The White Ship (9 page)

And fresh, silvery snow was already settling overnight upon the highest peaks. By morning the dark ranges would turn hoary like the necks of silver foxes.

The wind grew colder, gathered chill as it blew through the canyons. But the days were still bright and dry.

The woods across the river from the forest post were rapidly entering the fall. From the very edge of the water and up to the line of the Black Forest, the smokeless fire of autumn ran over the steep wall of the smaller leafy trees. Brightest of all—a flaming orange—were the birch and aspen thickets which climbed persistently up to the heights of the great forest just below the snow line, to the dark kingdom of pines and firs.

In the Black Forest it was clean, as always, and severe as in a temple. Nothing but the hard, brown trunks, the dry fragrance of resin, the rusty needles thickly carpeting the forest floor. Nothing but the wind, silently flowing among the crowns of the old pines.

But today the mountain quiet was shattered by the ceaseless chattering of startled jackdaws. In a large, furiously screaming flock they circled around and around over the pine forest. They had taken alarm at the very first stroke of the ax, and now, clamoring all at once, as though they had been robbed in broad daylight, they pursued the two men who were maneuvering a felled pine tree down the mountainside.

The pine was dragged by chains attached to a horse's harness. Orozkul walked first, leading the horse by the bridle. Like a bull, with his head thrust forward, his coat catching at the bushes, he breathed heavily. Behind him and behind the log, Grandpa Momun hurried to keep up. It was hard for him too. In his hands he held a birchwood pole with which he guided the log. The log kept getting stuck over stumps and rocks. And at the steep descents it stubbornly tried to slip crosswise and roll down. That would be a disaster—it would surely smash a man to death.

The most dangerous part fell to the one who walked behind, controlling the log with the pole. But you never could tell. Orozkul had already jumped aside several times, leaving the bridle. And each time he was scalded with shame at the sight of the old man straining to hold the log at the risk of his life and waiting for Orozkul to return to the horse and take him by the bridle. But men speak truly when they say that, to conceal one's shame, one has to heap shame on an¬other.

"What's the matter, are you trying to do me in?" Orozkul shouted at his father-in-law.

There was no one around to hear Orozkul or to judge him. His father-in-law answered meekly that he himself could also have been struck down by the log; why shout at him as though he were doing it on purpose?

But this infuriated Orozkul still more.

"Just listen to him!" he growled indignantly. "If you are smashed, it's no great loss, you've lived your life. Why should you care? But if I am gone, who will take your daughter? Who needs her, barren as a devil's whip . . ."

"You are a hard man, my son. You've no respect for others," Momun replied.

Orozkul, unaccustomed to any opposition, halted, measuring the old man with his glance:

"Old men like you have long been lying by their hearths, warming their butts in the ashes. And you're still earning wages, whatever they are. And how come you're earning those wages? Because of me. What other respect do you want?"

"Oh, never mind, it just slipped out," Momun gave in.

They went on. After another stretch, they stopped for a rest. The horse was lathered and dark with sweat.

And the jackdaws still circled overhead, refusing to calm down. The sky was black with them, and they kept screaming as if their only concern that day was to keep up that deafening clamor.

"They sense an early winter coming," said Momun, trying to divert the conversation and assuage Orozkul's anger. "Getting ready to leave. They don't like to be disturbed," he added, as though apologizing for the stupid birds.

"Who disturbs them?" Orozkul turned sharply, his face suddenly purple. "You babble too much, old man," he said quietly, with a threat in his voice.

"Hinting," he thought. "I'm not supposed to touch a pine or cut a branch—just for the sake of his damned jackdaws. We'll see about that. I am still the master here." He threw a vicious glance at the frantic birds.

"If only I had a machine gun now!" And he turned away with an obscene oath.

