Clair Huffaker - The Cowboy and the Cossack

Bruk pulled slowly on his pipe. “The Tartars see spirits and gods in every tree and rock, in the sky and earth, even in the stars and the wind. There’s a certain beauty in such a belief.”

The quiet and surprisingly respectful way he said that kind thing about his deadly enemies reminded me so much again of how Old Keats might feel that it almost made me forget about being nervous for a minute. “You damnere sound like ya’ like ’em.”

“No. But I certainly respect them.” He shrugged. “How can you not respect men whose very name means ‘brave’? Or who claim, as a race, to be the descendants of a great, mythical blue wolf?” He paused. “A Tartar warrior pierces his horse’s hind hoof at night for a few drops of blood and mixes that blood with a handful of rice for his day’s food.”

“Ugh,” I said.

“And with only that handful of rice and blood, he can outlast, outride and outfight any other mounted warrior in the world.” Bruk turned his weather-beaten old face toward me, and a faint hint of humor came into his eyes. “Except a cossack, of course.”

Before I had time to defend us cowboys with some kind of a witty response, we heard hoofbeats coming up fast. Shad and Old Keats, with Igor right on their tails, were barreling toward us across the wide plain.

Rostov trotted his black over as the other three galloped to us and pulled up.

Shad squinted at the huge, square pile of rocks looming darkly above and said, “Puttin’ that thing up took a lot a’ men.”

Rostov nodded. “From the size of the structure, it had to be Genghis Kharlagawl.”

“Scary bastard, ain’t it?” I said with what I hoped was a fearless grin.

Bruk said, “I’ve seen many of them.” And then I realized that he’d been sticking with me, trying to bolster me up, as he added, “But that one—it’s the biggest I’ve ever seen, and it becomes more and more frightening when you approach it. As though it’s been dedicated to the gods of death.”

Shad turned his big Red slightly. “Rocks’re rocks. It’s what lies behind ’em that counts.”

With Shad and Rostov leading off, the six of us rode up the slanting incline toward the crest of the ridge high above and the obo , which by now looked almost as gigantic as the darkening sky behind it.

And damned soon it seemed to me that whatever local gods the magic of that Tartar obo had drawn about it had to be the meanest, blackest, ungodly demons to ever get a leave of absence out of hell.

Struggling up that incline, which was suddenly a whole lot steeper than it had looked from below, the ground shifted and slipped beneath our horses’ hooves. And it started to get darker quicker than any normal, mortal day ought to get dark. On top of that, a cold blasting wind came screeching out of nowhere with enough slamming force to almost tear a man out of the saddle or even knock both a horse and rider down.

When we finally managed to scramble to the top and rode over to the twenty-foot-high monster, Shad reached out from the saddle into the shrieking wind and touched one of the boulders in the obo. And being this close up to it, I was so spooked by now that I swear to God when he touched it I fully expected the entire mountain of rock to come avalanching down and bury all six of us.

But it was as though that simple touch of Shad’s hand had instantly chased away the whole gathering of fierce demons. That snarling banshee wind suddenly broke and faded and then disappeared, for all the world like a crying, spoiled kid who’s been whacked on the butt and sent running home.

Within a moment, the demons of darkness and cold followed as fast as they could, leaving a sun that was not too far from setting, but was at least a regular sun putting out normal late-afternoon warmth and light.

Even the rocks must have had bad spirits in them because with the appearance of the sun their ugly darkness changed to a lighter, warmer tone that was as cheerful as the front of the First Baptist Church at Butte.

“You frightened the spirits off!” Igor said to Shad, only half joking in his own nervous fear.

Catching my breath and not even half joking, I muttered, “Sure as hell !”

Shad glanced at us and then squinted briefly up at the sky. “You two dumb bastards sure would make easy converts. That ugly weather was nothin’ but a fast north wind carryin’ some clouds on it.”

“Well, damnit, Shad,” I said defensively, “ya’ gotta admit that you just reachin’ out an’ touchin’ that goddamn thing, an’ then the whole world changin’ like that was sure as hell downright spooky timin’!”

Igor nodded. “Yes!”

That rare, dust-dry humor of Bruk’s came into his eyes once more. “Perhaps we should do something to placate these fearful gods.”

Reading Bruk’s mind, Old Keats picked up instantly on his friend’s words and said wryly, “Maybe, Levi, you an’ Igor’d like t’ offer up a human sacrifice ’r somethin’.”

Igor and I exchanged frowning, slightly embarrassed looks before I grumbled, “That’s very hilarious, Keats. You sure as hell ought t’ consider vaudeville.”

Then Shad and Rostov led off again, and we rode on over to the far edge of the top of the hill.

From here we first saw the grim meadow below. And we also saw that more than enough human sacrifices had already been made.

LESS THAN half a mile from us, down in a richly fertile, green meadow, there was a large, beautiful stand of white birch, and within the surrounding trees four small cabins had been built around a small clearing.

It must have been a kind of pretty sight at one time. But no longer. Two of the cabins had been burned completely to the ground, leaving only their two stone fireplaces standing like tall, blackened tombstones over the ashes. The other two had been gutted by fire, but there were parts of the walls still remaining.

From where we were, I could make out several small, grayish-white outlines scattered on the ground near the cabins. A moment later, a sudden wave of sickness came over me as I realized that those scattered outlines were skeletons of the people who had once lived there.

Slowly, and with no word spoken, the six of us rode down the far side of the hill and across the grassy meadow toward the trees and what was left of the homes within them.

As we entered the small, tragic circle of ruined cabins, Buck almost stepped on the bones of a single torn-off human arm that was lying all by itself, half-buried in the ground. I just happened to see what the grisly thing was at the last minute, and I jerked the reins so hard that the bit hurt Buck’s mouth and he reared slightly, snorting resentment at my unexpected roughness.

Then I walked him on, looking the hideous place over with stunned, maybe even partly glazed eyes. For the unbelievable horror all around was just about too damn much to take.

Before I finally gave it up, I silently counted to myself nineteen skeletons. Two of them had been tied to charred stakes and were almost part of the fallen ashes where they must have been burned. Some of them were mingled together, forming jumbled, ghastly jigsaw puzzles of decaying bones. Others were sprawled singly in such grotesque shapes that their backs and other bones must have been broken before they were dead. A few, but not many, had strips of cloth on or near them that might have been strips of clothing. But boots and belts, and any weapons they might have had, were gone.

I’d counted to nineteen because I was right on the edge of plain cracking up, and I had an idea that the counting might help me keep some kind of a grip on myself. But then I realized numbly that I was starting to go crazy anyway, so I quit.