Clair Huffaker: The Cowboy and the Cossack

Nobody got killed along that long way, but we still lost some men.

Natcho got enamored of a Spanish lady while we were laying over in Málaga. He decided, with that gleaming smile of his, that he was more Spanish than Mexican anyway, and that’s the last we saw of him.

We lost three more in Philadelphia. Link, whose arm still didn’t work and maybe never would, went to Georgia to see some family. He told Shiny he’d show up later at the Slash-Diamond, but he never did. And Sammy the Kid and Rufus just decided they liked the town and were going to stay on for a while. Though what they ever saw in Philadelphia, I don’t know.

The last one we lost, which came as a shock, was Chakko. We had a layover in Denver, and a couple of promoters got him drunk and signed him up to be part of a traveling show. He was billed as “The Only Living Ogallala Sioux to Ever Completely Encompass the Globe.” For ten dollars a week he was supposed to do some trick shooting with his bow and arrows and say a few lines to the people. From what we later heard, Chakko did fine with the bow and arrows but had a habit of forgetting his lines in front of the audience and filling in with “Fuck it!” instead, which must have been kind of disconcerting.

So the way it was, six of the original fifteen in our greasy-sack outfit got back to the Slash-Diamond Ranch after a good more than a year of being gone. There was Big Yawn, Purse, Crab, Shiny, Slim and me.

But of all that long trip back, the part I remember best is on the hills looking down at Odessa and the Black Sea, where the cossacks finally took their leave. It was too risky for them to come right down into town with us.

We were all kind of shook up about this final parting, knowing that in those vast distances that would lie between us, none of us would likely ever see or hear about any of the others again. It was one of those times when not one word you say is right, and yet somehow, every word is.

After we’d had a few drinks and made a few quiet toasts, Slim said to the cossacks, “One more thing. We all talked it over, an’ we’re gonna be jugglin’ around on different boats an’ God knows what all.” He paused. “So no matter whether ya’ like it or not, we’re stickin’ you fellas with our string a’ horses.”

There was a dead silence.

That string included Shad’s big Red, my Buck, Slim’s Charlie, Natcho’s Diablo, Purse’s Vixen, even Dixie’s Shiloh, and a bunch more of the best horses that ever put hoof to ground.

Finally, in that silence, I said, “They’re f’r Bakaskaya. Just two horses’re nailed down. Shad’s Red is Rostov’s. An’ my Buck is yours, Igor.”

Igor could hardly talk, but he managed to say, “You gave me a fine horse already.”

Feeling the same way that Igor was, I said, “Can’t ya’ give a good man somethin’ twice?”

Rostov stepped to Red and rubbed his forehead and muzzle gently. Then he came back to us. Reaching down into his shirt, he took off the leather thong he wore there, with the small leather pouch that held a handful of earth from Bakaskaya.

And he handed it to me.

Then the others slowly did the same. Nick gave his to Slim, and Igor handed his to Crab. There were eleven cossacks and eleven cowboys left, so it worked out exactly right. And, sometimes, a handful of earth can be worth more than a good horse.

One last thing that Rostov said to me before we went away. “I spoke to you of chess, and of life, one time before, Levi.”

“Yes, sir?”

“In chess, every piece can be killed and taken from the board, except the king.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “And it is so in life. A man who is truly a king never dies.”

We looked at each other for a long moment.

He was thinking of Shad.

And I was thinking of both of them.

1. What’s the significance of the title? What would you have called it?

2. Did Rostov do the right thing at the end of the book?

3. What were the similarities between the Cossacks and the cowboys? How did they differ?

4. What does this novel have to say about the Cold War between the United States and the former Soviet Union and the relationship between the countries then and now?

5. Why do you suppose that Huffaker chose to include among the Montana cowboys characters like Sammy the Kid and Shiny Joe and Link Jackson?

IF YOU liked the friendships that develop between the Montana cowboys and the Russian Cossacks in The Cowboy and the Cossack , as well as the epic nature of their joint quest, the most obvious read-alike is Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove , which takes the camaraderie and long-distance cattle drive of The Cowboy and the Cossack, adds two unforgettable retired Texas rangers, and puts them on a journey from Texas to Montana. It’s another epic adventure on a very different frontier than Huffaker’s.

If you liked the coming-of-age aspect of Huffaker’s novel, try Jack Schafer’s Shane , with its unforgettable last line: “He was the man who rode into our little valley out of the heart of the great glowing West and when his work was done rode back whence he had come and he was Shane.” There’s also a nice parallel between Levi’s adulation of Shad (and Rostov) and Joey’s admiration for Shane.

If what you enjoyed about The Cowboy and the Cossack was how it broadened and deepened your idea of a “Western,” try these:

Paulette Jiles’s The Color of Lightning illuminates a morally complex time and place in American history—from the last years of the Civil War until the early 1870s. This was the period when Texas was opening up its land for settlement, and the Kiowa and Comanche Indians, losing their traditional hunting grounds, were kidnapping and/or murdering the settlers. At the same time, the US government was trying to corral (almost literally) the Indians on reservations. (Incidentally, Britt Johnson, the black freed slave and Indian hostage hunter who’s the main character in Jiles’s novel, was the inspiration for Alan Le May’s 1954 novel, The Searchers , which was turned into the 1956 John Ford film of the same name. In it, the character based—very loosely—on Johnson is, through the vagaries of the creative process and Hollywood casting, played by John Wayne.)

Thomas Berger’s Little Big Man is a novel that I think should be required reading for every high school or college student. Like Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn , it addresses important issues of race and identity.

Emma Bull’s Territory is set just before the mythic gunfight at the OK Corral in 1881. It’s one of those novels that I characterize as “elastic realism”: alternate history with a little bit of fantasy thrown into the mix. Part of the fun here is having what you thought you knew about all those events undercut. When I finished Territory , I was more than halfway convinced that Bull’s version has as much truth in it as the old legends do, fantasy and all.

If you want to read a novel about the West that has achieved “classic” status, try The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark. It explores the theme of mob violence and vigilante justice in the American West. It’s a powerfully drawn account of the events leading up to the lynching of three men accused of murder and stealing cattle in 1885.

CLAIR HUFFAKER was a legendary western screenwriter and author. His screenplays include The Comancheros, Hellfighters, and War Wagon starring John Wayne, along with Flaming Star , Seven Ways from Sundown , Rio Conchos , and Posse from Hell . Huffaker also wrote for TV western series such as Bonanza, The Rifleman , The Virginian , and Rawhide , including eighteen episodes of Lawman . Many of his movies were based on his bestselling books. Huffaker was a cowboy, a champion boxer, a part-time smuggler, and a writer for Time, Inc. in New York. He served in the Navy in World War II, studied in Europe, and eventually returned to the US where he began his career as a freelance writer. He wrote short stories, screenplays, and novels at his home in Los Angeles, which was a gathering place for actors, stuntmen, directors, and writers who could regularly be found there shooting pool, playing poker, and exchanging tall tales.