Clair Huffaker: The Cowboy and the Cossack

With that encouragement, Rufe and Mushy got what looked like a ton of wood from one of the maples that was long dead. They built such a big fire it was hard to get close enough to it to cook, and Kirdyaga, lying near it, had to move his blanket away.

“Christ,” Slim said, looking up at the smoke billowing into the sky, “they oughtta be able t’ see that clear back t’ Seattle.”

We ate in shifts, with most of us staying at the natural rock breastwork, rifles in hand. At first we talked and joked a little, but it was just too spooky for much of that, and the talk slowly eased off. After that all there was for one long, nerve-racking hour, and then finally two, was dead silence and nothing. It was still so quiet after those two endless hours that the loudest things I could hear were my own breathing and a fly buzzing a few feet away near Crab, who was sweating slightly as he frowned up the long slope before us, blinking into the nearly setting sun.

Crab must have been thinking about the same thing I was, for the fly flew away and a moment later he said tightly, “Only noise f’r miles around here is my sweat droppin’ off!”

Igor grinned and translated Crab’s line in a low voice. The other cossacks grinned back, and a few of them chuckled.

“Goddamnit,” Crab complained. “Wasn’t trying t’ be funny.”

“Only times ya’ ever are,” I told him, “is by accident.”

“Very amusin’,” he muttered. “Y’r a real scream, Levi.”

Then, from farther down the line, Purse said what was on a lot of our minds. “I don’t think there’s one damn, bloody thing up there!”

“Maybe,” I said, looking over toward Shad, “a couple of us ought t’ ride up an’ take a look.”

Chakko spoke for the first time in two days. “Fuck it.”

Shad glanced at Chakko and then at me. “Maybe after nightfall, on foot. Not now.”

Chakko nodded gravely at Shad’s words, and Rostov said quietly, “I believe we’ll see them before then. I think they’re just waiting for the most dramatic moment to show themselves.”

“Dramatic?” Old Keats said.

Nick nodded his massive head. “To frighten.”

A few minutes later the sun, now directly in our eyes, began to set behind the far top of the slope.

And as it did, there was a sudden hollow, haunting sound that seemed to grow slowly out from everywhere at once, and as it grew in volume it seemed to start pounding on the inside of my brain, trying to jar it loose.

“Show time,” Old Keats said above the strange, booming noise.

Slim cocked his rifle. “Nice t’ have ringside seats.”

From down the line Sammy called, “What ’n God’s name is that ?”

In an easy, calming voice Rostov called back, “It’s a Tartar war horn. If that’s all they have to offer, we’re in no trouble.”

But as Rostov knew, that sure as hell wasn’t all they had to offer.

As the hideous, long blast of noise at last stopped, and its echoes began to fade away, somebody started beating very slowly on what must have been the biggest goddamn drum ever made on earth. The very ground beneath us seemed to shake with each measured, thunderous beat.

By now the sun was about halfway down, making it a blinding proposition to try to keep your eyes on the faraway top of the slope.

And then, as slow and measured as the giant thunder of the huge drum itself, riders started to appear up there, lining themselves out and facing us, the murderous sunlight behind them making them seem to shimmer and shift like motionless, yet moving, phantoms.

There were already tears in my eyes from squinting so hard into the sun, but I’d guess that at first there were about fifty of them. And then there was maybe a hundred, and then more, and more, and still more.

Finally, as unmoving and silent as death, they covered the entire thousand feet at the top of the slope, and though my eyes weren’t working too good, the thought kept slamming at me that they were crowded against each other up there.

From a few feet away Crab whispered hoarsely, “Now I know how it feels t’ be scared shitless.”

Just as quiet as Crab, and dead level, Slim whispered back, “Does sorta cut every string in y’r gut.”

And the rest of us sure as hell knew how they felt.

“If I had t’ make a quick move right now,” Rufe managed to mutter between gritted teeth, “it’d take a whole Sears Roebuck catalogue t’ erase the evidence.”

Then, at some unheard command, the immense line of riders suddenly whirled and vanished soundlessly, and in that same instant the huge drum was struck for the last time, its earth-shaking echoes fading slowly away into the distance.

A moment later, the last rays of the sun now disappeared, along with the Tartar army and the thunder of the drum.

For a long time afterward no one spoke, and not many of us even moved much. Except for Shad and Rostov, who walked off a little way to talk quietly to each other about something.

At last some of the cossacks murmured a few quiet words back and forth, and then Shiny took a long breath and said quietly, “Thank Jesus we ain’t playin’ no hand a’ solitaire all by our lonesome out here.”

Not understanding Shiny’s words, Igor looked at me with a question in his eyes. My throat was still too tight and dry to come up with an immediate answer, and Old Keats spoke instead. “He means he’s glad there’s help coming.”

Igor was just about as bad off as I was, but he swallowed a little and said, “That is what our men have been saying.”

“Main question is,” Slim put in, “how long they’ll be at gittin’ here.”

“Yes,” Nick nodded. “It must be soon.”

It was darkening fast now as Shad and Rostov came back and Rostov spoke. And in a low voice Igor told the cossacks what Rostov was saying. “It seems that time is the one thing that we have in our favor. Kharlagawl does not intend to attack us tonight. Or he would have attacked before, out of the sun.” He hesitated and looked at Shad before continuing. “He hopes to leave us with our thoughts and paralyze us with terror. In his mind, after this long night, we will have either run away or be too sick with fear to fight well tomorrow.”

“When d’ya think he’ll hit us?” Slim asked.

“In the late morning, when the sun is high enough to be out of his men’s eyes.”

“Perhaps by then,” Natcho said thoughtfully, “the reinforcements from Bakaskaya will be here. They shouldn’t be too far away by now.”

And then Shad broke in. “However that may be, we gotta hit that bunch as hard as we can all by ourselves. F’r example, we’re gonna put three kegs a’ gunpowder up on the slope. That’ll do notable damage if we c’n blow ’em at the right time.”

“Why not all four kegs?” Big Yawn rumbled.

Shad frowned, searching for his own answer. And then he said, “Dunno, Yawn. Just feel like savin’ one.”

An hour or so later there was a half-moon throwing dim black-gray shadows on the earth. And in those shadows, I went with Shad and Slim to take three of our four kegs of gunpowder a hundred yards or so up the slope.

At three of the widest, easiest possible places for galloping horsemen to come down on us, we half buried the kegs in the ground, packing dirt up around their far sides so they couldn’t be seen from the top of the long slope. But at the same time, about half of each keg was left visible downhill so that those of us who would be at the bottom of the slope could put a bullet into it to blow it sky-high.

When we at last slid back down and over the rocky breastwork after that spooky detail, I felt kind of like a hero, half thinking somebody might have a good word for our work.

But maybe by then my pounding heart was beating too loud in my ears to hear what everybody else was listening to.