Wolf of the Steppes Read online

  Khlit's gaze fell on a slender Cossack, dark-skinned, who stood quietly before the Koshevoi Ataman, watching the warriors around him curiously. The stranger seemed not to interest Khlit.

  “Hey,” said the giant, “he is the vagabond I gave my coat and boots to. He came to me near the ferry—”

  He was silenced by murmurs from a group of Cossacks who stood near, and who began to address the Koshevoi Ataman. One of their number thrust through the crowd hastily and Khlit pulled at his mustache as he recognized Taravitch.

  “A word to the Koshevoi Ataman,” cried Taravitch in a loud voice. “This man who says that he comes from Rusk this afternoon lies, for no man has come from the shore to the island.” “How is that, Taravitch?” asked Khlit quickly.

  “It is true,” persisted the gambler. “I know, for early in the afternoon I saw the ferryman asleep by the shore, so filled with wine he could not stand. And there are no other boats. So no one could come from shore across Father Dnieper. Look!”

  Taravitch pointed, and the Cossacks looked out over the river. The red glow of sunset flamed on the tossing crest of the waves, with here and there a white fleck of foam. The wind from the west slapped their faces and pulled at their beards. Truly, Father Dnieper was in no gentle mood. Taravitch, who loved better the tranquility of the siech than the hardships of war, smiled as he felt the amazement and concern of the gathering at his words. He had made his point. Already he had won, he felt, a huge wager from the wise Khlit, and now he went on to drive home his plan to discredit the messenger.

  The giant Cossack stepped forward, but Taravitch was before him.

  “You can see for yourselves, noble sirs,” he said eagerly, “that not even one favored by God could cross these waters. No man has ever done that of himself. And it is known that the ferry has not been used—”

  “You hear, noble sirs,” the deep voice of Khlit broke in, “what he said. No man has ever done that. You have heard the words of Taravitch.”

  “Aye, it is the truth”—the gambler shot a puzzled glance at the warrior—“and so the man who says he comes from Rusk lies—”

  “Not so, Taravitch,” Khlit cried again. “Listen to me, noble sirs. The messenger tells the truth. He is a man of honor, and he is of Rusk.”

  He strode forward and clapped his hand on the young Cossack's coat. With a twist he flung it from the other's shoulders. The undergarment of the messenger showed strangely dark and heavy, and Khlit with another wrench wrung a stream of water from his sleeve.

  “This is Menelitza, noble sirs, son of the bogatyr,” he cried. “He has brought you tidings of war from Rusk. When there was no boat to bring him to the siech, he swam through the waves. Many saw him swim ashore, and gave him coat and boots.”

  The young Cossack's face flushed red with the gaze of the throng and he would have stepped back, but Khlit held him firmly, searching the crowd with his gray eyes.

  “This is Menelitza,” he said again, “who has come to the siech as none other before him. Is there any Cossack now who would speak of lies?”

  Silence greeted him, until broken by the Koshevoi Ataman, who announced that the Zaporogian Siech smelled war and that the swords of the knights would no longer be rusted.

  That is all of the tale of the coming of Menelitza to the siech, save perhaps for the word of the giant Cossack, who repeated afterward that that night, when the siech was in slumber, he, being one of the watchmen, saw Khlit drag a pair of oars in the siech—belonging to the ferry.

  Khlit glanced around and, seeing no one near him in the gloom, carefully replaced some furs which had concealed the oars from discovery during the day. Following him, the Cossack saw Khlit carry the oars to the ferry, which lay on the shore, and place them inside.

  When the noble sirs heard that, they laughed and told the big Cossack he had been drinking corn brandy, and when they asked Khlit, he also laughed and said the man had been drinking corn brandy.

  Wolf's War

  Khlit was angry. Very angry was Khlit, he surnamed the Wolf, and the Cossack of the Curved Saber by his enemies, Tatars and Turks. Khan Mirai Tkha would set extra watchmen about his herd of cattle at night, if word had come to him that Khlit was gripped so hard by the little devil of rage.

  For no one in the Zaporogian Siech, the war encampment of the Cossacks along the bank of Father Dnieper, not even the Ko-shevoi Ataman himself, was better known to Khan Mirai Tkha than Khlit, the Wolf. And what the Tatar chief had learned, he had learned too late, to his cost, for it was the way of the Cossack to strike without warning. Wherefore Khan Mirai waited with patience for the time when Khlit should strike too soon or too late and the ancient score would be wiped out.

