by Alma Boykin
She shook, her mane rippling, tail flowing. She stamped and her hoof struck yellow and white sparks. “We shall ride again, soldier’s son. You are mine and I am yours. No man can master me, but a few may ride with me.” With that she shook once more, pivoted and disappeared, running into the woods.
“Mr. Z!” Alexi braced as Paul crashed into him. “We got to the campground and everyone had already gone so we came down here because I thought we could find a ride but there was no one here.” Paul looked ragged, bruised, dirty, but intact.
“What is your name, anyway?” Pagonis asked, her trenching tool on her shoulder, helmet once more on her belt.
“Alexander Nikolai Zolnerovich, Sergeant, US Army. Stationed at Ft. Garry Owen.” He extended his hand. The horsehairs had vanished, their magic spent.
“Catherine Mary Pagonis. Everyone calls me Catherine.” She wrinkled her nose. “Except my brother. He calls me Curry.”
“I can’t imagine why.” She gave him an annoyed look, as if considering hitting him with her shovel. “You’re Orthodox?”
“Greek. It’s complicated.”
They both started laughing. Paul looked from one adult to the other and rolled his eyes.
“I think I need to get Paul back to the group.”
“Yeah.” She glanced left and right. “Got a piece of paper?”
Alexi found his pick-up keys in the second pocket he tried. He scrounged a battered notepad and pen from the center console. Catherine wrote some numbers, and an e-mail address. “You own me an explanation. But not until after fire season wraps up.”
“Understood, ma’am.” Alexi felt a stupid grin spreading over his face. “October?”
“August, assuming the monsoon kicks in when it should. Now get out of here.” She turned and walked away. As he looked around, Alexi finally noticed the Forest Service trucks and other fire vehicles in the lot.
“Let’s go,” he told Paul.
They bounced down the road, checked out of the campground, and didn’t stop until they reached the edge of Longmont. Alexi finally got a cell signal and pulled up his messages. The group had shifted to Eldorado Canyon State Park. The guys got something to drink and headed to Boulder, then south to Eldorado Canyon.
Paul fell asleep. Alexi smiled and patted the paper in his pocket. Smart, attractive, had a job, could hold her own, and Orthodox! But he wasn’t going to tell his parents. Or Babushka. And certainly not Ivan. Alexi suspected that the cat couldn’t keep a secret. That or Ivan would blackmail him. Yeah, he could see it now. He’d open his e-mail and find a message: send me a crate of fresh tuna or I text your parents with her phone number.
Two nights later, on the last night of the camping trip, Alexi watched the full moon rise over the plains. He heard hoofs and got to his feet as an ugly horse with enormous ears sauntered up to him. Alexi bowed. “Well met, Alexander,” the Little Humpbacked Horse said.
“Thank you. I owe you two lives, sir.” How did you repay a debt to a magical creature?
“Nah.” The Horse shook his head so hard his ears flopped back and forth. “It was fun to outwit the Black One. He should never have left his swamps. That’s where he is now, you know. Back in his proper place, thanks to you.”
Alexi’s knees started to buckle from relief. “I don’t have to worry about him, sir?”
“Not unless you’ve got a trip planned to the Pripet Marshes.” The horse swished his tail. “But Baba Yaga’s really mad, and I mean really, really mad. I’d stay away from her if I were you.”
“Believe me, sir, I’m not going to open the door to her even if she comes with the winning lottery ticket in one hand and promotion papers in the other.”
The horse snorted. “It will be a while before she can do anything but sulk. That fire . . . the firebird was a bad idea.”
“No kidding, sir.” After a moment Alexi reached over and scratched under the Little Humpbacked Horse’s mane. The two watched the moon as it turned gold, then faded to old ivory as it climbed up into the starry sky over the sprawl of lights of the Front Range cities.
“God be with you, Alexander Nikolayevich. And call the girl. She’s got a good heart.” With that the north wind’s cleverest son trotted off into the night, leaving a bemused but happy Alexi watching the sky and wondering what sort of thank you gift you gave a lady forest ranger; assuming it got that far.
Tale the Forth: The Red Horse and the Water of Life
“MrrrrOOWWW!”
