The seventh day of September, in the year of our Lord 1602:
As our vessel doth cleave through the icy waves of the Siberian coast, I am beset with thoughts as chill as the bitter wind that doth scour this desolate shore. The starkness of this land, where the very breath of life seems to freeze upon the lip, doth remind me of the cold and unyielding grasp of death itself. Here, nature’s face is a grim visage, unsoftened by the hand of man, and the bleak expanse doth stretch forth like an endless purgatory.
Methinks, this barren wilderness, where naught but the cry of the raven and the howl of the wolf break the dread silence, doth mirror the desolation of my soul. Were I to be stranded upon these frozen wastes, better to implore the heavens for swift deliverance, than to linger in such an unmerciful clime. Forsooth, even the stars do seem distant and uncaring in this forsaken realm.
Yet, in this very harshness, there is a strange and austere beauty, a reminder of the resilience of life and the inexorable march of time. Here, amidst the ice and the snow, I find a solitude that doth prompt deep reflection upon the mysteries of existence and the unfathomable designs of Providence.
—Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
499Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWis36UuaZF
Flem Quitman was the first man I woke up when I got down to the dark forward hold. He was one of the few lucky cases that had a bunk. The others, like I'd been, were wrapped up in their bedrolls on the floor, most of them using saddles for pillows. I scratched a match and lighted the kerosene lamp on the wall only a few inches from Flem's face, then turned it up bright.
"Jesus!" he muttered, blinking hard at the light. "What the hell you think yer doin', woman?"
"Time t' get up. We'll be there pretty soon."
"Good Lord. Don't this goddamn boat never get no place except in the goddamn middle a' the goddamn night?"
"C'mon Flem. T'night's somethin' really special "
Ike was now awake in the bunk beneath Flem. "Hell, Angel, Russia ain't about t' disappear on us. It's been there a hundred years."
Some of the others were starting to wake up now. Ike started to pull on his boots and said loudly, "Bust out, fellers! Your pleasant ocean voyage is comin' to an end!"
Ike, who was really a little on the heavy-set side, was sort of an assistant ramrod to Flem, and made ten bucks a month more than the rest of us. Like Flem, he could give an unpleasant order in such a way that it didn't sound too bad, and the men would do it without hardly thinking twice. Come to think of it, if a younger, kinda green kid like me had just gone down there and lighted the lamp and yelled "Get up! I'd have more than likely been bruised and battered somewhat severely during the process.
Judd Fry stood up groggy and mad, his stomach hanging over his belt. He rubbed his small dark eyes between his mass of matted black hair and scrubby beard.
"Damn hell!" he grumbled. 'I just barely got m'self t' fuckin' sleep!"
"No one could ever guess it, Judd," Ike said. "You wakin' up just now is a vision a' rare beauty."
But some of the others had the same kind of excitement jumping in them that I had. Sam Justice sat up near where I'd been sleeping beside the rope barrier separating us from the cattle starting to stir around in the main hold, where the yellow cow had stepped through the ropes onto my foot. "Hey!" he said. "Russia?"
"Unless the captain's made one hell of a mistake." Slim was now up and shrugging into his Mackinaw jacket.
"Death" Crawford sat up and whacked his brother, Coyote, on the butt to rouse him. "Heard me, one time, that them Roo-shuns are all coal-black an' got themselves horns."
"Loco Weed" Hardy was sitting up next to Death, buttoning his shirt. "Just grow some horns an' you'll be right at home."
Sam and a couple of the others grinned, and then grinned, and then "Steel" Arnold said, "That's bullshit, a' course. But I really damn well did hear that they skin their enemies an' tan their hides an' make tents outta 'em!"
"Hell," Coyote yawned, half awake now. "In that case, me an' Loco Weed oughtta be worth a fortune betwixt us. If they like black tents."
Loco Weed grinned, now standing up and buttoning his pants. "The two of you'd look a lot fuckin' better as a tent than you ever did in real life."
