The Cossack Cowboy

by Lester S. Taube

  Paul shook his head. “No, you have helped me more than you know.” He hopped up on the wall and sat there, his hands hidden under his legs. “Tina was killed,” he said finally. “She and her father and all her brothers - all killed to save me.”

  “Oh, Paul,” whispered Nora. “I knew they had been killed, but didn’t know why.”

  Paul gazed sadly out into the distance. “It was a great deal more than that, Nora. I…”

  “Paul,” she interrupted. “Tell me about it some other time. You seem to have relived it a thousand times. I can wait to hear it.”

  He drew out a cigarro and lit it, letting the first lungful of smoke trickle out in a slow stream.

  She remained silent while he smoked, then she said, “What are you going to do now, Paul?”

  “There’s isn’t much I can do. The cattle are gone, the land is gone, and I’m tired, dead tired. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Have you thought of going home - to England?”

  He shook his head. “No, I must stay here. I have a cancer inside. I must cut it out when I have the strength.”

  “Tina Birman?”

  “No, not Tina. I would never want to cut her out. It is Upjohn. One of these days I will go back for him.”

  “Where will you get men to help?”

  He threw his cigarro away. “I have no one. I will go alone.”

  “Dad will help. He’s fighting Upjohn now.”

  “What!”

  “Oh, its just sniping, but Dad expects it will explode this summer. He’s starting to lose cattle. Only in small numbers, but he believes it’s Upjohn’s opening shot. He’s selling some of his herd to hire gunfighters.”

  “Upjohn will destroy him.”

  “Not if he can find enough men. He’s asked all over the Territory, but not many of them seem interested.”

  “Upjohn is frightening them off.”

  “Dad knows that. Four of our men have already left because of fear. But what else can he do? Run?”

  They looked up as Ned, Jim, and the solicitors approached. Nora greeted. Ned warmly and was introduced to the others. The solicitors studied her closely, seemingly aware that Paul was fond of her, not knowing about Tina.

  “Upjohn is striking at Wes Laughton’s ranch,” said Paul.

  Ned shook hit head sadly at Nora. “Sure wish your father had listened to me when the Birmans jumped the Three Barbs. We might have fought them off together.”

  “The Birmans are dead,” said Paul flatly. “Upjohn is doing this himself.”

  They stared at him incredulously. Paul went on. “The Birmans had a gunfight with Upjohn. They were all killed. That’s where Upjohn caught me.”

  Ned was staring at him. “All the Birmans?”

  Paul nodded. “Her too, Ned.”

  Jim seemed about to ask a question, then changed his mind.

  “What do you wish to do, Your Grace?” asked Mr. Blatherbell.

  Nora appeared startled at this form of address, then her eyes sparkled.

  Paul dropped down from the wall. “I don’t quite know, Mr. Blatherbell. How can we fight Upjohn? What can we do for men? We haven’t enough money left to buy equipment let alone hire the army it would take to face him.” He held out his hands. “Look at these. They cannot hold a gun. I cannot even fight, myself.”

  There was a sharp movement from Ned as be flung something towards Paul. Instinctively, Paul snatched it up in mid-air and looked down to see a knife in his hand.

  “You don’t need a thumb to use that, said Ned.

  Paul smiled wryly as he tightened his fingers around the hilt. “It’s not much to face a gun with,” he said. He was about to toss it back to Ned when suddenly his eyes narrowed as a thought struck him like a landslide. Holding the knife in front of his face, he slowly turned the blade to the left and lowered it to his hip, resting it there for an instant before whipping it up, as if drawing a sabre from a scabbard.

  “By all the living Gods!” he exclaimed. He whirled to Mr. Blatherbell, his eyes afire. “Where is the nearest telegraph office?”

  “At El Paso, Your Grace.” His brow furrowed. “You want to send a telegram?”

  Paul threw back his head and laughed and laughed. “Upjohn!” he howled at the sun. “I’m coming! I’m coming!”

  CHAPTER XVII

  Paul snapped the carbine to his shoulder, aimed briefly, and fired. The tin can jumped into the air. Quickly he worked the lever again. A second can jumped.

