Zhevelushniks had served as submachineguns and other modern arms. Now, they became long-barreled flint rifles. The metal tubes we used in class to shoot chewed-up blotting paper or paraffin could be used for that purpose. There were also bows, and those were almost like real Indians’ weapons.
So, a battle lay ahead.
The hated Hurons, also known as the Iroquois, had abducted Alice and Cora, the daughters of the English Colonel Munro, the commander of Fort William Henry. That heinous abduction was committed under the leadership of Magua, Sly Fox. We all hated him bitterly. It was he who would kill Uncas.
It was no easy task to find a boy who would agree to portray him in a battle, but we found one.
Zhenya Zhiltsov agreed to do it. We considered his deed very magnanimous, though we suspected that Zhenya simply wanted to be a leader.
Zhenya and his four friends, the group of Iroquois, armed to the teeth, were making their way through the forest and would run into our courageous group, the Mohicans and Hawkeye, our pale-skinned friend.
A whole series of battles, chases and sieges would begin at that moment. That was how it began in the book. Could we possibly depict all that?
We would have only one battle. Where could we possibly get the captives, Alice and Cora, over whom the whole thing had started? Could we allow girls to join our game? Absolutely not!
So, we decided that the captives would be only “as if.”
We, the Mohicans, were supposed to win, according to the book. But who knew how the battle would turn out, our battle today?
After stealing secretively, one by one, into the vegetable gardens, our detachment arranged an ambush among the dense undergrowth of the hedge.
Our vegetable gardens, even though we called them so, were also fruit orchards. Bounded on one side by the wall of the building and on the other side by the fence of the kindergarten at a distance of about twenty meters, they were perfect for playing without being disturbed. We could sneak in there and set up ambushes.
To our delight, some tenants had long given up on vegetable and fruit cultivation, so their patches were overgrown with weeds and shrubs.
But we also appreciated the hard-working gardeners. It was great to hide among the tall grape vines on the Ogapians’ patch or in their neighbors’ orchard among the apple and cherry trees. They were excellent. These various gardens effectively reproduced the impassable woods on the banks of the great Hudson.
We ensconced ourselves in the shrubs. The sun warmed the backs of our heads with rather great intensity. That was good because the sun would dazzle our enemies if they, as we assumed, were to appear from the left corner of the building.
From behind me, I heard the frightened chirp of a sparrow, sounding as if it were in the middle of a fight… That was Chingachgook-Rustem Angherov signaling from the tree near the transformer booth. Rustem could imitate birds so well it was impossible to tell the difference. “They’re approaching,” Vitya, who lay low nearby, whispered. “That was the signal.”
As we had agreed, I signaled with a hand mirror. It caught a sun ray and sent it back. The shrub behind the hedge moved slightly – Uncas-Savchuk had seen my signal.
And almost immediately, a flock of pigeons, their wings rustling, flew up from the pigeon house perched on the tall pole above the Oparin’s vegetable beds. Certainly, something had frightened them, just as the rustling of leaves or cracking of a branch would frighten off a deer in the woods. The Iroquois were not cautious, not cautious at all. And here they were…
Bending low, they slowly made their way along the wall of the building. A fringed brown corduroy sleeve flashed by; that was Magua-Zhenya. Feathers swayed above the shrub… They were near. We could hear the rustling of their sandals and their irregular breathing… But we were waiting for a signal, a command.
“Ouch!” one of the Iroquois shouted and dropped his bow. Well done, Chingachgook! Well done, Rustem! He had hit the enemy in the arm with his slingshot, which meant, of course, that he had thrown his tomahawk with precision… And then, we shot out of our hiding places, and the battle got rolling.
I took the metal pipe out of my pocket, my flint rifle, which inspired horror in the enemy, and looked around calmly.
I wasn’t just anyone, I was Hawkeye, and I had to behave with dignity. Aha, that’s Magua! I shot, and a blob of paraffin hit him on the forehead, which meant that I hadn’t disgraced the famous name of my hero.
According to the rules, Magua had to leave the battlefield after being killed, but who remembered rules in the heat of the battle. If we followed the book, I wasn’t supposed to kill Magua. We all got excited, and Zhenya was furious. He raised his ancient flint rifle, that very zhevelushnik, aimed it at me and was about to pull the trigger… At that moment, a thick spurt of water hit Zhenya in the face. That was Uncas-Savchuk, who had arrived in time to help me with his plastic water sprinkler; in other words, he had thrown his hunting knife accurately at Magua. Magua, doused with water, lunged, and the rifle went off in his hands making a deafening sound, but he missed. Yes, he missed!
Our enemies were definitely weaker than we. We, not without argument, took them out of action, one after another. Victory seemed very near. All we had to do was set the captives free and scalp the dead. But suddenly…
“Get out of here, you hooligans! What the devil has brought you here?” a disgusted woman yelled through a fourth-floor window. “Just you try to shoot again! Get out of here! I’m going to get Nikitich!”
We didn’t want to get mixed up with her husband Nikitich, who was always drunk. What kind of game could it be if someone yelled at you through the window? Anyone was welcome to yell at us when we were kicking a ball; it might even be more fun that way. But this game of Indians was not for the eyes of strangers. It wasn’t just a game; it was more than that…
Some limping, others ouching, we trudged out of the vegetable gardens. As we walked, we continued to argue and swear, blaming each other for breaking the rules of battle, but even worse, for deviating from the plot of our favorite book.
I was lucky to have friends who, like me, were bibliophiles. Perhaps that very passion strengthened our friendship most of all. Vitya Smirnov had so many interesting books on his shelves. And Igor Savchuk was simply addicted to books. The moment we had free time from school, we rushed either to a bookstore or to the local library on Yubileynaya Street. My building was on Igor’s route, so we usually went there together.
“Igor, Valery, it’s so early, and you’re already here!” The librarian Anna Sergeyevna welcomed us with a surprised exclamation.
We actually showed up at the crack of dawn most of the time. Anna Sergeyevna must have become used to it. Her surprise was probably a pretense, to some extent. She was usually glad about our early arrival and our zeal for reading.
What urged us to go to the library early in the morning over the weekend? We feared that the book we had noticed on the shelf the last time might have been borrowed by someone else, that there were another Savchuk and Yuabov who had the same taste.