Clair Huffaker - The Cowboy and the Cossack

With similar, grim humor, Rostov said, “Perhaps we should adopt the Tartar method.”

“What’s that?” Shad asked.

“The Tartars divide their warriors into groups of ten. And if any one man in that group of ten is hurt or killed, the other nine are hurt in exactly the same way, or killed in the same way.”

“Jesus!” Rufe muttered.

“Seems a little drastic,” Shad said. And then, “I guess the best we can do, all things equal, is try t’ at least keep these games down to a goddamned dull roar.” Rostov nodded.

“Well,” Slim said, “by any standard a’ measuring the cossacks sure came out on top t’day.”

“That’s hardly fair,” Igor said. “We’ve used sabers all our lives.”

Chakko was now unwrapping his long, slender piece of canvas, and within it there was an unstrung bow and a quiver of arrows.

“Pine cones,” he muttered, quickly stringing his bow. “Fuck ’em.”

When Chakko said four words, he meant exactly four words, and with those particular four words he galloped to the meadow at a full dead run. And shooting from impossible positions all over his horse, even shooting from beneath its neck, and managing always to keep his body partially or completely hidden from the “enemy” by his own mount, he in blindingly swift succession put six arrows through the six pine cones. And he’d already spun his pony and was racing back as his last arrow pierced the last pine cone.

Every deadly, lightning move Chakko had made from beginning to end was a thing of pure beauty, and so in his own unique way, he rode out of the meadow as the undisputed champion of the day.

In the awed silence, Slim finally muttered, “Well, that goddamned simple Sioux bastard!”

And right then, nobody else there had anything else to add.

SHORTLY AFTER sundown, with our eight men still not back from Khabarovsk, Rostov sent out replacements for his guards, and after a while those who’d been on lookout rode back into camp. Sergeant Nick was among them, and he spoke briefly with Rostov. Then they left their fire and approached ours, where Sammy the Kid and Mushy, taking their turn at cooking duty, were starting beans and biscuits and coffee for supper.

Rostov said to Shad, “Verushki still has several small patrols spotted around us.”

“That ain’t hardly a surprise.”

“At least,” Rostov said, “they’ve been staying far away, well out of shooting distance, simply trying to discover what they can about us.”

“Which ain’t much in this broke-up country,” Slim said. “They can’t make a halfway educated guess how many we are. F’r that matter, even how many cows we got.”

“Tonight,” Nick rumbled, “they maybe come in closer, in dark.”

Along with some others, Rufe was listening. “They do,” he volunteered, “they’ll git their asses shot off.”

Nick nodded his big head heavily. “Right. But makes trouble.”

“What the hell.” Slim shrugged. “Even in the dark they won’t be able t’ come in near ’nough t’ see a whole lot.”

For a moment no one spoke, and then Shad changed the subject abruptly, almost angrily. “I wish t’ Christ those fellas’d get back.”

To use Shad’s words from a minute before, what he’d just now said wasn’t hardly a surprise, either. We were all feeling that same way, especially since the going of the sun, with the quick Siberian darkness moving like a sudden black wave rolling across the sky to sweep out all the light in the world.

“Well, boss,” Slim ventured to say, “ya’ told ’em t’ be sure t’ have a good time.”

“Not that good!” Shad tried to make his anger hide his deep concern, but we all could see it was there. He growled, “They oughtta be back here right now !”

And at that very instant Rostov’s guard on the point overlooking Khabarovsk called out in Russian, his voice dimly reaching us. Rostov looked at Shad and laughed one of his rare laughs. “Our eight men are on their way into camp.”

There couldn’t have been more than a millionth of a second between Shad’s growl and the yell from the hill, and it was somehow so funny we were all torn about halfway between sheer relief, and laughing our relieved heads off.

“By God!” Slim said with a broad grin. “When you say somethin’ boss, fellas really do jump!”

The sound of hoofbeats came closer, and the eight men rode into the light of our two fires and dismounted. The only sign of a problem I could see was that Shiny’s right hand was bandaged just about the same as my left one was.

Old Keats nodded at Shad and said, “It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”

Then, as Bruk told the cossacks what had happened in Russian, Keats went on to us. “First thing we did was pay Colonel Verushki a social visit, big as life an’ twice as brassy, Shad, like you said. He was madder’n hell about his man gettin’ shot this mornin’—in the leg incidentally. And we reminded him of the terms previously arranged, whereby we’ll soon go on our way in peace as long as he and his men don’t bother us.”

Sammy and Mushy brought up some cups and a pot of coffee.

“For our conquerin’ heroes,” Sammy said.

When Mushy poured into the cup Shiny was holding, I saw for the first time by the unsteady way the cup moved that Shiny was in worse shape than a simple bandaged hand would cause. All of a sudden, at ten feet away, I could sense that he’d had as much white whiskey as I’d had and couldn’t hold it any better.

“Verushki’s still worried about us,” Keats went on, “but only just barely. He still thinks that somehow we’re bluffin’, but he ain’t quite prepared to move against us upon that hopeful concept.”

“Go on,” Shad said.

“So then, actin’ like we owned the town, we bought some supplies. An’ then went back to that same place for a few drinks.” He hesitated, a little sadly. “Maybe it had t’ do with the two big fellas who got hanged, but the place was pretty filled up with hostile Imperial Cossacks and they were lookin’ for trouble.” Keats shook his head in a brief, rueful way. “Right now, in that one place, I’ve seen glasses broken for the most beautiful and the most ugly reasons ya’ could imagine.”

Already Shad was glancing at Shiny’s bandaged hand. “Yeah?”

“They challenged us t’ some ‘friendly’ arm-rassling, for drinks. But they smashed off the top of two glasses an’ put them on the table where each man’s hand’d be forced down if he lost.” Old Keats gave Shiny a warm look. “He took on the biggest bastard they had.”

“And lost!” Shiny said cheerfully, holding up his bandaged and slightly weaving hand.

“Between you and Levi,” Shad told Shiny, “I now have two hands.”

Shiny misunderstood. “We’re not just two hands, boss! We’re your best two hands!”

“With two men I normally hope for four hands,” Shad said quietly, but Keats was already going on with growing excitement.

“And then we put in Kirdyaga and Big Yawn! And honest t’ God, I guarantee that there are at least ten Imperial Cossacks who don’t have full use of both of their hands right now.”

Rostov and Bruk had come up, and Bruk said, “This is true. We impressed them first with our boldness. Secondly the two blacks impressed them very much. Finally our strength impressed them. They are as respectful and afraid of us as we are of them. And that is the final measure of our day.”

That sounded like a pretty good measure to all of us. But, a little wobbly himself, Big Yawn now lifted his nearly empty coffee cup. “An’ here’s t’ Levi!”

None of us could see any point in that, and I said, “Why?”