The Cowboy and the Cossack (Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Rediscoveries) (8 page)

The big cossack’s jaw went tight and Slim spoke quickly. “We thought you was here t’ give us a hard time along with them others. In a outta-the-way place like this, it’s nice t’ meet some friends.”

“We are not your friends.” The cossack’s hard, penetrating eyes briefly studied each of us, one after the other. “I am Captain Mikhail Ivanovitch Rostov of the Kuban-Siberian Cossacks. My men and I are here under orders. We’re to protect you and the cattle on your trip.”

This brought all of us up a little short, since nothing had ever been said about anything like that. Shad couldn’t believe what he’d heard. With mixed irritation and amusement he said, “To
what
?”

“You’re Northshield, I presume.” There was iron in his voice. “As I said, to
protect
you.”

And there was now iron times ten in Shad’s voice. “This outfit don’t hardly need any help, mister.”

As the two big men looked hard at each other, there was a grim, hollow stillness in the air, like the feeling in a thunderstorm just before lightning cracks.

Old Keats, God bless him, broke in and said quietly, “After all, Shad, they have their orders. And they know the country, and what to expect.”

Captain Rostov glanced briefly, piercingly at Old Keats. “Your man has common sense.”

“He ain’t my man,” Shad said flatly, meaning something stronger than what his words were saying. “Every man with me is his own man.”

“Well, what the hell”—Slim shrugged in a peaceful way—“these fellas oughtn’t t’ get in the way too goddamned much, Shad.”

His two top men had, in their own way, put in their votes, but Shad took another long, slow drag on his smoke, still hard put to agree with them.

“After all,” I added hesitantly, repeating the earlier point that had impressed me so much, “they sure did pull those soldiers off our backs awful fast.”

Shad took another thoughtful haul on his smoke. “We’ll see,” he said finally. Then he dropped the butt and slowly ground it out with his boot. “We’ll decide it after breakfast.”

By saying that, he’d backed off about half the width of a gray hair, and Rostov, in a low, hard voice, backed away roughly the same distance. “When there’s only one decision, that decision is always right.”

There was still the feeling of intense, swift trouble hovering deadly and invisible between the two men.

“Well!” Slim clapped his hands together, making a kind of a period in the conversation. “Now that’s settled, what’s for breakfast? You an’ them cossacks a’ yours like t’ try some cowboy beans?”

Rostov ignored Slim’s question. He turned curtly on his heel and walked back toward the cossack horses, his men following.

“Boy,” Slim said, frowning. “He sure is kind of an abrupt fella.”

Shad looked off toward the cattle. About half of them were up by now, others staggering to their feet and shaking their heads as if to clear them. Then he looked toward the hill where some of the curious Russians from the night before had begun to gather again. “Crab, you and Mushy cook up some bacon and beans. Natcho, you and Link and Chakko see t’ the horses. Keats, go and tell those people they can have their pots and stuff back. And pay ’em whatever you think is fair.”

As the others started away to their jobs, Keats said, “I think those people mostly just wanted t’ be helpful.”

“Pay ’em. I don’t care what, but
pay
’em.”

“I’ll work somethin’ out.”

“The rest of you come with me. We may have t’ punch a few a’ those cows back t’ life.”

He was right. About forty head were lying down in a drunken or chilled stupor. We pounded on them to get their attention, and sometimes a few of us more or less hauled them up onto their feet.

All except one. A young coyote-dun bull had frozen to death, the poor darn animal’s four legs stretched out straight and stiff and hard as rocks. Christ, how you hate to lose an animal!

We’d lost two cows on the sea voyage, and now three head in one night, and it hit Shad pretty hard.

“More’n likely a heart attack,” Slim said, “and then he froze in the night.”

Keats came up to where we were standing around the frozen bull. “Those people won’t take anything at all,” he told Shad. “They loaned us those things last night just t’ be friendly, an’ so I thanked ’em.”

“You thanked ’em?” Shad looked at Keats with eyes still cold and grim from looking at the dead bull. “I told you t’ pay them!”

“Well how the hell can I pay them if they won’t take any pay?”

Shad’s hard words had the finality of a nail being driven strongly into an oak plank. “I don’t want t’ be beholden to any man in this country!”

“But there’s no way t’ pay those people! What they did for us was a free and open gift!”

