The one older, tough-looking woman came up to us now, and even her hard face became almost pleasant as she looked at Rostov. He said a few words, and she nodded and gestured to a large round table that was by itself near the rear of the room.
She led us back to the table, and Rostov spoke to her again, ordering for us as we all sat down. But instead of simply accepting his order, she shook her head and told him something quietly before leaving the table.
“Someone,” Rostov explained, “has already bought us a bottle of vodka.”
Slim frowned across the table at him. “Well, that surely is big-hearted. But how the hell come?”
Rostov shrugged. “We’re strangers. It’s a fairly common custom out here.”
Nick stroked the unbearded, scarred side of his big, solid face. “There is more,” he rumbled.
Bruk nodded. “A few of the people here know who we are and where we come from.”
What they’d left unsaid seemed more important to me. But it was Old Keats who put words to it. “I’d venture,” he said, “that many American colonists felt much the same way as these people do around the time of our Revolutionary War.”
Rostov said thoughtfully, “Your point may be well taken.”
The pretty girl in the tablecloth dress came up now with a tray that had eight glasses and a bottle of vodka on it. As she beamed at us and started to place the glasses around, Shad said to Rostov, “Tell ’er that we’re buyin’ two bottles back for whoever bought us this one.”
I half expected Rostov to go against this, but he didn’t. It was almost as if the same thing had been on his mind, and he was already talking to the girl as Shad’s last couple of words came out. She smiled and nodded and went away.
Bruk did the pouring, which with eight of us took a minute. Slim raised his glass and said, “Here’s t’ the best goddamned game a’ showdown ever I seen!” He added with feeling, “Or ever hope to!”
Shad picked up his glass. “Let’s also just hope we can make it stick.”
We all drank then, and the way those cossacks drank was an awful thing for me to take note of. I took a sip of the fiery vodka and was about to put the rest of it back down in a civilized fashion. But around the edges of my glass I suddenly saw that they were all downing every drop in their glasses all at once. So, despite the furious burning in my throat, I forced myself to finish my glass too.
Everybody at the table put down an empty glass.
After that time back in Vladivostok, Shad was sort of geared to vodka, and Old Keats could drink it like water. For myself, I couldn’t have managed to say one word on a large bet. But Slim, whether he was hurting or not, came through in his normal, winning way. He breathed out a long, heavy breath and said, “Say, that white whiskey ain’t too bad at all!” He picked up the now half-empty bottle and looked at it. “Matter a’ fact, it’s downright jim-dandy.” He began refilling our glasses, mine first. “There ya’ go, Levi!” he said, pouring for the others.
Knowing Slim, I knew damn well that he knew damn well how bad I was feeling.
“Yeah,” I muttered, finally just barely able to talk. “There I go.”
Looking around the table, I saw one encouraging thing. As Slim leaned across to fill Igor’s glass, I noticed tears, or at least a lot of very suspicious moisture, in Igor’s eyes. He looked at me at the same time, and both of us, without words, knew that neither one of us was alone in his agony.
And then, as Slim finally filled his own glass, emptying the bottle, the pretty, tablecloth girl, as smiling as ever, came back carrying a tray with four brand-new bottles of vodka on it.
Igor and I gave each other a second pain-filled glance as she spoke to Rostov in a cheerful voice, placing the bottles before us.
As she left the table, Rostov turned to Shad. “We sent two bottles, so—”
“Yeah,” Shad broke in. “I gathered.”
Rostov said, “It’s those two big men who spoke to us as we came in.”
Old Keats grinned. “Shall we send ’em back eight bottles?”
It didn’t take a genius at arithmetic to figure out what was going on. “Jesus Christ, boss!” I said. “They’ll send us back sixteen!”
Slim turned to give the two men a short, friendly look. “Tell the truth, I can’t help but kinda admire their style.”
Shad said nothing, but his face was set in a hard half-angry frown.
Looking at Shad now, Slim saw deeper, beyond the frown. And when he spoke it was in a quiet, easy voice. “I know it’s a sorta dumb spot t’ be put in, boss. But in Montana it’d be easy. Back there we’d either invite them fellas over t’ join us, or send the booze back, which’d sure be askin’ for trouble.”
Rostov said flatly, “It won’t be sent back.”
Slim nodded and spoke for all of us to Rostov, though he was speaking mostly for Shad. “We just hate somehow t’ give less than we get. T’ ever be beholden t’ anybody. It ain’t in our nature. An’ this white whiskey thing’s gettin’ sorta foolish an’ outta hand. In some kind of a good way, how can we come out fair an’ even with them fellas?”
“Very easily,” Rostov said quietly, knowing our minds were all on Shad. “Simply by thanking them.”
Old Keats muttered, “Hell!” Then he shook his head slightly and said, half to himself, “The easiest and yet the most difficult thing of all.”
It looked to me like Rostov was about to get up and go to the far table where the two men were when Shad suddenly spoke in a low, gruff voice. “What’s a good word?”
If Rostov felt as startled as the rest of us, he didn’t show it. He said, “You might try vostrovia.”
“What’s it mean?”
“To your health.”
Shad grabbed his glass and stood up from the table, glaring at the two men across the room. Raising his glass high he roared “Vostrovia!” so powerfully that it seemed like the whole room damnere shook.
That was probably the hardest thing he ever did in his life.
But it sure worked.
The two big men stood up with their glasses raised and shouted “Vostrovia!” back at him.
There was something a whole lot more than simple “good health” in the air, and whatever it was, it was so exciting and contagious that all of us at our table and most everyone else in the room suddenly started rearing up with glasses held high, yelling deafening “Vostrovias!” all over the place.
And then, as the thunder of voices subsided, we all drank.
Carried along, even I drank again, and the second glass wasn’t as hard on my already numb throat as the first one had been.
As they finished their drinks, the two big men suddenly and swiftly threw their glasses as hard as hell to the floor, shattering each glass into maybe a million pieces. Shad’s and Rostov’s empty glasses were the next to slam explosively down against the floor. And then, with glassware now being shattered all over the room, I got to the end of my drink and threw it down as hard as I could.
It was the strangest thing, but in the instant my glass crashed to the floor, I somehow understood with great clearness two things I hadn’t known before. One of them was that all these people throwing their glasses down had a pretty good idea of what Rostov and his free cossacks stood for and this was their way of wordlessly wishing them good luck.
And the second thing I realized in that instant was the actual reason for smashing the glasses. It had to do with the human mind and spirit, as if it were a way of showing that the idea within that last drink was so damned true and important that the glass had to be destroyed and never used again. And in never being used again, the truth and importance of the idea it held could never ever drain away like the casual drink the glass held. The drink would be forgotten soon. But the shattered glass and the idea behind it would be remembered forever.