  “Pretty good,” said Jim. “Now try reloading.”

  This was more awkward and Paul had to keep a tight grip on his temper each time he fumbled and dropped the cartridge, which was generally three quarters of the time.

  “I never knew how important thumbs were,” he said.

  Nora was studying his hands closely. “Ned,” she called. He came right over. “Didn’t I see you with a pair of thin gloves?”

  “Yes, I’ve got them in the house.”

  “Get them, Ned. I want to try something.”

  Paul stared at her, comprehension dawning in his eyes. “Do you think it will work?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. But it’s worth a try.”

  When Ned brought them, she packed the thumb of the right-hand glove with cotton and slipped it on Paul’s hand. He raised the carbine, shaking his head when .the padded piece stood up - as he was tempted to say - like a sore thumb. Nora was not dismayed. She ran into the house and came out with a needle and thread.

  “Turn the upper part of the thumb piece down,” she said to Ned. When it had been folded over, she stitched it shut, padded the remaining portion, then put it back on Paul’s hand.

  He leveled the carbine, excitement gleaming in his eyes. “It feels better,” he said. “I do believe it will help my shooting.” He smiled at Nora. What shall we try now?”

  She was gnawing her lip. “We need a thumb that doesn’t move,” she said, deep in thought. “If it stays in position, you can squeeze a cartridge between it and your forefinger. That would allow you to hold it tightly enough to reload. Now, how are we going to keep the thumb piece from moving?”

  She sat on a rock, placed her elbows on her knees, and. rested her chin on her hands. Paul sat down beside her, flexing his fingers in the glove. It was hard to believe that three weeks had flown by since the day she had ridden up to Don Jose’s hacienda, rushing to tend a man she had heard was shot to pieces and then learning on that first brutal day that the pain was more inside than outside, caused by the loss of a woman he loved. A lesser woman would have cut her losses and run. It had hurt her, that was apparent from the moment she heard the barest facts, but in some strange, inexplicable way it had also made her a stronger more assured person, able to adjust within days to the new Paul, whose heart was torn to ribbons and whose precarious grip on sanity was his burning dream of revenge.

  That she was in love with Paul was a fact known to all and sundry, and everyone respected her for not making it too obvious or erecting a façade of pretence. Don Jose’s grandsons, and even the sons, had done everything short of proposing marriage in the hope of demonstrating to Paul what a most beautiful and desirable woman she was and rousing within him even the faintest spark of competitive spirit. But Paul had just gone from day to day, loving her in his own special way, not quite realizing that she was the balm to his pain, the architect of his renewed interest in life and the unobtrusive motivator of his self-sufficiency,

  It was she who had plotted, planned and executed the gambit with the carbine. In her room she had tied her thumbs to her palms and raised a carbine, surprised to discover it could be held tightly enough to fire. She had sent Ned on a secret mission to El Paso to purchase the lightest weight carbine he could find, and had practiced in secret with it for a few days until she could fire it expertly with her thumbs bound. When she was confident that Paul could do likewise, she arranged to have him pass by accidentally while she was practicing with the clumsiest actions possible. Paul had become infuria
ted, as she knew he would, at this form of ridiculing his disablement, and had grabbed the carbine from her.

  “You must hold it like this!” he had shouted. “A cripple must press it tighter to his palms.” And he had fired in anger, knocking the can squarely off the rock. It had taken him a few seconds to see exactly what had happened, and when he turned back to Nora and saw the light shining in her calm, brown eyes, his own had blinked as understanding came and rage ebbed away. He had taken a deep breath and fired again, missing the target this time. Nora had stepped up and told him to hold his hands nearer to the stock, which he had done without a word, and the next shot had knocked off the can.

  He had turned to her and smiled. “You are an exceptional woman. Nora Laughton.” Then he had turned back and continued practicing. ...

  Nora sat up with a sigh of exasperation. “There has to be a way to make a thumb that doesn’t move. All I can think of is a steel hand. We would need a wagon to cart it about.”

