Swords of the Steppes

by Harold Lamb

  The bagpipe, with its sack of soft black leather and its polished pipes ornamented with carved beasts' heads, had whiled away long hours for

  Koum. He had a musical ear, and he drew strange melodies out of the droning wail of the pipes.

  Koum lived alone in this hut. He hunted over the steppe, with its herds of wild horses, its black-nosed buffalo and small antelope. He found lesser game, wild pig and waterfowl along the deserted river, and his nearest neighbors were the Turkoman clans across the river. Koum was careful to keep his distance from these neighbors.

  "Crei-I!" shrilled the falcon, moving along its stick.

  "Not time to eat, little warrior," muttered the Cossack. "Don't you see the sun?"

  Ruffling its feathers, the bird gazed at the white sand, its eyes half open. Koum yawned and scratched his shaven head, from the center of which a long scalp lock hung. Then he reached out his arm for his sack of tobacco. Abruptly his hand stopped, outstretched in the air.

  Down the gully he heard his horse neigh. Koum knew the habits of his animals as well as his own, and his Karbarda was no spoiled stable horse, to make a fuss in the shade in midafternoon.

  Thrusting his legs into his breeches, Koum wound a shawl scarf round his hips and caught up his musket from the wall. Without delaying for boots or kalpak, he ran out of the door.

  "Crei-i-i!" screamed the hawk, clawing at its cord.

  Koum had built his hut in one of the balkas, or wooded ravines, that led to the river. In this gully below the level of the steppe he had wood and some grazing for his animals, and his hut could not be seen from the plain.

  Leaping up steps cut in the clay bank, Koum came to a nest of boulders under the branches of a tall poplar—his lookout post. His eyes went swiftly over the miles of rolling crests covered with high brown grass, and he muttered in astonishment.

  A hundred paces away a woman was riding on a spent horse. And Koum had never seen a woman like this in the steppes before. Her long skirt trailed down over her boots and she seemed to have one leg curled around the saddlehorn. A ruffled cape covered her shoulders, and the hood had been drawn up over her hair. Moodily she swung her whip against the flank of her sweat-stained mare.

  Behind her followed a man without a hat. He wore a blue coat short in front and long behind and much bedraggled, and his head hung on his chest. Far behind the two a bearded postilion limped, leading a shaggy pony overburdened with bundles.

  Once in Sarai on the Volga, Koum had seen noble people like these two, with white skin, riding around in carriages. They were Muscovites— Russians—and he could not think what they were doing here, beyond the frontier, in the waste lands. They could not be hunting, because the only weapons they had were two great pistols carried in holsters on the man's saddle. Still the Cossack could not let them stagger along like this without water.

  He walked out from his shelter, and the woman screamed.

  Koum stopped, embarrassed. He did not know how to address such people.

  "Hi, noble born," he called out, "where are you going?"

  The man, who at first had drawn out a pistol, seemed relieved. Urging his tired horse up to the Cossack, he began to talk all at once in the Muscovite speech. Koum could make out only that God had sent a calamity upon them, and they were lost. But Koum looked at the woman. She was shorter than the Cossack girls, and white as clean linen, with two spots of red on her cheeks. She had fine eyes, and even in her weariness she showed her beauty.

  "Well, don't fear, noble born," he said cheerfully. "Here is shelter, and how can you be lost?"

  He led the way down a path into his balka. It surprised him that the gentleman should dismount stiffly, holding to the saddle, and go over to untangle the lady's skirt from the saddle, and lift her to the ground. She went into the hut and sat down on the bed, without greeting Saint Nicholas.

  Koum offered them cool water from his jar, but the gentleman shouted, and presently the servant came in with two silver cups gritty with dust. They drank a little water, when the servant who had been lugging the packs from the pony hastened up with a bottle of brandy.

  "My house is your house," said Koum, bowing. This was the customary greeting of the Cossacks to a guest.

