Clair Huffaker - The Cowboy and the Cossack

“Of Diggy—” Crab started, but then gave up on the word. “Well, anyhow, when ya’ explain it like that, it’s kind of interestin’.”

Rostov put his thumb and little finger in his mouth and gave a sharp, blasting whistle that brought his cossacks up short. Their sabers held out at an angle before them, they all rode back to where we were sitting our horses near the big rock.

When they’d pulled up near us, Ilya asked Rostov something in a respectful, quiet voice. It was so respectful and quiet that both Slim and I knew right off what he’d said.

“Captain,” Slim said, “is that expert on various-sized horseshoes askin’ whether or not we’d care t’ try?”

“Yes,” Rostov said.

“Well”—Slim rubbed his jaw—“tell ’im when he can lasso a flea at full gallop, we’ll take up with them Mexican toothpicks.”

While Rostov was translating, as best as anyone could, what Slim had said, the rest of us looked around at each other and wordlessly agreed to go against Slim.

“Fuck that!” Rufe said.

“Right!” Crab agreed, and Dixie added, “ Damn right!”

Natcho and Purse were nodding, and Chakko hadn’t silently ridden away, which was as close to his saying “Yes” as was needed.

“You’re outvoted,” I told Slim, but he’d known that was going to happen all along.

“I was afraid of that,” he grumbled. “Just don’t break them pigstickers, especially on yourselves.”

At a word from Rostov, the cossacks offered us their sabers, handle first.

I took Igor’s, and he almost winced as he let it out of his hand.

Rostov said in a quiet voice, “This is a challenge. But it’s a compliment too.”

We understood how it was about their letting us use their blades, and in case we didn’t, Slim had already just told us.

There were five of us now holding those unfamiliar weapons, getting the feel and balance of them. Chakko, though his presence showed he agreed in principle with what we were doing, hadn’t accepted a saber. As for Slim, the question never even came up, any more than it would have with Shad or Old Keats if they’d been there. Sort of realizing that this meant they were smarter, I said, “Well, it’s just us fearless dumbbells against all that water an’ all them pine cones.”

Two cossacks still held their sabers, and they now cut their wrists slightly before putting them back in their scabbards.

“Just exactly what the hell we gonna do?” Crab asked.

“Leap the stream and slash the water without disturbing it,” Rostov said. “Then, both going and coming back, strike each pine cone so that you cut it without taking it off. To cut it off is the worst thing you can do on the ride. Then cross the stream one more time and come back here.”

“Wait!” Rufe said. “Shouldn’t we be racin’ some a’ these cossacks?”

“I suspect you’ll have your hands full,” Slim said, “racin’ yourselves. Get ready!”

The five of us put our horses into a rough line.

“Go!” Slim yelled, and we charged toward the quiet part of the stream.

When I jumped it and slashed, my saber sent up enough water for an average-sized man to take a bath in. Out of the corner of my eye it looked like Natcho and Dixie both did a lot better than me. But Crab and Rufe, it turned out in later conversations, both fell upon evil times. Crab went so deep he brought up some mud. And Rufe swung wild and missed altogether. The only thing he did hit, toward the end of his swing, was Bobtail’s ear. Luckily, he just nicked the tip of it, though Bobtail didn’t consider it particularly lucky, and shied off to one side, breaking his stride and obviously wondering who the hell, and for what possible reason, was attacking his ear.

Natcho went into the lead with Dixie a little behind him and me and Crab neck and neck for third and fourth. By the time Rufe got Bobtail straightened out he was about three lengths to the rear.

We didn’t do as bad as I thought we would on the pine cones. That had to do with a little bit of instinctive skill and a whole lot of instinctive cheating. After using the sabers on the water, it was clearly true that they weren’t all that simple to handle at a full gallop. So, for myself, I took what I hoped seemed to be genuine swings at the first three pine cones, but I was trying my level damnedest to just tap them as lightly as Queen Victoria might do upon knighting some old fella.

If there was one honest rider among us, it was Natcho. From fairly close range, I could see that he was sending chips out of the pine cones without even coming close to knocking them off the poles they were stuck on. Right then I’d have bet Buck and myself both against a plugged nickel that that smooth Mexican bastard had handled sabers before, while in my whole life I’d never had anything but a pocketknife.

He was already halfway back along the pine cones on Diablo, while Buck and me, stretched full out, were halfway into them.

“ Cuidado !” he yelled, which was sometimes his way of saying “Look out!” as he almost ran me and Buck down. And before I had a chance to yell anything fitting back at him, he was long gone.

Then Dixie, who was about a hundred feet ahead of me, made an unforgivable mistake that I cherished a lot. He got carried away and cut the last pine cone and slashed right through it, sending the pine cone itself flying three or four feet into the air. A little later, looking madder than thunder, he sped back past me.

I felt much better. Rufe and Crab were a little behind me, and Dixie’d just chopped off a head, which kind of disqualified him. Things were looking up.

So, continuing at full speed, I knighted the last standing pine cone as gently as possible and whirled Buck to charge back the way we’d come.

I roared back past Rufe and Crab and could see that except for Natcho I could win. And Buck was just as fast as Diablo, so if Natcho made a mistake, I could even beat him too.

Also going as fast as I was, I was picking up time on both Dixie and Natcho.

I really did saber the next pine cone neatly, sending a few chips flying, and then there was only one more pine cone between me and Buck and the stream, and we were going like greased lightning.

Old Keats told me once about a Greek word called “ hubris, ” which he said meant false pride. Or a sort of stupid confidence that gets turned inside out and comes out arrogance.

Anyway, I really whacked at that last pine cone and damnere got jerked out of the saddle as I realized how tough a two- or three-pound pine cone can be. My blade had gone about halfway through the cone, and between the sudden pressures being exerted, my arm almost came out of its socket, and would have except that the goddamn pole came out of the ground instead.

I guess that was better than me being ripped off old Buck, but not much better. He went into a circle, and I was left leaning about parallel to the ground, with my arm stretched out, and the saber after that, and then the pine cone, and then the trailing pole. I grabbed for the saber with my other hand too and cut it trying to get free.

Then, about the time I struggled back to a sitting-up position, Rufe and Crab hurtled by me on their way back, but I still had that awful problem.

Finally, with both hands, I pulled the saber loose from that heavy, sticky pine cone.

Humiliated as hell, I still made the best ride I could on the way back.

The others were there before I jumped Buck over the stream, but I didn’t pick up too much water with the saber this time and I at least got back in while everybody else was still breathing heavy.

I gave Igor his saber, handle first. As he took it, I said, “You can put it back. It’s not only drawn blood, but pine-cone sap.” As I started to hold my other hand to stop the bleeding, Igor grinned slightly and put his saber in its scabbard. Then he handed me a handkerchief to hold against the flowing blood.