The Cowboy and the Cossack (Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries) (36 page)

It had all happened so fast that Big Yawn, even at a full gallop around the edge of the herd, was still a distance away. He fired a wild shot toward the tiger, and at the unfamiliar sound of the gun, the big cat dropped the longhorn, hesitated briefly, and then dashed away.

A few moments later six of us, including Sergeant Nick and Igor, who’d been on lookout, rode up to the dead bull. Behind us, the herd was uneasy but not panicked. The tiger’s earlier roar had scared them more than the quick, silent death of one of them. They were settling back down, and it looked to me, all in all, like we’d gotten off pretty easy.

But Shad, mortally hating to ever lose one of his head, was quietly furious. His eyes hard, he glared from the dead bull to where the tiger had disappeared. Then, jerking his rifle from its scabbard, he rode swiftly off in that direction. And the rest of us followed him.

Just naturally, we fanned out behind Shad in the moonlight so that pretty soon, between all six of us, we were covering a pretty wide swath. And about a mile from the herd we rousted out the tiger. He’d been holed up in some rocks at the beginning of a wide plateau that narrowed down to a point farther on. Big Yawn, riding not far from Sergeant Nick, accidentally busted him out as he approached the rocks.

Not yet knowing it was in a trap, the tiger bounded away from the rocks to the triangular plateau beyond, making a good thirty feet with that first effortless leap of his, and then speeding on across the moon-drenched earth.

We followed as fast as we could, riding closer in together as the slice of land grew narrower. And finally, slowing down, the big cat got as far as he could go and saw that there were only two things he could do. He could charge right back through us or take what was roughly a two-hundred-foot sheer jump off that final small piece of plateau where he was.

At the edge he turned back, snarling, and we pulled up in a ragged line about a hundred yards away from him.

He was dead, and somehow he realized it.

But he wasn’t afraid.

That big, beautiful bastard was going to go down fighting. His eyes were alive and glowing, even in the cold moonlight, as he slowly shifted his majestic head to size us up, taking in a thousand small details that would make him determine any possible chance of escaping through us.

And God, how beautiful and brave he was, roaring defiance and majesty toward us in what I swear he knew to be his final dark moments of danger and death.

Near Shad, Rostov said, “There is your Siberian kitten, Northshield.”

Shad raised his rifle. The rest of us were silent, and I was busy getting a lump in my throat.

Then, sighting in on the magnificent tiger, he called to Big Yawn, who was off to the far left. “Yawn! Come ’ere!”

And as Big Yawn was riding over toward us, Shad fired. His bullet slammed into and whined off a rock near the rear end of the tiger, and that made the giant cat’s mind up. My guess was that flying pieces of rock stung the tiger’s butt and tail, but however that may be, he took off like striped lightning on greased wheels at the empty space that Big Yawn had just vacated.

And he was gone so fast that the human eye could hardly keep up with him and watch him go.

Shad slowly returned his rifle to its saddle scabbard. “Goddamn,” he said quietly. “Missed.”

No one said anything, but I couldn’t help but think of the long ago time when Rostov had given the Montana puppy its freedom.

And after that, there was nothing left to do but ride back to the herd, which was settled down as though nothing had ever happened.

It was almost breaking daylight by then, and we were ready to move out within the hour.

There was only one problem, and that was the dead longhorn. I’d already joined up with Rostov, and we rode over to where it was lying after being dragged halfway up the hill by the huge tiger.

Shad got there at about the same time, and the two men studied each other for a moment.

It was Shad who first spoke. “Your kitten will be back.”

That was a lot of beef, a lot of meat and life lying there, and Rostov knew it. “He will be back. But that kitten is not mine. He’s yours.”

Shad shrugged. “I got a strong hunch he thinks he’s his own boss.” And then he swung down from Red and glanced at the dead bull. “We’ll leave this carcass for ’im. It’ll keep him an’ his family in groceries for a week or two—plenty a’ time for us t’ be long gone from here.”

“Sure.” I nodded. “An’ I guess, boss, that’s the only reason for leavin’ it then?”

He gave me a hard look. “That’s right.”

Rostov said quietly, “That’s an excellent way for a man to handle the situation we have here.”

