“That leads up to a ‘but,’” I said, “where a boss tells a dumb roustabout like me what t’ do.”
“Right.” Shad moved his hat a little bit again. “And ya’ ought t’ be more peaceful.” He relaxed now like a cougar I’d seen napping one time, relaxed but ready and powerful all in the same instant. “Don’t waste your time on little fights”—he yawned—“when at any minute there’re so many big ones all ready an’ waitin’ to bust out.”
“Would you have had me do other?”
I’m pretty sure he almost said something like, “I guess not,” but that sort of backing-away statement went against his nature. Instead he said, “Just don’t do it again.”
“Okay, boss.”
And then he was into his first brief sleep in about twenty-four hours.
Looking down at him, still reminded of that cougar who’d been asleep yet ready to move instantly, I had a brief, sudden insight into the meaning of the term “cat nap.”
With both the cougar and Shad there was so much easy, quick power there that either one of them could tear an enemy in half while their eyes were still flicking open.
Spooky if they were against you.
Reassuring if they were on your side.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
WHEN I turned to move off, I almost bumped into Slim, who’d come back into camp and was quietly sizing things up. And he’d heard enough of what Shad and I were saying to take it from there.
“You an’ Dixie been playin’ Civil War?”
“Sort of.”
“Hmm. Looks like the South lost again.”
“It was close t’ bein’ Pyrrhic.” It hadn’t been at all close, but that seemed like kind of the right thing to say.
Slim nodded. “While Shad’s gettin’ his forty winks, let’s wander over t’ the cossacks’ playgrounds. Rostov’s over there.”
“Okay. I’ll toss a saddle on Buck.” In turning, Dixie came into my line of sight. His eye and a couple of big bruises were starting to lump up something fierce. I hesitated. “Hey, Dixie?”
“Yeah?”
“Want t’ come along, over t’ the meadow?”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “Why not?”
A couple of minutes later about half a dozen of us rode off over the hill and down into the big meadow where the cossacks were already doing some interesting things. Rostov was on his big black near the rock, and except for two of his men in camp and six on lookout, the rest of them were out galloping around in the meadow, but they weren’t racing.
We all pulled up near him and took a better look at what was going on. All of the men in the meadow had their sabers out. About half of them were going at full speed to where the creek flowed quietly, leaping it, and slashing the water with their sabers as they flew over. The others were near the center of the meadow, and what they were doing seemed even sillier, if possible. They’d put up six more slender poles in a fairly straight line about fifty feet apart from each other, and on the top of each pole they’d mounted a giant pine cone. The men down there were charging along the line swinging at each pine cone, but never hitting it hard enough to cut it really deep or topple it to the ground.
Slim was watching carefully and not making any quick judgments, but Dixie did, and for once I was inclined to agree with him. “What the hell they doin’, Captain?” He frowned, his tone indicating a kind of puzzled disbelief.
“Practicing and improving their use of the saber.”
“Well, hell,” Crab said, “it sure don’t look like much t’ hit some water an’ a pine cone.”
“Remember,” Slim said easily, “the way they hit them wolves that night?”
His point was damn well taken, and none of us had a quick answer to it.
“Notice the way they slash the water,” Rostov explained. “Of course anyone can hit it. But try doing it in mid-leap with the cutting edge of the blade entering so perfectly that the water is not disturbed.”
“My God!” Natcho said, watching more closely. “That’s impossible!”
And that sure as hell was right. Between the next three cossacks leaping the stream I doubt if their blades caused more than two drops of water. And Natcho was the best one of us to remark on it, too. I remembered one time when some of us had gone for a kind of a halfway bath and halfway swim in a pond on the Slash-D Ranch. When most of us had leaped in, we’d damnere splashed the pond dry. But when Natcho had jumped in, his hands were held out together in front of him and his legs were straight out behind him, so that altogether he was shaped like an arrow, and he hadn’t made hardly more than a ripple.
“What about them big pine cones?” Slim asked.
“They’re the best natural duplication, with a similar resilience, that we have on hand to represent a man’s head, which is the best place to hit him with a saber.”
Rufe spoke for a number of us when he said, “Yuck.”
Rostov glanced at him, then looked at me and saw that I felt the same way. There was a tiny flicker of dark but somehow warm humor deep within his eyes. “It requires a powerful cut or thrust to make a body wound fatal, and it takes a moment to get your saber back into use. The neck and the throat are the most vulnerable to a relatively light, fatal slash.” Rostov gave me and Rufe another brief look. “It’s not difficult to decapitate a man, but in a battle it takes too much time and effort.”
“So them fellas out there,” Slim said, “are just cuttin’ deep enough into their pine cones, without loppin’ ’em off.”
Rostov nodded. “These are just a small part of Dzhigitovkas, our war games on horseback.”
“Of Diggy—” Crab started, but then gave up on the word. “Well, anyhow, when ya’ explain it like that, it’s kind of interestin’.”
Rostov put his thumb and little finger in his mouth and gave a sharp, blasting whistle that brought his cossacks up short. Their sabers held out at an angle before them, they all rode back to where we were sitting our horses near the big rock.
When they’d pulled up near us, Ilya asked Rostov something in a respectful, quiet voice. It was so respectful and quiet that both Slim and I knew right off what he’d said.
“Captain,” Slim said, “is that expert on various-sized horseshoes askin’ whether or not we’d care t’ try?”
“Yes,” Rostov said.
“Well”—Slim rubbed his jaw—“tell ’im when he can lasso a flea at full gallop, we’ll take up with them Mexican toothpicks.”
While Rostov was translating, as best as anyone could, what Slim had said, the rest of us looked around at each other and wordlessly agreed to go against Slim.
“Fuck that!” Rufe said.
“Right!” Crab agreed, and Dixie added, “Damn right!”
Natcho and Purse were nodding, and Chakko hadn’t silently ridden away, which was as close to his saying “Yes” as was needed.
“You’re outvoted,” I told Slim, but he’d known that was going to happen all along.
“I was afraid of that,” he grumbled. “Just don’t break them pigstickers, especially on yourselves.”
At a word from Rostov, the cossacks offered us their sabers, handle first.
I took Igor’s, and he almost winced as he let it out of his hand.
Rostov said in a quiet voice, “This is a challenge. But it’s a compliment too.”
We understood how it was about their letting us use their blades, and in case we didn’t, Slim had already just told us.
There were five of us now holding those unfamiliar weapons, getting the feel and balance of them. Chakko, though his presence showed he agreed in principle with what we were doing, hadn’t accepted a saber. As for Slim, the question never even came up, any more than it would have with Shad or Old Keats if they’d been there. Sort of realizing that this meant they were smarter, I said, “Well, it’s just us fearless dumbbells against all that water an’ all them pine cones.”