The Cowboy and the Cossack (Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries) (23 page)

Shad and Old Keats were talking to Rostov and Bruk and didn’t take much notice of our going. I had the impression that Shad had a kind of a disdain for any sort of a war game, probably based on an instinctive feeling that everybody, like he was, ought to be a first-class natural-born warrior in the first place.

Slim and me and six or seven others rode toward where Igor was sitting on Blackeye near a big rock, and he grinned and waved. Some of the other cossacks were riding far out across the broken meadow, stopping once in a while to dismount and jab tall, thin poles into the ground so they stuck up about six feet.

“What they doin’?” I asked, as we pulled up near Igor.

“Laying out a racing course,” Igor said.

“Goddamn,” Slim grunted, studying the men out on the meadow. “That shapes up t’ be some kind of a rough track.”

“Ahh!” Dixie said with an edge of contempt. “It sure ain’t what
I’d
call rough.”

Igor glanced at Dixie without expression, and then went on explaining to the rest of us. “Right here, at this rock, is where the course will begin and end.” He pointed off, in a wide, sweeping gesture. “It goes in a rough circle of about three kilometers.”

“What the hell’s that?” Dixie asked, almost suspiciously.

A little annoyed at his general attitude, I said, “It’s a distance, stupid.”

Annoyed back at me, he gave me a hard look, and I suddenly realized I’d gotten myself out on a limb. Either Dixie or someone else was going to have to ask me the next question, which had to be, how the hell long a distance? And now, after calling Dixie stupid, I was going to be stuck with absolutely no answer. So I gave the track a swift glance and took a quick, hopeful guess before anybody could nail me down. “Three kilometers is—about two miles.”

“Yeah?” Dixie frowned.

“That’s right,” Igor said, backing me up so neatly that it looked like I’d known what I was talking about all along. “Three kilometers is one-point-eight-six miles.”

“Huh?” Link muttered.

Figuring fast as hell, I said casually, “Just a shade under two miles,” thereby ending my brief but enjoyable career as a genius.

“Just watch who you’re callin’ stupid,” Dixie muttered.

“I do, I do.”

Slim said to us, “Cut it out.” Then he looked off across the meadow again, where the cossacks had just finished placing what added up to twenty poles. “Goddamn,” he said to Igor, “that’s a mean couple a’ miles. You ain’t missed one rough spot in that whole busted-up field.”

“In a race a rider can take any route he wants,” Igor told him, “as long as he goes outside of every one of the poles.”

“Sure makes it more interestin’ than a regular race track,” Link said.

Igor grinned. “Wars aren’t fought on race tracks.”

Slim snorted with faint humor. “There ain’t even no good cavalry charges on ’em. ’Specially the horses I bet on.”

The poles all set now, the cossacks were riding back toward us. And the way they’d placed the poles did make a lot of sense for a hard, broken-country run. Going down the slight slope from the big rock near us, the first obstacle was the stream in
the meadow, about a hundred yards away. The pole was stuck at the widest place to jump the stream. It was about a ten-foot leap from bank to bank, with a four-foot drop to the water below. You could circle fifty feet to the left of the pole and have no trouble splashing through the shallows there. But in taking that longer way, you’d lose time. And every one of those poles had been placed in a similar, tricky fashion. Wherever there were patches of rocky ground or thick stands of trees or steep gulleys, you were always given your choice. Racing just outside the pole was the fastest and most dangerous. The safer you wanted to play it, riding farther around outside the poles, the longer it would take.

And toward the end of the course, coming back in full circle, the last obstacle was once again the stream. If you wanted to take the long, safe way around, you had to go about three or four hundred feet downstream. Again, where that last pole was placed, it was about a ten-foot leap across, but the ground was higher there, with the stream cutting deeper, so if you were trying to make the best time, and jumped and missed, it was about a twenty-foot drop to where the swift, foaming water below had a whole lot of large, unfriendly rocks jutting up out of it.

“Jesus!” Slim finally said. “T’ take that run rightly, an’ fast as possible, is goddamn near out-an’-out suicide!”

“Ah, fuck,” Dixie grumbled. “It more’n likely takes them cossacks two hours t’ make a run like that.”

Igor said simply, “No.”