Momun was silent. It was not the first time he had to listen to Orozkul's swearing. "It's come over him again," the old man thought sadly. "Takes a drink and turns into a beast. And when he has a hangover, you daren't say a word either. What makes people get like that?" Momun grieved silently. "You do them good, and they reply with evil. And nothing will make him stop and think, or feel ashamed. As though that's the way it has to be. Always sure he's right. So long as he is comfortable. Everybody around must jump to please him. And if you do not want to, he'll force you. It's lucky when a man like that sits in the woods, in the mountains, and has no more people under him than you can count on two fingers. But what if he is higher up, with more power? Heaven help us. . . . And there's no end to such men. They'll always grab theirs. And no place to escape from them. Wherever you turn, there he is, waiting for you, ready to shake the soul out of you, just to make life better for himself. And he will always prove himself right in the end. No, there's no getting rid of them . . ."

"That will do. Enough," Orozkul broke in on the old man's thoughts. "Let's get going," he ordered. And they went on with their task.

Orozkul had been in a black mood all day. In the morning, instead of crossing the river with the tools, Momun had hurried off to take his grandson to school. The old man was going into his second childhood! Every morning he saddled the horse to take the brat to school, then he'd ride off again to bring him back. Bothering with that abandoned little bastard. Imagine, he can't be late to school! When there's a job like this to be done, and God knows how it will turn out. The job can wait, eh? "I'll be back in a second," he says. "It would be a disgrace before the teacher to let the boy be late for class." The old fool! Who is she, anyway, that teacher? Going around five years in the same coat. All she thinks of is copybooks and schoolbags. . . . Always asking for a lift on the road to the district center, always short of one thing or another—coal for the school, glass for the windows, chalk, rags. Would a decent teacher go to work in such a school? The names they'll think of—"midget school.' It's midget, all right. And what's the good of it? Real teachers work in the city. There the schools are built of glass. The teachers wear ties. But that's the city . . . All the high officials riding in the streets! And the cars! They make you want to stop and stretch out at attention until they roll by, those big, black, shiny, gliding cars. And the city people don't even seem to notice them, they're always in a hurry, always rushing somewhere. That's where the life is, in the city! If he could only move there, get himself a decent job. There, people are respected according to their position. If a man's supposed to get respect, he gets it! The bigger the position, the more respect. Civilized people. And if you visit someone or receive a present, you don't have to drag logs down mountains or anything like that to pay for it. Not the way it's here. A fellow will slip you fifty rubles, or, if you're lucky, a hundred, haul off the lumber, and then scribble a complaint against you: Orozkul takes bribes. Bastards. . . . Ignorant fools!

Ah, if he could only get to the city. . . . He'd send them to the devil—all those mountains and woods and logs, a hundred curses on them, and that empty-bellied wife of his, and the brainless old man with that pup he's fussing over like he was something special. He'd know how to live—he'd get himself going like a horse fed on the finest oats! He'd make people respect him properly. "Orozkul Balazhanovich, may I step into your office, please?" He'd marry a city woman. And why not? Some actress, maybe, one of those beauties that sing and dance with a microphone in their hands. People say the main thing such a woman cares for is a man's job. He'd take her by the elbow—himself dressed up, tie and all—and off they would go to the movies. She'd walk next to him, heels clicking on the sidewalk, smelling of perfume. And people would turn to sniff the perfume. Before you knew it, there'd be children. He'd send his son to school to be a lawyer, and teach his daughter to play the piano. You could tell city children at once, they were so clever. At home they spoke nothing but Russian; they wouldn't bother with country words. He'd bring his children up like that, too: "Father dear, mother dear, I want this, I want that . . ." Would a man stint any-thing for his own flesh and blood? Eh, wouldn't he put a lot of people in their place, show them who he is! In what way was he worse than others? Were all those, up above, any better? Just men like him—only luckier. And he had let his luck slip by. His own fault. After the forestry courses he ought to have gone on to the city, to technical school, or even college. He had been too much in a hurry, too anxious to get a post. A small one, but a post all the same. And now look at him, clambering over mountains, dragging logs like a donkey . . . And all those jackdaws on top of it. What were they yelling for, why were they circling over them around and around? Ah, if only he had a machine gun. . . .

Orozkul had good reason to be upset. He'd had himself a merry time all summer. The fall was coming on, and the end of summer meant the end of visiting with shepherds and herdsmen. How did the song go? "The flowers have finished blooming in the mountain meadow, time to go down into the valley . . ."

