The Cossack Cowboy Read online

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Back Talk...

  Other books by Lester S. Taube

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  BACK TALK …

  “Hear tell you’re the new owner of the Three Barbs,” said a soft voice.

  Paul recognized the voice. He had heard it in the alleys of Marseilles, the back streets of Rome, and along the canals of Amsterdam. It was the voice behind a sharp blade, a stout club, or a strangler’s rope, and he wished desperately that he had a weapon of his own. It was one of the younger Birmans, about his own age. “I am owner of the Three Barbs,” he said.

  The Birman rocked back on his heels. “Hear tell you’re one of them English Lords or something,” he went on in his soft voice.

  “I am one of those English Lords - or something,” said Paul.

  The glint in the Birman’s eyes grew brighter. “You’re pretty sassy for a foreigner,” he said slowly, setting himself on the balls of his feet, the fingers of his hands twitching slightly.

  Paul stared levelly into his eyes. This is where it will come from, he reminded himself. From the eye to the brain to a muscle to a weapon or a blow. Without the least sign of warning, his fist whipped out and sank deep into the stomach of the man. A great gush of air exploded from his lips and he doubled up in pain. Paul’s stiffened hand chopped him at the base of the neck, sending him crashing down like a poleaxed steer.

  Paul did not wait to watch him sprawling on the floor - he was already walking, toward the other Birmans.

  The

  Cossack

  Cowboy

  by

  Lester. S. Taube

  CCB Publishing

  British Columbia, Canada

  The Cossack Cowboy

  Copyright ©2012 by L. S. Taube

  ISBN-13 978-1-927360-95-8

  Second Edition

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Taube, L. S., 1920-

  The Cossack cowboy [electronic resource] / written by L. S. Taube. – 2nd ed.

  Electronic monograph in PDF format.

  ISBN 978-1-927360-95-8

  Additional cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada

  First published in Great Britain by W. H. Allen and Company Ltd., 1971.

  First American edition: A Pinnacle Books edition, published by special arrangement with the author, October 1978.

  Cover illustration by Don Daily.

  Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events and persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written permission from the author.

  Publisher:

  CCB Publishing

  British Columbia, Canada

  www.ccbpublishing.com

  TO

  ULLA

  MY WIFE

  WHO IS TRULY

  THE COMPANION FOR THE VOYAGE

  Novels by Lester S. Taube:

  The Grabbers

  (republished as: The Diamond Boomerang)

  Peter Krimsov

  (republished as: The Stalingrad Conspiracy)

  Myer For Hire

  The Cossack Cowboy

  Enemy of the Tzar

  Atonement for Iwo

  I Contadini

  The Land of Thunder

  Publishers:

  W.H. Allen – London, England

  Ediçöes Dêagá – Lisbon, Portugal

  Lademann Forlagsaktieslskab – Copenhagen, Denmark

  Longanesi – Milan, Italy

  Van Lekturama – Rotterdam, Holland

  S. Fischer Verlag – Frankfurt am Main, Germany

  Winthers Forlag – Copenhagen, Denmark

  Pocket Books – USA

  Pinnacle – USA

  Bookman – USA

  Cherica Publishers – USA

  CCB Publishing – Canada

  Preface

  Writing a period novel calls for many hours of fact-finding. Sometimes this research is more time consuming than penning the first draft. The Cossack Cowboy is one of these types of books, in so far as it required an unusually detailed study of the dress, customs, and historical background of that period. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 brought changes of uniform and weapons to the Cossack fighting man and his frontier adversaries; Queen Victoria was leading the British Empire to its glorious heights; the Lincoln County War in the Territory of New Mexico was blazing a new chapter in the history of the U.S. West.

  There is a very long list of people whom I must thank for assisting me to gather information for this novel. Two of them spent considerable time merely to determine the length of the 1880 Cossack lance. In spite of all this effort, I must admit to having taken certain liberties in rounding off its true length, of placing Don Cossack patrols in Kuban Cossack country, in the spelling of tribal names, etc., all of which might give instant apoplexy to the true historian, but on the whole, the characters and incidents could very well have been real.

  So, a barrel of thanks to all of you, and special mention to:

  Former Cossack Captain Nicholas Korolkoff, one of the last of his breed, who gave so freely of his time and memories, and whose back is just as straight as it was during his final fight over half a century ago.

  Colonel William Tallon, who opened the doors to the United States Army War College Library, and who would have made a helluva Cossack had he learned to ride as well as his former artillery scout partner - me.

  Lieutenant Colonel John Sloan, who took time from his studies with the Russian Institute to plough through German, Austrian, and his own archives, and who wrote, drew and delivered such a volume of valuable information that I was rich indeed.

  My dear and huge-hearted friend, Gwyn Simpson, of Folkestone, Kent, editor, principal researcher, and unshakable guardian of truth, who stood for no foolishness with dangling participles, British butlers who didn’t wear white gloves, and describing piñon trees where firs should grow.

  Last, but certainly not least, my wife, Ulla, who is all things, but primarily the final authority of the written word.

