x
If I'd had any suspicion that getting out of riding herd was going to make my life easier for me, that first day with the Cossacks changed my mind.
Keeping up with Baranova was like trying to race full tilt with a deer, outguessing what direction it was going to veer off to at any instant. When Baranova said she was going to scout ahead, she surely meant exactly 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 Baranova, had been all over every foot of every mountain in sight long before Old Puddin'head and the first cattle ever struck their noses into a valley below. Yet with all her hard riding, Baranova always somehow saw to it that her horse never got winded or tired, and I never once saw a drop of lather on that big black stallion.
Two times, when Baranova and I were alone near the top of a ridge, the ride got downright terrifying, too. Baranova, without hesitation, went barreling over a narrow, broken ledge that would have made a mountain goat stop and consider. Even though she hadn't said a word since morning, and never seemed to look at me, I still had the impression that she was testing me every minute. So, with the reputation of the good old Winged-A at stake, I barreled along right after her. 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. She galloped over it as smooth as if her 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.
Baranova still didn't look back or say anything.
But a while later, when we'd stopped and dismounted, she took a little meat out of her fancy, soft leather saddlebags and wordlessly offered me a bite of it. All in all, that wordless gesture of hers 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 her a very slight, brief grin.
Well finally, 'round sunset, when my ass and the saddle under it felt like they were both about to shove themselves right up through the top of my head, Baranova pulled up on a bluff overlooking a beautiful and wide green flat with a creek running through it.
"I would recommend this for our camping place."
Not wanting to agree with her too much, I said, "Hey, not bad."
"Ride back and tell Morse."
"Well, I'll say it like you said first---about 'suggestin' it."
She gave me a brief, piercing look in which there might have been a glint of humor and then put her horse down the steep slope before us at breakneck speed.
Well, at least I'd now found out why she wanted me with her, and why Preacher had agreed. I patted Skinny on the shoulder and told him, "You should be proud of me, old nag. At last I've come to my great calling in the world---I'm a goddamn messenger girl."
Then I turned Skinny and we headed back for the herd.
Preacher was still riding point, and when I told him about Baranova's suggestion, all he said was, "Place look okay t'you?"
"God never made a nicer one. We just veer left up ahead, around that buffalo-backed hill."
While we were camping down, Death and Coyote tried to make some sport of the fact that I'd been off "sight-seein'" while the others had been doing an honest day's work. But I was too dead beat-up to bother trying to explain the error of their ways. I was asleep, literally, before my head ever came close to the saddle. All I remembered was sitting on my bedroll and starting to take off my boots.
The next morning, I decided to take it easy on Skinny and left him with the remuda, saddling Buckeye instead. Buckeye was a sturdy, feisty little pinto with an all-white face except for that one eye.
The Cossacks were camped out about five hundred feet away on the flat, and I rode over to them as Baranova was mounting up.
She looked at me and Buckeye and said, "You're sparing the other horse because of yesterday."
"Yup."
I got the feeling she approved of that. "You yourself managed to ride along with me fairly well."
I shrugged. "Hell, I'm the worst rider in the outfit."
She called some orders in Russian to her men, and then we took off again.
After a few more miles or tough mountains, the terrain gradually started getting a little easier, which was a blessing although it was still another hard-riding wordless day.
When the sun was finally getting low in the west a young Cossack about my age wound up riding with Baranova, too. He was tall and husky, with sandy hair and clear, constantly frowning blue eyes.
The three of us rode to the top of a low hill, the two of them, as always, searching to both sides and as far ahead as they could see.
I'd gone along quietly all day before and most of this day, and still hadn't intended to break the silence, but curiosity finally got the best of me. Somewhat mad at myself for speaking, I must have sounded angry. "Would ya' mind tellin' me what you're lookin' for, so I can go look for it too, for Christ's sake?"
Baranova glanced back at me, that tiny bit of humor lurking somewhere in those hard, dark eyes. "Ah, the puppy barks at me."
I don't know if the hair on the nape of your neck really stands up, but mine felt like it did right then. "Puppy!" Somewhere in the rear part of my mind I knew I was going out on a suicidal limb, but the front part was boiling over. "Just one a' two things, bitch! Take that back or fight me!"
I meant it flat out and couldn't and wouldn't back down, but once I'd said it that anti-suicide part of my head was banging away something fierce trying to find me some way, any way, out of this fix.
