The Cossacks (25 page)

“What are you doing? Someone will see you!” Ustenka hissed.

“I don’t mind.”

Olenin threw his arms around Maryanka. She did not resist.

“How much more are you going to kiss?” Ustenka said. “There’ll be time enough for that once you’re married, but enough now.”

“Good night, Maryanka, tomorrow I shall speak to your father. Don’t tell him anything yourself.”

“What is there for me to tell him?” Maryanka replied.

The girls hurried away. Olenin walked on alone, reliving the last few hours. He had spent the whole evening with her in the corner by the stove. Ustenka had not left the room for a moment but had been having fun with Beletsky and the other girls. Olenin had spoken to Maryanka in whispers.

“Will you marry me?” he had asked her.

“You’re making fun of me. I know you’ll never marry me,” she had answered gaily.

“But do you love me? Tell me, for God’s sake!”

“Why should I not love you, it’s not as if you were one-eyed or a hunchback,” she had said, laughing, her rough hands squeezing his. “What sweet little white hands you have, they’re soft as cream.”

“I’m serious. Tell me, will you have me?”

“Why not? If my papa gives me to you.”

“You know that I’ll be driven out of my mind if you’re making fun of me. Tomorrow I shall go to your mother and father and ask to be betrothed to you.”

Maryanka had burst out laughing.

“What is it?” he had asked.

“It’s so funny.”

“I’m not joking. I’ll buy an orchard, a house, I’ll register as a Cossack, and …”

“And you’d better mind you don’t go after other women! That would make me very cross.”

Olenin blissfully repeated these words in his mind. Remembering them filled him with pain and made him breathless with happiness. He felt pain because she had seemed so unperturbed, speaking to him as she always did. This new situation had not seemed to trouble her in the least. It was as if she did not believe him and did not give their future any thought. It seemed as if she loved him only at that moment and did not imagine a future with him. But he felt happy because everything she had said seemed true, and she had agreed to belong to him. “Only when she is mine will she and I understand one another. Such a love cannot be defined in words—one needs a lifetime, a whole lifetime. Tomorrow everything will be made clear. I can no longer live this way, tomorrow I will tell her father, Beletsky, the whole village!”

Lukashka had drunk so much at the feast after two days of endless carousing that for the first time in his life he could not stand up, and he ended up sleeping at Yamka’s.

The following morning Olenin woke up earlier than usual and in his first waking moments joyfully remembered what was awaiting him that day, and thought of her kiss, of her rough hands squeezing his, and of her words, “What sweet little white hands you have.” He jumped out of bed, ready to go straight to the cornet’s house to ask for Maryanka in marriage. The sun had not yet risen. There seemed to be an unusual commotion in the street. He heard voices and horses’ hooves. He threw on his jacket and hurried out onto the porch. Across the yard at the cornet’s house, everyone was still asleep. He saw five mounted Cossacks talking loudly among themselves, Lukashka riding in front on his sturdy Kabardinian steed. Olenin could not make out what they were saying, as they were all shouting at the same time.

“We’re riding out to the upper checkpoint!” one of the men yelled.

“Come on, saddle up and catch up with us!” another called to some Cossacks who had come out of their houses.

“It’s closer if we go out the other gate!”

“Nonsense!” Lukashka declared. “We must go out the middle gate!”

“Yes, it’s closer that way,” another Cossack riding a mud-spattered, sweating horse called out.

Lukashka’s face was flushed and puffy after his night of drinking, and his sheepskin hat sat crookedly on his head. He called out orders as if he were the officer in charge.

“What’s going on?” Olenin shouted, struggling to catch the Cossacks’ attention. “Where are you all off to?”

“We’re going to get some Chechens who’ve holed up in the dunes! But we don’t have enough men yet!”

The Cossacks rode down the street, calling others to join them. Olenin suddenly felt that it would look bad if he did not ride out with them. But if he did, he wanted to come back early. He dressed, loaded his rifle, jumped onto his horse, which Vanyusha had quickly saddled, and caught up with the Cossacks at the village gate. They had dismounted and were standing in a circle, passing around a wooden cup of Chikhir and drinking to the success of the sortie. Among them was a
young fop of a cornet who happened to be in the village at the time and who now tried to assume command. But even though he outranked the others, they were prepared to take orders only from Lukashka.