"Gitcher gear packed an' then come on up topside," Ike said. "We ain't no sailors from a Herman Melville yarn. We're cowboys, an' it's high time t' at least halfway earn your keep."
I went back on up with Ike, thinking of the men getting ready below. Thinking of the whole actually pretty fair outfit. What old Charlie had said about being right-side up, or maybe dead or alive and all, was still kind of on my mind.
The boss, Preacher Morse, always came to my mind first and most.
Maybe that was because after my parents died in the big blizzard of '66, he'd kinda naturally become like an older brother to me.
I was just four that hard wintertime in '66, and my Ma and Pa had frozen to death in the little cabin they'd built, both of them hugging each other in bed one night to fight off the awful, persistent cold. The reason I'd lived is that they were hugging each other with me in between them, to give me the last little bit of warmth they had in their lives.
Preacher had found us, and pried their arms apart from around me. He'd put his head on my chest. And Old Charlie, who was with him, described it one time to me later by telling me my heart "sounded" like the hopeless, tiny wingbeats of an exhausted baby sparrow inside me trying to fly."
Preacher sent Old Charlie on to check the blizzard-stranded cows they'd been looking for. Then he ripped up some of the inner planks from the floor of the cabin. That was the only wood in miles that wasn't too frozen to burn. He built a fire and not getting too close, he wrapped me in a blanket and hand-rubbed me for maybe twenty-four hours.
Then, finally, when my heart and breathing were stronger, he left me in the blanket by the fire and hand-rubbed me for maybe 24 hours.
Then, finally, when my heart and breathing were stronger, he left me in the blanket by the fire and went out to dig graves for my Ma and Pa with a pick in the ice-hard ground.
Preacher buried them there, and built fires over the newly loose ground to thaw it down. That way, with the earth melted, it would freeze over solid again, and wild animals couldn't get to them.
Old Charlie came back the next day to find him standing, kind of bent over, near the dying fires on the graves.
"The girl?" he said.
"She'll be okay." And then, "The cows?"
"Froze."
Preacher nodded slowly. "Everything out here'd be dead if they hadn't kept that kid between 'em."
I guess it was then that Old Charlie noticed Preacher was standing there over those graves in that bitter gray, freezing late afternoon in his shirt sleeves.
Along with the blanket he'd wrapped me up in, he'd also put his coat on me.
When I came around, they'd brought me back to the nearest line shack on Clarence Hunt's ranch, and Preacher was forcing lukewarm water between my teeth with a beat-up tin spoon. Old Charlie was standing quietly just off to one side near him.
I gagged a little on the water, and kinda looked around, and then first thing asked where my Ma and Pa was.
The answer was clear, but gently so, on Preacher's face. And, somehow, he did a strange thing. To the best of my memory, he never really quite said they were dead, but instead he talked onward, toward the future. And because of that gentle way he had, they've never even been truly dead in my mind, even to this day.
He told me to try a little more water 'cause it was good for me. And then he said that, me being a young woman already, he'd get me a job milking cows and chopping firewood and such at the main ranch house. And since he'd told me, in just t hat certain way that he did, that I was now a "young woman," I could only cry a little bit around my folks. But there were good tears.
And then I worked a lot and grew up some, and that was the way it was.
Right now, Preacher was pushing close to forty, or maybe he was even over the hill there. In any case, Ike and Old Charlie were the only ones among the fifteen of us who were older than him. Preacher had shoulders that were about an ax handle wide and he stood over six foot high, with no gut at all and a minimum of ass, which is always about as good a way for a fella to be built as any fella. As far as his face was concerned, he had more than his share of nicks and scars from run-ins with men, beasts, and violent acts of Our Lord. But you had to look close to see those marks 'cause a lot of rain and wind and snow and sun had covered them over into one tough, no too ugly looking, but damn well used face. He had light-blue eyes that could nail you like twin iron spikes if he was mad about something, which was fairly common. Preacher never grew a beard, like a lot of the older fellas used to do, but favored the sloping longhorn mustache, which drooped slightly down around t he edges of his mouth toward his rocklike jaw.