  Filling the two cups with brandy, the Muscovite handed one to his lady, and she sipped at it, while he gulped his. To Koum's surprise they did not offer any to him—although they must have seen that he had no brandy. The man seemed to feel better, because he stared round the hut and began to talk loudly to Koum.

  All the Cossack could understand was that the visitor was a count— Dolbruka—and an official accompanied by his wife on his way to Uralskaia, a frontier post.

  "Uralskaia—how far? Tomorrow?" he shouted, angry because Koum could not make out what he wanted.

  "Don't be a fool," remarked his wife. And she spoke quietly to Koum, choosing words that he knew.

  They had been traveling with Russian soldiers down the Ural in flat-boats, when she had asked the count to ride for a day along the shore, to exercise the horses. They had wandered from the river, and in trying to get back, their servant had led them more astray. For two days they had made their way over the steppe, with only these few packs they had brought along. Finally they had come to this little river and had found a place to ford it.

  "May the dev—" exclaimed Koum. "Did you go over the river?"

  "Yes," said the countess, flicking at her skirt. "The country was bad— worse than before. Then the Cossack rode after us."

  "A Cossack?" muttered Koum, who had seen no familiar face for a month.

  "Like you, but finer, quite an intelligent man. He spoke French, and told us we must turn back quickly, at once. He said it was dangerous, because the pagan Moslems were watching us and perhaps they would rob us. So we went back at a gallop. And when we reached the river again we saw the pagans following after us. They were dirty and they fired off their muskets. Then the Cossack laughed and said we must ride on, very quickly, until the sun set. He said to go straight toward the setting sun and not to turn back, and he would stay at the ford to play a game with the insolent pagans who wanted to rob us. So he stayed behind to shoot at them, at the ford. We heard the guns going off for some time. It was terrible, and we had no water, and only Christ's mercy saved us from being followed again by the pagans. Do you understand, Cossack?"

  He understood very clearly what had happened. He could see the three ignorant Russians scrambling over the salt steppe, the Turkomans' country. Until the watchers of the herds noticed them, and a group of the wild tribesmen rode after them. He could see the strange Cossack holding the narrow ford with his musket, until they were safely off.

  He wondered what had happened at the ford after that. But he knew that the Russians had been saved not only from being stripped to the skin but from torture for the man and slavery for the woman.

  "Tell me, noble born," he muttered. "Where is it, this ford?"

  The Russian shrugged her comely shoulders.

  "How can I tell, Cossack? One place is like another. We were lost. But now—" she smiled comfortably—"surely you can show us the way to Uralskaia."

  Koum looked about him helplessly. He felt ill at ease, talking to these strangers, who knew so little of the steppe and who paid no attention to good Saint Nicholas in his gilt frame. Even while he pondered them, the woman spoke rapidly to the man in a queer staccato and he answered with a word or two of the same language. Koum had never heard French before—the polite speech of the Russian court.

  "Look here, gracious lady," he observed, when she had finished. "Why is it that the count and his man did not stay to drive off the Turkomans? They had two pistols."

  "Eh, what?" The gracious lady frowned. "How could I ride unattended in this place?"

  Koum did not know. He had never beheld so beautiful a woman. Above her stately head even the bright picture of the saint looked dull.

  "This dog must be humored," she said to her husband. "He must guide us back to the villages.
Lord, he is as uncouth as a Tartar, but the hut is clean. We can sleep here tonight."

  But she spoke in the French that Koum did not understand. The Countess Ileana had never met Cossacks before today, yet her intuition judged Koum's character quickly. And she made the strongest possible appeal to him.

  "We are your guests—" she smiled—"and we thank God that we found your house, because tomorrow you will guide us to Christian people where we shall be safe."

  Slowly Koum shook his head.

  "Impossible," he said.

  The Russians stared at him.

  "Eh," cried the count, "we will give you silver."

  "Listen," said Koum, "silver has nothing to do with it. You don't understand, noble born. I must ride toward the river at once. Wait!"