Nobody paid any attention to Olenin. The Cossacks remounted and set out again. Olenin rode up to the cornet and asked what was going on, but the cornet, though usually a friendly fellow, treated him with contempt. Olenin nevertheless managed to get out of him that Cossack scouts had spotted a group of Chechen marauders in the dunes some eight versts from the village. The scouts had surrounded the Chechens, who were trying to shoot their way out, refusing to give themselves up alive. The sergeant who had headed the party of scouts had sent one of them back to the village to get help.

The sun was beginning to rise. About three versts from the village, the steppe opened out on all sides, a monotonous, sad, dry expanse speckled with cattle tracks, tufts of grass, and in the hollows low-growing reeds. There were a few overgrown paths, and far away on the horizon some Nogai tents. The absence of shade and the austerity of the steppe were striking. There the sun always rises and sets red. When the wind blows, it brings with it mountains of sand. When the air is calm, as it was that morning, the silence is particularly striking. Even though the sun had already risen, a heavy gloom hung over the steppe. It was somehow particularly deserted and blurred. There was not a breath of wind. The only sounds were of hooves and snorting horses, and even these echoed weakly and died.

The Cossacks rode for the most part in silence. A Cossack always carries his weapons so that they do not jingle or rattle. Jingling weapons are a great shame for a Cossack. Two other men from the village caught up with the party and called out greetings. Lukashka’s horse suddenly became restless, having stumbled or caught its hoof in the grass—a bad omen in Cossack lore. The others looked at Lukashka and then quickly looked away, as if they had not noticed. Lukashka pulled the reins and frowned. He gnashed his teeth and flourished the whip above his head, his horse suddenly tensing its legs, as if uncertain which one to step on before it soared into the air. But Lukashka struck its sturdy flanks with his whip, struck again, and then
a third time. The horse, baring its teeth, its tail fanning out, rose snorting on its hind legs, staying back a few paces from the rest.

“A good steed!” the young cornet said. That he said
steed
instead of
horse
showed his appreciation of the animal.

“A lion of a horse,” said one of the older Cossacks.

They rode at a slow gait, at times breaking into a trot, the only interruption of the solemnity of the ride.

As they headed for the dunes, they encountered only a Nogai cart with a tent pitched on it, slowly rolling along a trail some distance away. A Nogai family was crossing the steppe to another camp. The Cossacks also came across two broad-faced Nogai women with baskets on their backs, which they were filling with dung patties left behind by cattle. The young cornet, who spoke only a little Kumik, asked the women something, but they could not understand him and looked at each other in fear. Lukashka rode up to them and energetically uttered the usual Kumik greeting. The Nogai women, visibly relieved, greeted him back as freely as if he were their brother.

“Ai, ai, kop abrek!”
they said plaintively, pointing in the direction the Cossacks had been riding in.

Olenin understood that they were saying “Many Chechen fighters.” He had never experienced anything like this, having only heard about such sorties from Uncle Eroshka, and he wanted to ride with the Cossacks and see everything. He admired them, watching and listening closely, trying to remember everything. He had taken his sword and his loaded rifle with him, but seeing how the Cossacks avoided him, he decided not to take part in the fray. As it was, he felt he had already proven his courage sufficiently back in his detachment, but more important, he was too happy thinking about Maryanka.

Suddenly a shot was heard in the distance.

The young cornet became agitated and began yelling orders at the Cossacks, how to split up and from which side they should attack. But the men did not pay the slightest attention, following only Lukashka’s orders. Lukashka’s face and bearing were calm and solemn. He spurred his horse into a gallop that the other horses struggled to keep up with, and he kept his narrowed eyes fixed ahead.

“I see a horseman out there,” he called, reining in his horse so the others could catch up.

Olenin peered into the distance but could see nothing. Yet soon they were able to make out two horsemen trotting calmly toward them.

“Are those Chechen marauders?” Olenin asked.

The Cossacks did not reply to this nonsensical question, for no Chechen would ever be foolish enough to cross the river into Cossack territory with a horse.

“Isn’t that old Rodka waving to us?” Lukashka shouted, pointing at the horsemen, who were now quite visible. “He’s coming toward us.”

