Clair Huffaker: The Cowboy and the Cossack

Rufe didn’t answer.

Shad pulled very quick and hard now so that the lance came out.

“Goddamn it all t’ hell anyway,” Rufe said, his voice getting more uneven than before. “Who the hell’s gonna fix our goddamn boots now he’s gone?” And then he couldn’t speak anymore.

Right then there wasn’t enough safe time to bury anybody, so we just wrapped our three lost ones in blankets, and as we were finishing that grim job, one of the cossacks on guard at the rear of the hollow came galloping up to us. It was Gerasmin, and without dismounting he spoke to Rostov briefly, then galloped back again.

“A small band of Tartars attacked from the rear,” Rostov said. “Our men killed three of them, and two others broke their horses’ legs trying to go too quickly through the rocks. They won’t try that area of attack again.”

Old Keats looked up at the wide, half-mile slope and the bodies of men and horses that were now scattered on it. Somewhere far up, one man was still alive, crying out in dim, delirious pain. As the man’s cries died away Keats said, “They came to bring death and destruction upon us. But so far, they’ve brought their own death and destruction mostly upon themselves.”

“Well,” Slim said quietly, “we best pr’pare ourselves f’r the next go-around.”

Igor’s leg had been badly cut by a sword thrust, though he could still walk. And I had a dozen or so chunks of rock in the right side of my face. So a little later, around the low fire, Rostov and Nick were bandaging Igor’s leg while Shad was digging rocks out of my blood-covered face with the tip of his bone-handled hunting knife. Slim had gone into the hollow for more water and brought it back now.

Where Shad was probing hurt quite a bit, so I finally said, “Them Tartars’ll never have t’ lay a hand on me. I’ll be dead a’ sheer pain long b’fore they show up again.”

As Shad kept digging, Slim washed some of the blood off my cheek with a wet rag and said, “You oughtta be grateful f’r one thing, Levi. Considerin’ that face a’ yours, anythin’ Shad does is a big improvement.”

Before going back to work on my skin, Shad glanced at Rostov. “We hit those fellas pretty hard. I think they’ll hold back now until around sundown.”

Rostov nodded. “Then Kharlagawl will send every man he has. And the sun will be in our eyes.”

“If I was a prayerful man,” Slim said, “I’d sure be prayin’ t’ God f’r clouds.” He squinted up at the clear blue sky. “Baptist clouds, Mormon clouds, Methodist clouds, any goddamn clouds.”

Shad pried the last piece of rock out of a high part of my cheek. Then he poured some Jack Daniel’s into his hand and with it he rinsed the cut-up part of my face.

“ Jesus !” I said as the bourbon sank in, burning and cleansing.

Shad handed me the Daniel’s and I took a drink, the warming heat on the inside kind of pleasantly easing off the fiery burning on the outside.

“Rostov,” Shad said, “ya’ think Kharlagawl will lead the main charge comin’ up?”

“I doubt it. He’s too important.”

Shad nodded thoughtfully. “That case, if we do manage t’ hang on until t’night, a couple of us oughtta try t’ git up among ’em an’ shoot ’im.”

Rostov studied Shad for a moment. “Cutting off the head of the serpent might help.”

“Sure wouldn’t hurt,” Slim said. “Could tend t’ maybe bust ’em up an’ confuse ’em.”

Rostov’s words about the serpent reminded me of the thoughts I’d had back in the mountains about our nearly dead but still dangerous Tartar prisoner. “A diamondback,” I said, “can sometimes kill a man even with its head cut off.”

Shad shrugged. “Only one man, Levi. An’ there’s more’n one of us.” Then he took a swallow of the Daniel’s and passed it on around.

A little later the huge drum began its slow, earth-shaking thunder again.

It was almost as though the regular, mighty sound booming down toward us was trying to let us know that not one damn thing at all had changed. That the earlier battle had been a lazy morning in the sun compared to the pure hell that was coming.

And for once, that drum was telling the truth.

A few minutes before sundown the massive war horn blasted powerfully and Kharlagawl’s entire army appeared on the top of the slope with the sun at their backs, shimmering again in the distant, blinding light like faraway phantoms.

There wasn’t time to make any count of them, but even with the men they’d lost that morning they were still jammed against each other shoulder to shoulder on that far thousand-foot-wide top of the slope.

I thought I had one squinting glimpse of Kharlagawl, and a moment later, the shrill noise of the giant war horn still bursting out against the sky, they roared down the slope toward us.

Some of them still had bells, some of them were blowing piercing, strange-sounding whistles, and most of them were screaming wild war cries, but the overriding, battering sound was the pounding thunder of countless horses’ hooves crushing the earth.

“When it comes time,” Shad called out to us, his voice calming and steady, “you take the middle keg, Slim, and you take the one on the right, Levi. I’ll go for the one on the left. If any of us have been hit, the man closest t’ their immediate right who c’n still shoot should take over. Rest of ya’ just keep poundin’ the hell outta them fellas.”

My first natural thought of maybe missing altogether was bad enough, but another horrifying thought occurred to me just then, too. What if I shot into my keg of black powder and the heat and friction of the bullet wasn’t enough to set it off? I could just picture myself shooting into the goddamn keg that was now my responsibility and simply scattering the whole kegful of gunpowder harmlessly all over the slope, while a thousand Tartars charged right on through that place that I was supposed to blow up.

But there wasn’t much time to pursue that line of worry. We all started firing sooner and faster this time. There were so damn many of them covering the slope that you could just about close both eyes and shoot and figure on somehow hitting something or other that mattered.

Yet with every one of us trying his level best to imitate a Gatling gun with his rifle, there was no way for our bullets to slow down or stop that massive charge of horsemen. Every time we’d knock down an entire front row of them, it looked like three more speeding front rows took their place. They were no longer in the direct glare of the sun now, but they were closing down on us with raging swiftness.

For a split second the thought came to my mind that that little red ant probably had the best of it after all. He ought, by now, to be safe at home somewhere in the ground, all things equal, unless some dumb bastard had stepped on him without knowing it.

Then Shad roared, “Hit the gunpowder!” and I shifted my gun sights, peering through the thick, swirling gunsmoke before us. I saw the keg and fired as a swarm of Tartars started to gallop over it, and my bullet slamming into it surely did create more than enough heat and friction.

All three kegs exploded within a moment of each other, their tremendous explosions almost combining into one gigantic thunder-burst that made a swelling wall of roaring flame and death.

I don’t know how many Tartars were killed in those three terrible blasts, but none of the leaders got through. And there was total chaos behind them, with panicky ponies lunging and screaming, some of them rearing completely over backwards in terror.

Before the smoke of that dreadful carnage had cleared, the booming war horn sounded once more from beyond the top of the rise. And then, as the mass of acrid smoke cleared slowly away, we could see the army of Tartar warriors retreating swiftly back up the slope, going away from us as fast as they’d come.