  Pulling on his boots of soft leather, he hastened from the hut down the balka to the water's edge. Running a few paces through the rushes, he caught up a line and tugged at it. A flurry at the other end of the line— and he pulled it in, to find a young sturgeon hooked and already weary of fighting. Killing the fish and drawing it carefully from the hook, Koum hurried back to his guests.

  "Here is something for food," he explained hastily. "There is barley in that sack, and if you want game, you will find pheasants snared up in the brush beyond the trees—there. Do not stir out of the balka—this place. If I do not come back before the first light, mount and ride. Your horses will be rested. Go away from the rising sun, and go quickly. You will not find Uralskaia, but you will come at sunset to a Cossack stanitza, a frontier village—"

  "But we could not find a village," cried the woman, flushing angrily.

  "How can't you? There will be tilled fields, cattle—the herd girls will see you. Anyway, light a fire, and they will come to you—"

  "Nay, you must come." The countess hid her annoyance, and her fine eyes became imploring. "I—I will not be safe without you."

  Koum's great hands gripped his girdle. It seemed to the Count Dol-bruka that a little money offered to the Cossack would make him reasonable. So he felt in his pocket and held out a piece of gold. "For you— more at Uralskaia," he said.

  "May the devil fly away with you!" roared Koum. "Cross yourself and spit twice, and pray to Saint Nicholas to save your hide!"

  Shaking his head, Koum strode out.

  Running down the balka he disappeared, and came back presently astride his white horse. Dismounting, he caught up the saddle, flung it on the horse, thrust on the headstall, and picked up his black coat and lambskin kalpak. He had brought back with him a dead pheasant, taken from a snare. This he tied on the perch of the screaming falcon, and filled the bird's water cup.

  Into his saddlebag he put a full water bottle and some black bread and garlic. He slipped the strap of his musket over his shoulder, picked up the powder horn and doffed his headgear a second before the holy picture, muttering a prayer.

  "Ask him to show you the way," he grunted to the Russians.

  As he was turning away, his eye fell on the bagpipe. He remembered that in spite of all the good Nicholas might do, his hut might be burned to the ground within a few hours, and he picked up the bagpipe, tying it with the bag behind his saddle. Then he leaped into the saddle, snapped his whip and was off up the balka.

  "Bras de Dieu!" cried the count. "What an animal! Well, he has left us."

  The woman listened to the thudding of hoofs that dwindled into the distance. Silence returned to the ravine and this silence held for her a dread of things unknown and unseen.

  "You were a fool to offer him gold," she said.

  The man poured himself another glass of brandy. He too was afraid of this endless plain and the dry mist that hung over it.

  On its perch, with red eyes, the falcon gripped its meat with a claw and its beak ripped flesh from between the feathers.

  But Koum, as he headed his horse along the back track of the travelers, had forgotten about the gold and the angry eyes of the countess. He was only anxious because he had been delayed so long in starting out. It was already late in the afternoon.

  How could he explain to the Muscovites that the Turkomans would follow their trail unless held back by something? The count and his man could not fight, even for their lives. But it would be a sin to let such a fine lady fall into the claws of the tribesmen.

  He must find the Turkomans, if they had crossed the river, and find out what had happened to the other Cossack.

  So he rode on at a fast canter that ate up the ground, with his eyes searching the skyline hidden in gray mist. He soon was conscious that the trail quartered widely, wandering in and out of the gullies.

  "A fox," he muttered to himself, "would go straighter than those Muscovites. Well, it's as God wills."

  An hour later Koum was nosing about like a dog in a criss-cross of trails. The tracks of the Muscovites had brought him to the river again, some six miles from his camp. Here the clay bank shelved down steeply to a broad, shallow stretch, strewn with sandbanks and rocks.

  On top of the bank stood a kind of bastion of worn limestone, and here Koum found signs of the other Cossack—scattered bullets and sprinklings of powder grains, and the scratches of iron heels on the soft stone. There were dark stains of blood, surrounded by innumerable drops, and some bits of sheepskins. In a sandy depression where a man had lain, stretched toward the river, he found a Cossack kalpak of clean white lambskin with a red felt crown.