Shad took a deep breath and looked down at the frozen bull for a long, frowning moment. “Then tell ’em we’re giving them a free and open gift back! Fourteen hundred pounds of beef!”

That was one hell of a decision. Every man there knew that meat would have seen our whole outfit through more than two good months of steaks and stew.

“That whole beef for half a night’s loan a’ some beaten-up pots?” Dixie asked.

But Old Keats, who somehow looked kind of pleased about what Shad had said, was already on his way. And it surely worked out.

Those Russians didn’t have much in the way of beef, according to Keats. And while they were too proud to take anything in terms of pay, they were really deeply moved about the gift they’d been given in return. While we were eating breakfast beans some of the white-shawled women got over their shyness enough to come down and get their pots and barrels, and they even nodded and smiled at us a little. In the meantime some of the men had started skinning and dressing the coyote-dun bull.

A short distance away, the cossacks were waiting, but it seemed like there was always an air of being ready to go, of impatience about them. Some of them were tending to their horses, while a few were eating something cold, for they hadn’t built a fire. We noticed one of them who had a thick funny-looking plate.

“What kind of plate’s he eatin’ off?” Purse Mayhew asked.

“That ain’t no real plate,” Slim said. “That there’s a hardened pumpkin rind. Indians used t’ use ’em. Works good.”

Chakko nodded and grunted in agreement, which was one of his normal sentences.

“Pumpkin rind?” Crab scraped his spoon over his tin plate for some final beans. “Sounds heathen t’ me. Ain’t they never invented metals?”

“Pumpkin rind’s kind a’ handy for eatin’,” Slim said. “If you’re low on water, ya’ just scrape off a thousandth of an inch from the top with your knife an’ you’ve washed your dishes.”

“They’ve damn well invented metals,” Mushy said to Crab. “Those swords a’ theirs prove that beyond a whole lot a’ question.”

“Do they have t’ cut themselves every time they take those things out?” Sammy the Kid asked. “That was kind of horrifyin’.”

“Either that or cut someone else a lot deeper,” Link said. We all knew he was guessing, but it sure sounded accurate.

“Forgettin’ them swords,” Slim muttered, “in case we ever get in an argument with ’em, I hope you fellas have took note a’ the large amount of artillery they’re packin’.” He chewed slowly, glancing off toward them. “Every man’s got some kind of a side arm and a rifle, along with that oversized Mexican toothpick.”

Natcho was too entranced to even bother about or notice Slim’s words. “By the dear Lord,” he said, “they certainly know about horses. Look at those animals! And their saddles and spurs and bits! Beautiful!”

Mushy chewed his last piece of bacon slowly and grudgingly. “Yeah. They’re a hasty an’ heavy-lookin’ outfit.”

Captain Rostov came toward us and stopped a few feet from the fire. “You’ve finished breakfast.” He looked at Shad levelly. “Now I hope we can have a brief, intelligent conversation.”

Shad stood up. “It’ll be brief.”

Rostov’s face grew hard for a moment, but he forced himself to control his anger and took out some papers. “If there is any question of our identity this is a copy of the bill of sale between your ranch and our ataman in the city of Blagoveshchensk.”

At a nod from Shad, Old Keats took the papers and started looking them over.

Rostov continued, saying, “Your duty is to deliver that herd to its destination.”

“I’ll do it.”

“
My
duty is to make certain you get there.” Rostov was getting close to fighting mad. “And
I’ll
goddamn well do
that,
too.”

That was the first time Rostov had sworn in English, and it made his statement kind of impressive, almost as though you weren’t necessarily talking to a foreigner. Maybe that’s why Shad eased off enough to explain something, which he didn’t often do. “I’ve got maps t’ show me where I’m goin’. And I’ve got fifteen men armed with sideguns an’ repeating rifles, and they know how to use ’em. Plus some other various and sundry weaponry in our packs. This country’s no rougher than the country we’re used to. So there just ain’t no way we won’t get there. And we don’t need any unwanted company or help. Is that clear, mister?”

Rostov breathed deeply, impatiently. “I’m pleased that you’re well equipped,
mister.
But one thing you don’t know is that those cattle are immeasurably more important to me and my people than they are to you. Another thing is that you haven’t any idea how deep or swift the Ussuri and Amur rivers are at this time of year. You don’t even know exactly where they or their tributaries are. Thirdly, you probably never heard of a Tartar warrior. And most important, you certainly never heard of a man named Genghis Kharlagawl, who has an entire army of Tartar warriors somewhere between here and our destination.”