“Slim’s right.” Natcho shook his head grimly. And since Natcho was one of the finest horsemen ever born, even Dixie paid attention. “There are about fifteen places where a man on a good horse could go straight through at top speed without hurting either one of them. But there are about five—” He stopped and whistled low under his breath.

Igor nodded, understanding and agreeing. “Those are the ones you circle around as quickly as you can.”

The other cossacks, about seven of them, now splashed through a shallow part of the stream and rode toward us. Leading
them, big as a bear in the saddle, was Sergeant Nick. They pulled up, facing us, and Nick looked back at the meadow, then at Slim. “What you think?” he asked in his growling, heavy accent.

“I hate t’ tell ya’ this, Nick,” Slim said slowly, “but I think you fellas’re outta your minds.”

Nick chuckled deep in his throat and started to fill his long-stemmed clay pipe. “Why?”

“That goddamn thing’s dangerous!” Sort of joining along with Nick, Slim took out an old plug of Red Devil Chewing Tobacco and bit off a chunk before offering it around. “Run like that’s bound t’ cripple ’r kill somebody ever’time.”

Dixie and a couple of others took chaws off Slim’s worn old plug, and then it came to me. I passed because I hate and can’t stand chewing tobacco, but I could see that Igor was curious. I held it out to him, thinking he only wanted to look at it. But he thought I was just being polite, and giving him first go. As he raised it to his mouth I quickly said, “It’s awful”—but he was already forcing his teeth through the tough plug, and I finished lamely—“strong.”

Nick, now lighting his pipe, looked at Igor. “You talk more good. You tell about games.”

Both the responsibility and the taste of the tobacco hit Igor at about the same time. He handed me back the plug, trying to keep the stricken look off his face. “The games—” he said, unable to go further at the moment.

Old Keats had once told me, in one of his moments of rare insight, “There is no hole that goes so far, or is so forever unending, as an asshole.” And though I should have known better, I fit that category right then. Because when Igor handed me back the plug, out of sheer idiocy or misguided loyalty or whatever, I went so far as to take a big goddamn chew off of it too. I guess I just couldn’t stand seeing him go through all that suffering all by himself.

As bitter fire surged up through my throat and nostrils and head, and started to move sickeningly down my throat, I handed Slim back what was left of his Red Devil.

He pocketed it, him and the others who were chewing, slowly working their jaws in easy, practiced contentment, and waiting quietly for what Igor had to say. About the same time, Nick passed his lighted pipe to Ilya, who was sitting his chestnut mare next to Nick.

Igor looked at me, his pain-filled eyes knowing that I’d tried to warn him and was now going through the same torture.

“We have never,” he said in a thin voice, “had anyone killed in our games.”

With the cossacks paying close attention, and Nick nodding at both the questions and the answers from time to time, Slim went on. “Well, how the hell come not? That there sure is a killin’ course.”

“Captain Rostov,” Igor managed to say, “has taught us that it can be a matter of honor—to die for someone or something—loved.” He hesitated, and I realized he was doing the same thing I always did, which can kill anybody who’s chewing tobacco. I’ve always hated to spit and therefore didn’t, and he wasn’t spitting either, and when you’re chewing tobacco you’ve got to spit or wind up turned inside out. Then, swallowing a little, he went on. “But Captain Rostov has also taught us that it is a crime for anyone to be hurt, or to die, for foolish reasons.”

Slim spit expertly, hitting a small rock near Charlie’s left forehoof. “In this rough ol’ race ya’ got lined up here, what’s foolish an’ what ain’t?”

“He’s taught us that each rider must only do what he
knows
he can do.” Igor was struggling against the same nausea that I was. “If there’s
any
doubt he must not try it.”

“Makes good horsemen,” Nick rumbled. “Hurt your horse is even worse than hurt yourself.”

“Well,” I said, forcing my words one at a time through lips that were sealed against throwing up, “that explains that.”

“As long as there’s common sense,” Slim said, shrugging, “there can’t be too much damage.”

“You’re a goddamned spy,” Mushy said to Slim indignantly. “You’re here t’ see Shad don’t lose no hands!”

“Oh, hell, no.” Slim frowned. “You fellas can fool around all ya’ want, far as I’m concerned.” He spit again, hitting the same rock with deadly accuracy. “I’d just feel better knowin’ you’re not all gonna get yourselves killed off, for some dumb damn reason here in this peaceful valley.”

