Clair Huffaker - The Cowboy and the Cossack

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.

DURING 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.

LOOKING 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 ?”