But the main thing 'bout Preacher was a rare kind of strong inner quality that stuck out like a sore thumb. He was a natural-born man and also a natural-born boss. I guarantee that if Preacher had been a new private in George Washington's army, and George Washington was figuring out his new attack and happened to see Preacher standing there, he'd have just naturally had to go over to Preacher and said, "What do you think?" And I double guarantee that whatever Preacher told him would have been smart enough to get him put on General Washington's general staff. And if that staff didn't happen to go along with him, he'd have had those poor bastards shaking in their boots in no time. He was purely tougher than a spike. And yet, hard as he was, Dusty never asked anything from any man that he wasn't willing to give twice back.
Funny thing too that was part of Preacher's quality. He was as good or better than any of the rest of us at the things we were best at. Like Old Charlie, hands down, was the wisest and best-read man in the outfit. For instance, with an eye toward coming here, he'd even managed to teach himself a little of the language from a pocket-sized book on Russian he carried. But Preacher generally had a wisdom that matched Old Charlie's. Chaytahn. an Indian gone white, was the best tracker and runner and reader of signs, but Charlie was just as good. Among men raised on horses, Tachito was probably the best rider, but Preacher could move any horse any direction on a dime and give you change. I was the only one who'd finished McGuffey's Reader, but Preacher could read and write and add and subtract as well as me. Maybe even better, because he had one hell of a head for learning. And Polska Joe, born somewhere in Poland, was far and away the strongest of us. But the one time he and Preacher went to Indian rassling it lasted for nearly twenty sweating, muscle-crunching minutes, and finally turned out to be a Mexican standoff.
If there was one bad thing about Preacher, it was that once he got his head set on something, that tended to be it. You might say he was a little stubborn. Or, as Old Charlie once said, "If Preacher made up his mind and him and a giant longhorn bull ran head on to each other, the bull'd get knocked ass over teakettle."
I know I'm going on a long time about Preacher. But there's a joyful, and sad, and good reason. And you'll understand why in time.
Right now, Flem and I got to the main deck, where the Silver Star was pitching around worse than before in the tossing, white-capped seas. Vladivostok was getting closer and by now you could make out a couple of long wooden wharfs set up on pilings that jutted out into the Gulf of Peter the Great with big, dark waves crashing angrily against them. Beyond the wharfs, on the land, clusters of small buildings could be seen, lights glinting dimly through their windows. At the end of the closer wharf, a man was waving some message with a couple of lamps, and up near the boy of the Star a signalman with lamps was answering him back.
"C'mere!" Old Charlie yelled from the railing, and when we got to him he pointed at a small boat approaching the side of the ship through the waves, four men pulling strongly on the oars and a fifth, who seemed to be in charge, holding the tiller.
"Must be the welcomin' committee," Old Charlie murmured quietly, holding onto the railing for his balance. "Just on general principle, I sure hope they're friendly."
"Hell, Charlie, why shouldn't they be?" Flem grinned. "We're bringin' 'em the only good cattle this godforsaken place ever had!"
Three crewmen broke open a nearby gate in the railing and rolled a rope ladder out so that its far end fell down to the waves below. Our other cowhands were coming up onto the main deck now, some of them struggling with their gear. Flem and the captain of the Star, a dark-haired Dane named Larsen, came down from the bridge at about the same time.
The man holding the tiller in the small boat got a grip on the rope ladder and started climbing, a couple of the others behind him. When he got to the top, Captain Larsen gave him a hand up onto the deck and he stood there for a minute, looking us over in a not-too-friendly fashion and catching his breath as the other two came up behind him. His tall, broad-shouldered frame and weathered face told stories of many years spent battling the elements at sea. With piercing blue eyes that seemed to see through any storm, he exuded both authority and a calm, steady confidence. He was wearing a heavy, long brown coat and a little brown cap that had a little shiny gold medal on it. I guess it was some kinda navy uniform.
"Good day to you, gentlemen," the captain said."I am Captain Larsen. This is Mr. Preacher Morse. Tonight, he disembarks here. He have thirteen men, one woman, and thirty-six animals. And their baggage. Please, prepare for their arrival."