  Lester S. Taube, Austria

  Chapter I

  The thoroughly soaked postilion shook the rain from his eyes and brought his thick leather crop down sharply on the flank of the off-side lead horse.

  “Giddup there!” he cried, whacking it again with a heavy-handed blow. The weary animal lurched forward and called upon the last of its reserve strength and endurance to keep pace with its three team-mates.

  Through the sheets of pouring rain, the four galloping horses drew the heavy carriage, the coachman perched high on his box plying his whip to the flanks of the shaft-horses, keeping them well into their collars. His body rode the rough jolts of the carriage wheels dropping into water-filled pot-holes, and he leaned from side to side as the vehicle tipped and t
ilted around sharp curves and slipped and slithered in the mud.

  The two flickering lanterns, mounted one on each side of his hard seat, gave out light enough only to see the rumps of the shaft-horses, and the lantern fastened to a short pole fixed to the pommel of the postilion’s saddle gave off even less light. The coachman murmured thanks under his breath that Ketchell was riding up front, for Ketchell had cat’s eyes and it would take cat’s eyes plus a gill of luck to keep from running into a ditch or straight into a tree or merely overturning as they raced through the blinding storm in the dead of night. It surely had to be a matter of life or death to bring out the three senior partners of the most respected firm of solicitors in the whole of London on a night like this; and to drive four fine horses into a state where only shots in the head would relieve them of their forthcoming misery after being literally run to death, well, he would never have thought it of Messrs. Blatherbell, Poopendal and Snoddergas. Never in his twelve years of service with the firm of Blatherbell, Poopendal and Snoddergas, Solicitors, had he even considered, let alone been allowed to press the sleek, well-groomed animals of the firm beyond the most sedate trot, and his hackles had risen when the three partners had bounded into the carriage and Mr. Blatherbell had pounded on the coachman’s roof flap and shouted, almost hysterically, “The Duke’s castle! Hurry, we must arrive within two hours!”

  Two hours! He had sat there almost in a state of shock. Why, in broad daylight on a dry road a well-mounted man could barely reach the Duke’s castle in two hours! A series of raps from Mr. Blatherbell’s cane and his muffled shouts from within had galvanized him into action.

  “Use yer leather!” he had shouted to Ketchell, and then lifting his whip high in his huge, powerful hand, had brought it down smartly on the flank of the offside shaft-horse. As the horses sprang off with a clatter of iron-shod hooves on cobblestones, jerking the carriage forward with a neck-jarring lunge, he could still hear Mr. Blatherbell, “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!”

  The coachman did not have to grope for the watch in his jacket pocket to know that the two hours of racing over the deadly, rutted road had nearly come to an end, for not only did he feel the fatigue in his muscular arms but every five minutes since leaving London Blatherbell had thumped on the roof and bellowed that he had so many more minutes to reach the castle.

  He breathed a sigh of relief as four lights, two on each side, materialized out of the dark, recognizing them as mounted grooms from the castle come to light his way for the last two miles to their destination. As they sped along the straight, smooth, tree-lined driveway, he rapped lightly on the roof flap, then opened it.

  “We’ll be arrivin’ in a shake, kind Gentlemen,” he announced.

  “Thank God,” came the squeak of Mr. Poopendal. “An absolute nightmare, these past two hours. Absolute nightmare. Could not have survived it a moment longer. Do you not agree, Mr. Snoddergas?”

  Mr. Snoddergas did not answer. Feet planted firmly on the floor, fingers gripping the edge of the seat, shoulders thrust back against the cushion, Mr. Snoddergas was sound asleep, snoring with a buoyant gusto.

  Mr. Poopendal peered down from his towering height of six-feet-six affixed longitudinally by one hundred and thirty-two pounds of skin and bones at Mr. Blatherbell’s five-feet-two form gallantly struggling to hold up two hundred and ten pounds of quivering, restless flesh.

  “Do you not agree, Mr. Blatherbell?” asked Mr. Poopendal.

  “Not more than three minutes left,” said Mr. Blatherbell hoarsely.

  “I mean, do you not agree that these two hours have been an absolute nightmare?”

  Mr. Blatherbell ran a sweat-soaked handkerchief over his face and turned his ornamented pocket-watch in all directions, vainly trying to read its dial. “Two?” he shouted harshly. “It cannot be. It has to be nearer to three minutes left.”

  “Not minutes, hours,” squealed Mr. Poopendal. “An utter nightmare.” He peered again at Mr. Snoddergas, hoping to find him awake, and was struck once more by Mr. Snoddergas’ ape-like appearance. He was five feet-six, a hard-boned, hard-muscled man of forty years of age, the same as Mr. Blatherbell and himself, without the least trace of a waist, the lines of his body running straight up from his hips to his shoulders, shoulders which were square and heavy and held the shortest of necks on which sat a small rounded head covered by cropped hair. His eyes, even when closed, were small and round, and so were his lips and nose and chin. But not his ears. Mr. Poopendal shook his head in wonder as he looked at Mr. Snoddergas’ ears. They were the largest he had ever seen on a man, huge sails which stood straight out like those of an alarmed elephant, measuring almost two-thirds of the distance from his pate to his chin. “Are you awake, Mr. Snoddergas?” he asked hopefully, impatient to explain what a nightmare the past two hours had been.