  For no khan of the sixteenth century had more spear points at his call than Mirai Khan, great-grandson of the leader of the Golden Horde, not Yussaf himself, who was called prince of princes.

  Now that Khlit's mustache was white and the muscles on his arm lean, the Cossack knew that the score between him and the Tatar had grown to the point where, on either side, it must be wiped out. Wherefore he was angry. For against his wishes the entire body of the Zaporogian Siech had departed to fight the Poles to the west, and with them had gone Menelitza, his foster son who had come to the Siech to win place as a warrior.

  The Poles, Khlit considered, were less worthy foes for Menelitza than the Tatars, so when he was overruled by the atamans, he felt that it was a mistake the Siech would pay dearly for, and for the first time he sulked at home when the Cossacks set out.

  Another reason for his ill temper was a woman. Menelitza, instead of knightly fame for the joy of good blows struck and received and the hot smell of battle, had told him that he planned to return an approved knight of the Siech to win a woman for wife. Women Khlit regarded as part of the baggage of Poles and Turks, useful otherwise in making and serving wine and in cooking food.

  He had offered to get Menelitza a half-dozen Tatar women to cook and prepare wine for him but the boy had persisted in his plan to win a certain woman of a nearby village, one Alevna. When Khlit asked Menelitza, in deep sorrow, why he wanted a girl instead of himself, the Wolf, for comrade, the boy could give no other reason than that Alevna had black hair and curling lips. Wherefore was Khlit now sitting, to his deep disgust, on his horse at the threshold of Sloboda of Garniv, where Alevna lived. He had come to see with his own eyes what manner of person was Alevna, the black-haired beauty, and to satisfy his curiosity as to why Menelitza favored her above six others.

  It was doubly offensive to Khlit to seek out a woman and to ask questions in a village where he was little known. But he sat his sheepskin hat on the side of his head, lit his long-stemmed pipe, and, with his knee carelessly crossed in front of him, trotted into the village street. As he went, his gray eyes under shaggy brows searched out the women for a possible Alevna.

  He drew rein before a group of girls chattering in front of a cottage, on the doors of which were painted pictures of the good saints driving devils into purgatory. This, Khlit judged, was the house of a worthy Christian. A slender, dark-haired girl in a blue dress with gold ornaments and a necklace of silver coins had already caught his eye.

  She was not as large as her companions, who had coarser features and hands—evidently maidservants—but she ordered them about with great dignity, flashing a delighted smile as she did so and pushing back her mass of black hair. She glanced long and curiously at the dusty Cossack sitting on his horse by the cottage gate.

  “Which one of you sparrows,” said Khlit gruffly, “is the beauty, Alevna?” The maids were silent with sheer surprise, but Alevna ran to the gate, opened it, and confronted Khlit with flushed cheeks.

  “Old man,” she cried, stamping a booted foot, “are you blind with dust that you cannot see me?”

  “I saw you,” growled Khlit, puffing at his pipe. “Can you tell me which is Alevna, the black-haired beauty?”

  The girl came near to the horse with knitted brows.

  “What do you w
ant of Alevna?” she asked angrily. “That is my name. I never saw you before, old man.”

  “You see me now, little wren,” answered the Cossack. “I am the foster father of Menelitza, the young Cossack who swam the Dnieper to come to the Zaporogian Siech, and who desires you.” Alevna did not appear to take kindly to this speech, which Khlit had taken pains to make mild and conciliatory because he wanted to watch the girl, not frighten her away.

  “Then you are Khlit,” she said quickly. “I know about you. The Cossacks went away and you stayed behind to sleep on your stove, for fear of the Poles. Or it may be just because you are old, and the young men are better fighters. Menelitza has chosen badly when he made you come wooing for him.”

  The Cossack's pipe slipped in his teeth from surprise. He, Khlit, to come wooing a girl for another man! He to be accused of sleeping when the Siech marched! But Alevna was taking revenge for his early remark. Warrior as he was, Khlit was not skilled in word battle, being content to let one word do the work of two.