Autumn was here. And time for Orozkul to pay for all the honor, the dinners, the debts, and promises. And for the bragging: "What do you need? Two pine logs for beams? That's all? No trouble—just come and get them."

He'd bragged, received his presents, drunk their vodka, and now, dripping sweat, gasping, and cursing one and all, he had to drag those logs over the mountains. He had to pay through his nose. And, generally, all his life had gone awry. Suddenly, a desperate idea flashed through his mind: "Eh, I'll send it all to hell and run off wherever my eyes will lead." But he realized at once that he would not run anywhere. Nobody needed him, and he would not find the life he longed for anywhere.

Just try to leave or go back on your promises. Your pals will turn you in themselves. The people nowadays! Worthless trash. Year before last he had promised one of his own clansmen, a Bugan, a pine log for a gift lamb, and in the fall he didn't feel like climbing all the way up for a pine. It's easily said, but try to get up there and fell it and bring it down the mountain. Especially if the pine has stood there dozens of years. Why, no one in his right mind would want to tackle such a job, not for all the gold in the world. And, just as if in spite, old Momun was sick in bed at that time. And one man couldn't manage it—nobody could ever bring a log down by himself. He might be able to fell the pine, but never get it down. . . . If he had known ahead of time all that would come of it, he would have taken Seidakhmat and gone up with him.

Orozkul was too lazy to clamber for the log, and he decided to get rid of his clansman with any old piece of timber. But the fellow wouldn't have it. Nothing, but a genuine pine log would do. "You can take lambs all right, but you can't keep your word?" Orozkul blew up and threw him out: "You don't want this one? Then get the devil out of here." Well, the man was no ninny. He scribbled such a complaint against the overseer of the San-Tash Forest Preserve, filled with all sorts of truths and untruths, that Orozkul could have been shot as a "wrecker of the socialist woods." For a long time after that he was dragged before all sorts of investigating commissions—from the district center, from the forest ministry. He had barely managed to clear himself. . . . That's a kinsman for you! With all that stupid talk: "We're the children of the Horned Mother Deer. One for all, and all for one!" And then they're ready to go at each other's throats, or send a man to prison for a kopek.

It was a long time ago that people believed in the Mother Deer. How ignorant can you get? Ridiculous. Today everybody is civilized, everybody is literate. Who needs those Fairy tales? They're only good for children.

After that narrow escape Orozkul vowed to himself never Again to give as much as a twig or a splinter to anybody—not o acquaintances, not to kinsmen, let them be thrice children of the Horned Mother Deer.

But summer came. White yurts appeared in the green mountain meadows. Herds bleated and neighed. The smoke of fires rose by the banks of streams and rivers. The sun shone, the breeze carried the fragrance of flowers, the tempting smell of koumyss. It's good to sit in the fresh air outside the yurt, on the green grass, in a circle of friends, enjoying koumyss and lamb. Then wash it down with a glass of vodka, until your head begins to swim, and you begin to feel such Power in yourself that you could surely pull a tree up with its roots, or turn a mountain upside down. On such days Orozkul forgot his vow. It was sweet to hear himself called t he big master of the big forest. And again he would promise, again accept gifts. And again some centuries-old pine stood proudly in the woods, never suspecting that its days were numbered—just wait until the autumn months . . .

And autumn stole up quietly into the mountains from the harvested fields and nosed about in the woods. And wherever it passed the grass turned rusty, the leaves turned red.

Berries ripened. Lambs grew into sheep. They were divided into flocks—the ewes by themselves, the young rams by themselves. The women stacked dried cheeses in winter hags. The men discussed the order of their descent back into the valleys. And before leaving, those who had made agreements in the summertime with Orozkul would tell him the day and hour when they would drive up to the forest post with trucks for the promised timber.

That evening, too, a truck was coming with a trailer for two pine logs. One of the logs was already below, already brought across the river and dragged to the spot where the truck was to stop. This was the second one they were taking down. If Orozkul could now give back—throw up—all he had drunk and eaten for those damned logs, he'd do it instantly, just to be rid of the toil and misery he now had to endure.