Belle Allie’s battle scream cut through the storm noise, jolting Catherine Mary Zolnerovich from her half-nap on the couch. She’d been drowsing, imagining her husband Alexi’s pending return, and it took precious seconds for her to get untangled from the blanket, launch from the couch and run down the hallway, skidding a little in her sock feet.
She swung around the doorframe and saw the open window and empty crib. “Dear mother of God, no, not again!”
“Mreew hisss.” A ball of white fluff called from the corner. Catherine rushed across the room and saw that something had torn the screen away, then forced the window up. She leaned her head and shoulders out into the rain, looking down. There she beheld the marks of a heavy, rounded object pressed deep into the mud of the apartment’s newly-seeded yard. Behind the dents, halfway to the street, she could just see the traces of a brushy something, as if an old broom had been used to erase the marks.
Catherine pulled back into the baby’s room, turned around, and sat on the floor with a thump, cradling her head in her hands. “Saint Ann help her, St. George defend her, Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison.” Belle Allie moaned and leaned against the distraught woman as Catherine hugged herself and fought back tears.
After the first surge of fear and loss passed, anger rose, the anger of a mother with children in danger. “I’m going to get her back.”
“Mroo.”
Catherine did not promise or vow, in case something might be lurking and listening. She knew better than to open doors like that—too many of her fire-fighter buddies had tempted fate and learned the hard way. Instead she got up from the floor and began packing a diaper bag. She kept a second bag with clothes for her missing older son packed, just in case, and she pulled it out of the tiny closet in the “nursery.” Belle, or Byehla Ailuros as she was properly called, slunk out the door and around the corner into the hall. “You’d better not call anyone,” Catherine warned the cat. “Or text.” Because otherwise Ivan would text Alexi and he did not need to be disturbed right now, no matter how much Catherine needed her husband at her side. Which was probably why the Sweeper had chosen this night to steal their daughter, just as she’d stolen their son.
Why couldn’t Alexi’s family have normal pets, Catherine sighed, rather than cats with delusions of smarts? Even after five years of marriage, she still couldn’t get used to Ivan the Purrable and Belle’s habits. “Someday, Ivan” she growled under her breath, reaching for the diapers, “someday I’m going to drop you into a nest of field mice and make you do cat things. With no smart-phone.” Although, as she counted out diapers and one-piece baby outfits, she reminded herself that it could be worse. There’d been that park ranger in Missouri whose wife raised Newfoundlands and Old English Sheepdogs. A dogcart and a small apartment didn’t go well together, and most of his salary went to buying dog food. But none of the dogs had smart phones, either. Catherine’s phone buzzed and she checked the message, blinked, and read it again before slapping the box against the side of her leg. “Gatta, I’m going to . . .” Or maybe not.
She did need an excuse to go haring off. Catherine typed a quick reply to Alexi’s father’s question: could she drive up to Golden and check on Alexi’s grandmother? The next text explained the problem. “Got garbled text from Mother.” And of course Catherine was the closest relative, and Babushka had chased Timofeev and Cyril, Alexi’s brothers, off with a barrage of rotten produce the previous fall. Well, they’d been asking for it as far as Catherine was concerned, and she and Alexi now had legal authority if
something happened to Babushka. Not that Catherine had any question as to where the text had come from. Ivan and a keyboard and spell check . . .
“Mreef.”
“You told, didn’t you?” Catherine looked down at the blue-eyed, white fluffball peering around the doorframe.
Silence.
“Typical cat.”
Byehla Ailuros, white cat, had arrived a few days after Catherine and Alexi returned from their honeymoon camping trip, accompanied by a carrier, a bug-out bag, and a cashiers check to cover the additional pet deposit. Catherine called her Gatta, Greek for cat, and had accused Alexi of asking his grandmother for a pet.
“Oh no, dear, not me. You’ve met Ivan the Purrable. The last thing I want is his sister running my life.”
“Mreef!” the white puff had complained, sniffing the air and acting like an offended diva.
