The Cowboy and the Cossack (Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries) (32 page)

I pulled up just short of the finish line, and Nick rumbled, “Well, cross over, so to win!”

I almost did what he said, both him and his voice being so big and tough, but some kind of an invisible string, somehow, was pulling me back the other way.

Just letting the string tug on me, I didn’t go over the finish line. But instead I rode Buck the short distance back to the stream and threw my team’s rock down into its waters too.

There was silence as I rode back from the creek, and now I finally spurred Buck a little, so that we also crossed empty-handed over the finish line to where Pietre was sitting his mare.

I didn’t have any idea that doing that simple thing would touch those cossacks so much. It was almost too much, as though what I’d done was so damned right that they wanted to be silent about it so it’d remain in their memories for sure. But I couldn’t let it stay that quiet and serious, because no matter how you looked at it, Pietre had rode the best race.

So I looked at Pietre and held both hands up just to start all over again with the simple fact that they were as empty as his. Then I grinned and shrugged my shoulders broadly, which meant in any language, “What the hell!” With a whole lot of “Who cares anyway?” thrown in.

He grinned back, and it was a damned good grin. And then everybody, cowboys and cossacks, were grinning and talking and laughing all at once, and the whole feeling among us was warm and fine.

Shad had already dismounted, and when I got off my horse he came over. After a quiet moment, and in a voice he made sure no one else could hear, he paid me one of those rare, generous compliments of his. “You didn’t make too much of an ass a’ yourself, Levi.”

I hated to admit it, but I had to. “Boss, I wasn’t the brains behind not takin’ that jump. Buck was.”

“I know that!” he said impatiently. “I ain’t blind.” After a moment, he went on. “I meant about tossin’ your goddamn rock in the creek.”

Then he frowned a little, at nothing in particular, as though he might be secretly mad at himself for having talked too much.

“Thanks, boss.”

“Well,” he said, still quietly, “you’re mostly such a fuckup, it’s refreshin’ t’ see ya’ do somethin’ partway right once in a while.”

Then he walked away.

If there is anything on earth more sensitive than a sensitive man who tries to act like he ain’t, I’d sure like to know what it is.

Later that afternoon, there was still a long time left before sundown when Bruk and Old Keats hurried unexpectedly back toward camp with the four men they’d taken into town that day.

There was something wrong for them to be riding back to camp so early, and the looks on their faces didn’t help. On top of that a cold, mean wind was rising quickly, while angry black
clouds were suddenly starting to fill the sky in the west, and there were occasional dim rumbles of distant thunder.

Slim was standing next to me and was sharing my thoughts. “Kinda feels like the devil just now stretched an’ woke up,” he said, “an’ is out t’ cause some mischief.”

Old Keats and Bruk dismounted near the fire, where Shad and Rostov and some of us others were gathered. Link, who’d been one of the men with them, sat his horse a few feet away, his eyes cast down.

“It’s just possible,” Keats said grimly, “that we got us a small problem on our hands.”

“If we have,” Link muttered, “then it’s my doin’.”

Keats frowned at Link, but his expression was more thoughtful than angry.

“Well, ya gonna tell us about it,” Shad said flatly, “or are we supposed t’ guess?”

Link got off his horse and forced himself to look directly at Shad. “I made a toast t’ Rostov an’ his men.” He hesitated. “Way it come out, I said, ‘Here’s t’ the best fifteen cossacks in Russia.’ ”

Link dropped his gaze toward the ground again, and Keats took over. “Some Imperials who’d been sittin’ close by got up an’ took off like they’d all of a sudden been whistled for. We think that maybe one of ’em understood enough t’ get the drift of what Link said.”

“There’s no way of knowing for certain,” Bruk said. “But if any of Verushki’s men do speak some English, he’d have them listening to us in town as much as possible.”

There was a moment of grim, thoughtful silence, and then Slim said, “What ya’ think we oughtta do, Shad?”

Shad looked off toward the black storm clouds that were now blotting out the lowering sun and surging across the sky closer toward us. “I think them clouds’ve made up our minds what t’ do.”

Knowing what he meant, Rostov said to Bruk, “What’s the level of the river?”

“It’s down another twelve centimeters.”

Shad and Rostov studied each other, and Rostov said, “It’s still higher than we’d intended.”

