Whitefire (8 page)
Authors: Fern Michaels
As they left the banks of the Dnieper behind, the faint outline of their huts came into view. Gregory felt a warm glow sweep over him; it was good to be home. Returning this time was that much sweeter, for he would be proclaimed a hero. The gutting of Volin and his victorious capture of the horses would have the mir celebrating for days, and the men would talk of his exploits for years after his death. Gregory Bohacky would be a folk hero in Russian history, and the Tereks would sing his praises across the vast, endless steppe of the Ukraine. He trembled as he envisioned his welcome from the moment his stallion's hoof first crossed the village entrance. The anticipation telegraphed itself to his legs as he dug his heels into the animal's flanks, driving him into a full canter. His men sensed his eagerness and rode rapidly behind him, the Cosars driven along with them.
A guard hidden from view called out, “Is that you, comrade Bohacky? If it is, show yourself.”
Stepping forward into the light of a blazing campfire, Gregory answered, “Yes, comrade, it is Bohacky.”
“What do you bring with you? I see many black objects in the distance,” remarked the guard as he stepped from behind the high wooden wall that surrounded the camp.
“Those black objects you see in the darkness are white objects, and those white objects are the famous Cosar horses. The whole lot of them from the village of Volin!”
“You joke, Gregory! It can't be. The Cosars belong to the Don Cossacks. They would never let them go.”
“They didn't let them go, comrade, we captured them!”
“But the Don Cossacks? I don't understand, you must be making jokes!”
“Comrade, I never make jokes. The Cosars now belong to the Tereks. The Don Cossacks of Volin are no more! We killed every last one of them. No one will come chasing after us for the horses; we saw to that!”
The guard shook his head in disbelief.
“Are our people asleep?” asked Gregory.
“All is quiet. With only four hours before dawn, the warm beds hold fast our people.”
“Comrade, wake them from their sleep and tell, no, shout the good news! Tell them Gregory Bohacky has returned triumphant from Volin with the Cosars! Tonight we begin the celebration. Wake the women and have them prepare food for the victory feast. Wake everyone and tell them!”
“Yes, comrade!”
“Then why are you standing here looking at me? Wake everyone. We'll drive the Cosars through the village to help you. Move, comrade!” he shouted.
The guard mounted his horse, galloping down the roads, shouting as he went, “Wake up, wake up, Gregory Bohacky has returned from Volin with the Cosars! Wake up, wake up! The Cosars are here! Tonight we celebrate!”
The commotion woke Yuri. He arose from his bed, opened the door, and listened.
“The Cosars are ours! Volin is no more!” shouted the men.
Yuri couldn't believe what he heard. His mind reeled as he tried to think. “Katerina, I must go to Katerina . . . she can't be . . . I must get dressed.”
Within moments, he was outside his host's hut looking for a horse.
“Ah! Yuri, my friend, I see you have heard the good news,” shouted Gregory above the din.
“I must have a horse!”
“A horse? You shall have one and anything else you may want this night,” exclaimed Gregory happily, as he motioned to a Terek to bring a horse.
“Before I goâ”
“Go where?”
“You must tell me what happened at Volin. What do they mean, Volin is no more?” Yuri asked hesitantly, afraid to hear the answer.
“I am a hero now comrade. You have shared the hut of a Terek legend this summer,” Bohacky boasted.
Impatient, Yuri lost control. “I demand you tell me what happened at Volin!”
“I'll gladly tell you. We took the Dons, slaughtered all the people, and burned the village to the ground. The Tereks are proud Cossacks now.”
“Proud? You slaughter a village and you're proud? What of Katerina? Did you kill her, too? You knew how I felt about her, how could you do this? She was all I had left. Your hospitality is no longer needed by me.”
He jumped on the back of the waiting horse and disappeared into the night, the words of Gregory echoing in his head.
Still seated atop his stallion, Bohacky laughingly mocked Yuri's words and said, “Bah, women! Tonight's victory is all we'll ever need.” He turned from the darkness and looked at his village and watched as shuttered windows flew open and candlelight peeped out at the night. Heads appeared in windows and hands rubbed away the sleep.
The Tereks quickly donned their tunics as the women scurried for their sarafans, and within minutes the men were out in the village circle, throwing wood on the campfire to brighten the area. Gregory ordered the women to prepare poppy cakes and kasha and sausage, and to ready a sheep and a goat for roasting on the spit. “Bring on the vodka, beer, and forty-year-old mead.”
The handful of women in Khortitsa worked feverishly to cook the food for the carousing men, knowing that when they finished they would be allowed to return to their huts. Once inside, they would whisper among themselves of the night's events, not venturing outside until the men had fallen into a drunken stupor.
Khortitsa was a village of men. The women who were allowed to stay were middle-aged, forgotten and old before their time, forsaken by their husbands for the saber and life of the Cossack. Other tribes whispered about Khortitsa and its savage breed of Cossacks, the misfits of life: the killers, robbers, escaped prisoners, rapists, and political escapees. Khortitsa was a stewpot of vicious, cunning men. Cossacks who lived for the saber and the horse. There were no rules in the village. Rules were made for others, not for the Terek. Freedom was their motto, their life.
The few daughters born in the village were quickly sent off to the Crimea for safety, the threat of rape and death hanging over them if they were allowed to stay, but when a male child was born a celebration was held which lasted for three days. When a boy reached eight, a saber was thrust into his hands and his training as a Cossack began in earnest. At the age of twelve, he was expected to perform as well as any man, and when he reached eighteen he was given his fighting outfitâwide trousers of pleats and folds, drawn in with a golden cord, boots of morocco leather, a Cossack coat of bright crimson cloth, and a sash, gaily patterned, into which went an embossed Turkish pistol and a saber. His hat was a black, gold-topped astrakhan cap. In his battle attire he was a Cossack to be feared, and his forging would come in the fires of his first battle.
