Clair Huffaker: The Cowboy and the Cossack

“We’ll move out at first light,” Shad said, “so turn in while ya’ can, now. Nobody’ll be gettin’ much sleep later on.”

Fifteen minutes before, I doubt if anybody could have slept. But with help coming sooner or later up front and with a concrete plan of action, that Siberian night had suddenly become a whole lot more cheerful place, and Slash-Diamonders started turning in right and left.

Igor came over to where some of us were still standing by the fire, and he had Pietre with him. “Pietre is the one going on to Bakaskaya,” he said. “He wants you to know that he will go very fast.”

“Good man f’r the ride.” Slim nodded. “You tell him t’ make that skewbald mare a’ his git out an’ stretch ’er legs.”

And he sure as hell was a good man for the ride. As Igor told Pietre what Slim had said I remembered so clearly that blindingly swift race with him on the meadow outside Khabarovsk. And the fantastic leap he’d made high over the stream with that goddamned rock in his hands.

And Pietre was remembering it too. He smiled at what Slim had said, and then he looked at me. Leaning down, he picked up a small rock at his feet, held it out before him, and dropped it.

Christ, you can say a lot with no words.

I was so damned touched by his gesture that I was sorely tempted to give him one of those big bear hugs that the cossacks sometimes give each other. But, especially with all those other fellas standing around, that might have seemed kind of much. So instead I put my hand on top of his shoulder and squeezed real hard.

He grinned, and about then they brought up his saddled mare and a fine deep-chested bay gelding on a lead. He leaped up into the saddle, sitting light as a feather and strong as steel. Then, with a small wave and one parting word, and leading his second mount, he raced out of camp fast enough to pass up any and every bat who ever came out of hell.

As the swift hoofbeats faded and then disappeared, far away in the darkness, those of us around the coals of the fire started to drift away to our bedrolls.

Shad’s bedroll was near mine, and as I got my head settled into the saddle, he came up silently and started to pull off his boots.

I was feeling so goddamned close to those cossacks right then. There was just no doubt that Pietre was prepared to ride two good horses, and maybe himself, to death to get to Bakaskaya. And he wasn’t just doing it for the cossacks or for the herd. He was doing it for all of us. And Kirdyaga, using his last ounce of giant strength to take that Tartar lancer off me, even with a bullet inside him. I reached up to my shoulder and touched the gash in my leather jacket that the lance had left.

As for that bastard Rostov, in one night he’d taken a spear thrust meant for me and, half bleeding to death, had cut down a mounted Tartar who was on the verge of killing Shad.

With all those mingled thoughts, what Rostov had once said about Shad came to mind again. About Shad “being” that big tiger. I’d never mentioned it to Shad for a number of reasons. Mostly, I guess, because it was said as such a damned huge compliment that it was kind of embarrassing to pass on. Rostov could say it to me. But I’d sound silly repeating it.

So, right then, I did a kind of a chicken thing. Shad was pulling off his second boot as I said in a low voice, “Hey, Shad?”

“Umm?”

“What would you think if one fella referred to another fella as a tiger?”

His boot half off, he hesitated, frowned at me and said in a quiet voice, “Huh?”

I was in too far to back off, but I could at least still keep it vague. “I said, just in general, what would ya’ think of one fella referrin’ to another fella as a tiger?”

“Oh, f’r Christ sake!” He shook his head in annoyance and pulled the boot off.

But having asked the question, I couldn’t just let it hang there. “Well?”

Pulling his blankets up over him, he finally answered me. “Just offhand, I’d say it’d take one t’ know one.” He settled down. “Now get some sleep.”

That was a hell of an answer.

And I got some sleep.

For the next six days we pushed the cattle and ourselves at a grinding, damnere killing pace. By the end of the second day we were already pretty much clear of the mountain range, moving quickly through lowering foothills to endless, broken flats stretching before us. And in the next four of those six days we averaged nearly twenty miles a day, if you count a day as twenty-four hours.

So by the end of the sixth day we’d made well over one hundred miles, and that high mountain range where we’d been was almost out of sight on the low horizon far behind us.

Rostov and I were still riding far-point guard, usually about a mile ahead of the herd. And the cossacks were guarding the flanks, while the Slash-Diamonders yelled and whopped their lariats and busted the herd along at a fast sort of shuffling trot that the overworked cattle resented like hell. Even Old Fooler, who was usually the most reliable and cooperative lead steer ever born, was starting to get both tired and grouchy as hell, trudging quickly along with his head down in a hostile way as though he was mad enough to be plotting some kind of a cow revolution.

There had been one change made in our traveling setup. Instead of riding with the herd, Shad and Igor went to riding far drag, about the same distance behind the cattle as Rostov and I were before them. Back there was where riders catching up with us would be spotted first. So that’s where Shad elected to be.

That night, except for general exhaustion, we were all feeling pretty good. There still hadn’t been one sign of one Tartar overtaking us. We were due to join up with the men from Bakaskaya within no more than two or three days. And even Kirdyaga was in miraculously good shape, sitting up and eating and joking. Igor had already told me that Kirdyaga wanted to start an exclusive club, limited to men who were packing bullets in their guts. And naturally, Kirdyaga and Rostov were in on it as the charter members.

While we were eating beans around the low fire, Slim frowned at his now empty tin plate and said, “Goddamnit t’ hell, anyway.”

He was fishing, so I up and took the bait. “Goddamn what t’ hell, Slim?”

“We jus’ might not never even see that big bunch a’ Tartars.”

“Heartbreakin’ thought,” Crab muttered.

“An’ in that case, what’ll I tell m’ grandkids?”

“What grandkids?” Mushy asked.

“Ain’t you fellas got no feelin’s?” Slim demanded. “I was lookin’ forward t’ tellin’ ’em some real excitin’ stories in m’ old age.”

“Do what ya’ usually do,” Crab suggested. “Lie.”

And Rufe added, “You’re already in y’r old age, Slim.”

Old Keats finished his coffee. “We’re movin’ out in four hours. You fellas c’n sit around regalin’ each other all ya’ want. But I’m gettin’ some sleep.”

And the next day was the seventh day.

By sunup we’d already made four or five miles, and we made even better time on level plains of knee-high waving grass through the morning and most of the afternoon.

In the late afternoon Rostov and I crossed a wide meadow and rode to the top of a high, sloping hill where he pulled his black to a halt, suddenly frowning.

The land ahead of us was a little rougher, broken up here and there by ravines and outcroppings of rocks. Two or three miles beyond, there were some steep pine-covered ridges.

But the terrain wasn’t rugged enough to explain Rostov’s hard, thoughtful frown. He took out his telescope and studied the land ahead for a long moment. Then he turned his black and raised the telescope again to scan the horizon far to each side of us and behind us.