“Yeah?”
He nodded. “There are no Tartar warriors there or across the river. But just one Tartar sympathizer could give us away.”
I frowned and grinned a little at the same time. “Considerin’ we got five hundred longhorns, somebody’s sure as hell bound t’ notice us sooner or later.”
“With luck, we’ll be able to get to Khabarovsk without being seen.” He shrugged slightly. “After that we certainly will be seen—sooner or later.”
Something about the grim way he said it made me hope it would be later.
Rostov waved far back to the nearest cossacks behind us, signaling them to angle eastward behind us.
About the time that the main herd was safely bypassing the town, two or three miles east of it, with high hills in between, Igor came galloping up to us on Blackeye, not looking too happy.
At Shad’s instructions he’d taken to calling Shad Shad, so he said, “Shad would like to know why we have taken this change of direction.”
Rostov was faintly amused. “He’d ‘like’ to know?”
Igor wet his lips. “I am sure that he was joking.” He wasn’t at all sure Shad was joking. “But he said”—Igor concentrated—“that ‘there fucking well better be a damn good reason, or heads will roll.’”
Rostov’s faint amusement still remained in his eyes, but his jaw hardened. “Tell him if we hadn’t changed direction, heads would have rolled.”
Igor was caught dead center between those two strong men, and was getting nervous as a cat in a dog kennel. “But he very much wants some reason, Captain.”
The last tiny traces of humor were gone from Rostov’s eyes. “That’s all, Corporal.”
“But—”
“Add one more thing.” Rostov’s voice became deadly. “Tell him if he ever disagrees with any decision of mine in the future, I’ll be only too glad to discuss it with him personally, instead of by messenger.”
Rostov swung his horse around and rode off.
Igor and I looked at each other, and I could see how miserable he felt. “Just tell Shad that Rostov was busy but that I told you everything’s okay. Tell him I want to explain the reason to him myself tonight.”
Igor understood that this would kind of get him off the hook. He nodded, grateful and relieved. Then he rode back, and I galloped ahead to catch up with Rostov.
We rode particularly fast during the rest of that long, hard day. I knew Rostov was concerned about any people who might be out of the town, hunting or whatever, and might see us. So we scoured the mountains and forests on every side, but there wasn’t a living soul in sight.
Finally, toward the end of the day, Rostov slowed down to a walk. I offered him a drink of water from my canteen, and he took it.
As he drank I said, “Funny thing about Upor—Uporaskaya meaning a stubborn man. I never knew any a’ them funny Russian names for towns meant anything.”
He handed the canteen back. “In any unsettled land, the names of towns come from the pioneers who settle them, from colorful incidents that happen, from legends, or sometimes from the topography.”
Not knowing what that last word meant, I just said, “Yeah?”
“Translated, some Siberian towns are called Too-Far Mountain, Pancake Flats, Broken-Jaw Creek.”
“Hell, sounds kinda like some names back home.”
He continued, growing thoughtful. “As for Uporaskaya, there’s a legend around that name. When it was first settled, a man there was reputed to be the most stubborn man in the world. The other few people there, his friends, decided to move out. But he’d planted some pumpkins, so he wouldn’t go. He was working in the pumpkin patch as the others left, and a couple of them, knowing that he would be all alone, called out that he just had to move with them.” Rostov paused. “Since he’d been told he had to move, the stubborn fellow wouldn’t move. He wouldn’t move at all. He just stood there stubbornly, without ever moving one bit. And finally the pumpkin vines started to grow up around his legs. They grew until at last, in time, the vines reached his throat, and they strangled him to death where he stood.”
He looked at me as he finished the legend, and I could see that he was trying to tell me two things at once. “Well, he sure was one stubborn bastard,” I said. “A hell of a lot more stubborn than my Shad.”
He was pleased at my jumping the gun on his story that way, but he was still serious. “For the sake of all of us, I hope you’re right.”
“Another thing,” I said with as much innocence as I could, “if the Russians made up that legend, they musta had some pretty stubborn fellas themselves.”
He gave me a quick, hard look. “Meaning?”
I kind of chickened out. “Oh, nothin” Then I added, “But you were sayin’ before about the difference between thinkin’ an’ talkin’, an’ actually doin’. He actually did turn the cattle.”
There was another quick, iron-hard look. “His message about ‘heads rolling’ was arrogant and hostile.”
I’d already gone about far enough, but I managed to build up enough courage to say quietly, “An’ your reply, sir?”
He studied me for a long moment with those piercing eyes.
And then he spurred on ahead.
That night we camped closer to the cossacks than ever before. There was just one small spring for water, so the two fires, with the spring shared in the middle, were only about fifty feet away from each other.
“Christ!” Dixie muttered later, as we were sitting around our fire. “Every time ya’ wanna git a goddamn cup a’ water, ya’ have t’ rub elbows with some goddamn cossack!”
“Shoot,” Slim snorted. “Think how worried they must be for fear a’ catchin’ some excruciatin’ an’ fatal disease from a scabrous rebel like you.”
Sammy the Kid said, “Why don’t they go camp by their own spring? I say fuck ’em!”
Some of the others nodded and grunted in agreement.
“All of ya’ just relax.” Shad stood up. “Slim, let’s go take a look at the herd an’ night riders.”
A moment later the two of them rode off.
I’d already told Shad the reason we’d made the detour earlier that day, and he knew right off that it made sense. All he’d done was to say gruffly, “Rostov shoulda sent you back t’ tell me. We’d a’ made an even wider circle.”
All along, of course, I’d kept Shad up on most of the things that were said and that happened to me while I was with the cossacks. I’d mentioned the line about the puppy barking and the wolf biting, though I didn’t include the fact that I was the butt of it. And I’d told the story of the swans, and things like that. However, that night I hadn’t brought up the legend of Uporaskaya because it just didn’t seem like too good of an idea right then.
Now, with Shad and Slim gone to check out the herd and the men that were on duty, the rest of us were just sitting quietly.
Then, from over at the Russian camp, there came the soft sounds of that musical instrument of theirs. For the first time, at this nearer distance, I could see that it was Ilya who was playing it. A few of the cossacks around the fire started humming with deep, quiet voices along with the tune that he was strumming gently on the strings.
“Goddamnit!” Dixie grumbled. “Now they’re gonna keep us awake all night with that infernal racket!”
“I think it’s kinda nice,” I said.
“We can fix ’em!” Sammy the Kid reached for his guitar and hit a couple of loud chords. Then he started a fast, noisy version of “De Camptown Races,” and Dixie and some of the others went to singing that peppy song with a whole lot more enthusiasm than talent.
It was clear as hell that our camp was dead set on drowning out their camp.