Clair Huffaker - The Cowboy and the Cossack

With every damn bit of strength I had, and even with the added inspiration of that jagged glass waiting for the back of my hand to be forced down on it, I just couldn’t hold him back. Very slowly, with salty sweat now starting to come down into my eyes from the immense effort I was making, I could see my hand, as though it belonged to someone else, going gradually over and down.

From what seemed a mile or so off, I heard Shad’s low voice. “Levi ain’t gonna yell, an’ that mean bastard’s out t’ go through bones an’ everything else an’ cripple ’im.”

From equally far away Rostov said grimly, “We’ll soon know.”

“I ain’t about t’ let that happen.”

“Nor am I, Northshield.”

And then the back of my hand went slowly down onto the jagged glass, and though I didn’t feel anything, blood began to appear on the table and within the glass.

Some kind of extra strength came from somewhere within me, and I forced the giant’s hand back up two or three inches. But I could see, hazily, that he was still wearing that barn-door smile, and he started crushing my bleeding hand back down once more.

Suddenly a hand swept that jagged, red-stained glass onto the floor and the moose glared furiously up, releasing his grip on me.

It was Rostov who had done it. And he now downed his own glass of vodka, smashed the top of it, and put the broken remainder down in the widening pool of blood where mine had been.

I didn’t know if that was a standard rule, and I suspected he’d just made it up on the spur of the moment, but it sure as hell didn’t need any clarification.

And now seeing that it was Rostov, the giant moose didn’t stay mad. Instead, he seemed happier than ever.

I was the only one who complained. “Goddamn it, Rostov. I was just about t’ take ’im.”

“Get out of the way, Levi.”

I stood up, holding my left hand against the right hand’s bleeding, and Rostov sat down in my place. And whereas the Tzar’s cossacks had been yelling and laughing before, it suddenly became as still and quiet as an empty church.

Shad was standing just behind Rostov, and though there was no way for it to mean that much to Verushki’s men, his right thumb was hooked casually in his belt, just a few short inches away from the worn walnut handle of his revolver.

In the silence, Dixie leaned close to my ear and whispered, “Igor says that big one’s a ringer.” I frowned, not understanding, and he added, still in a whisper, “He ain’t never ever been beat. He wasn’t even here that night Big Yawn an’ Kirdyaga was puttin’ fellas down.”

Igor guessed what Dixie was whispering and nodded grimly at me. And all of our other fellas were looking just as grim as Igor.

But Rostov and the moose were now locking hands, their elbows on the table, and as they started putting pressure against each other, it looked like all the brute strength in the world was being centered right there on that table. Finally, the moose slowly closed the doors of that barndoor grin of his, and still neither man’s hand had budged a fraction of an inch. I half expected the thick oak table itself to split in half under the sheer power of our big man and the giant.

From where I was, behind Rostov, I could tell more what was happening from the moose’s face than from their hands. Rostov’s hand must have given way so slightly that it was impossible to see, and could only be felt by his opponent, because the moose’s barndoor grin opened just a crack. But then it slammed shut again as Rostov evidently got him back to even, or maybe a little more.

About then, my head finally clearing after the rough time I’d just had at that table, I began to realize more fully why Shad’s hand wasn’t too far from his gun. Any idea of Rostov crying out in defeat or pain was too absurd to even think about. But we sure as hell wouldn’t stand by and let the moose make minced meat out of Rostov’s hand. And by the same token, those phony goddamned Tzar cossacks probably felt the same way about the moose. The single and only possible way not to have an all-out war on our hands was for Rostov to win and for the moose to give a quick yell, so that this stupid, cruel game would be finished for once and for all.

Then, for the first time, their hands moved enough to be seen. And they moved in Rostov’s favor.

“Damn, damn, damn,” I whispered, dumfounded, knowing it had to be raw willpower Rostov was using more than strength.

The giant leaned his head forward and down, as though to gather even more force, and for a backbreaking moment he held Rostov’s hand motionless. But then, as though he were a silently roaring, irresistibly powerful storm bending a huge tree before him, Rostov again moved the massive hand and arm back and back and down.

The giant’s hand went down onto the ugly, broken circle of sharp glass until it had been cut about the same as mine had been, and then Rostov let his bleeding hand back up and away from the glass.

And that damned stubborn moose did not yell. His teeth were tightly clenched against any sound at all.

To one side, Natcho muttered an odd thing in a low voice, “The moment of truth.”

All of a sudden now, it was easy to see that Verushki’s men felt exactly the same way that we did. They weren’t about to stand by and let the moose get his hand maimed, either, and there was a change of feeling in the air, a very slight, but damned ominous shifting of weight and position among them.

There was one rule we’d forgotten, since it hadn’t even come close to showing up between the moose and me. The one about mercy. Rostov now let go of the moose’s big, bleeding hand and said a few easy words that had to mean he was being merciful, and their game was done.

But with a swift, furious move, the giant again slapped his hand against Rostov’s, grabbing it to start all over.

As Rostov bent into it again, Shad said to him quietly, “This dumb bastard’s dead set on either cuttin’ your hand off or losin’ his. An’ no matter which way it is, it’ll sure cause a bloody mix-up around here.”

Rostov was too hard put with the giant’s massive hand and arm at that time to make any kind of an answer. And now, for the second time, he started making headway, very slowly moving that great mass of muscle back and down.

“When ya’ cut ’im again,” Shad said, still quietly, “be pr’pared that same instant t’ take on the rest of ’em with us, ’cause that’s sure as hell what’s gonna happen.”

And then, for no reason, Shad did such a strange thing that I could have sworn on a stack of Bibles that those two were reading each other’s minds again. He touched Rostov’s mightily straining shoulder briefly and gently, almost the same way Shiny had touched Dixie’s shoulder before, and said mostly to himself, “Yeah.”

It was a mystery to me, but it was soon solved.

The moose, his lowering hand getting closer and closer to being cut, was putting all the desperate last strength he had within him against Rostov.

And then, just short of those final jagged edges of blood-red glass, Rostov instantly switched every bit of power in his arm full backward into the opposite direction, which was the same direction that the giant’s total strength was aimed at.

The combined result was an extraordinary sight to witness.

The moose, with Rostov’s help, went flying in what would have been a complete somersault except that he hit the floor too fast, primarily on his head. And as he raised his head, shaking it a little, Rostov was already standing over him with the point of his drawn saber pressing against his throat. Rostov said a quiet word or two, and the moose said one strangled word, which was “ Dah. ”

The point of Rostov’s saber now moved in a blindingly swift, short arc that drew what seemed to be exactly one drop of blood from the giant’s throat. In another swift move, his saber flashing almost invisibly, Rostov returned his blade to its sheath.