There was a long moment of silence, because we sure as hell did not know any of those things he was talking about.

Finally Old Keats handed the papers back to Rostov. “That’s a legitimate copy, Shad. Listen, there’s just no doubt in my mind we’ll be able to use any help we can get along the way.”

Slim nodded. “I don’t like the idea a’ outside help anymore’n you do, Shad, but I second that motion. But a’ course whatever you say goes, boss.”

Shad thought about their opinions for a moment, then he grunted. “Okay. We’ll try it a while. But if you Russians cause any trouble the arrangement’ll come to a screeching halt.”

Rostov ignored this. “We’ll ride ahead of you and around you to scout the way. I want one of your men to ride with me.”

I expected Shad, in his tough frame of mind, to refuse, or maybe to volunteer Old Keats. But instead he looked at me. “You go, Levi.”

“Me?”

“You.”

So while the rest of the hands were working at packing and breaking up camp, I saddled Buck up with shaking hands and started ahead with the cossacks.

I didn’t know quite what to think as I rode up to the cossacks. It came out kind of a nervousness and fear and excitement and even fascination, all mingled together. For the first part of the ride I knew they were just waiting for me to fall off old Buck or do something else stupid. But I managed to keep up with their swift pace and not look too silly, I think.

At the top of a hill, after moving like bats out of hell, Rostov suddenly stopped us and we looked far back down at the beach. Most of the Slash-D men were asaddle by now, and yelling and twirling lariats to start the herd moving up toward us. Old Fooler, who always seemed to know the right way to go anyway, was following Shad riding point on Red, leading the cattle off in our direction. The Russians on the beach, who’d skinned the coyote-dun bull, were still busy dressing the meat, and a couple of them waved as cowboys rode by.

Beyond them, the blue-gray waters of the sea stretched forever.

Rostov glanced down at the scene and then at me, with hard eyes that seemed to go right through me and out the back of my head. “You gave them that entire bull.”

Remembering what he’d said about how important the herd was to him and his people, I hesitated a little bit before I answered. “Yeah.”

“Good.”

He turned and rode on north, and I spurred after him.

CHAPTER SIX

I
F
I
’D
had any suspicion that getting out of riding herd was going to make life easier for me, that first day with the cossacks changed my mind.

Keeping up with Rostov was like trying to race full tilt with a deer, outguessing what direction it was going to veer off to at any instant. When Rostov said he was going to scout ahead, he surely meant just that. The cossacks leading the spare mounts and packhorses didn’t have it too bad. They just walked their mounts at an easy pace in the lowlands, usually staying about half a mile ahead of the first longhorns. But the others, and especially me and Rostov, had been all over every foot of every mountain in sight long before Old Fooler and the first cattle ever stuck their noses into a valley below. Yet with all his hard riding, Rostov always somehow saw to it that his horse never got winded or tired, and I never once saw a drop of lather on that big black stallion.

A couple of times, when Rostov and I were alone near the top of a ridge, the ride got downright terrifying, too. Rostov, without hesitation, went barreling over a narrow, broken ledge that would have made a mountain goat stop and consider. Even though he hadn’t said a word since morning, and never even seemed to look at me, I still had the impression he was testing me every minute. So with the reputation of the good old Slash-Diamond at stake, I barreled along right after him. I was still trying to get my heart back in place a minute later, when we came to the second ledge, which was even higher and trickier to cross. He galloped over it as smooth as though his horse was a big, black bird, and thinking fatal thoughts I stuck right behind him. Mostly the path was the width of a skinny ironing board, and if we’d gone over the side it was at least two hundred feet to jagged rocks below.

And after maybe a minute, and aging ten years, I made it.

Rostov still didn’t look back or say anything.

But a while later, when we’d stopped and dismounted, he took a little meat out of his fancy, soft leather saddlebags and wordlessly offered me a bite of it. All in all, that wordless gesture of his seemed to me to be one hell of a compliment. I honestly didn’t know quite what to do. So I shook my head. But I compromised the refusal by giving him a very slight, brief grin.