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A bunch of curious Russians who lived on the outskirts of Vladivostok had begun to gather just outside the light of the fire to look us over. While the other hands, working under Flem, started hauling gunny sacks of grain up closer to the fire, four of us went over to talk to them. There was Preacher and James and Polska Joe and me, and we were leading two pack mules to take on into town.
These Russians were mostly short and stocky, and all of them were timid, shying away as we came closer to them. But James called out a word that sounded like "Tuhvaritch" a couple of times and that kinda settled 'em back down.
James was carrying a lantern in one hand and his book on Russian in the other. Death and I brought up the rear, leading the mules.
"Ask them if they talk American," Preacher said.
John thought hard and then said, "Gahvareet Amerikansky?"
Those in front stared at him like he was crazy, and a couple of them toward the back snickered slightly.
"Dumb bastards," Preacher grumbled. "Not one of 'em talks American!"
But then one broad-shouldered young man near James answered something in a low voice.
James was as excited as a kid. He almost yelled, "I understood him! He said he speaks Russian!"
"That's a godsend," Preacher said dryly. "We found a Russian who speaks Russian. Tell 'im what we want, an' that we'll pay for it."
It was an uphill job for James, but he finally managed to explain to them, mostly through the young man, that we wanted all the tubs or big pots or kettles we could get. He used his hands a lot to describe the biggest size possible.
When this was done and all of them were finally nodding and saying "Dah," the four of us started on into Vladivostok.
It was a dumpy, dark, deserted town, with narrow dirt streets going up and down and curving around every which way. The houses and small buildings were made of plain unfinished wood planks, most of which seemed to have been nailed up by carpenters who had failing eyesight. Once inside the town, you got the feeling there wasn't a straight line left in the world. But still and all the houses must have been built securely, because once in a while high winds would come shrieking in off the ocean that would have knocked anything flat that wasn't pretty sturdy.
About our only greeting was from some occasional unfriendly dogs, who barked from a distance and slunk away growling if we passed by up close.
And then we saw a few lights from windows in a small building down closer to the water. There were three sleepy little horses that looked like undersized mustangs tied up outside, and there was a small hand-painted sign hanging over the door.
And then we saw a few lights from windows in a small building down closer to the water. Th ere were three sleepy little horses that looked like undersized mustangs tied up outside, and there was a small hand-painted sign hanging over the door.
"Whazzit say?" Death asked James, staring at the strange, meaningless lettering.
"Hell," James muttered, "could be Chinese for all I know. But I think it's a bar."
We tied the mules to the hitching rail near the horses and went into the small building
James looked around and said hesitantly, "I guess is this one a' those bars without a bar."
We were in a plain, poorly lighted room with nothing more than six or eight wobbly tables and some rickety chairs in it. Sitting at a table near the corner were three men in flea-bitten fur hats and thick brown homespun coats that came down to their ankles. They were all dressed enough alike to maybe be in some kind of uniform. They were drinking something that looked like water, and all three of them stared up at us with just barely controlled shock, paying particular attention to Death and his jet-black skin.
Then a fat man came out of a back door, and we saw our first familiar sight in Russia because he was wearing a filthy grease-stained apron that had probably been white some years back.
"Thank God," James muttered. "A bartender."
Seeing us, he stopped short. Then overcoming his surprise, he started slowly towards us, asking some kind of a question in a deep, rasping voice. Like the others, he seemed particularly fascinated by Death.
James said just one word, so I remember it all right. The way things turned out later I'd sure as hell have remembered it anyway. He said, "Vautkee." Then he added to us, "That's their name for whiskey."
The bartender waved us to a table and went back out the rear door. As we were sitting down he came back quickly with a bottle full of colorless liquid like the Russians in the corner were drinking and four glasses. He put it on the table and Preacher poured a glassful. "Hope this stuff ain't as weak as it looks." There was a silence in the room as he lifted the glass, looked at it, sniffed it, and then shrugged. "Sure don't smell like much." The bartender and the three men in the corner were frowning at him with close, curious interest.
"Well," James said, "try it."
Preacher raised the glass to his lips and downed it in two, or maybe three, gulps. I couldn't tell exactly because at one point his throat seemed to become briefly paralyzed. He finished it all and put the glass down without a word. I could tell by his dead-set face he was either awful thoughtful or suffering something fierce. As Death pointed out later, Preacher "looked like an iron man who'd just swallowed a large cannonball."
"I think," Preacher said finally, in an unusually husky voice, "this may serve our purpose."
"How 'bout us tryin' it?" I asked.
Preacher just nodded, and I poured for James, Death and myself.
"Well, here's how," I said to them, raising my glass.
But the way I did it wasn't how at all.
I took one gulp and thought I'd die right there on the spot for sure. Pure, burning fire started scorching and searing down my throat at the same time that a massive flood of salty tears surged up around my eyes.
Gagging as slightly as possible and forcing the nearly blinding tears back with fast, hard blinks, I put the drink down. Death was putting his nearly full glass back down too, not hardly breathing at all.
"Embarrassin'," I gasped.
Death just nodded, not yet able to speak.
Between short, mercifully cooling gulps of air, and trying to joke away my own failure as a drinker, I at last managed to tell him, "You almost went white there, Death---or at least gray----if I can make light of the subject."
Death swallowed slowly and then said, "Any---any color's better'n pale green, like you."
James had finished his entire glass, and without any noticeable side effects at all he shook his head admiringly. "Now that, by God, is one helluva drink!"
"Tell him that we want t' buy a lot of it," Preacher said.
"Vautkee, ochen horosho!" James said to the bartender, pulling up a chair and gesturing for the man to join us.
The fat man sat down, but he was suspicious and uncomfortable.
