Blood and Salt (9 page)

I heard a deep rumbling noise and turned to see huge trucks racing up the rough road to the village. I’d seen trucks before, of course, in the city of Chernowitz, but no one in the village had one. The pahn had a motor car, which he sometimes drove to the city to attend a concert, but none of this had anything to do with me.

I knew right away that these trucks had something to do with me.

And then they were in our lane, gears grinding as they slowed down. Four big trucks from the Austrian garrison at Chernowitz, the truck boxes full of soldiers in grey uniforms. Their roar echoed in the lane, slammed against the houses. People rushed to their front doors, including Natalka, Viktor and Halya. In moments the air was filled with a haze of dust.

Now I’d heard rumours in the tavern, about trouble brewing in Bosnia. The Austrians ruled it, but the Serbs wanted it. So did the Turks, because there were Muslims in Bosnia. The talk was that the Austrians were planning to give the Serbs and the Turks a scare and then they’d both back down. War would be averted.

Of course, everyone knew that the Serbs and the Turks might not back down. Ruslan had already told me that people around the garrison believed something was going to happen. Now it felt as if war had already come. As if it had always been there somewhere, like a shadow waiting to find a shape and a colour.

Then the trucks were gone as quickly as they’d come. Dust still hung over the lane. The army must have been doing some training exercises in the countryside. And on the way back to the garrison, I think they wanted to remind people they were around. Let them know things were changing.

The men sit quietly.
Each man remembers a time when he began to realize a great war could happen. But most of them lived in Canada by then, so it wasn’t quite as close to them.

“Don’t stop now,”
Yuriy says. “I was just getting interested.”

“It’s late,”
Taras says. “Most of the men have gone to bed.”

“Tell us more tomorrow, then,” Myro suggests. “After supper.”

“That’s right,” Tymko says. “It’ll be more exciting if we have to wait.”

Taras’s friends drift away, but he can’t stop the flood of bright images. Moments ago he hadn’t known he had a story. Now’s he’s in a world filled with sunshine, glancing off the people, the houses, his darling Halya. He’s living in the story.

He sees himself working at the anvil under his father’s eye, shaping a red-hot horseshoe with clanging hammer strikes.

“Why does Viktor Dubrovsky hate me?” he asks, giving the shoe a whack.

“Not so hard! Go too fast, you spoil it.” Mykola is tall and powerful and always seems in charge of himself and his life. Others may bluster or rage or brag or drink too much, but Mykola tries to live his life with care, like iron worked until it’s right.

“Why does Halya’s father hate me? Why won’t you tell me?”

“Don’t stop! Go too slow, you spoil it.” Mykola makes a show of checking the fire in the forge.

“Why, Batko?” Taras strikes too hard and the shoe splits in two glowing red halves. Mykola grabs the tongs and puts the pieces back in the hot coals. Taras waits for an answer.

“Because you’re my son.” He points to another shoe ready to be shaped. “Work on that one.” Taras pulls out the second shoe.

“Why does he hate
you?”
Taras works more carefully now.

“He thinks I’m a dangerous socialist. A revolutionary.”

“And are you?”
Taras gives his father a serious look.

“Keep your eye on the shoe!” Mykola watches Taras shape the iron. When he’s satisfied with the work, he turns the question back to Taras. “What do you think?”

Taras smiles. “No.”

“So why ask?” He sees Taras lift the hammer. “Stop, that’s just right.” Mykola picks up the red-hot shoe, plunges it into a barrel of water. A cloud of steam rises. He pulls out the shoe. “There...beautiful.”

“Batko, I love Halya Dubrovsky.”

“Do you?” Mykola sighs. “Well, you’re young yet...things could change.”

“They won’t. My love’s strong. Like iron.”

“This iron’s been tested in fire. Have you?”

Taras shrugs. “I’ve nearly finished training Radoski’s horse... I’m going to have a little money soon.”

Mykola raises his eyebrows. “Wait until you have the
pahn’s
crowns in your hand. Then you can say you’ve got money.”

“When I do, I’m going to marry Halya.”

“Yes, well...we’ll see. Meeting at the reading hall tomorrow. I’d like you to be there.”

Taras grins. “We’ll see.”

Mykola gives his son a hard look but keeps his peace.

Later Taras leads a black stallion out into the lane in front of the smithy. The animal’s Thoroughbred and Arabian lines show in his slim but strong build and arched neck. He moves like living smoke. Taras’s foot reaches for the left stirrup and he seems to float into the saddle. The signal to begin is an almost invisible forward movement of his body. They set off down the lane. Taras takes the horse through walk, trot, canter and gallop, smooth as butter. Brings him to a sudden stop, turns him in tight circles and resumes the walk.

Beyond the village they climb a high green hill, and an old trail takes them into dense birch forest just coming into leaf. The horse drifts through the trees, birds sing all around them, and Taras wants the ride to go on and on. But Imperator belongs to the
pahn,
Radoski. Taras has been schooling the horse for a month, and soon he’ll have taught the stallion everything he can. Then he’ll have to give him back.

Taras’s way of training depends on trust. A lot of what he knows came from Batko, who learned to train horses in the Austrian army, but some of it he figured out himself. Mostly he helps the horse not to be afraid. He learns what the horse needs and how it thinks – which is not the way a man thinks. He’s been working all this out since he was a child.

He doesn’t want to give this horse back. The
pahn
will ruin him. So he won’t talk about the stallion’s speed. The
pahn
would think he should whip him to make him go fast. Taras has never hit a horse. He’d be ashamed to.

Anyway, if Imperator ran flat out, Radoski could never stay in the saddle.

Imperator. What a stupid name. Taras takes him through the gaits again and through another series of tight turns, first to the right, then to the left, weaving through the slender trees. Over time their work together has changed the horse. He can do things he would never have done on his own. He seems to enjoy doing them.