“With heavy rain hittin’ upstream, that river’s gonna rise a lot b’fore goin’ down again, an’ we ain’t got all summer.”

Rostov nodded. “Then it’s tonight. The storm will help cover our movements.” He paused. “One more thing. Some of us should go into town for a while.”

Now it was Shad’s turn to agree. “And make it look like that rain’s got us stuck here.”

Rostov started giving orders to his men as Slim said, “Shad, our pack animals’re gonna be overloaded f’r much swimmin’.”

“Lash some of the stuff onto some a’ the cows.”

“They ain’t gonna like that too much,” Crab said.

“Then convince ’em!”

Link hadn’t moved since he’d gotten off his horse, but now he stepped to Shad, his eyes still as pained as ever. “Boss, it was
stupid
a’ me, mentionin’ fifteen cossacks!”

Shad looked at him. “You ain’t s’ stupid as I thought. I didn’t think ya’ could count t’ fifteen.”

Like Shad knew it would, this somehow made things better for Link, and most of the pain eased out of his eyes.

“All right!” Slim called out. “Time f’r you third-rate wranglers t’ start earnin’ y’r wages agin! Everybody git ready t’ bust outta here!”

We moved off, and Sammy the Kid was putting his possibles together near where I was wrapping up my own bedroll when the first advance drops of rain started to hit us. He looked up at the darkening, cloud-swept sky and rubbed those first light splashes of rain from his face, but I could see he was thinking a whole lot more about that river we had yet to cross.

“I don’t like it,” he muttered.

“One thing, Sammy,” I said, trying to be encouraging, “this’ll be a cinch compared t’ that swim off the
Great Eastern Queen.
”

“I never could stand bein’ in more water at once than takin’ a bath in a washtub. An’ I ain’t too keen about that.”

“We’ll be wadin’ most a’ the way across.”

“Don’t like wadin’ neither. An’ there’s damn deep spots in that river.”

“Hell, cheer up!” I said. “Maybe Verushki’s onto us an’ we’ll be dead b’fore we get t’ the river anyhow.”

The edges of his mouth curled up a little, but the grin didn’t make it all the way to his eyes. “You sure do always manage t’ see the bright side.”

About then Old Keats came up and said to me, “Don’t tie your travelin’ gear on Buck. Slim’ll take care of it.”

“How come?”

“You’re goin’ t’ town with Shad an’ me, an’ a full pack on our horses’d be a dead giveaway.”

A few minutes later everybody was mounted and ready to move out. The rain was now pouring down like one huge waterfall and it was as dark as the middle of a black cat turned inside out, except for flashes of lightning roaring across the sky every now and then.

Gathering his rain-covered, dripping slicker a little closer around his neck, Dixie rode up near me. “Saw you an’ Sammy talkin’. He scairt a’ the river?”

I remembered the mean way Dixie had been with Sammy on the beach near Vladivostok that long-ago night, but I couldn’t see one mean thing at all in his face right now, so I just nodded.

Shad and Keats rode off then and I followed after them. We joined Igor, Nick and Kirdyaga, and the six of us rode toward Khabarovsk.

We were still playing showdown, with elements of chess mixed into the game. While the others, under Rostov and Slim, got the herd moving and swung in a wide circle around Khabarovsk to the river, it was up to us to give the Imperials the idea that the rain would keep us right where we were indefinitely.

On our way down the huge, sloping meadow toward the faraway lights of Khabarovsk showing faintly through the storm, and thinking of Irenia, I said to Shad, “Thanks, boss.”

He didn’t answer.

There was almost no one on the flooded, muddy streets where the rainwater was rushing and swirling within its own mad foam in whichever way happened to be mostly downhill.

We tied up and went into The Far East, our slickers leaving puddles of water on the floor near the door. Seeing Irenia toward the rear of the room, I nodded toward her and made another small puddle as water spilled down off the brim of my hat.

It wasn’t too crowded, but there were a few Imperials seated here and there around the place.

The big table on the far side where we normally sat wasn’t being used, and so we moved toward it. Right then I had the damndest feeling that no matter what happened this night, win, lose or draw, I’d never sit at this table again in my life. And while I wasn’t all that crazy about the table, the same thought came to mind about Irenia, that same feeling that whatever happened I would also never see her again, forever more in my life.