  Mr. Blatherbell came to his aid by jabbing Mr. Snoddergas in his stomach with the point of his cane.

  “Wake up, Snoddergas,” he snapped. Mr. Blatherbell could speak in such fashion to Mr. Snoddergas, since he was the senior of the three partners.

  The only evident sign that Mr. Snoddergas awakened instantly was the parting of his eyelids by a fraction of an inch. Then his mouth opened wide in a luxurious yawn. “Have we arrived already?” he asked in a soft, sweet voice.

  “Already!” screeched Mr. Poopendal. “Two hours of absolute terror, that is what it has been. A veritable nightmare.” He drew his long, black cloak more tightly around himself and tugged down on his silk, stovepipe hat. “I cannot begin to tell you how close to eternity we have been …”

  His voice trailed away as the carriage was brought to an abrupt halt. The right-door was jerked open to reveal a line of liveried footmen holding umbrellas. At their head stood a ramrod-stiff, grim-faced butler, impeccably garbed in black tails and striped trousers, a white starched shirt, white bow tie and white cotton gloves.

  “This way, gentlemen,” said the butler testily. “Please hurry.” His request was made with only slightly more courtesy than a gimlet-eyed colonel employs while raking down a subaltern who drank the last drop of scotch at the club.

  Jumping out of the carriage, they stumbled up the stone steps, the footmen hurrying to shield them with the umbrellas, and then through a massive, brass-studded oak door entrance into a large hall. Other servants waited there to take off their cloaks and relieve them of their stovepipe hats, gloves and canes. With practiced dexterity, the solicitors allowed themselves to be peeled to their cutaways without losing grip on their thick, black brief cases.

  “Please hurry,” ordered the grim-faced butler, motioning with an impatient wave of his hand to two footmen carrying gleaming candelabra holding slender, clean-burning tapers. The footmen started walking rapidly across the main hall to a wide, curved staircase leading upward to the first floor, the butler and the three solicitors hard on their heels, their boots echoing loud on the stone steps. At the top of the stairs, the servants turned down a hall to another massive, brass-studded oak door, a twin of the one downstairs, and here they stood aside to allow the butler to draw it open.

  Inside the huge bedroom several doctors and servants were grouped around the figure of a white-haired man lying on a giant-sized four-poster bed. The room simmered from the heat of a leaping, log-devouring inferno in a shoulder-high stone fireplace and from charcoal braziers dotted about the chamber.

  As the solicitors approached the bed, it became immediately apparent that His Grace, the Thirteenth Duke of Wesfumbletonshire was on the point of kicking the bucket. His bristling white hair was now limp, his long slender patrician nose was pinched, his face waxen and drawn, his thin lips slack and parted, exposing his toothless gums as he gasped for the last few breaths remaining to him.

  “Your Grace,” shouted the butler an inch from his ear, since it was common knowledge that the Duke was almost stone deaf, “your solicitors are here.”

  The old man’s eyes flickered open, a wicked little tongue popped out to moisten the dry lips, color came to his
cheeks, and his hair grew stiff like the hackles of an angry dog.

  “Is that you, you blundering beggars?” he gasped.

  “Yes, Your Grace,” shouted the three solicitors in unison.

  “Lower your faces, you blithering idiots,” panted the Duke. Instantly, the three men leaned forward until they were nose to nose with the dying man. “Where is my will?” he growled.

  “Right here, Your Grace,” said Mr. Blatherbell smoothly. “We have a copy in my case, another copy at our office, a copy is with the Lord Chamberlain, and you have three copies hidden about the castle.”

  “Tell me what they say,” ordered the old man.

  “They say that every bit of your estate goes to your nephew, Lord Percival, and not one farthing to your nephew, Paul.”

  “Say it again,” gasped the Duke.

  “Every bit of your estate…”

  “Not that,” interrupted the Duke. “Tell me again about the part concerning that worthless, shiftless, hell-damned wastrel nephew, Paul.”

  “Not a worn farthing, a withered blade of grass, nor a stale turd from the stables. That is how it is phrased.”

  A sweet, contented smile crossed the dying man’s lips. “Say it again,” he ordered.

  “Not a worn farthing, a withered blade of grass, nor a stale turd from the stables.”

  “Show it to me in the will again,” said the Duke.

  Mr. Blatherbell opened his case, drew out the will, turned it to the proper page and held it close to the Duke’s eyes. The Duke read it carefully, his smile becoming broader and broader. “The happiest day of my life,” he sighed. Suddenly, his eyes narrowed. “Where is Percival?” he asked.

  The butler bent down to his ear. “He is on his way, Your Grace,” he roared. “He should be here at any moment.”