Clair Huffaker - The Cowboy and the Cossack

“Put your guns back, and let’s go!” Shad called. He and Rostov led off, and we followed the two of them back up over the rise and out of sight of Khabarovsk. I doubt if all told we’d actually been in sight of the town for as much as one full minute.

“ Jesus !” Purse yelled as we rode back past him. “I sure am glad I’m on your side!”

He might have been sort of trying to kid us a little, what with our uniforms and all, but his voice came out sounding flat dead on the level.

AT CAMP we finally got our clothes situation straightened back around without too much confusion.

Rostov sent some of his cossacks out to stand guard at high, strategic points, and Shad put half a dozen of our men on the herd, which was gathered in a wide, grassy depression in the broken flats. A stream ran by near our camp, and widened out into a small lake not far beyond, so there was plenty of grass and water handy to keep the herd in good shape.

We’d got a fire going and put some water on to boil coffee. And now, not much more than spitting distance away, some of the cossacks were starting to build their own fire.

“Say, Captain Rostov,” Slim said, “we’ll have a big pot a’ coffee ready pretty quick.”

The cossacks looked at us, and Old Keats said, “There’ll be more’n enough.”

Rostov didn’t exactly turn the offer down, but he didn’t exactly accept it either. “My men drink tea.”

“It would be interesting, sir,” Igor said. “I’ve never drank coffee.”

“Never?” I asked, stunned at such an unbelievable thing.

“No.” He shook his head. “Never.”

“Then,” Shad said, quietly making the invitation official, “maybe it’s time ya’ did.”

Igor looked at Rostov, ready to go along with whatever he decided.

“All right,” Rostov said finally. “Coffee.”

As the cossacks gathered around our fire with us, Slim got out a bag of Acme Prime Grade Coffee Beans and started to grind them.

It was kind of a strange feeling just then, because after all the weeks we’d more or less been together, it was the first time we’d ever really been together in a friendly, easygoing way of everybody sitting around one fire.

The cossacks gradually settled in next to the rest of us around the burning, crackling wood, and there was a long silence, but it wasn’t a bad silence.

Taking note of our general, warm feeling, Rostov was the first to quietly speak. “Ordering those two men hanged may have been a serious mistake on Verushki’s part.”

In a low voice, Igor told the others what Rostov had said.

Shad was staring into the fire with a small frown, and while he’d been the first one to want to help this independent bunch, and at the same time to get his herd through, I knew the stubborn bastard would be the last one, if ever, to admit anything in terms of being friends.

“Well, after all,” I said, “we did at least do one thing for the two of ’em. That three-gun salute.”

“Bein’ fatally dead,” Shad said flatly, “I doubt they enjoyed that little show a whole lot.”

“Boss!” I countered. “It was you who—”

He cut me off sharply. “What we really did was this ! We showed that half-ass colonel thirty armed cossacks who were madder’n hell and who couldn’t care less about him an’ his—whores on horseback!” He shot a look at Rostov to acknowledge this last phrase .“That three-gun salute scared the shit outta Verushki an’ he’s in one hell of a lot worse shape than he was before!”

I couldn’t put words to it just then, but that damned Shad could go out and risk his neck for a good reason one minute and the next minute turn right around and act like he hadn’t really done a thing. Or if he had, it was for some totally impersonal and other reason that nobody had ever known about, or even suspected, in the first place.

His words had sounded so hard that there was a touchy kind of uncertainness among all of us as Igor, in a low voice, put into Russian what Shad had said.

Old Keats, God bless him, now spoke in a thoughtful way. “We’ve all of us just been through a sad time. I saw them hang. But I was also there with those two men last night. And I don’t think they’d want for it to go on too long, being a sad time.”

There was no question but that he was right. The question was, what to do about it. Sure as hell, not one person there was about to try to end that sadness by going into a song or leaping up to dance.

The water was boiling real good now, and Slim started pouring the Acme Prime Grade Coffee Beans into it. Clearing his throat, he said, “The second-best cowboy coffee in the world is coffee that’s strong enough t’ float a horseshoe in.” He poured out all of the ground beans and then dropped the empty bag into the fire to burn. “But the first best, which is the kind a’ coffee I make, is strong enough t’ dissolve the goddamn horseshoe.” He picked up a nearby ladle to stir it with. “I just thought you Russians might be grateful f’r that little piece a’ information.”

Bruk translated to the Russians what Slim had just said, and in the whole group there wasn’t as much as a raised eyebrow among them. Several of them nodded thoughtfully, and Ilya and Yakov both said a few quiet words.

Equally without expression, Bruk now said to us, “They are grateful for the information and they are pleased that you always tell the truth and would not exaggerate.”

“Absolutely.” Slim stirred the darkening coffee. “T’ me, any small exaggeration’s almost as heinous a crime as an outright lie. An’ anybody knows that lyin’ is a mortal sin.”

This time Nick translated, and the cossacks nodded in thoughtful agreement as Ilya got up and walked slowly off.

A little later the coffee was getting even darker. “Good,” Slim muttered. “Has t’ be black as a landlord’s heart.” He dropped in some eggshells to settle the grains to the bottom.

About this time Ilya walked back up and, saying a few innocent-sounding words, held out a horseshoe to Slim.

“He’s asking,” Bruk said, “if he can help you test your coffee.”

In its own way, this whole thing was getting kind of warm and nice, and we were all equally interested to see if Slim could manage his way out of the trap he’d built for himself.

“Hell,” Slim said easily, “tell ’im I took a sacred vow never t’ waste another horseshoe. Cause t’ waste anything is almost as mortal a sin as lyin’.”

Bruk explained that in Russian.

“Reason I took that vow,” Slim went on, “is one winter when I was just a green kid, I made a lot a’ coffee. An’ come springtime, there wasn’t one horseshoe t’ be found in all Montana.”

After this had been translated, Ilya nodded solemnly and held out his empty other hand, saying a few more words.

“We have the greatest blacksmiths in the world in Siberia,” Bruk explained. “And they do very delicate and fantastic work. What he is offering you is a very special and tiny horseshoe that was made to be worn on the hoof of a flea. It’s so small it’s almost impossible to see.”

It looked to our outfit like Ilya had nailed him, and though they took pains not to show it, the rest of the cossacks felt the same way as we did. But Slim rose to the occasion.

Just as solemnly as Ilya, he slowly reached out and pretended to take something from Ilya’s hand, and then to examine it between his thumb and forefinger very carefully. “Tell ’im that this here is surely one a’ the finest examples a’ blacksmithin’ I ever seen,” he said. “An’ if this here horseshoe dissolves in there, it’ll surely prove, beyond any shadow a’ doubt, that we all been tellin’ God’s absolute truth.” Then he opened his fingers, seeming to drop something very tiny into the boiling coffee.