.Preacher said curtly, "Tell him we're in a hurry to get docked so we can get unloaded."
The Russian frowned at Preacher and he spoke to the captain in a guttural, harsh voice, with an accent so thick you could cut it with a Bowie knife. "I am Harbor Master Kuznetsov. I know nothing of these men, that woman, and these animals."
"That's what we're telling you about now," Preacher said, an ominously hard edge to his voice.
Kuznetsov glared at him. "What travel permission you got?"
"Goddamn," Flem whispered grimly to me and Old Charlie. "I knew we'd forgot somethin'. Ain't one a' all them five hundred longhorns got no passport."
But Preacher was already handing the Harbor Master a thick envelope. "Sea Papers," he said levelly. "From Seattle through the port of Vladivostok. Okayed by the U.S.A and by your Russian Consulate." Then, as the man opened the envelope, he added flatly, "If you can read it, Kuznetsov."
In terms of striking up a long-time friendship, Preacher wasn't making, or trying too hard to make, a whole lot of points. Kuznetsov glowered at him and then started to read the Sea Papers by the light of a lamp hanging from a roughly paneled bulkhead near him.
At last he said, "Explain!" Which the way he talked sounded more like "Splain?" but it was getting so I could pretty much tell what he meant.
"Explain what?" Preacher said.
"This---this Winged A?"
"That's the brand on our cattle and horses. Just in case some of you Russians should get a mind t' try t' steal some of 'em."
"Mr. Morse, you must watch mouth when speak to Russians," Captain Larsen said uneasily. "They no like careless words. Keep tongue tied tight, understand?"
Kuznetsov silenced him with a raised hand and spoke to Preacher in a high, angry voice. "I know reason for branding! Under our Czar, my friend, when man not behave just properly, here, that man sometimes branded." He smiled, but his smile looked more like he was about to bite something---or someone. "Your nation does not put you, or your men, outside our—our sometimes very strict laws."
"We didn't think t' bring a lawyer," Preacher said. "Just check our papers."
Kuznetsov, his face tight, studied them for a long, silent time, finally flipping them back and forth aimlessly.
"All right, Kuznetsov," Preacher said impatiently, "you can't find one damn thing wrong with those papers, so quit wasting our time and let's get this ship docked.
But Kuznetsov, more hostile than ever, was now going to take all the time he could. "Molly Stewart!" he suddenly said loudly, reading the name off the Sea Papers.
"Yeah?" I stepped forward curiously.
"You, woman! What you doing on man’s cattle drive? Why woman here? This not place for woman!"
"I may be a woman, but I can ride, shoot, and wrangle cattle just as well as any man here. I'm part of this drive, and I earn my keep same as them!"
"Not good enough! Woman on cattle drive still wrong. This not place for you. You make trouble. Must follow rules!"
"Listen here, Russkie! I’m not just a woman, I’m an American woman. I do as I please. If I want to be a cowpuncher and brandish a gun, that’s my right. You don’t get to tell me where I belong or what I can do. Understand?"
There were jeers from two of the men behind me, and without turning I said quietly, "And if any of you cowpokes don’t get what I just said, then you ain’t real Americans. We don’t let nobody tell us what we can or can’t do. Stand up and show some spine, boys!"
Kuznetsov scratched one of his huge bushy eyebrows. "Why you want be cowboy, woman? What make you do this?"
"Well, when I was just a young’un, my parents died, and I was lost and alone. Preacher, the man who’s with us now, he rescued me, took me in like I was his own. Taught me everything 'bout bein' a cowgirl—ridin', ropin', shootin'. I became a cowgirl 'cause it was the only life I knew, and I got real good at it." Somebody, I think it was Coyote, was whispering something to Flem, and I was starting to get mad. "As for why they call me 'Angel', that’s 'cause of my grandpappy, Rabbi Yitzhak. He always said I was his angel, on account of my part Jewish ancestry. So I wear that nickname proud, like a badge. It’s a tough life, but it’s my life, and I reckon I wouldn’t have it any other way."