She’d already gone away, and I guess it was a good thing, because she couldn’t see my face just then, with those sad thoughts stamped all over it. That would have been a lot more of a dead giveaway than if our horses outside had been carrying full packs.

The older woman, Anna, came to the table and spoke in a low voice to Igor and Nick before starting away to get what they’d ordered.

Nick now called something after her in a good-natured roar loud enough to carry all over the room. She turned and called something back to him that made him slap his leg and laugh.

Then Nick got up, muttering and still chuckling at what had been said, and went to another door I’d never noticed before at the back of the room.

I think Old Keats had understood some of all this, but it was a mystery to Shad and me. Irenia now came in carrying some vodka and glasses on a tray and put them down for us, smiling and happy as can be. I was managing to smile too, now, and when our smiles came together hers got so strong her nose crinkled for an instant.

Grinning, Igor asked her something in a carrying, clear voice.

She didn’t reply to his question, but she smiled from him to me and gave me a quick little wink that was so innocent and unpracticed it almost came out as a tiny, smiling blink instead. Then she hurried happily away from the table.

And now, whether it meant anything or not, two of the Imperials got up and went out the front door.

As Kirdyaga began filling our glasses, Igor leaned forward and spoke in a low, easy voice, as if quietly discussing the rotten weather. “Anna wanted to, but couldn’t, speak in here. The sergeant called after her that if this rain kept up he might have to buy a house and marry her. She said she doubted if he could afford the small house in back—the toilet. He said he just happened to feel like inspecting it anyway.”

“So they can talk out back,” Shad said.

Igor nodded. “Those two Imperial Cossacks just left to report to headquarters. So far, I think we have them fooled.”

“What did you say to Irenia about me?” I asked him.

“I asked her if she could tolerate having you around for a longer time than we’d planned on.”

A moment later Nick came back in, brushing rain from his uniform and sitting down at the table. He swallowed the vodka before him with great, noisy pleasure and then said a few quiet words to Igor. They both laughed at whatever it was, and Nick started refilling the glasses that had been emptied.

In a low voice Igor said, “Verushki has had a man here who speaks some English. But not well enough to be certain whether Link said ‘fifteen’ cossacks or ‘fifty’ cossacks. And either figure must be bewildering.”

“Good God,” Old Keats muttered. “He may think we been
hidin’
men from ’im! Just t’ surprise ’im in case of a fight!”

“Either way,” Shad said, “he’s got to be too curious for comfort right now. We’re leavin’ pretty quick.”

Even though part of me felt like a damn fool, the other part just wouldn’t stay shut up. “Shad,” I asked, “is it okay if—”

“Go ahead,” he said, understanding before I could even get it all out. “But don’t take all night.”

So I gathered all my nerve and got up and went through that door into the back room where Irenia had fixed my hand, just hoping that she’d be back there.

And she was.

She and old Anna looked up from washing some dishes, and she just sort of stopped in mid-motion, with that smile of hers slowly starting and then growing, like a sunrise starts slowly and then grows until the whole world becomes bright.

Anna now disappeared someplace, and I walked over to Irenia with everything in the world to say and not one word to say it with, like some kind of a dumb ox.

As I approached her, she quickly dried her hands on a cloth, still smiling, and reached down to take my hand that she’d bandaged. I knew as sure as if we’d somehow both just had a long conversation about it, that she was going to check the hand out and maybe soak it a little, and rebandage it, but there wasn’t anywhere near that kind of time.

So as she took it I pulled the hand back away from her, and probably my movement was more abrupt than I knew. Because when she looked up at me, her smile suddenly fading, she knew for absolute sure that I was in a hurry and that I was going away, for good.

To see a smile like hers fade away is hard enough, but then to see the eyes above it take on a far-off, not-quite-clear look, and fall away filled with wordless sorrow, is something that’s just about to not be endured.

I wished, right then, that I had something, anything, to give her.

In all the old stories I’d ever heard about, and the few I’d read, it seemed like a decent sort of a fella always had something special and meaningful to give a girl when he was going away. Or at least he was off to do something that’d make her real proud. But I didn’t have one solitary thing in the world to give
her, and delivering a bunch of cows someplace sure as hell wasn’t exactly searching for that Holy goddamned Grail.