Baranova's look didn't change, and she didn't move a hair. After an eternal few seconds she said, "The puppy barks---and the wolf bites." Then, "Perhaps you are a young wolf."
Thank God! She'd given me my way out. She hadn't exactly taken back what she'd said, but she'd allowed me a fair escape route which that panicky rear end of my mind was grateful to accept.
Trying to keep up what I hoped was a fearless loo I said, "I ain't all that young, and you'd have t' try me as a wolf. But I'd still like t' know just what we're scoutin' for."
She let the whole thing go and answered me. "Primarily Tartar raiding parties. From across the Ussuri right now."
"What's a Tartar look like?"
"Just let us know if you see anyone we don't see, on foot or horseback." She added quietly, almost warmly, "Your eyes will be much appreciated," and I knew she meant what she said. Then she turned back to search the horizon ahead.
"Uhhh, Hetmaness Baranova?" I said uncomfortably.
She looked around at me, questioning.
"That's kinda nice---appreciating the offer a' my eyes like that. My name's Molly Stewart. But you can call me Angel."
She indicated the sandy-haired young Cossack near her. "This is Corporal Maksim Petrovsky."
I nodded at the corporal and said the only thing I could think of to say, which was "Max."
Max stared at me, concentrated hard and said in a slow, studied, funny kind of one-noted way, "I-am-very-pleased-to-have-the-honor-of-making-your-acquaintance-Miss-Stewart."
That line of his hit me like a sledgehammer.
If anything, I was even more stunned than Preacher had been when the same kind of thing happened to him before. My expression must've been odd, 'cause Baranova laughed for the first time since she'd singed off Kuznetsov's beard and eyebrows, and Max grinned over at him in a proud, pleased way.
I never did think of anything to come up with, and Baranova finally slowed down her laughter enough to say, "Believe me, not all Cossack's speak English. I've taught three of my men to speak reasonably well, and the others know a few rounds."
I finally barely just managed "I'll be damned." And then a sort of resentment of my own shortcomings must have welled up in me because I said, "An' I don't speak one word a' Russian 'cept 'Daughhh,' which sounds like some idiot tryin' to start off a sentence!"
Baranova said, "A language takes time. And we've been planning on getting these cattle for more than two years. I wanted someone else to be able to communicate with you Americans in case I should happen to be killed along the way."
She didn't say that grimly, but somehow the words had an ominous ring to them. And then she rode quickly down the hill before us, looking as impossible to kill as any man I ever saw.
Max frowned in concentration again and said, "Let-us-go," and we galloped down after him.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWWZltJaK6D
19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOFxE6GH0cJ
19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAwyigoHwYa
19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvjk2RTKdxp
19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKFL8BhefWR
We made a fine, sweetwater camp again that night, with enough grass to feed ten thousand head. Old Charlie, Death, Polska Joe and Steel Arnold had the first watch, and the rest of us were feeling pretty good about how the drive was going so far, sitting around the fire after supper. Ike got out his guitar and started fooling around softly with the strings, and we got into one of those easygoing bullshit talks when nobody's got a whole lot to say and yet nobody's quite ready to go to bed as long as there's some hot coffee left.
The Cossack campfire was burning about 500 feet away, and you could faintly make out the shadowy flickers of men moving around it.
Tachito leaned comfortably back against a tree, stretching his shoulder muscles. "Not a bad day." He smiled. "Everything considered, my only regret is that we didn't have that one night in Vladivostok, so as to better judge that white Russian whiskey and the ladies there."
"Didn't miss much." Polska Joe grinned. "That white whiskey's poison an' there ain't no ladies. Not even women."
"Christ," Bad Eye said. "After all that time on the boat, even them cows're startin' t' have a strange effect on me."
"Only the good-lookin' ones, I hope," said Flem.
"Well, there'll be other towns." Coyote moved his huge shoulders in a philosophic way. Then he said, "Hey! I heard a couple a' them Cossacks hollerin' back and forth t'day, and I kinda understood a couple words!"
"That makes you about even," Eucher said, "since ya' only know two words a' American too."
"Screw you." Coyote scratched his ear. "Sounded kinda like some a' the words Ma an' Pa used t use when I was a kid."
"Speakin' a' that," I said, "Baranova ain't the only one a' 'em that knows American."
"Who else does?" Preacher asked.
I told him about Max. "An' there're two others. Don't know which ones yet."