“Not sister, sorry,” Alexi had apologized as Catherine stared from man to kitten and back and wondered if the Zolnerovich family was why “for sane and for crazy” had never been included in the wedding vows. Gatta had flopped onto her back, struck a cute pose, and stayed. She’d made a useful addition to the family, as it proved, but had been as helpless as Alexi and Catherine when their son Peter Alexandrovich had been stolen three years ago.
Diaper bags packed, Catherine ran her hand over her hair as she considered what to do next. “Babushka.” She needed to go north, to check on her grandmother-in-law, but not at ten at night during a storm. She should be calling the police, should be tearing out her hair, should be calling her mother and her husband. Instead the former wild-land fire fighter took a deep breath. “I don’t know how to track the Sweeper. Babushka does, her and the ugly horse,” Catherine told herself, and Gatta. And she needed to tell Alexi, but . . . she calculated the time difference. Seven AM where he was, or where his computer was supposed to be. “Gatta, we’ll leave at four, so we can get to Babushka’s before the rush hour starts.” She had a positive allergy to Denver metro traffic.
Gatta nodded.
Catherine wanted to call the police, as they had when Peter vanished. But who would believe her? Plan and cope first, then panic, Catherine thought. Plus the police and reporters and every little old lady in Ft. Carson would expect her to be hysterical, which she refused to be. They would also dig up the old stories about Peter’s kidnapping. He’d been stolen from his crib the first time Alexi had taken her out after Peter’s birth. They’d come back from supper to find the baby-sitter on the phone to the police and three-month-old Peter missing. Marleena, the daughter of one of Alexi’s co-workers, had heard a sound in the baby’s room. It couldn’t be the cat, because the girl had shut Belle in the bathroom as soon as Catherine and Alexi had left since, “Everyone knows cats suck baby’s breath.” Marleena had rushed down the hall and then woke up on the floor beside an empty crib. Alexi had known instantly who’d taken their child, but how could they tell the police?
Catherine ran a hand over her black hair as she reviewed her mental check-list. No police, no press, no publicity, she repeated to herself. Alexi did not need the photo vultures ambushing him when he got back from the ‘Stan in a week and a half. And there’d likely be rumors, and probably some nosey-Parker from the State would come around and just no.
Catherine set the two bags by the door. She would not call the police. But what about the window? She’d leave a note for Mr. Ramirez, saying she’d heard something and had found the screen ripped out, but had a family emergency and had left before she could call him. All true but without giving away too much, that’s what Alexi had told her. It fit what she’d learned as a forest ranger: never tell the bureaucrats everything.
Alexi. Catherine returned to the couch and closed her eyes. Oh how she missed him, even before this. She needed him here, right now, at her side. He knew what to do, who to call, how to track Baba Yaga. He’d call in his allies and find their baby. Catherine picked up her cellphone and texted Alexi. Then she curled up with Gatta and the blanket and shook and cried.
#
A week later, patrol finished and initial debriefing and reports done, Alexi returned to his bay in the barracks, dropped his kit, unlaced his boots, and flopped onto the cot. “Ugh.” He was so tired. And sandy and gritty and he really, really hoped he hadn’t picked up any fleas or other passengers this time. Alexi rolled back out of his cot, grabbed clean stuff and went to the portable shower. He came back much cleaner, with a better outlook on life, if not on certain followers of a particular sect or their Pakistani suppliers. He really needed to look at his messages from home. He needed to call Catherine and let her know he was OK and confirm that he’d be home in a week. He needed to—
“Zzzzzzznnnxxxxx.”
First Sergeant Alexander Zolnerovich slept through two patrols arriving, the major tripping on a bootlace in the dining hall and dropping his food, and a spate of text messages. When he finally stirred, his knees complained, his neck had a crick, and his bladder warned that nothing had better get between him and the latrine. Alexi returned much more slowly than he’d departed, got a bottle of water, and started checking his messages.
He saved the notes and photos from his wife for last. All seemed well with her and little Catherine Theodora, and he entertained very happy thoughts about having his wife in his arms and leaving the baby with his parents for a few days. Those thoughts died when he read, “Sweeper visited. Am going to Babushka. Love, C.”