Shad remounted. “It’s just a natural man’s way, anywhere in the world.” He rode down to the herd, and the cattle now
started moving out with whoops and hollers from the cowboys encouraging and pushing them along their way.

As Rostov and I galloped to our point position far ahead, four of the words that Shad had used kept ringing in my mind. Those were the words “anywhere in the world.”

Shad had somehow come to be anywhere, and everywhere, in the world.

After riding in silence for a long time, Rostov finally said, “Northshield gave a full bull to the people of Vladivostok, and now to the tiger. In both cases, he was right.”

“He mostly tends t’ be right,” I said. And then I couldn’t help adding, “But he’s also kinda partial t’ that tiger.”

Rostov looked at me with those dark, penetrating eyes of his. And then he said quietly, “He’s not just partial to that tiger, Levi—he is that tiger.”

And then, in silence, we continued to ride on.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

T
HE NEXT
few weeks were about as peaceful and easygoing as any bunch of fellas could ask for. The weather stayed sunny and warm, and the nights were balmy and clear. The Siberian moon looming hugely over us was often so silvery bright you could read a book by it at midnight, if you had a book to read. Matter of fact, Old Keats proved the above fact by doing just the opposite. He went to doing a little writing while he was on the relaxed, contented herd at night and there was nothing much better to do.

I caught him at it in the middle of one brightly moonlit graveyard shift. Near camp I saddled Buck and rode out to relieve Keats, taking my time. From the top of a low hill, he could be seen easily, sitting his horse by the sleeping herd, his back to me. He was doing something with both hands, and I realized a minute later he’d been whittling with his pocketknife to sharpen the short stub of a pencil he sometimes carried on him. As I walked Buck on down the hill, his hooves nearly soundless in the soft earth, Old Keats stuck the fresh-sharpened pencil into his mouth to wet the lead. And then he started, or maybe continued, to put down something slowly and laboriously in a small writing tablet.

As I got closer to Keats, I heard him whisper two words to himself. “Beautiful...Beautiful.”

He was so wrapped up in whatever he was doing that I was just about near enough to reach out and touch him before he knew I was there. And when he finally did see me, his reaction was so sudden and startled that he damnere jumped out of his saddle.

“God
damn
it, Levi!” he grumbled, quickly putting away his pencil and writing tablet. “What’s the idea a’ sneakin’ up on me that way?”

“Well, hell,” I said, a little taken aback. “It just never occurred t’ me t’ fire some warnin’ shots.”

And then I suddenly understood, or at least was pretty sure that I did. Ever since I could remember as a kid, there’d been vague rumors that Old Keats, on very rare occasions when he was really deeply moved by something or other, actually did turn his hand to poetry. But if that was partly the reason for his nickname “The Poet,” he was awful secretive and touchy as hell about it. Nobody had ever been allowed to read one word of anything he’d ever written down, so that’s why after all those years the talk about him writing poetry had remained only a rumor.

But still, especially after that uncalled-for and strange reaction of his, I couldn’t help but ask him innocently, “What ya’ been writin’?”

“None a’ your goddamn business!”

For some reason, as grouchy and unreasonable as he was being, I couldn’t bring myself to be mad back at him. “I guess you’re right. It ain’t.”

Still frowning, he muttered, “Just don’t care t’ be snuck up on.”

“I really am sorry, Keats.”

His anger eased off gradually now, and he started filling his pipe. “Didn’t mean t’ jump on ya’ that way.”

“Well, I guess I coulda said hello or cleared m’ throat ’r somethin’.”

“Oh, hell,” he said, lighting a match. “Truth is, I’m just gettin’ old an’ crotchety.” He puffed on the pipestem until the tobacco was glowing, then blew out the match, broke it and threw it away. “It was me who was in the wrong, Levi. An’ I’m sorry.”

Before I could reply, he abruptly turned his horse and rode off back toward camp. And watching him go, I knew as plain as could be that neither one of us had been in the wrong. I’d just happened to catch him writing down something that was, somehow, so dear to him that he simply couldn’t bring himself to admit it, or even talk about it.

As he rode over the hill and out of sight, I murmured a thought to myself without even thinking about the fact that I was repeating the word he’d used earlier, “You beautiful old sonofabitch.”