  Paul laughed, more at her constant expressions of “we” than the idea of carting a hand about in a wagon. “Why not adobe?” he asked, jokingly.

  Her eyes brightened at once, and a moment later she was leaping from the rock and racing to the hacienda. Paul looked at her with an amused expression on his face.

  Ned came and sat by his side. “What is she after this time?”

  “Adobe,” said. Paul, then chuckled at Ned’s blank look. He glanced again towards her flying figure. “She’ll probably whip up something, too.”

  Ned rolled a cigarette and lit it. “Have you decided what we’re going to do yet?”

  “I’m waiting to hear from Wes Laughton when we can slip onto his ranch without being seen, Pete should be arriving any day with another letter: Wes suspects one of his men is being paid by Upjohn to spy. I suggested that he keep him.”

  “What for?” growled Ned. “I’d run hint off with lead in his pants.”

  “Then Upjohn would bribe another one we didn’t suspect. No, he could be important to us. If we can be kept concealed from him, Upjohn will never dream we are hiding in Wes’ house.”

  “I still don’t understand why you want to use Wes’ ranch to fight out of. That would be the first place Upjohn would check.”

  “On the contrary. Because he knows Wes’ limitations, he will believe we are based in the wilds - in the mountains, perhaps. He will plan his defense and search on that supposition.”

  “I just can’t see what you expect to gain by sniping at him.”

  “Time, Ned. We’ve got to keep Wes on his feet. As soon as Pete comes again, we should know our next move.”

  “Will Nora be going with us?”

  Paul sighed. “I’m afraid so.”

  Ned pushed his hat forward to shadow his eyes and scratched the back of his head. “Paul, about Nora…”

  ”That’s enough, Ned,” said Paul sharply.

  Ned rose immediately and left.

  Paul’s shoulders drooped as he took off the glove and looked at his hands. Then he saw them again, as he had seen them every day and every night - Tina’s eyes, burning her love for him into his brain, even then not fully aware that he loved her more than life itself, praying that, by some miracle, the sudden, violent, brutal shattering of their lives was but a horrible dream and that the blood pouring through her fingers and running down his head as they knelt facing each other would abruptly vanish, that they would hold each other again and walk in the fields and into the mountains and kneel side by side to drink cool waters. Yes, they had knelt together, just that once. They had said farewell, but he had said more. He had said, “I marry thee, Tina Birman, until death do us part.” And death had come, but there was no parting.

  He put his face into his hands and wept, racking sobs that tore as no bullet had torn and burned as no flaming coals had burned.

  When he regained control of himself, he was breathing hard, taking great gulps of air to ease his pounding chest, then he looked again at the glove, a wistful cloud covering his face. Why bother with a thumb? he asked himself. All that is left is for me to kill a man - and die.

  The thumb came into being the next day. It was simplicity itself, when one knew Nora. She merely gathered Don Jose, his sons, his grandsons and all the wise men of the hacienda and asked them if adobe could be hardened enough to make a false thumb. After three weeks of this unusual girl, Don Jose and the others had learned to take everything she said and did with all seriousness. She allowed them to argue for an hour or so, knowing that even if the answer was already known, it would still take them an hour to get around to it.

  The answer was an unequivocal no.

  They sat quietly, somewhat awed by the thunder cloud on her face, but allowing her certain liberties because they realized that a golden-haired man’s future was at stake.

  An instant later, her face cleared. “Oven-baked clay, then,” she said.

  While they were discussing this new approach, Nora left the room and traced down an old Indian woman who worked on the hacienda. She held out the left glove and explained in simple terms what she wanted done with it, then squatted by the woman as she kneaded clay and forced it into the wrist and thumb of the glove. When it came out of the crude oven, Nora’s heart sang.

  She found Paul practicing with his carbine. “Here, slip this on,” she said casually.

  The portion of the glove from the wrist to the thumb was like a steel gauntlet, hardened by the baked clay. The four fingers and their knuckles were free to move. The clay thumb was slightly shorter than a normal thumb.

  Paul put it on and Nora held her breath. Reaching to a stand in front of him, he lifted a cartridge between forefinger and clay thumb and placed it in the carbine.