  "Eh," Koum said to himself, "that was his, and he did not take it away with him.

  Behind the limestone ledge he found the hoof marks of a shod horse that had been tied to the branches of a stunted tamarisk, and had plunged and circled about without being able to break away.

  "He tied his horse here," Koum thought, "and went up to the stone to shoot at the Turkomans. He stayed there a long time. After that he fought hand to hand, scattering blood."

  Along the sandbanks by the water lay a network of tracks—made by the horses of the Christians and the unshod ponies of the tribesmen. Koum mounted his own horse and circled back over the plain behind the limestone bastion. Here the tracks told a clear story.

  The three Muscovites had come up earlier in the day, at a walk. And a solitary horseman had followed them at a gallop—riding the same animal that had been tied to the tamarisk. Then the travelers had ridden off in the direction of Koum's hut; but the strange Cossack had never left the river.

  And still there was not a single body upon the scene of the fight, not even a knife or strap on the ground. If the Turkomans had killed the Cossack, they would have stripped him, and perhaps amused themselves by disfiguring the body with their knives. They would not have carried it off with them.

  Koum pulled at his mustache gloomily. The worst possible thing had happened. He understood now why the Turkomans had not pursued the Russians. The Cossack had held them so long at the ford—and perhaps had wounded so many of them—that they had not killed him here. They had carried him back, a prisoner. And now they would string him up somewhere and torture him slowly, before going to sleep.

  Well, the count and his lady were safe. He thought that all he had to do would be to ride back to the hut, guide the noble born, and have a smile from the lady, a gold piece from the man and a good debouch at Uralskaia.

  Instead, he rode down to the ford.

  The first thing he saw on the other bank was a twisted dead branch with a fork projecting toward him, like a claw lifted out of the sand. A sign of ill omen. Koum grunted dismally, and spat twice as he passed the branch, being careful to ride well around it. The tracks of the Turkomans also avoided it.

  "Eh, was it for them, the sign?" he wondered, "Nay, it must be for the other Cossack."

  Still he was uneasy, and he watched attentively for further signs. A raven flew across overhead, and Koum held his breath. But it did not croak. So he could not make up his mind whether the signs were good or bad.

  He put his Karbarda into a long gallop, for the plain was as level as the sea here, with only scattered wh
ite salt beds glimmering in the strong sunset glow like mirages, through the beds of dry rushes and dark saksaul. The Turkomans and their captive had disappeared. Koum put the whip to his horse and sped on. He must get near enough to the tribesmen before dark to see their fire.

  For two hours he rode due west. Behind him the gorgeous colors of the sunset flung up to the lofty sky, as if great glowing banners had been cast aloft by the hands of the unseen gods. The whole steppe seemed to be no more than the floor of an immense empty chamber whose wall had been painted with fire. The figure of the solitary Cossack was a black speck crawling across space.

  Rising in his stirrups to ease the cramp in his knees, Koum talked to his horse.

  "Hi, brother, art thou weary? The eagle flies over thee—hasten! Hey, brother, the wind passes by thee, and says to thee, 'Come!'"

  Urged on by the Cossack's voice, the Turkoman-bred racer changed from canter to gallop and back again, untiring. For a few moments the plain grew brighter, and the eastern heights shone with an orange fire, that changed swiftly to blood color. As if a veil had been drawn behind them, the plain darkened around the horse and the Cossack when the sun went down. And a blue haze spread from the foot of the heights, up toward the summits. Then the light vanished and a tracery of stars gleamed overhead.

  But Koum reined in the horse and let him breathe. He had seen what he sought—a dark group of horsemen ascending the bare foothills among larger masses of cattle and sheep.

  The Turkomans were riding into their aul.

  Never before had Koum been within sight of the aul—the dwelling place of the clan. It stood upon a low plateau under the foothills, cut up by the dried beds of streams and rock strewn gullies. As the Cossack walked his horse forward he made out, in the starlight, some rude domes topped by long poles from which streamers of rags hung. These were tombs, and around them bunched innumerable sheep and cattle.