Clair Huffaker - The Cowboy and the Cossack

Slim nodded and spoke for all of us to Rostov, though he was speaking mostly for Shad. “We just hate somehow t’ give less than we get. T’ ever be beholden t’ anybody. It ain’t in our nature. An’ this white whiskey thing’s gettin’ sorta foolish an’ outta hand. In some kind of a good way, how can we come out fair an’ even with them fellas?”

“Very easily,” Rostov said quietly, knowing our minds were all on Shad. “Simply by thanking them.”

Old Keats muttered, “Hell!” Then he shook his head slightly and said, half to himself, “The easiest and yet the most difficult thing of all.”

It looked to me like Rostov was about to get up and go to the far table where the two men were when Shad suddenly spoke in a low, gruff voice. “What’s a good word?”

If Rostov felt as startled as the rest of us, he didn’t show it. He said, “You might try vostrovia. ”

“What’s it mean?”

“To your health.”

Shad grabbed his glass and stood up from the table, glaring at the two men across the room. Raising his glass high he roared “ Vostrovia !” so powerfully that it seemed like the whole room damnere shook.

That was probably the hardest thing he ever did in his life.

But it sure worked.

The two big men stood up with their glasses raised and shouted “ Vostrovia !” back at him.

There was something a whole lot more than simple “good health” in the air, and whatever it was, it was so exciting and contagious that all of us at our table and most everyone else in the room suddenly started rearing up with glasses held high, yelling deafening “ Vostrovia s!” all over the place.

And then, as the thunder of voices subsided, we all drank.

Carried along, even I drank again, and the second glass wasn’t as hard on my already numb throat as the first one had been .

As they finished their drinks, the two big men suddenly and swiftly threw their glasses as hard as hell to the floor, shattering each glass into maybe a million pieces. Shad’s and Rostov’s empty glasses were the next to slam explosively down against the floor. And then, with glassware now being shattered all over the room, I got to the end of my drink and threw it down as hard as I could.

It was the strangest thing, but in the instant my glass crashed to the floor, I somehow understood with great clearness two things I hadn’t known before. One of them was that all these people throwing their glasses down had a pretty good idea of what Rostov and his free cossacks stood for and this was their way of wordlessly wishing them good luck.

And the second thing I realized in that instant was the actual reason for smashing the glasses. It had to do with the human mind and spirit, as if it were a way of showing that the idea within that last drink was so damned true and important that the glass had to be destroyed and never used again. And in never being used again, the truth and importance of the idea it held could never ever drain away like the casual drink the glass held. The drink would be forgotten soon. But the shattered glass and the idea behind it would be remembered forever.

After all that noisy breakage, there was a long, warm moment of silence as the other men in the room stood facing us, the good feeling so thick in the air that you could almost breathe it in .

Then, as if everything that needed saying had been said, everybody started sitting back down, talking and laughing once more between themselves. At the same time some of the girls working there started sweeping up the broken bits of glass all over the floor, while the others quickly began bringing out trays of new glasses to set at the tables. They not only didn’t seem miffed at what had happened, but I got the idea they were actually pleased about it. For that matter a couple of them, including the tablecloth girl, had clapped their hands delightedly as we were demolishing our glasses. She came up with a trayload of new ones as we settled back into our chairs. Putting eight of them down for us, she said something to Rostov, and then she was gone.

As Old Keats and Bruk each took a bottle and started pouring refills around, Rostov said, “Her name is Irenia. She just said that in her heart she drank and broke a glass with us.”

Slim, like me, was still deeply impressed with what had happened. “Does that crazy kinda thing go on all the time?”

Rostov shook his head. “No.”

“Only,” Bruk said slowly, “when it’s something special.”

Slim nodded thoughtfully. “All the same, special or not, back in Montana any barkeep I know sure’d take a dim view a’ the custom.” He pulled his drink toward him. “Just outta idle curiosity, in a saloon like this who gets stuck with payin’ for all them glasses?”

Rostov glanced at Shad. “Traditionally, the man who proposed the toast.”

I think Shad himself was still in a small state of shock, both for having forced himself to thank some Russians for something and also for being moved by their magnificent reaction to it. “Good,” he said, quietly studying the refilled glass in front of him, “that’s exactly as it ought t’ be.”

The noise in the rest of the room, though it wasn’t all that loud, suddenly became lower, voices going down and laughter either stopping or easing off. It was as though somebody might have been playing one of those new Magic Talking Machines I’d heard about and a nasty neighbor had complained so they’d turned it down so far that the good time wasn’t really any fun anymore. The whole place suddenly had a cold, different feeling in it .

We swung around a little in our chairs and saw the reason, which wasn’t hard to figure out. A bunch of Imperial Cossacks, ten or twelve of them, were coming in. They looked around the room with hard eyes, paying particular attention to us. Then they took a couple of tables near one of the front windows, and I had the thought that they probably didn’t even know, or certainly care, that they’d just ruined a fine, warm Magic Talking Machine time.

For that matter, a great many people in the room now began to quietly finish their drinks and leave. The two big men were among the first to go.

Saddened, and even more angered by all this, though I could almost swear I wasn’t feeling the vodka, I raised my glass and said to Rostov, “It’s my turn! What’s the opposite of vostrovia ? How do ya’ wish somebody bad health?”

“Nurse your drink,” Shad said quietly. “I’m not all that anxious t’ get you out of a riot, or carry ya’ home.”

Rostov spoke to Igor in almost the same voice. “You will drink everything in your glass—but gradually.”

So the rest of them continued their regular drinking, while Igor and I tried to look indignant about being cut down but were secretly grateful as hell.

Shad downed his drink in the Russian one-raise-of-the-wrist fashion and then frowned at the Tzar’s cossacks near the window. “Seein’ us relaxin’ here, they know we’re either awful strong or awful stupid.”

Slim swallowed his vodka neat and said, “That’s one major advantage we got over ’em. They ain’t yet picked up no inklin’ a’ how stupid we really are.”

The others emptied their glasses and Rostov said, “Verushki has already sent night patrols out, of course.” He leaned forward to speak quietly. “Let’s look at it from Verushki’s point of view. We camp on the broken flats two miles outside of town. We will not bother him, and he is not to bother us. No more than a few of our men are to come into town together at any time. As soon as we can cross the Amur, we’ll go.”

Slim put down another charge of vodka. “That’s about the simple right of it.”