The man’s eyes cast about wildly, as if he had just woke from a terrifying dream. “The English,” he rasped. “We were attacked by the English, leaping over the fence, stealing horses… one of my men tried to apprehend the trespassers, and he had his musket torn out of his hands, and its barrel tied into a knot. He says, the man who did it did it with his bare hands. Tied solid iron into a knot.”
“How many were there?” I asked, my heart fluttering with excitement and relief. One thing about Jack, he could rarely be confused with anyone else.
The man shrugged, distraught. “There was the one who ambushed the man guarding the stables… and then there was shouting, and they grabbed horses… no one expected an attack, not here, not in the middle of the winter.”
“I understand,” the rotmistr said, his voice even, soothing.
By the time the terrified horses were caught and put back into their stables (adjacent to the barracks for warmth) and the soldiers had regained their composure and disentangled themselves from the horses’ tack and each other’s muskets, the sun had almost set, and we were led to the officers’ quarters — a grand name for a log cabin divided into three apartments, each with a small bedroom and a sitting room, plus a common kitchen and a dining room with a long rough pine table. The table looked as if it was waiting for an opportunity to stuff someone’s unsuspecting palm full of splinters. Paisley drapes struggled valiantly to disguise the room’s rough-hewn severity, but failed miserably.
We waited for two batmen, both Cossacks, to prepare the table for dinner. It was barely afternoon, and yet the sky had grown dark and star studded— fat yellow stars, spreading like wiggly-legged spiders over the royal blue of the sky, not the pale, cold white pinpricks one saw in St. Petersburg.
The moon was also out — large and peach-colored, with a few spots that looked like decay. It hung outside of the officers’ dining room window as if eager to eavesdrop on our conversation. It was quiet now, with an occasional sharp bark of an Arctic fox or some other small predator, cold and hungry and ecstatic to be alive, to feel the steam of its blood coalescing against the solid cold of the night.
The garrison’s commander, Captain Kurashov, told us the story again over dinner. He had calmed down, and for a while I wondered why a real soldier would be so distraught about the theft of a horse or two, even if it was accompanied by the appearance of Spring Heeled Jack. Surprise must have had something to do with it; but it also seemed the source of his unhappiness was internal — brought about by his disappointment at his own inability to deal with a sudden unpredictable situation. It was the sadness of a man who had been tested and found himself lacking.
I wished I could offer words of comfort, but at the time my mind was preoccupied with Jack’s whereabouts as well as those of Dame Nightingale and her contingent of agents. Anything that did not get me closer to the answer grated on my nerves.
“You have to know where they might have gone,” I blurted out half way through the dinner, interrupting the soothing speech Rotmistr Ivankov had been delivering. “I mean, there are not that many places here, are there?”
Captain Kurashov gave me a mournful, lingering look. “It is a small town,” he said. “There’s a Buryat village nearby, but in this cold the horses won’t get far, even if they are well cared for. I do not know if the man who took them, or the rest of the English, would know how to handle such fragile animals in the Siberian winter. They are not locals.”
I supposed I should’ve felt bad for the horses, but my focus allowed no distractions. “So they couldn’t have gotten far. When can your men go after them?”
The captain’s face folded into an accordion of surprise and concern. “Should we go after them?”
“Of course,” I said. “If you don’t, rumors will spread. You don’t want to become known as a cowardly garrison, do you? Word does get around.”
He scowled at me. “Don’t talk nonsense, young man. I am forty-two, and your stupid challenges are not going to work. If you want to go and look and bring our horses back, then please be my guest; we will appreciate it. We, however, need to assess the damage and investigate how that man got over the fence.”
“You said he jumped.”
He scratched his chin, thoughtful. “A few of my soldiers swear that this is exactly what happened. And yet, he must have used some device — a trampoline, or a spring of some sort, or spring-loaded stilts… ” His forehead furrowed, and I could see the brain of the poor captain working as hard as his jaws, grinding down a piece of rye bread. “He would’ve used something like that, wouldn’t he?”
“I don’t know.” I wasn’t sure he was quite ready for the Spring Heeled Jack exposition. “But I thank you — tomorrow morning we’ll look for your horses… I hope it doesn’t snow tonight.”
There was a loud pounding on the door, and the Cossack batman let in a small, shivering boy of perhaps fourteen, in a uniform that was criminally large for him. He was black-haired and his eyes had a curious almond shape, as if he had more than a small portion of Chinese or Buryat blood in him. Whatever the mix of his blood, it was not keeping him warm enough as he stood in the middle of the dining room, squinting and blinking at the light of the kerosene lamps, apparently oblivious to our presence.
“Well?” Kurashov nudged.
The boy startled, then fell back into a military stance and saluted his captain. “Sir,” he said. “You better come and look. They found something in the stables.”
The something the young man was referring to turned out to be a piece of paper, folded over so many times it was ready to fall apart at the seams. The paper was also soaked with melted slush, and bore a distinct hoof print. Still, I recognized Jack’s handwriting.
“It’s addressed to Sasha Menshov,” the young man said.
Kurashov yielded the missive without argument, and he and the rotmistr watched me intently as I read, as if they expected the contents to appear, by some literary osmosis, on my forehead.
“My dearest friend,” Jack wrote.
“I hope this letter reaches you. I hope my appearance has created enough of a stir to circulate rumors and to attract your perspicacious attention. I also hope that the commander here will be good enough to pass this letter along, and that my pursuers will not intercept it: it is quite a bit of hope.
“For the fear that it might never reach you, I will be brief and remind you of the night we first met. I certainly hope you would keep the same company, and, moreover, appreciate their inventive spirit. The rest, I leave with the Providence, and hope it will be enough.”
I folded the cryptic letter, and looked around the table.
“Well?” the rotmistr said.
“This may seem odd to ask,” I said, “but is there a place nearby where Chinese engineers gather?”
Captain Kurashov did not seem surprised. “There’s a Chinese settlement near the Buryat village,” he said. “Furriers, but there may be engineers too. If you want to get there, you may want to hire a caribou or a dog sled, but caribou would be easier if you’re used to horses. I assume you will be looking for our horses or them men who took them?”
I slept in the barracks — simple rooms smelling of pine, with narrow wooden benches which were about as comfortable as the ones in the train. I was so used to sleeping on wooden benches that beds seemed a half-remembered and puzzling extravagance, a nice conceit but something that had little to do with me. When I stretched out on my bench and closed my eyes, the barracks thudded and swayed with the steady rocking movement of the train; I imagined a lonesome whistle, and fell asleep right away.