No. He stared at the message, then scrolled to the next one. “Babushka has ideas. Will talk with Vasilli. Ivan’s a pain.” Well, at least that never changed. Ivan the Purrable, his grandmother’s black cat, never ceased to amaze Alexi with his ability to make a problem more complicated. It was probably a good thing for the sanity of the world that Ivan couldn’t have lady friends.
“Vasili looking for the S. Will let us know. S has Katie.”
No! Not possible, no. Alexi stared at the screen, his vision going red. He almost crushed the phone in his hand, almost jumped to his feet and started running west, desert, Europe, and the Atlantic Ocean be damned. Adrenaline poured through him and he started shaking as he fought the urge to call Catherine, to demand emergency leave, to run back Stateside and— And what? How could he find Baba Yaga and steal back his child? No, this time he’d had enough. This time he’d destroy the old creature once and for all. But how? No one had ever managed it, not in any of the tales he’d read. His thoughts swirled back to the legends of Russia, to the wet forests and wide steppes, to the iron-toothed witch in her little house on chicken feet.
“Problem, First Sergeant?” He looked up and saw the sergeant major.
Without thinking, Alexi blurted, “My daughter’s been kidnapped.” As soon as he said it, he wanted to grab the words out of the air and jam them into the bottom of the deepest latrine in Afghanistan.
“What?”
Try again. “My wife says that our daughter has gone missing, Sar Major, taken from the apartment. The authorities are searching for her and are trying to keep it quiet.” After Peter’s disappearance, it would make sense to remain quiet. The bad guys had threatened soldiers’ families more than once, and the less details splashed across the nightly news, the better. Two children taken from the same family, well, the video vultures would feast for a week.
The tall black man nodded, sympathy and concern on his angular face. “Understood. You going to apply for emergency leave?”
Alexi wondered. “I’m due back stateside next week, and Catherine doesn’t want to alert anyone.”
Sergeant Major Jones nodded again. “Good point.” He took a deep breath. “The second debriefing will be at 1300, usual place. If you’re late by a few minutes, I won’t say anything.”
“Thank you.” Jones moved on and Alexi read through the rest of his messages. The last one dated from two days before. Catherine and Vasili, the Little Humpbacked Horse, had located Baba Yaga and were going to try and rescue Katie. And then he found no further messages, except for one from his brother
Cyril being his usual pain-in-the-ass self about the Broncos’ coaching problems, and one from Ivan the Purrable. “Babushka should never have . . .” Cats did not need smartphones. Especially smartphones with unlimited data plans. Alexi blinked at the message, parsing the Russian through Auto-corrupt’s attempts to help. “I don’t like this,” Alexi whispered to himself.
Alexi volunteered to take a guard shift that night. He’d slept well, and he needed a little time to think and plan and pray. A hint of north wind swirled around the watchtower despite forecasts of a storm from the southeast, carrying the scent of dust and something odd, something wet and living but touched with sulfur; a scent out of place in the desert. As he looked out into the darkness, asking God and the Theotokos to watch over his family, he caught a glimpse of scarlet that shifted and danced like fire. The red form danced through the minefield, jumped the wires, and threw her head up in a salute, flames dancing from her mane. Crimson flared in the mare’s eyes. Alexi crossed himself.
“Fuck. I thought the Red Horse was something the preacher made up,” a voice breathed in his ear. Alexi turned to see Captain Miller staring at the horse. “What’s next, the pale horse with a pale rider?”
“No idea, sir.” Alexi truly had no idea why the Red Horse had come to him here. Well no shit, he wanted to smack himself in the forehead, helmet and night vision kit notwithstanding. He belonged to the red horse, had marched halfway across the world at her call. “No man may master me, but a few will ride with me,” she’d told him. And behold a red horse with a red rider, called War. Then he realized, blinking. “Sir, you can see the horse?”
“Yes, I can. What is it? Is it friendly?”
By now the flaming mare had come within a few meters of the wall, not the least bit bothered by mines, wires, motion detectors, or other defensive technology. “Ah, I wouldn’t say friendly, sir, but she’s an ally.”
“Indeed, Alexander soldier’s son,” the mare said. Alexi crossed himself again and the captain shook his head, then just stared. “And the north wind’s cleverest son sends word, you are needed.” She looked at the two men, adding, “Now.”