Buck ignored what I said. I guess, by then, he was getting used to me talking to myself.

And then I shook the reins a little and began to walk Buck slowly around the edge of the drowsing herd.

During those easygoing weeks, Mushy, who was a sometime shoemaker, started using his spare time to fix our boots, most of which were getting pretty beat-up. To help in this worthy cause, Shad let him off night duty, so whenever we’d make camp Mushy would get out his trusty old dollar-fifty Economic Cobbler outfit, with its one upside-down iron foot sticking up, and hammer away at some needy person’s soles and heels.

The cossacks were impressed as hell with Mushy’s cobbling artistry, so he offered to repair any of their boots that needed work. He must have had requests for nearly thirty pairs to be fixed, all in all.

We were eating on a first-class basis during those good days, too. The cossacks were riding guard far enough out on the flanks to manage to spot and bring down plenty of fresh game. One time they even came in with an impossible animal that they claimed was so rare they had to cook it in their own special way for all of us. The mysterious animal was an antelope, but the damn thing’s thick coat was as pure wool as any sheep who ever walked.

It tasted so good that over supper there was only a halfhearted argument between some of us Slash-Diamonders about whether the strange beast actually was an antelope or a sheep. Chakko finally settled the question by saying flatly, “Eat antelope. Make coat from sheepskin. Fuck it.”

Slim nodded. “That kind a’ common sense sure cuts through all the bullshit.”

“Wish I had that much logic in my chess,” Old Keats said, moving off to where Lieutenant Bruk was now setting up the chess set that he’d hand-carved by himself. The two of them had gotten more and more into the habit of playing really hard at that game whenever they had a chance, and despite his claims to the contrary, Keats was evidently holding his own pretty well.

And then, a few nights later, Mushy finally finished the last pair of boots he had to fix, which belonged to Slim.

“Christ,” Slim said, pulling on the roughouts that Mushy had made like new. “Fine times an’ good boots is about all anybody c’n ever hope t’ want. This here drive’s turnin’ out t’ be a regular goddamn picnic.”

And that just about summed up all of our good, easy feelings.

At least it did until late the next day, when we first saw that big way-off pile of rocks.

Rostov and I were in our normal position ahead of the others, riding far point. For the last few hours the land had been getting rougher, and we were moving into high, rugged hills that stretched brokenly up toward distant mountain peaks.

As he approached the crest of a ridge, Rostov suddenly pulled up and dismounted in one swift, flowing motion. A little behind him, I did the same thing as fast as I could. And then crouching out of sight in the gently waving waist-high grass, we went quickly to the top, Rostov taking out his telescope.

There wasn’t one damn thing moving up ahead of us. And before I’d figured out what we were supposed to be looking at, or even looking for, Rostov lowered his telescope from his eye, then handed it to me.

“The top of the next ridge,” he said grimly.

The ridge was over two miles away, but squinting through the scope I finally made something out. What had looked to my naked eye like one huge, unusually square but natural rock was actually hundreds or maybe thousands of smaller rocks that had been stacked up in the shape of a massive, solid square that
was about twenty feet high. And somehow, the fact that the vast, senseless thing was man-made gave it an ugly, spooky feeling.

With a puzzled look, I handed Rostov back his telescope. He raised it once more to silently study the faraway ridge a moment longer, and then he at last stood up, slowly pushing the scope back down into itself to its shortest length. As I stood up too, he spoke again, his voice still grim. “There is no one over there. At least no one living.”

At that distance, even with the telescope, how he could be so sure of himself about no one being over there beat the hell out of me.

We went quickly back down the slope and remounted as Lieutenant Bruk and Sergeant Nick, who must have been wondering what was going on, came galloping swiftly up to us.

The three men spoke briefly in Russian and then Nick spurred back to spread the news, whatever the news was, which nobody had seen fit to bother telling me.

Rostov and Bruk, with me close behind them, now rode up over the nearby crest and moved at a walk out onto the plain leading toward the bunch of piled rocks on the far ridge. Both of them were searching the distance ahead keenly, but there didn’t seem to be any immediate danger. So after a while I couldn’t resist pushing Buck up almost abreast of Rostov and saying with quiet, intense curiosity, “What is it, sir?”