  “The women of the village are talking about you,” continued Alevna, hopping on one foot in delight, “and they said how you talked against the Koshevoi Ataman himself when he ordered war against the Poles—”

  “Bah!” Khlit's voice took a lower note. “The Poles are but meant for the swords of the Siech to sharpen upon. They are like sheep. The real foe of the Ukraine is there, across Father Dnieper.”

  Two dimples showed in Alevna's red cheeks.

  “So that is why you sit in your house on the hill looking across Father Dnieper, old man, to see if you can find any enemies. That is all you are good for, now, isn't it—that and to come paying suit to young girls—”

  A titter of laughter broke from the maids at the gate. Khlit shook his head like a wolfhound that is bitten about the ears.

  “My house on the hill has much booty in it,” he growled, “from my enemies. And the Tatars know the name of Khlit so well they come not near it, though there is the ransom of ten hetmans inside.”

  “You need more than money, old man,” said Alevna mockingly, as she stroked his horse's neck, “if you want to woo a girl, with your face. I had heard that Khlit was a mighty warrior. I am disappointed.”

  “Menelitza is strong,” he said. “He desires you. What he desires he will get.”

  “Then it will be another wife,” cried the girl. “I will not marry him!”

  Khlit puffed thoughtfully at his pipe and leaned closer to her. His glance bored into the girl's brown eyes.

  “Are you afraid of me, wren?” he asked.

  “No,” said Alevna seriously.

  She advanced to the horse's side and placed both arms across the saddlebags, her smiling, fresh face within a foot of Khlit's shaggy countenance. Brown eyes peered into gray for the space of a minute. Khlit's hand shot out and closed firmly around the girl's white throat. Just a little, his fingers tightened. One of the maids screamed. But Alevna did not cease smiling.

  “You are not afraid now?” questioned the Cossack. “I might kill you.”

  “No,” she said.

  She felt safe, being a woman and beautiful. Arrogantly she said, “Will you know Alevna now?”

  Khlit dropped his hand and gathered up his reins.

  “Yes,” he said. “You have a snub nose.”

  Whereupon he trotted away up the village street, without a backward glance at the dark-haired beauty he had come ten miles to see.

  II

  The passing of time did not assuage the anger of Khlit. Tales were brought to him at his cottage overlooking the banks of the Dnieper of how the army of the Siech fought the Poles, and old women did not scorn to mock at Khlit because he was not with the others.

  To tell the truth Khlit did not much heed the tales of fighting on the Polish border. His thoughts lay in another direction, across the river. From childhood Khlit had heard tales of the Tatar Horde, of Nogai, grandson of Teval, seventh son of Juchi, leader of the Golden Horde.

  He had seen towns laid in smoke and ruins from one end of the Ukraine to the other, when the Krim Tatars marched, and he knew how followers of the Great Turk incited the ever ready horsemen of the East to try the strength of the Cossack armies. Year by year he had faced the flying hosts of swarthy horsemen who discharged clouds of arrows as they advanced or retreated and he had seen the ground covered with bodies of good Cossacks.

  Such memories were not lightly forgotten, and Khlit waited at the door of his cottage, his eyes searching the river for what he knew would come—a sally of Tatar horsemen across into the Ukraine in the absence of the Siech army. To get him food, he went to the river with a pronged spear and returned with fish, which he baked in smoke and ate. Only at midday he slept and then, like his Tatar enemies, with one eye open.

  It was during one of his midday naps that Khlit learned the news he had been waiting for and expecting with the wise knowledge of a fisherman who is sure of his prey.

  He had not many visitors at the cottage, partly because he was wary about making friends, and partly because Cossack folk held him in some fear, wherefore they lost no chance to mock him because he had not gone with the Siech.

  So it happened that he was instantly alert when there was a patter of hoofs on the rough trail leading to his cottage, and a small, bent figure came into view mounted on one horse and leading a pack animal. By its gray cloak and wizened brown face, Khlit recognized the figure as that of Yemel, a Jewish merchant, who spoke all tongues and ordinarily haunted the path of the Siech, as full of news as a squirrel, news gleaned from Kiev to Tatary.

  “Hail to you, Khlit,” cried Yemel, climbing down from his horse and seating himself on the tree trunk beside the Cossack. “I have some rare gold ornaments taken from the Polish towns by our brave Cossacks. Perchance, noble sir, you would like to exchange some trifling things for them.”

