Clair Huffaker - The Cowboy and the Cossack

“I don’t like it,” he muttered.

“One thing, Sammy,” I said, trying to be encouraging, “this’ll be a cinch compared t’ that swim off the Great Eastern Queen. ”

“I never could stand bein’ in more water at once than takin’ a bath in a washtub. An’ I ain’t too keen about that.”

“We’ll be wadin’ most a’ the way across.”

“Don’t like wadin’ neither. An’ there’s damn deep spots in that river.”

“Hell, cheer up!” I said. “Maybe Verushki’s onto us an’ we’ll be dead b’fore we get t’ the river anyhow.”

The edges of his mouth curled up a little, but the grin didn’t make it all the way to his eyes. “You sure do always manage t’ see the bright side.”

About then Old Keats came up and said to me, “Don’t tie your travelin’ gear on Buck. Slim’ll take care of it.”

“How come?”

“You’re goin’ t’ town with Shad an’ me, an’ a full pack on our horses’d be a dead giveaway.”

A few minutes later everybody was mounted and ready to move out. The rain was now pouring down like one huge waterfall and it was as dark as the middle of a black cat turned inside out, except for flashes of lightning roaring across the sky every now and then.

Gathering his rain-covered, dripping slicker a little closer around his neck, Dixie rode up near me. “Saw you an’ Sammy talkin’. He scairt a’ the river?”

I remembered the mean way Dixie had been with Sammy on the beach near Vladivostok that long-ago night, but I couldn’t see one mean thing at all in his face right now, so I just nodded.

Shad and Keats rode off then and I followed after them. We joined Igor, Nick and Kirdyaga, and the six of us rode toward Khabarovsk.

We were still playing showdown, with elements of chess mixed into the game. While the others, under Rostov and Slim, got the herd moving and swung in a wide circle around Khabarovsk to the river, it was up to us to give the Imperials the idea that the rain would keep us right where we were indefinitely.

On our way down the huge, sloping meadow toward the faraway lights of Khabarovsk showing faintly through the storm, and thinking of Irenia, I said to Shad, “Thanks, boss.”

He didn’t answer.

There was almost no one on the flooded, muddy streets where the rainwater was rushing and swirling within its own mad foam in whichever way happened to be mostly downhill.

We tied up and went into The Far East, our slickers leaving puddles of water on the floor near the door. Seeing Irenia toward the rear of the room, I nodded toward her and made another small puddle as water spilled down off the brim of my hat.

It wasn’t too crowded, but there were a few Imperials seated here and there around the place.

The big table on the far side where we normally sat wasn’t being used, and so we moved toward it. Right then I had the damndest feeling that no matter what happened this night, win, lose or draw, I’d never sit at this table again in my life. And while I wasn’t all that crazy about the table, the same thought came to mind about Irenia, that same feeling that whatever happened I would also never see her again, forever more in my life.

She’d already gone away, and I guess it was a good thing, because she couldn’t see my face just then, with those sad thoughts stamped all over it. That would have been a lot more of a dead giveaway than if our horses outside had been carrying full packs.

The older woman, Anna, came to the table and spoke in a low voice to Igor and Nick before starting away to get what they’d ordered.

Nick now called something after her in a good-natured roar loud enough to carry all over the room. She turned and called something back to him that made him slap his leg and laugh.

Then Nick got up, muttering and still chuckling at what had been said, and went to another door I’d never noticed before at the back of the room.

I think Old Keats had understood some of all this, but it was a mystery to Shad and me. Irenia now came in carrying some vodka and glasses on a tray and put them down for us, smiling and happy as can be. I was managing to smile too, now, and when our smiles came together hers got so strong her nose crinkled for an instant.

Grinning, Igor asked her something in a carrying, clear voice.

She didn’t reply to his question, but she smiled from him to me and gave me a quick little wink that was so innocent and unpracticed it almost came out as a tiny, smiling blink instead. Then she hurried happily away from the table.

And now, whether it meant anything or not, two of the Imperials got up and went out the front door.

As Kirdyaga began filling our glasses, Igor leaned forward and spoke in a low, easy voice, as if quietly discussing the rotten weather. “Anna wanted to, but couldn’t, speak in here. The sergeant called after her that if this rain kept up he might have to buy a house and marry her. She said she doubted if he could afford the small house in back—the toilet. He said he just happened to feel like inspecting it anyway.”

“So they can talk out back,” Shad said.

Igor nodded. “Those two Imperial Cossacks just left to report to headquarters. So far, I think we have them fooled.”

“What did you say to Irenia about me?” I asked him.

“I asked her if she could tolerate having you around for a longer time than we’d planned on.”

A moment later Nick came back in, brushing rain from his uniform and sitting down at the table. He swallowed the vodka before him with great, noisy pleasure and then said a few quiet words to Igor. They both laughed at whatever it was, and Nick started refilling the glasses that had been emptied.

In a low voice Igor said, “Verushki has had a man here who speaks some English. But not well enough to be certain whether Link said ‘fifteen’ cossacks or ‘fifty’ cossacks. And either figure must be bewildering.”

“Good God,” Old Keats muttered. “He may think we been hidin’ men from ’im! Just t’ surprise ’im in case of a fight!”

“Either way,” Shad said, “he’s got to be too curious for comfort right now. We’re leavin’ pretty quick.”

Even though part of me felt like a damn fool, the other part just wouldn’t stay shut up. “Shad,” I asked, “is it okay if—”

“Go ahead,” he said, understanding before I could even get it all out. “But don’t take all night.”

So I gathered all my nerve and got up and went through that door into the back room where Irenia had fixed my hand, just hoping that she’d be back there.

And she was.

She and old Anna looked up from washing some dishes, and she just sort of stopped in mid-motion, with that smile of hers slowly starting and then growing, like a sunrise starts slowly and then grows until the whole world becomes bright.

Anna now disappeared someplace, and I walked over to Irenia with everything in the world to say and not one word to say it with, like some kind of a dumb ox.

As I approached her, she quickly dried her hands on a cloth, still smiling, and reached down to take my hand that she’d bandaged. I knew as sure as if we’d somehow both just had a long conversation about it, that she was going to check the hand out and maybe soak it a little, and rebandage it, but there wasn’t anywhere near that kind of time.

So as she took it I pulled the hand back away from her, and probably my movement was more abrupt than I knew. Because when she looked up at me, her smile suddenly fading, she knew for absolute sure that I was in a hurry and that I was going away, for good.

To see a smile like hers fade away is hard enough, but then to see the eyes above it take on a far-off, not-quite-clear look, and fall away filled with wordless sorrow, is something that’s just about to not be endured.