  He loaded in a second shell, then a third, and yet another.

  He put down the gun and took Nora’s face in his hands, kissing her on each cheek. “Thank you, Nora.”

  She tried desperately not to cry. “Where is the other glove?” she managed to say.

  Without a word, he took it from his pocket and gave it to her. She fled.

  The thumbs gave him a new lease on life. He could eat properly again with fork and knife, tie his cravat, even raise a wine glass in a toast. The most vital gain, of course, was his ability to load a carbine, for although he could shoot almost as well as before, he had been nigh helpless when his weapon was empty. A revolver, of course, was out of the question, though they all racked their brains for days to develop a gun or technique which could be employed. Not only would it take both hands to draw back a hammer, but he had no arm grip. And merely to squeeze the trigger without first cocking the weapon resulted in only slightly more accuracy than firing with the eyes closed.

  Paul’s greatest problem was training himself not to exert too much pressure on his thumbs, for like the proverbial ‘feet of clay’ he was bound by the limitations of clay, and his gloves had to be re-adapted twice because he became too enthusiastic and broke his thumb pieces.

  He became so engrossed in regaining his speed of firing and loading that Pete’s return from Wes Laughton nearly took him by surprise. He held a meeting at once, attended by Nora, the three solicitors, Ned and Jim.

  “Wes has made a room in the cellar for us,” he informed them, “and a tunnel which comes up inside the chicken shed.”

  “That’s a good place,” said Nora. “Just ten feet or so from the shed is a creek. You can move up and down it quite easily.”

  “Where does it go?” asked Paul.

  “It wanders generally southeast for five or six miles, then joins a larger stream that goes east and west.”

  “Well, it appears we have solved the essential problem - of a place to rest and fight from. Now we must determine the best way to hurt Upjohn.”

  Ned’s laugh was like a bark. “That’s the trouble - you can’t. You can’t get at his money cause it’s in banks. You can’t blow up his railroads without waging a full-scale war. You can’t rustle his beef cause he doesn’t have any, and if you burn h
is townhouse, he’d take the money he carries in his pockets and build a new one.” He shook his head. “The only way to hurt him is to backshoot him.”

  “Your Grace,” said Mr. Blatherbell. “Why not invoke the law? I am certain the Federal Marshal in Albuquerque would take an interest in the case, especially since you can testify that his deputy, this Cartright person, was involved.”

  “No,” said Paul firmly. “I will do this thing myself.” He paused to reflect. “But I do want you to spend the evening with me after supper. I want you to write down all the facts as I know them. If something happens to me, take my statement to the British Ambassador in Washington. But while I am alive, this must be my fight.”

  Mr. Blatherbell nodded. “Very well, Your Grace, I understand.”

  Paul drew out a cigarro and lit it, still amazed at how easily he was able to hold the match, smiling back at the others, who were grinning at his obvious pleasure. He blew out a thick stream of smoke while he studied their next move. “Right!” he finally said. “Here is what we shall do. Mr. Blatherbell, Mr. Poopendal and Mr. Snoddergas, while I do not think Upjohn will take action against you if you are found, I cannot depend on that. He may feel that you are planning legal maneuvers to regain the Three Barbs. Therefore, I suggest that you return to England.”

  “Your Grace,” said Mr. Blatherbell instantly. “My associates and I have discussed this at length. We wish to remain here with you.”

  Paul nodded. “Thank you, gentlemen, I am grateful. Then I propose that you remain here for the present.”

  “Your Grace,” said Mr. Blatherbell. “We are of the opinion that our presence in Santa Fe would add more value to your plan. Not only would we be much closer in the event we were needed, but we could possibly distract Mr. Upjohn’s attention by having him believe you too are in that area.”

  Paul chuckled. “Upon my word, Mr. Blatherbell, you are becoming a strategist. It is an excellent idea.”

  The three solicitors swelled visibly with pride.

  “Nora,” continued Paul. “You will start back tomorrow. Tell your father we will work our way up along the Canadian River, then to your house. We should arrive in about… ” He turned to Ned. “. . ten days?”