“Vostrovia!” both big men had roared back, meaning so much more than simple good health.
And now, with all the good, strong things they’d intended, those giant-hearted, generous, free-spirited Russians were dead.
Rostov and Shad now looked at each other for a long, quiet moment, their eyes meeting and locking in silent thought. And the way their look was, even the other men who hadn’t been with us the night before could see how hard and deeply both of them were hit.
Finally Shad turned a little and said in a low voice, “Purse, go up an’ relieve Old Keats.”
Purse said huskily, “Yes, sir, boss.” And he mounted and rode off.
Rostov stepped over to stand near Shad now, though still neither of them said anything. They both looked down thoughtfully at the ground about halfway between them, as though that little patch of dirt was worth a lot of quiet study.
Igor and Bruk and some of the other cossacks came over now, sort of following behind Rostov so that we were all standing pretty close together.
It was Slim who finally spoke, his low, quiet voice just barely breaking the silence, like a pebble dropped gently into a quiet pond. And his words were as easy and soft as the ripples spreading out. “Darnest thing. None of us never ever said but that there one word t’ them, an’ them t’ us. But somehow it’s just like they was one of us. And, sort of, always was.”
My voice wasn’t that low or controlled, but I tried my best to at least keep it level. “Verushki did that outta pure, crazy meanness. Just f’r nothin’. What’re we gonna do back?” That was as far as I could make it without my voice going out on me altogether.
Shad gave me a quiet, hard look that managed to hide the pain he was feeling inside. “Not one goddamn thing.”
Even though I knew he had to be right, my face must have showed something else. Anger maybe, or disappointment, or both.
Old Keats now rode back and joined us, touching Bruk’s shoulder with brief warmth because of the grim sorrow they’d just shared.
Slim said grimly, “Shad’s right, f’r hard-rock sure. We don’t do nothin’.”
Rostov looked at Old Keats and Bruk, who were still standing near each other, silently seeming to think and even look a little bit like each other. “Do you think it was meant as a lesson to us, or the people of Khabarovsk?”
Old Keats, his narrowed eyes still filled with what he’d seen, said bitterly, “Both.”
Bruk nodded. “Most of the Imperial Cossacks were there, and they’d gathered many, many people to watch.”
“Captain?” Igor said, and I could see he felt the same hopeless frustration that I did. “Two good men have been deliberately murdered!”
Rostov said quietly, “That’s exactly right. So then, in the interest of justice, what would you suggest we do?” He glanced from Igor to me. “Or you?”
Igor and I looked at each other, and we both knew that between us we couldn’t come up with a decent answer.
“Well—maybe,” I said lamely, “at least if they had families, maybe we could—”
“No.” Rostov cut me short. “If we helped their families, they would be the next to suffer.” Off to one side, in a low voice, Sergeant Nick translated to the other cossacks what Rostov was saying. “There’s nothing we can do for those two men.” He paused briefly, filled with his thoughts, and then went on, speaking as movingly for the first time to all of us as he had once spoken to me alone about swans. “Nor is there anything we can do for the millions, beyond counting, who have died in Mother Russia over the years in the name of the Tzar.
“What we can do, and will do, is what we started out to do. We’ll get these cattle to Bakaskaya, so that that town, and the movement toward freedom that it stands for, will have a chance to survive.” It’s just possible that Rostov felt even more deeply about the deaths of those two men than Shad and us others. Because in his voice and his eyes, as well as what he was saying, he was sure sending chills up a lot of spines, including mine. “There is an ancient philosophy that gives us the choice of weeping in the darkness or lighting a candle. Bakaskaya is our candle. And to keep it lighted against the day when there will no longer be a Tzar is everything.” He paused, and when he went on, his voice was almost harsh. “We will survive here until we can cross the Amur. Some of us will make daily visits into Khabarovsk for supplies and relaxation, and while we’re there we will not only show the Imperial Cossacks no fear, but to the contrary, rather superior and casual disdain.
“And to successfully manage these things, we must keep the military in Khabarovsk convinced that our force is much larger than it actually is.”
He now stopped, but the way he’d ended his talk brought the whole thing right smack-dab back in a circle to where it had been, up front, in the first place. It was still a question of whether or not the Slash-Diamonders would put on cossack clothes every now and then.
For a time, no one moved or spoke.
And then Shad moved and spoke. He took off his old beaten-up, front-pointed black cowboy hat, which was normally an object that couldn’t even be touched by anyone else without serious risk to both life and limb, and he handed it over to Rostov. “Vostrovia,” he said quietly.
Rostov handled the hat carefully, with the respect and dignity it deserved, and after a moment he took off his fur cossack hat and held it out to Shad.
Shad took it and looked it over curiously.
Then, finally, as if they were both wondering whether their heads could stand this radical kind of a change, they very slowly put on each other’s hat.
And when they’d done this, and started frowning around at the rest of us, trying to see some kind of a reaction, there wasn’t a man among us brave enough to tell them the truth.
They both looked great!
Rostov growled something in Russian to his men, and Shad at last said, “Well, goddamnit! Can ya’ recognize me, at least?”
Slim was the first one who got up the nerve to grin a little and say something to Shad. “Ya’ look downright gorgeous, Captain Rostov.”
Shad glared at Slim, and Old Keats said with some impatience, “You look exactly like Shad Northshield wearing a fur hat! What the hell did ya’ expect?”
Still a little uncomfortable, Shad shrugged. “Wasn’t quite sure.”
Ilya now said something in Russian to Rostov which caused some laughter among the cossacks. Igor told me later that Ilya had promised to write a song about an American cowboy named Rostov.
But between the two of them, and their simple exchange of hats, the whole idea about clothes was getting easier now.
Sammy the Kid said, “That cossack stuff ain’t all that bad. I’d look outstandin’ as hell in one a’ them black cloaks with the red linin’!”
“You wouldn’t be outstandin’,” Crab muttered, “in the bottom of a hole under an outhouse.”
Natcho’s white teeth flashed in a wide smile. “I’ve been wanting t’ try on one of those swords!”
“Sabers,” someone corrected him.
The cossacks now laughed a little bit at something else, and the whole feeling about clothes was rapidly improving.
I pulled off my leather jacket and handed it to Igor. He grinned and nodded and untied a little cord around his neck so that he could hand me his cape.
Within a few minutes, just exchanging things around in a friendly and curious way, we wound up being about as mixed-up an outfit as anybody ever saw.
But it was just that. Friendly and curious. Once in a while there’d be a little laughter here or there because some of our half-and-half outfits were downright absurd, but it still wasn’t a happy time, or even anything like that.