"Underhanded of 'em." Preacher glanced at the distant fire suspiciously. "Not lettin' us know."
"They're not tryin' to keep it a secret. But we haven't exactly encouraged a whole lot a' friendly talk back an' forth."
"You stickin' up for 'em?" Eucher asked.
"Hell, no!"
Flem looked up at me curiously, from where he was idly whittling on a stick. "After two days now, whaddya think of 'em?"
I hesitated, then said, "All in all, they ain't too bad."
"Huh." Goldy grunted. "Sounds like you're soft on 'em."
"I am not! But they've been all right with me. An' they're damn good t' their horses. One time t'day, when it was hotter 'n hell, one of 'em went t' take a drink and his water bag was almost empty. So he gave his last water to his horse instead."
Tachito shrugged. "Any real horseman would do the same."
"Well, that's kinda what I mean. They really care for their mounts, like us."
"Difference is, I'd hope in this rich country none of us would be stupid enough t' run out of water in the first place," Preacher said flatly.
"Boss's right," Goldy grinned. "Dumb heathen didn't deserve a drink."
"C'mon." Jamie sounded slightly irritated. "Angel's basically got the right of it. We can't go over a thousand miles with them galoots without ever talkin'. I ain't sayin' we oughtta be friends, but we should try to have some kinda halfway decent relationship with 'em."
I was surprised that almost none of the men thought Jamie was right. With looks and a few words his idea was generally voted down. Goldy said, "Farther off they are the better," and Old Charlie Joe tossed in about the same time, "It'll be a lukewarm day in hell b'fore I kiss no Cossack's ass."
Even Ike Skidmore now hit a hard note on his guitar. "I still ain't figured out just what they think they're doin', anyhow." He hit a second harsh note, disgusted. "Tartars!"
"Well, since I'm the one's been with 'em," I volunteered, "I think what they're doin' is this. I think they think we're just supposed t' herd the cattle. An' if we run into any trouble, I think they think they're goin' to do all the fightin'."
Tachito laughed, Polska Joe said "Shit," and even Chaytan grinned slightly. Eucher shook his head. "If they think we're gonna do all the work and they're gonna have all the fun, they're plum loco!"
For some reason, maybe just knowing Baranova the little I did, my back go up. "I have a strong hunch, Eucher, you'd not find fightin' Tartars all that much fun."
Eucher frowned at me. "You are sidin' with them fuckin' foreigners! Maybe you'd rather bunk down over at their fire!"
I stood up angrily. And damned if I didn't accidentally come out with exactly the same damn thing I'd said earlier. "Take that back or fight!" But I felt a lot safer with Eucher than with Baranaova.
Eucher stood up and I moved toward him, but Preacher said quietly, "Whoa there!" He didn't have to raise his voice to stop us. He got up and walked slowly between us and threw the little bit of coffee he had left onto the fire, where it made a brief, sizzling sound. "Molly?"
"What?"
"That Max, who knows our language."
"What 'bout 'im?"
"Tell Baranova I want him ridin' with me startin' tomorrow."
"Couldn't I just suggest it to her?"
"Tell her anyway you want."
Eucher and I were still standing there, sort of facing each other down. At Preacher's order to "whoa" we "woah'd," but we were both still feeling pretty unfriendly. Preacher looked at us mildly and said, "It's sure a hardship, havin' a grouch sonafabitch and a nasty bitch on your hands."
He wasn't making fun of us, yet something about the way he said it made us both want to laugh somehow.
"She's grouchier 'n I am," Eucher finally said.
"That's impossible," I told him.
"Well"---Preacher shrugged----"you two go ahead and fight all night, if you really want to. But just don't make one damn sound doin' it because the rest of us sensible fellas are goin' to sleep."
He'd left no way for a fight. He'd given us both room to back off gracefully from a fight neither of us really wanted. And it crossed my mind that he'd stopped that potential battle with the same kind of instinctive, touch humor that Baranova had us ed with me earlier that day, when she'd gotten me out of the "puppy and wolf" situation.
Eucher grimaced in a half grin and hit me on the shoulder just hard enough to let me know he was pretty strong but not mad anymore. I hit him back in the same way, and that was the end of that.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDs0IOO64Gb
And we all went to sleep.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcw9KaTtSHH
Until those giant lobo wolves showed up just before sunrise. 19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJn9qH3nAWm