With the help of a newly poured d rink and his language book, James went into an earnest conversation with him, using his hands and checking back and forth in his book from time to time. The bartender stayed unsmiling, just short of being hostile.
Finally James turned to Preacher. "He and a couple of friends make it themselves for the whole town. I think he's got about fifty bottles here, and a keg of it at his house. Come to about forty bottles, I reckon."
"Tell 'im we'll take it all."
"I already did, I think. But I think what he's curious about now is how much're we gonna pay him. And what kind of money."
Preacher took a silver dollar out of his pocket and tossed on the table. "In American dollars like this."
The fat man picked up the dollar and examined it closely on both sides, frowning. Finally he pointed at a part of the coin and said something to James, who started looking through his book.
At last he said, " He wants t'know what that thing in the lady's hair is, with those spikes above it."
"It's a headband that says 'Liberty.'" Preacher leaned forward impatiently. "Tell him what it means and tell him that's a word no goddamned Russian could ever understand in the first place!"
"The hell with all that, Preacher," James told him. "I'm havin' a hard enough time already!"
After another few minutes of searching the book and talking, James said, "He'll sell his vautkee. I think. But I think he thinks we're trying to cheat him."
Preacher stood up, angrily shoving the chair away behind him. "How the hell can we be cheating him? We haven't talked money!"
James, equally angry, said, "Cool off! I think he thinks we're tryin' to buy his whole supply for that one dollar!
Preacher hesitated, taking this in, and then said, "Oh. Well, tell him we'll give him one dollar for every one bottle."
James explained, pointing at the dollar and the bottle on the table, and for the first time the fat bartender began to nod eagerly and said "Dah" in such a way that you couldn't help but know it meant "Yes."
About half an hour later Preacher and I got back to the camp with one of the mules packing forty bottles. The Russians James had talked to on the beach had brought maybe fifty big containers. There were washtubs, large earthenware pots and even wooden and iron barrels that were cut in half sideways, probably to catch rainwater or to feed stock. But by the time we got back, there wasn't a Russian in sight any longer.
Flem and the others had brought our ton or more of oats and barley and corn up from the beach and piled the gunny sacks near the fire.
"Hey, them Ruskies ain't half bad," Flem said. "Look at all these barrels and such they brang."
"We told 'em we'd pay 'em," Preacher said flatly. Then he walked off toward the herd.
"Where the hell'd they all go?" I asked Flem.
"They just brang these things an' then took off. Maybe they gots t' git up pretty quick. They're mostly fishermen, an' some farmers."
"How d'ye know what they are?" I started unloading the bottles from the pack sacks. "You're not too fluent in Russian."
"Oh, I dunno. I just know that somehow ya know if you're a' talkin' t' somebody an' ya' both know it's friendly." Flem started helping me with the bottles. "Some a' them fishermen've made purty good hauls in the last two, three weeks. They tell me fish've been runnin' real nice out there."
Preacher now came striding back into the light of the fire. He said tersely, "Some of those cows're lyin' down t' die."
"They ain't in real good shape, boss," Flem agreed. "Their leg muscles're startin' t' stiffen up."
"All right!" Preacher's powerful voice carried to all of us over the crackling of the fire and the lullaby of the wind. "We got some more of this white whiskey comin', but we're gonna start now! We'll fill these containers with grain and wet it down with that whiskey! Fast!"
"How much whiskey for how much grain?" Steel Arnold asked.
"A lil' bit goes a long way!" Preacher said. "Taste it and pretend you're a cow!" He wasn't fooling, for that was about as accurate a way to judge as any. Then he added, "Let's go!" and we all jumped to it.
The rest of the night was funny, in a way.
James and Eucher showed up half an hour later with the rest of the "white whiskey," just at about the time we were running short. All in all, we fed nearly a hundred bottles mixed with more than a ton of grain to our five-hundred-odd head of cattle. As we figured it, that was roughly half a bottle to every ten pounds of feed. Depending on how you looked at it, that was either a pretty dry must or awful wet.
Some of the stronger bulls stared at the Russian white-whiskey mash first, as we all started lugging it out to feed them. On my third trip out, carrying a washtub with Eli, I noticed Kip sniff the air like a deeply damaged cowboy on Saturday night. He raised his right foreleg like he was waving an uncertain hello to nobody in particular and headed vaguely but enthusiastically for the next refreshments he could find.
And what with all the mooing and calling and bellowing and snorting of the first ones to try this new recipe, it brought the sick and the lame, the halt and the mostly damnere frozen to their feet, even if was just out of pure curiosity. On my fourth trip out, hauling half a big barrel with Glory and Tachito, I saw that spotted cow with the yearling calf who'd stopped the stampede aboard ship. She'd had a bit out of a washtub herself and was insistently nudging her bawling youngster toward it.
Along toward daylight, they were the drunkest, healthiest, most relaxed bunch of longhorns anyone could ever hope to see. More of them were out there on the frozen ground sleeping, but it was a deep, comfortable sleep, with easy, regular breathing and relaxed leg muscles.
"Them cows could all be takin' their forty winks on a block 'a ice an' not know any better," Flem said as the first glimmer of sun began to break dimly in the east.
Preacher looked off toward the dim gray dawn. "The herd'll be ready t' move in about four hours. I'll take two volunteers t' stay up with me an' watch 'em. The rest of ya' get a little sleep before we bust outta here."
Thank God Flem and Polska Joe volunteered because by that time I was too tired to hardly raise my arm or even speak. Along with the others I laid out my bedroll by the fire and almost died in it.
And when I woke up, a bright sun was shining and burning in my eyes. It was like a clear, brisk spring day anywhere in the world, except someone was yellin' that some goddamn Cossacks were riding down the hill toward us!
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