Taras loves this horse, not as much as his mother or father or Halya, but close.

He comes out of the trees, reins in the horse and looks down at Radoski’s sprawling house and grounds. An old man tends the lawn; its close-clipped blades catch the morning light. Beech and birch show fresh new leaves and a few flowers already bloom. In the distance a motor growls and moments later an Austrian army staff car races up the road in a cloud of dust. The old man jumps back, startled. A dog barks and is hushed as the car skids to a stop. The
pahn
comes out his front door, dressed in an ancient officer’s uniform, now bursting at its seams.

The driver jumps out and opens the door for a man in the blue uniform still worn by many older officers. This is the man Radoski brags about in the village. “My brother-in-law, you know – General Loder.”

Radoski puffs out his chest as he lunges for the general’s hand and kisses the general’s cheek. Everyone knows Loder is not exactly his brother-in-law. Their wives are cousins. In the village there were rumours that Sophie Radoski’s family tried to prevent the marriage. Taras can’t imagine what she could have seen in him.
Pahns
must have been thin on the ground then. People also say his mother promoted the marriage. Now that she’s long dead, though, others question whether Radoski had a mother at all.

With another badly executed bow, the
pahn
ushers the general into the house. Now, why has the general bothered to come all this way for an awkward handshake and a kiss on the cheek? Can this be where the garrison soldiers are practising their skills?

Taras turns Imperator back into the woods.

CHAPTER 6

A horse like living
smoke

The next evening
Taras’s friends grab him right after supper and let him know they wouldn’t object to hearing a little more of his story. So he tells them about Imperator and about the
pahn,
and then stops. Myroslav urges him to continue.

“All right, if you want. The next part is about Batko going to the tavern.”

“Were you there?”
Yuriy asks. Taras shakes his head. “How can you tell us then?”

“From what my father, Mykola, told me. I’m making a story about it.”

Yuriy’s not satisfied. “But if you weren’t there?”

“I can see it all very clearly. Still, if you don’t want to hear...”

“I don’t know about all of you,” Tymko says, “but I could sure as hell use a story to take my mind off this place.”
They nod agreement, Yuriy included.

Mykola walked
to the village tavern, a plain wooden building down the hill from the church, with his friend
Yarema Mykytiuk, a man in his forties with a smooth, round face and blue eyes. His brown hair was carefully trimmed, his clothing neat. He had an agreeable look.

In the lane, laughter and lamplight spilled into the dark.

“Maybe this isn’t a good idea,”
Yarema said. “We won’t be able to hear ourselves talk.”

“That’s all right, they won’t be able to hear us either.” Mykola threw open the door.

About twenty drinkers sat around a half-dozen wooden tables. Mykola and Yarema found a small table beside an old poster they’d seen countless times, advertising Cunard Lines ships and the Canadian Pacific Railway. And the advantages of moving to Canada.

Isaac Stern, the owner, walked by with a tray of beer and they followed his steps to a nearby table where Halya’s father
Viktor sat with a man from the next village.
Andriy Kondarenko
was a tall, taciturn fellow about Viktor’s age, known as a capable farmer and a man to be avoided if you had a choice. Now how had they wound up together?
Viktor didn’t normally come here, in part because no one ever wanted to sit with him, and also because he hated to spend money unless it made him look important.

Isaac placed the beer on the table and
Viktor took out his purse.

“Viktor Dubrovsky is buying Kondarenko a drink,” Yarema said
in mock wonder.

“Who says miracles don’t happen nowadays?” Mykola replied.

Two men at the next table overheard him and laughed, slapping their thighs. Pavlo and Lubomyr Heshka, twin brothers in their thirties who shared the small holding they inherited from their parents, looked more than a little drunk.

“Pavlo!” Lubomyr almost choked on his drink. “Who ever thought we’d be present at a miracle?”

Pavlo crossed himself. “Pavlo and Lubo, a couple of peasants. We are blessed.”

Viktor saw them laughing. He couldn’t have heard their words, but he gave them a dirty look on general principle. The laughter died down, and for a moment Mykola and Yarema could make out the carefully lowered voices of Viktor and Kondarenko.

“I’ll need a few days. I have to borrow some of it.” Kondarenko.

“Make it quick. I don’t have a lot of time.” Viktor.

The twins were listening too. “What’s Dubrovsky selling?” Lubomyr asked.

Pavlo grinned. “Whatever it is, you know who’ll come out ahead. He’d cheat his best friend.”

“Viktor has no friends,” Lubomyr said. They nearly fell out of their chairs laughing.

“Never mind friends, then. He’d cheat his own mother.”

“His mother’s dead.”

“She was lucky to get away,” Pavlo said. He saw that his beer was almost gone and that this would be a good time to go home. “God, nothing ever changes in this place.”

Lubomyr noticed Mykola and Yarema reading the railway company poster.

“Yarema,” he asked, “what do you think? Should we all go to Canada?”

“Why not? They say the streets are paved with gold.” But Yarema looked skeptical.

“I could have almost as much land as Radoski,” Lubomyr said. “I’d have respect. I’d be a new man.”

“New man!” Pavlo said. “Are you crazy? What are you going to do with the old one?” He laughed as only a drunk person who’s made a little joke, and is pleasantly surprised that he’s been able to manage it, can laugh.

The twins kept getting louder and Viktor was getting annoyed. He drained his beer and pulled back his chair. “We’ll talk again. Right now I want to get out of here. I’m going where I won’t have to drink among fools!”

Pavlo and Lubo heard, as they were meant to. “At least we’ve got friends!” Lubo said, then wondered for a moment if that was really true; they always sat alone in the tavern.