“Swans,” he said.
“Well—sure. Anybody knows that.” The only swan I’d ever seen before in my life was in a picture book.
“Male and female.”
“How could ya’ tell, from so far?”
“They always travel in couples, rather as man and wife, if you will. Do you have many swans in Montana?”
“Well—not too many.”
He looked at me briefly with those eyes of his, and I got the definite feeling that I not only couldn’t ever get away with lying to him, but that I’d have a hard time even ever exaggerating to him. It was as though the back of my mind was saying loud and clear to the back of his mind, “This dumb little bastard never saw a swan before in his life.”
I said out loud, “They sure are beautiful.”
He said thoughtfully, “They are beautiful. In more ways than one.
He stopped for a drink, taking the water bag from his saddle. He offered it to me first, and without hardly thinking about it because by then it seemed a natural thing to do, I took it. Unplugging the top, I said, “I ain’t really too up on swans. What d’ya’ mean, more ways than one?”
“They choose a mate when they’re very young. And they stay together for all the rest of their lives.”
“Well, that is a kind of a nice, friendly thing.”
“We could learn much from them in terms of loyalty, steadfastness, love.”
I handed him back the water bag.
He drank just enough to wet his mouth and throat. “When I first came out east to Siberia, I was just a youngster, about your age. That’s when I saw my first pair of them.”
His thinking was so far away, and he was going back so quietly to some gentle memory, that it never even occurred to me to take any exception to his describing me with the word “youngster.”
“We’d been out hunting, and we’d made camp near the end of the day, when two swans flew overhead. The other men were also new to the country, and one of them grabbed his gun and shot the female of the swans. It fell almost at our feet, dead.” He took a long breath, hooking the water bag back onto his saddle. “All that night the male swan flew overhead, circling the camp in the dark, never landing anywhere to rest, and crying pitifully in its low, keening way for some answer from its mate. I’ve never heard cries more pleading, more terribly sad.” He paused a moment. “The next morning, it continued to circle high over us, still in its own soft, searching way, making those tragic, weeping sounds.” Rostov looked up at the sky above, but he was still really looking into the past. “Then at noon, with the sun nearly directly above us, the swan finally lost all hope. It gave up and stopped crying for an answer from her. It flew up and up, as high and as far as its weakened wings would take it into the sky. And then that great bird simply folded its wings and plummeted down like a stone to smash itself to death on the earth far below.” He paused and then said huskily, “It had done the one thing it possibly could do to rejoin its mate.”
We were both silent for a long moment.
As for me, I was so moved by that story, and by the way Rostov had told it and had felt it, that I couldn’t have trusted myself to say anything I might have said, in any case.
He led off at an easy walk again.
We were heading across a wide plain of golden, knee-deep grass that bowed slightly as the wind touched it, and in the far distance there were some low tree-covered hills.
There were three words he’d used that stuck hard in my mind. They were “loyalty,” “steadfastness” and “love.”
Finally, still touched about the whole damn thing, I spurred closer abreast of Rostov and managed a small half grin. “Guess you’re right, about what a fella could learn about from them swans. About loyalty an’ all that.”
He nodded briefly. “The story applies to many things—in many ways.”
“Yeah.” I couldn’t really figure out what all he meant by that, at the moment. So just trying to say something, anything, I said, “It’d sure be nice if while they’re at it swans could teach us how t’ fly, too.”
He glanced at me, his expression quiet and serious. “If you think of what I just told you enough, you’ll find that that swan, and the absolute loyalty it was capable of, does indeed teach you how to fly in the most important possible way.”
“Yeah?”
He could see he’d lost me, but he was patient about it. He said gently, “Don’t you understand the simple thing I mean? Just the very awareness alone of one such magnificent and complete sacrifice should be an inspiration for every man’s spirit to fly, and soar forever within his heart. And, so inspired, he should want to be able to hopefully emulate that life-and-death devotion.”
Good God, I thought. And we call Old Keats the Poet.
“Well, yeah,” I said. “But—that’s kinda philosophic, for me.”
“Simply thinking and speaking of action is philosophy, of course. Taking action is something else. And, as with the swan, the greatest and ultimate test of a man taking action must also be his willingness, while loving life, to give his life for something he loves.”
“Yeah.” He’d never talked to me like that before, and I couldn’t think of much else to say.
And then there were the sounds of hoofbeats coming closer from behind. It was Nick, moving at an easy run to catch up with us. He pulled down to a walk and tried out his American in his deep, rasping voice. “In the small mountains up ahead, we have seen two wolves.”
Without missing a beat, Rostov said, “There were three.”
That got to me quite a bit. We’d been riding along easily and with no trouble, philosophizing and such, and for that time I hadn’t been paying much attention to anything. But that Rostov, without seeming to pay any attention either, hadn’t missed one goddamn thing. “There are no Tartars on the other side of those hills,” he said. “The wolves crossed over without hesitation.”
I decided that maybe I could learn something from swans, but that I could sure as hell learn a lot more from Rostov himself.
Two mornings later, riding far ahead of the others toward the top of a steep hill, Rostov dismounted and tied his horse to a tree. Wondering, but without question, I followed his example. He took a small spyglass from his saddlebag and we went on up to the crest of the hill on foot, going on all fours the last few feet and finally lying down at the very top. Far off and below there was a wide, slow-running river. On the near side there were a few hovels and shacks scattered along its muddy banks. There were perhaps a dozen people visible in the village, and a handful of small boats in the river.
Studying the area through his small telescope, Rostov said, “The Ussuri River.”
There were also a small number of distant huts on the far bank of the river.
“What’s on the other side?” I asked.
“Manchuria.” He adjusted the scope for another look. “The buildings on this side are a Russian town. Uporaskaya.”
“Upor—what?”
“Uporaskaya. Freely translated, it means ‘the stubborn man.’” He’d seen enough, and we moved back down the slope without ever showing ourselves against the skyline. As we remounted, he said, “We’re going to swing east to avoid Uporaskaya.”