Kuznetsov's face suddenly darkened like the clouds of a prairie thunderstorm. "You listen, woman!" he said bitterly. "Here in Russia, Jews not welcome, especially not Jewish woman. You keep quiet about this, or you find much trouble. This not America. Understand?"
"Dang it, that ain't fair!" Flem said, starting to be as impatient as Preacher. "What's wrong with your Czar anyway? How can he let folks be treated like that? This ain't right, not one bit!"
"This going to take much time," Kuznetsov said. "You bring table and chair, Captain."
Preacher stepped forward. "Those papers clear me and my people into Russia. What is all this bullshit?"
"What is this... bool-sheeat?" Kuznetsov said. " I do not know. You explain."
Captain Larsen said anxiously, "No time, Kuznetsov! I sail on first tide. Another destination calls. I go to Yokohama."
Kuznetsov suddenly turned viciously ugly. "I am Harbor Master! Get table and chair now, you hear?!"
"Drop anchor!" Captain Barnum bellowed to the men up forward. Then, resentfully, "Get chair, table for Harbor Master. Do it now!"
A couple of crewmen went to get them, and Old Charlie said quietly, "Our Russian friend's decided to try any way he can not to let us go ashore."
Ike nodded. "He was out of joint in the first place, and then Preacher's bullheadedness really got to 'im."
"What I think," Preacher said, "the sonofabitch is looking for some kinda handout."
I went over to where Preacher and Captain Larsen were and said to Flem in a low voice, "Maybe the sonofabitch is looking for some kinda handout."
"Bloody hell!" The captain rubbed his nose angrily. "Handout always helps with these Russian ports. All these officials think they're little Czars, don't they? Get ready with the bloody handout."
"Forget it," Preacher said.
"We've come clear out here to the end of the world, Preacher." I took a deep breath, knowing how he felt. "Don't you think we oughtta go by whatever their rules are just this once?"
He spat some tobacco over the railing. "Goes against the grain."
For at least an hour now everything went against the grain. Kuznetsov, with maddening slowness, asked all the men endless and stupid questions. Preacher was tensely ready to bite a nail in half, and Captain Larsen was getting more and more edgy, taking his pocket watch out every little while to see how many minutes had gone by.
The only good thing I can remember about that time was that we learned a few things about each other's names that wouldn't normally come up in any cowhand's conversation. They had told us when we got on the Star in Seattle to be careful to put our real names down or we could be sent back. And it turned out, for example, as Kuznetsov read the Sea Papers, that old Eucher Hardy was actually named Emerson Hardy.
After Kuznetsov got through talking to him, and we'd made a few casual remarks, he told us with some small resentment, "Name Emerson normal for Englishmen."
Royal said, "Sure, Emerson."
Jamie put his hand on Eucher's shoulder. "No need for explainin'. We think Emerson's real sweet. Emerson."
The next name that Kuznetsov called out was "James Madison Martin Van Buren!"
"Good God!" Eucher got back at Jamie, saying, "You gotta be the only n(egro) ever named after two Presidents!"
But under the circumstances, we weren't really in too funny a mood, so nothing we said was overtly hilarious.
Bad Eye's name was Stan Samanski. Death Crawford was really Daniel Ethan Crawford. Chaytan had a hard time until Preacher stepped in and explained through gritted teeth that he was an Ogallala Sioux and he only had one name, which meant "Gray Hawk," and he didn't like to talk to strangers Old Charlie's last name was Sellers, which nobody had ever known. Glory Collis was really Glory. Tachito was just a normal Mexican nickname for Gustavo Somoza. Flem's actual first names were Alonzo Melvin Rueben, which were so bad it would have been almost criminal to take advantage of them. And Ike Skidmore could have been a honey to kid, 'cause his real first name, which was a subject of grouchy, secret concern to him, was Isaiah. But by the time Ike's name came up, we were all too mad at Kuznetsov to pretend any kind of sense of humor.