Campfires burned brightly along the roads of the village as the men ate, celebrated, and drank. The guards watched enviously, knowing their turn would come to join the merrymaking when some of the men sobered. For now their only concern was the safety and well-being of the Cosars in the compound, under heavy guard. They could eat till they burst, but they couldn't drink.
That night, and for several nights thereafter, the Terek celebrated the capture of their golden treasureâthe Cosar horsesâevery pound worth its weight in gold.
Yuri Zhuk lay in the thicket and knew he was dying. Never a religious man, he prayed, in his brief moments of lucidity, that his end would be quick and merciful. A wild fever raged through his body, and his dark eyes were glazed with a thin white film. The pain in his throat and neck was so intense, he began to pound the earth where he lay. He had heard of others that lived with no tongue, but he had no desire to be one of them. He blinked as pain shot up his arm. For a moment he had forgotten the loss of his fingers. Blood spurted from the severed stumps of his hands, and he wanted to cry out, but he didn't. Instead he rolled over and crushed his face into the welcoming dirt, the brush and twigs crackling with his movements. He wanted to savor this moment of clarity before he died. He wanted to remember how it was, and he wanted to remember Katerina's face. If God chooses to smile upon me, perhaps the pleasant thoughts will drive away the pain, he thought as his mind wandered back in time.
What a fool he had been. The moment he rode from the Cossack camp he should have known that they would come after him. How confident, how arrogant he had felt when he had ridden out onto the steppe at the end of spring. There had only been one thought in his mind: spend the summer cementing ties with Ivan's allies on the steppe, get back to Russia, make up some story for the Czar to explain his failure, and return for Katerina.
He knew he was being followed even now, months later, though he heard no sound. The fine hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and that was all the warning he needed. Making camp for the night at the first sign of dusk, he was certain that eyes watched him. Only once in the short time he waited for the Cossack did he have any feeling of panic. He had been trained well in the Czar's army before his advancement to his present position and he would give a good accounting of himself, of that he was certain.
The two Cossacks had ridden boldly into his camp as soon as darkness settled. The only light was the small, flickering campfire, which threw the two riders into ghastly, eerie shadows. Yuri had waited for what he knew was coming. Oles, the young Cossack from the village, had walked over to the fire and stood looking down at the Russian. From where he lay Yuri could see the wild gleam in his eye as he made a motion for his companion to dismount. When both men stood towering over him, Yuri rose to his feet, his saber held loosely in his hand. “What do you want here at this time of night?” he asked harshly.
Oles and his friend stared at the Russian, their faces cold, dark, and forbidding. Yuri felt a twinge of fright. One man he could handle, but two Cossacks was something he hadn't planned on. They would fight by their own rules, not the rules he had been trained under.
“The Kat ordered your death. We were selected to carry out the order. You crept into our camp and tried to steal our secrets and then ravaged the hetman's daughter. Your death is to be slow and painful. The secrets of our village will never find their way to Moscow and that lunatic Czar you serve under. We have finally succeeded in tracking you after all these weeks. Your tongue is to be removed and then your hands,” Oles said coldly.
“Secrets be damned!” Yuri shouted. “It isn't Katerina that is making you do this. I didn't ravage her; she came to me of her own free will. I don't expect you to believe me, but she didn't tell me any secrets, and if she had, I wouldn't divulge them to the Czar. I love her and want to marry her. My plans are to return to Moscow and settle things, and then I am coming back for Katerina.”
“You lie; all Russians lie. The Kat said you lie, and that is all we need to know. Even if you somehow managed to escape us and return to Moscow, you would be too late. We leave for the mountains on the last day of August. There is no way you could find your way into the Carpathians once the snows come. You were doomed from the moment you rode into our village.”
So intent were the three men on their conversation that they heard nothing until a wild whoop split the soft, dark night. Yuri backed away from the flickering fire as a dozen men converged into the semidarkness with sabers drawn and evil smiles on their faces, Oles swiveled and immediately brought up his saber as he danced around the tiny fire. Iron clanked against iron as the three men fought for their lives. They were outnumbered, and Yuri watched as the valiant Cossacks lost their heads with wicked sweeps of the strangers' sabers. He threw down his saber and waited.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“Your executioners.” One of the men laughed. “Surround him,” the leader ordered his men, “and lash him to the horse. Throw those heads into a sack so they can be returned to Gregory.”
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Katerina jumped to her feet; she had to get back to the village. Her father was right. Yuri had not come and summer was over. Had the Czar put him in prison when he failed to deliver his contract for the pure whites out of Whitefire? Had the Kat sent someone after Yuri and killed him? She would never know. Tomorrow they would go to the mountains, and that would end any remaining hopes.
Her eyes were wild as she looked around the grassy copse and lashed out at the gnarled old tree with her booted foot. Now she would never know if he had lied or not.
It would soon be dawn and time to start for the mountains, and still she hadn't talked with her father. No, there was no point in trying to talk to her father now.
It was a night made for lovers, but Katerina didn't notice the warm, scented air or the star-filled night as the moon crept from behind its hiding place, lighting up the steppe as she trudged along the grassy field. She welcomed the indigo darkness when the moon slipped behind the cloud. The inky blackness was her ally, her confidant.
Blinded with tears, she skirted a small outgrowth of shrubbery and raised her eyes when a high-pitched wail reached her ears. She wiped at her eyes, and for the first time was aware of the smoke on the road and around the pens. They were gone! All the horses were gone! Everyone was dead! All around the compounds and enclosures lay the lifeless bodies of the Cossacks. The buildings were burned and gutted, the stables nothing but smoldering ashes. “Father!” she screamed.
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