I looked at Igor and saw that he couldn’t take it much longer. And sure as hell, I couldn’t either. “Igor’s explained it,” I just barely managed to say. “Hell, we’ll show you the first part of the ride!”

Igor, in all his torment, caught on like a shot. His fading eyes looked at me like twin suns trying to come up feebly over a dark and dismal horizon. All he said, or could say, was, “Let’s go!”

He whirled Blackeye, and I spurred Buck, and we raced down toward the first pole by the creek. I guess he felt the same way I did, which was that if we happened to miss that first ten-foot jump we’d just fall in the water and hopefully drown, which right at that time would have been one hell of an improvement.

Shoulder to shoulder and at a full gallop we hit the edge of the creek and went flying into the air, and an instant later his good old Blackeye and my goddamned Buck were landing us down at full speed on the far side.

We didn’t pay any attention to the dimly heard cheers behind us, but kept going on like bats out of hell until we got to that second obstacle, which was a blessed stand of thick trees. Once inside those trees, we both jerked our horses up so hard they damnere sat down, and then we both slightly quicker than instantly abandoned ship.

With our horses staring at us in some mild confusion, both Igor and I started throwing up, our stomachs and throats and every other part of us trying to get rid of that poisonous chewing tobacco.

He finished first, standing there drawing in deep breaths. And then I finally came more or less to an end of all that painful heaving and stepped over to him, with one hand clutched hard against my aching chest.

“I tried t’ warn ya,” I said.

He took another deep breath. “How will we explain about disappearing in these trees?”

“Well,” I said, “we’ll just tell them we stopped t’ take a casual piss.”

Igor had learned that word some time back, so he knew what I was talking about but still wasn’t too happy. He even swore for one of the first times. “All this time for a goddamn
piss
?”

Impatiently I said, “Then we’ll just tell ’em we came here t’ throw up! ’Cause neither one of us can take Slim’s goddamned more’n-year-old Red Devil Chewing Tobacco!”

He thought about this, weighing it back and forth for a moment. “We stopped to take a long piss.”

Then we got back on Blackeye and Buck and rode out of the trees and back through the stream toward where the others were waiting near the rock.

“You fellas made pretty good time gettin’ t’ them trees,” Slim said, “but ya’ were a little slow gettin’ out.”

“We stopped t’ take a piss.”

“Oh?”

“A long one.”

Slim reined Charlie around and he and Nick led us off back toward camp.

“If we all ride as fast as you two,” Nick said, “we have good games.”

“That’s f’r sure,” Slim agreed. He pulled out his plug. “Either one of ya’ care for a little more Red Devil?”

Igor shook his head. “No thanks.”

I said, “Some other time.”

“F’r me, personal, m’self,” Slim said, taking another chew, “I sometimes find Red Devil downright inspirational in makin’ good time.”

He and Nick looked at each other and then spurred into a lope, and we followed them back up over the hill toward camp.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

F
IVE OF
us woke up at an ungodly hour that night to ride the second half of the graveyard shift, and it was around sunup that Mushy and some others came out to relieve us. We went back to camp and got a few hours sleep, so it was pushing noon when we woke up and pulled on our boots and went over to see if there was any coffee.

Some of Slim’s coffee was still left over from yesterday, a little bit warmed over and added to. And tasting it on that second day, I’d guarantee no horseshoes or anything else would survive in it one way or the other.

Shad and Old Keats came riding in from checking out the herd and dismounted, Shad glancing up at the near high-noon sun. “Four of ya’ are gonna go in town t’day,” he said, “along with four cossacks. You’re gonna buy some supplies an’ have a good time. Who wants t’ go?”

Remembering Irenia in her tablecloth dress, I spoke right up. But after those hangings, not many others did.

From the cossack camp next to us, Rostov called, “Northshield?” And Shad and he took about three steps toward each other so they could talk.

Old Keats went on talking for Shad. “T’ kind a’ keep ’em off balance in there, these visits are gonna go on regular, every day. So on this first day especially, just to break them in right, whoever the first four of ya’ are, ya’ gotta handle yourselves just proper.”

“What the hell’s just proper?” Crab wanted to know.

“T’ act like ya’ own the town an’ yet not get anywhere’s near t’ gettin’ in a fight. An’ that ain’t gonna be easy.”