Within a few minutes it was clear that the horsemen were a scout and the sergeant.

“Are they far?” Lukashka called out immediately. At that moment a shot was fired not more than thirty paces away. The sergeant smiled. “That’s our Gurka. He’s firing at them,” he said, nodding in the direction of the shot.

They rode on and found Gurka behind a sand dune, reloading his rifle. He was bored and to pass the time was shooting at the Chechens who were hiding behind the next dune. A Chechen bullet came whistling overhead.

The young cornet had turned ashen and confused. Lukashka jumped off his horse, threw the reins to one of the Cossacks, and went over to Gurka. Olenin also dismounted and followed him, crouching low. No sooner had they reached Gurka than two bullets came whistling past. Lukashka ducked and turned to Olenin, laughing. “They’ll shoot you down, Dmitri Andreyevich. You’d better go back. This has nothing to do with you.”

But Olenin wanted to see the Chechens at all costs. He could make out their hats and rifles jutting from behind the dune not more than two hundred paces away. He saw a sudden puff of smoke, and another bullet came whistling over. The Chechens were hiding in a marsh behind the dune. Olenin was impressed with the terrain: it looked just like the rest of the steppe, but the fact that the Chechens were holed
up where they were somehow gave it a special character. He felt it was the perfect place for Chechens to be hiding. Lukashka went back to his horse, and Olenin followed him.

“What we need is a hay cart,” Lukashka said. “Otherwise they’ll kill us all. I saw one over there behind that mound.”

The cornet and the sergeant agreed with Lukashka, and the hay cart was brought over. The Cossacks hid in it, covering themselves with hay, and Olenin rode to a nearby hillock from which he could watch. The cart began to roll. The Chechens—there were nine of them—were sitting in a row, knee to knee, and did not fire.

There was silence. Suddenly strange sounds came from the Chechen side: it was a song reminiscent of Uncle Eroshka’s “Ay! Dai, dalalai!” The Chechens knew that they could not escape and had strapped their knees together to avoid the temptation to flee. They were loading their rifles and singing a dirge.

The Cossacks drew closer with their hay cart, and Olenin waited from one second to the next for the first shots, but the silence was broken only by the Chechens’ dirge. Suddenly the song stopped, a sharp shot rang out, the bullet hitting the front of the cart, followed by the Chechens’ yells and curses. One shot followed another, the bullets hitting the cart. The Cossacks did not shoot back, though they were now not more than five paces away. A few more seconds passed, and the Cossacks, led by Lukashka, came out whooping from behind both sides of the cart. Olenin heard only a few shots, shouts, and moans. He saw smoke and thought he also saw blood. Abandoning his horse, not knowing what he was doing, he ran to join the Cossacks. He was blinded by horror. He couldn’t make out anything and only understood that it was all over. Lukashka, white as a shroud, was holding a wounded Chechen and shouting, “Don’t shoot this one! I want him alive!” The Chechen was the same red-haired man who had come to buy back the body of his brother, the one Lukashka had killed. Lukashka forced the Chechen’s arms behind his back, but the man suddenly broke free, drew a pistol, and shot at him. Lukashka fell. There was blood on his stomach. He jumped up but fell again, swearing in Russian and Tatar. There was more and more blood on him and under him. The other Cossacks, among them Nazarka, came running
and loosened his belt. Nazarka tried to sheathe his sword but had trouble doing so because the blade was thick with blood.

The Chechens, red-haired and with cropped beards, lay dead, hacked to pieces. Only the man who had fired at Lukashka was still alive, though badly wounded. Like a hawk shot down by a hunter, he crouched on his haunches, pale and gloomy, his teeth clenched, his eyes darting around, ready to defend himself with his drawn dagger. He was covered with blood that was flowing from beneath his right eye. The young cornet approached him and then, edging away as if to avoid him, quickly shot him in the ear. The Chechen flung himself at the cornet but fell dead.

The Cossacks, puffing and panting, dragged the dead bodies together and gathered the weapons. Each red-haired Chechen was a human being, each face had its own expression. Lukashka was carried to the cart, still writhing and cursing in Russian and Tatar, “You bastard, I’ll strangle you with my own hands! You won’t get away!
Ana seni!
”
*
Soon he fell silent with weakness.