  Yemel rambled on describing his goods, his bright little eyes on the Cossack's impassive face, and throwing out occasional hints that he was thirsty and corn brandy was excellent to the taste. Khlit motioned to the hut, whereupon the Jew jumped up spryly, and reappeared with a full beaker of brandy, at the same time wiping his lips. Khlit did not fail to debit Yemel with two beakers instead of one, but he said nothing until his guest had done refreshing himself.

  “A fox does not play tricks without reason, Yemel,” he said finally. “Full well you know I trade not in spoil, which I take by the sword. In your jackal brain there is something you would tell—for barter I care not—so, Yemel, speak or be gone.”

  “Aye, noble sir,” chirped the merchant, his eye brightened by the drink, “as always, your words are the very coinage of pure gold in their wisdom. You might add that the jackal does not come to the lion's den without reason. Honor me with your attention, bogatyr, for Yemel scorned to believe what he heard in the villages, that Khlit, he of the Curved Sword, the Wolf, had stayed behind to sleep when the Siech—”

  “Enough!” said Khlit impatiently. “You have news?”

  “For your ear alone, Khlit,” admitted Yemel, “for we two are wiser than the whole Zaporogian Siech.”

  “Spawn of the devil,” said Khlit mildly, “do you link your name with a Cossack? Is your blood the same as mine?”

  “Nay, Khlit,” broke in the merchant hurriedly, “I said not that. Do not believe that of me, noble sir. I meant that my word was for the ear of one wiser than all the Siech. Just a little moment and I will tell it. Khan Mirai Tkha has gone upon a hunt.” Khlit's gaze flickered over the Dnieper and back to Yemel. “The Khan, who loves the chase of the stag,” continued Yemel, “has taken many horsemen as beaters and crossed the Dnieper in his hunt. Truly, it has been a great take, for I have come this day from the spot where the stag was found. Khan Mirai is a great hunter.”

  “Aye,” said the Cossack.

  “He hunted the stag into the streets of Garniv, just across the river,” explained the merchant. “And his horsemen who were beaters surrounded the village. It is a pity that the Zaporogian Sie
ch wars against the Poles, for Khan Mirai hunted well.” “Were many slain?” queried Khlit.

  “All. I saw the scalp-locked bodies of Cossacks strewing the street like fish in the bed of a brook which has run dry. Khan Mirai has returned across the river with many slaves and much booty.”

  “Aye, he is a good hunter.” Khlit bethought him for a moment. “What of Alevna, she who was the beauty of Garniv, the blackhaired one? Was she among the slain?”

  “Nay, Khlit, Alevna is missing. They say she was among the slaves, being beautiful, in spite of her temper. What a pity!” Yemel shot a calculating glance at Khlit. “The news of the Khan's great hunt is not as old as the sun today. Truly, I hurried here with the tidings, for I said to myself that Khlit should hear. It has cost me much trade, for you will not barter, only give. They say you are more generous than Yussaf, prince of princes—”

  “Peace!” muttered Khlit, impatiently. Jerking his thumb over his shoulder, he added, “Go to the hut for reward, Yemel. Select one thing. If it be too fine I will take it from you and rip your hide for payment. If it be too little you will cheat yourself. Choose!”

  Rid of the chattering merchant, Khlit knitted his brows in thought. The coming of Khan Mirai did not surprise him. He had been looking for it. It irked him that he had not seen the Tatars cross, even ten miles down the river. For them to escape unfollowed was to Khlit a sin of the first magnitude. Yet, with the army away, who was there to follow into the land of the Horde after the swift horsemen of the Mirai tribe?

  Another thing Khlit meditated on. The Tatars had taken Alevna, the woman who had come between Menelitza, his foster son, and himself. Well and good, he thought. A woman always bred trouble, and Alevna he had read as a great mischief maker. Now he was well rid of her.

  With Alevna disposed of, Menelitza would return to his cot in Khlit's hut and eat and drink and fight as a Cossack should. But—Khlit shook his head—suppose Menelitza became very angry when he learned that the girl was gone? Young men were unreasonable as wild horses. Menelitza might even go so far as to blame him, Khlit, for the loss of the girl.