like everything else, it’s got its own feelin’s—it’s got its own courage.” He hesitated, frowning. “I ain’t sure, but I think he just said that that horse probably had its own sense of humor.—Which Rostov claims is almost always the better part of courage.” He waited for a while, listening carefully as Rostov spoke. “And he says he consigns that beautiful warrior horse to the place where all brave spirits go.”

Rostov stopped talking then, and Igor moved up beside him to speak one short, quiet line, his voice a little unsteady.

“He says because of its funny coloring, his horse’s name was ‘Spotted’ or ‘Spot,’ or somethin’ like that,” Keats said.

“Hell,” Dixie grunted. “Rotten name for a horse.”

But nobody paid much attention to him.

Igor was taking something out of a little leather bag, and it glinted in the rising sun. As he moved toward the dead horse it chimed with a crystal sweetness in his hands.

It was a silver bell.

Saying a few words, his voice still shaky, he started to tie the bell around the horse’s neck.

Old Keats was genuinely moved, and he said, “I think—he said—that the sound of that silver bell will help him to find his horse—in whatever land there is—beyond death.”

Then Igor, with the bell tied in place, whispered one last thing that none of us could hear, so Old Keats couldn’t translate it. He slowly drew his saber and touched its blade softly on the shoulder of his dead horse. And after that gentle touch he slowly drew the sharp edge across his wrist so that blood began dripping down from it. Finally, he put his saber back in its sheath and stepped back to watch the final part of the burial, his damp eyes now, slowly, becoming stone dry, and his jaw firm.

“Christ,” Dixie said in a low voice. “Why don’t he just marry his goddamn horse and get it over with?”

Nobody laughed and Slim turned to Dixie. “How’d you like t’ get your head handed to ya’ on a tin plate?”

We were silent for a long moment as the cossacks very gently put ropes beneath the animal and, with men holding them at each side, started lowering him slowly into the grave.

It was quiet while the cossacks filled the grave in over that good horse, Spotted or Spot, or whatever his name was.

Shad hadn’t spoken all that time. As they were finishing filling the grave he said to me, “Go tell Rostov I want Igor riding with me in front of our bunch.” He called to the rest of the outfit, “Get ready to move out!”

I rode Buck the little ways over to where Rostov had just mounted. “Captain Rostov? Mr. Northshield, Shad, suggests that Igor ride with him. That way you’ll both have somebody you can send messages back and forth with.”

Rostov glanced at me with those hard, dark eyes. “He suggests?”

“Somethin’ like that.”

“Tell him I think it’s an excellent idea. I’ll send Igor over.”

I rode back to Shad. The other hands had left, and I told him that Igor riding with him was okay with Rostov. And then I said, “Listen, boss. There’s one more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Well—” I couldn’t quite find the words. “Blackeye kinda’ belongs t’ me. Right?”

“He’s your second-string pony in the remuda.”

“But, I mean—” It was hard to say.

“Yeah? What d’ ya’ mean?”

“I mean—I want t’ give Blackeye t’ Igor. That’s what I mean.”

Shad looked at me with those tough eyes of his for a long, hard moment, and I couldn’t help wonder whether it was rougher being looked at firmly by him or Rostov. He said, “Blackeye belongs to Joe Diamond and the Slash-Diamond outfit.”

After that burial, I was somehow rough-out determined. “Then take Blackeye outta my pay! It’s a gift I wanta give!”

Right about then Igor came trotting up to us on his little pack pony, so I couldn’t say any more about the subject. He pulled up and said to Shad in that funny one-note way of speaking American that he had, “I am to report to you, sir.”

“That’s right!” Shad spoke so harshly, almost snarling, that it scared the hell out of both me and Igor. “And you don’t call me sir, you call me Shad!”

All in all, Igor had had enough hard time already. And now this sudden attack of Shad’s made his language go away. Struggling the best he could, he stammered, “I—I—am—to report to you—Sir Shad.”

“You’re goin’ t’ ride with me.” There was no mercy in the iron voice.

“Yes!” Igor was plainly trying to do the best he could, and yet it was clear at the same time that he was getting about ready to fight if nothing reasonable worked out. “Yes! Sir Shad.”

Shad looked at me with his eyebrows pulled down tight. “I hate bein’ called ‘Sir Shad’ even if it’s by accident.”

“You’re bein’ awful hard on Igor!” I said. “He’s just tryin’ t’ be polite!”

“An’ I’m gonna be even harder.” Shad glanced at Igor’s scruffy little pony. “Nobody can keep up with me or this outfit without a fair horse. Levi?”

“Yeah?”

“Go break out Blackeye.” Shad was sure a surpriser from time to time.

“Huh? Ya’ mean—”

“An’ bring ’im back for this cossack t’ ride. If he can.”

He was saying quite a bit, and I knew it, though he wouldn’t let on.

I welled up a lot more than I wanted to, so I didn’t say anything, but just rode over and roped Blackeye and brought him back.

Igor sort of got the idea when I came back with that feisty pinto on a rope. He still wasn’t too sure, but as we switched the saddle and harness from his raunchy packhorse to Blackeye, he began to realize what Shad was doing and it hit him kind of hard. With his black eye, Blackeye looked fairly ridiculous, but otherwise he resembled Igor’s dead horse in looks, fire and spirit more than any other pony in our whole string.

We switched the saddle and gear, and Shad swatted the packhorse on the ass, sending it back in the direction of the cossack remuda.

Igor swung up onto Blackeye and just sat there for a minute, feeling the pinto’s muscles between his legs. Then he said, “I will take good care of this horse.”

“You better,” Shad said. And then he nailed it. “Because he’s yours.”

“He is mine?”

“That’s what I said.”

Igor couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. Holding any possible emotion back, he rode Blackeye away a little bit, just sort of taking the top of him, and Shad and I were alone.

“I think, if you’re not careful, you just may make a friend,” I said.

“Fuck that.” Shad swung up onto his big Red. “He lost a damn good horse protecting our cattle. And this outfit always pays its own way.”

“Shad,” I reminded him, “I wanted t’ just give him that horse, before. And I wasn’t tryin’ to pay nobody’s way for nothin’.”

“Then it’s done both ways.” Red reared a little under him. “You outta friendship, and me because it just seemed like the fair thing t’ do. It’s his horse.”

“Okay.” I swung up on Buck. “Does Blackeye come outta my salary or the Slash-Diamond?”

Shad turned Red and looked back at me. “It was my decision and it comes outta my salary.”