After all that noisy breakage, there was a long, warm moment of silence as the other men in the room stood facing us, the good feeling so thick in the air that you could almost breathe it in.
Then, as if everything that needed saying had been said, everybody started sitting back down, talking and laughing once more between themselves. At the same time some of the girls working there started sweeping up the broken bits of glass all over the floor, while the others quickly began bringing out trays of new glasses to set at the tables. They not only didn’t seem miffed at what had happened, but I got the idea they were actually pleased about it. For that matter a couple of them, including the tablecloth girl, had clapped their hands delightedly as we were demolishing our glasses. She came up with a trayload of new ones as we settled back into our chairs. Putting eight of them down for us, she said something to Rostov, and then she was gone.
As Old Keats and Bruk each took a bottle and started pouring refills around, Rostov said, “Her name is Irenia. She just said that in her heart she drank and broke a glass with us.”
Slim, like me, was still deeply impressed with what had happened. “Does that crazy kinda thing go on all the time?”
Rostov shook his head. “No.”
“Only,” Bruk said slowly, “when it’s something special.”
Slim nodded thoughtfully. “All the same, special or not, back in Montana any barkeep I know sure’d take a dim view a’ the custom.” He pulled his drink toward him. “Just outta idle curiosity, in a saloon like this who gets stuck with payin’ for all them glasses?”
Rostov glanced at Shad. “Traditionally, the man who proposed the toast.”
I think Shad himself was still in a small state of shock, both for having forced himself to thank some Russians for something and also for being moved by their magnificent reaction to it. “Good,” he said, quietly studying the refilled glass in front of him, “that’s exactly as it ought t’ be.”
The noise in the rest of the room, though it wasn’t all that loud, suddenly became lower, voices going down and laughter either stopping or easing off. It was as though somebody might have been playing one of those new Magic Talking Machines I’d heard about and a nasty neighbor had complained so they’d turned it down so far that the good time wasn’t really any fun anymore. The whole place suddenly had a cold, different feeling in it.
We swung around a little in our chairs and saw the reason, which wasn’t hard to figure out. A bunch of Imperial Cossacks, ten or twelve of them, were coming in. They looked around the room with hard eyes, paying particular attention to us. Then they took a couple of tables near one of the front windows, and I had the thought that they probably didn’t even know, or certainly care, that they’d just ruined a fine, warm Magic Talking Machine time.
For that matter, a great many people in the room now began to quietly finish their drinks and leave. The two big men were among the first to go.
Saddened, and even more angered by all this, though I could almost swear I wasn’t feeling the vodka, I raised my glass and said to Rostov, “It’s my turn! What’s the opposite of vostrovia? How do ya’ wish somebody bad health?”
“Nurse your drink,” Shad said quietly. “I’m not all that anxious t’ get you out of a riot, or carry ya’ home.”
Rostov spoke to Igor in almost the same voice. “You will drink everything in your glass—but gradually.”
So the rest of them continued their regular drinking, while Igor and I tried to look indignant about being cut down but were secretly grateful as hell.
Shad downed his drink in the Russian one-raise-of-the-wrist fashion and then frowned at the Tzar’s cossacks near the window. “Seein’ us relaxin’ here, they know we’re either awful strong or awful stupid.”
Slim swallowed his vodka neat and said, “That’s one major advantage we got over ’em. They ain’t yet picked up no inklin’ a’ how stupid we really are.”
The others emptied their glasses and Rostov said, “Verushki has already sent night patrols out, of course.” He leaned forward to speak quietly. “Let’s look at it from Verushki’s point of view. We camp on the broken flats two miles outside of town. We will not bother him, and he is not to bother us. No more than a few of our men are to come into town together at any time. As soon as we can cross the Amur, we’ll go.”
Slim put down another charge of vodka. “That’s about the simple right of it.”
Rostov looked at Shad, who was listening quietly, turning his now empty glass between his thumb and forefinger on the tabletop, making little circles of water on the wood. As Nick filled the empty glasses, Rostov went on. “It’s supposed to be a gentlemen’s agreement that he won’t spy on us, but he will. He’ll do everything he can to collect Shad’s little finger and everything that goes with it.”
“Sure he will,” Shad put in. “That’s why we’ll be way out on those broken flats. With our men and cattle movin’ in and out of those far-off breaks, they’ll never be able to figure out for sure that there ain’t too many of us.”
Bruk put away another glass of vodka as though it was clear spring water and said grimly, “If Verushki had any idea how few of us there are, or if he finds out—”
“If this an’ if that!” Shad said in a low, impatient voice. “The whole point a’ showdown is t’ out-if the other fella! We’re sittin’ here because Verushki ain’t got no idea our last card is a deuce!”
Rostov had been studying Shad thoughtfully. “In one strange way, Northshield, showdown and chess are the same game.”
“The hell you say.” Shad frowned. “Plain old showdown got us this far.”
“In chess one sometimes mounts a seeming show of strength where there is no intention or real ability of attacking at all. It’s usually referred to as a diversionary tactic.”
Genuinely puzzled, Slim said, “Huh?”
“Let’s show Verushki our last card. But we’ll make our deuce look to him like an ace.”
I expected almost any reaction from Shad except the one he finally had. He said quietly, “Tell me about makin’ an ace.”
“Verushki would massacre the thirty of us, the deuce.”
Taking another sip of vodka I muttered, “Thirty-one,” wanting to keep the count as high as possible.
“But he’s afraid of sixty of us.” Rostov paused and then went on. “So let’s show him that ace. All sixty of us.”
The others at the table just looked at each other, wondering if Rostov was quite right in his head.
Except for Shad. Once again his reaction was thoughtful and quiet. “My fellas would raise a lotta hell over that.”
Rostov nodded. “So would mine.”
Even with the vodka not helping me much, it was then that I first started to realize that Rostov and Shad were each slowly beginning, somehow, to damnere be able to know, or at least guess, what the other one had on his mind. Maybe, even seeming so different, they were that much alike. In any case, right now they were already talking back and forth about something that hadn’t even been said out loud yet.
Frowning, Bruk spoke for the rest of us. “Just what is it that we would all raise hell over?”
“Verushki’s men,” Rostov explained, “will be watching us from a great distance, and on broken terrain. Therefore, aside from our normal movements, from time to time we will all put on American clothes and deliberately show ourselves all at once against the skyline. At other times, we’ll all wear cossack uniforms and do the same thing. That way there will sometimes seem to be thirty cowboys. And at other times, thirty cossacks.”