And then Kuznetzov called a name that sure as hell tossed me for a loop.
"Eli Marcus Goldstein!"
A bunch of us looked at each other, kinda puzzled, and then Goldy stepped forward.
"At your service," he said.
"You Jewish?" Kuznetsov said, saying it so it sounded like "Yoo Chewie?" But I don't even want to bother about the way he talked anymore.
"Damn right, I'm Jewish and proud of it!" Goldy said. "What's it to ya, huh? You got a problem with that, you can take it up with my fist!
"Ah, you admit it!" Kuznetsov seemed pleased at finally finding a name he could, in his own mind, legitimately find some fault with. He repeated it, shaking his head. "Eli Marcus Goldstein. You not welcome in Russia. Too dangerous, sorry."
Preacher had been just about ready to fight for some time, and now he leaned forward, knuckles down, on the table where Kuznetsov was sitting. His voice was low. "We've all been given clearance by my country and your consulate. With these papers, you cannot refuse us entrance."
Kuznetsov raised his hands up in mock worry. "No, no. He Jew. He not welcome here. Not safe for him. He get in trouble, nothing I can do. My authority too small."
"I'll take my chances with my friends," Goldy said.
"If we get into trouble, there's nothing you can do for us!" Preacher stood back from the table, his jaw muscles tight and hard. "We're taking our cattle over a thousand miles into Russia, and your 'too small' authority won't last half a mile out of Vladivostok."
"But I rule here." Kuznetsov smiled his smile that looked like he was ready to bite something. "Hey, we work something out, maybe. We talk, da?"499Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGqCFkKYC3d
Preacher leaned on the table again. Now his voice was not only low, but deadly. "I will not pay you one goddamn red cent, mister!"
Kuznetsov said quickly, "I not say nothing about money!"
Preacher tensed forward like a mountain lion about to spring. "Those Sea Papers are in order."
"Da." Kuznetsov stood nervously, moving away from the table to where his two men were waiting near the railing. "Papers are in order, I see. I say welcome to Vladivostok. You now free to go into Russia."499Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN1MDCu6AEi
"Good," Captain Larsen said, relieved. "We dock now, then."
Kuznetzov stared toward the rope ladder, then turned back before he answered. "No. No can dock now." He looked at Preacher, his eyes malicious under those two thick eyebrows. "I still Harbor Master. I say when you dock." Then he looked at the captain. "Seas bad. Very bad. You try dock now, you ruin your ship and my wharf. Maybe tomorrow, or next day."
"I no can wait until tomorrow!" Captain Larsen protested.499Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvIbpqFhm17
"Maybe days, or weeks." Kuznetsov rubbed a thick eyebrow.499Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ18waDEBSnF
"You know I no can wait here forever!"499Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQas1t6Pv0r
Kuznetsov raised his shoulders helplessly. "That your decision, Captain." Then he turned quickly and hurried down the ladder, his two men following.
There was a great long silence as Kuznetsov's men rowed away from the Silver Star. Finally, Preacher said, "Could you dock your ship in there all right, Captain?"
Larsen nodded, his face grim. "Surely I could. But not unless he say so."499Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdoXaYjKwyn
"What the hell are we gonna do now, boss?" Flem asked.
"Only one thing you can do," Captain Larsen said. "I take you to Japan on the Star---no extra tax. You plan about cattle and going back to America from there."
"Our outfit's been paid t' deliver a herd a' longhorns a thousand miles into Siberia," Preacher said quietly, "and we're gonna make that delivery or die trying!"
"I tell you I no can put ashore!" Captain Larsen's voice showed how bad he felt about the whole thing.499Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwC53C3cB8g
"I know you can't put the Star ashore," Preacher said. Then one side of his mouth muscled very slightly in the half grin, half frown he showed sometimes when he was thinking. "But we can get our longhorns onto the beach just outside town."
"How?" I asked. "Us and five hundred head gonna sprout wings and fly?"
"No." He turned to me. "But if any of our men or cattle haven't learned how t' swim, they damn well better learn fast when they hit that water."499Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2osBT5xKhk
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