The White Ship (14 page)

"Yes," the old man answered uncertainly. Then, anxiously, "Where from? At this hour?" He hurriedly began to dress.

Grandma began to bustle too. She got up and lit a lamp. The boy was also anxious and dressed quickly. Meantime, the people had approached the house. There were many voices and many feet. Their boots creaked on the snow as the newcomers stamped across the porch and banged on the door:

"Aksakal, open up! We're freezing!"

"Who are you?"

"No strangers—we're from hereabouts."

Momun opened the door. Together with blasts of wind and cold and snow, the young drivers who had gone that afternoon to Archa to collect hay for the Soviet farm piled into the room, covered with snow from head to foot. The boy recognized them at once. And Kulubek, in his army coat, who had given him the badge. They led one man under the arms; he moaned and dragged his leg. At once there were alarmed cries from grandma and Momun:

"Astapralla! [note: “Heaven help us!”] What happened to you?" they wailed.

"We'll tell you later. There are more of us coming— seven fellows. If only they don't lose the way. Come on, sit down here. He sprained his foot," Kulubek spoke rapidly, seating the moaning young man on the bench by the stove.

"Where are the others?" Momun began to bustle. "I'll go and bring them." He turned to the boy: "Run over to Seidakhmat, tell him to come quick with a lantern, the electric one."

The boy jumped out of the house and gasped for air. He remembered that terrifying moment till the end of his life. Some shaggy, cold, whistling monster seized him by the throat and began to shake him. But he would not yield. He broke out of its clutches and, shielding his head with his arms, ran toward Seidakhmat's house. It was no more than twenty or thirty steps away, but it seemed to him that he ran and ran through the storm like a legendary hero racing to save his warriors. His heart was filled with courage and resolution. He felt himself mighty and unconquerable, and, until he reached Seidakhmat's house, he had managed to perform feats that took your breath away. He leaped from mountain to mountain across abysses, he cut down hosts of enemies with his sword, he rescued men from fire and drowning, he pursued, in a jet bomber with a flying red flag, a shaggy, black monster escaping from him up and down cliffs and gorges. His jet flew like a bullet after the monster. The boy riddled him with machine-gun fire, shouting, "Kill the fascist!" And, wherever he went, the Horned Mother Deer was there. She was proud of him. When the boy was already at Seidakhmat's door, the Horned Mother Deer said to him, "And now you must save my sons, the young drivers!" "I'll save them, Horned Mother Deer, I swear I will!" the boy cried and hammered on the door.

"Hurry, Uncle Seidakhmat, come save our men!" He shouted so desperately that both Seidakhmat and Guldzhamal recoiled in alarm.

"Save whom? What happened?"

"Grandpa said to come quick with the flashlight, the electric one, the drivers from the Soviet farm lost their way."

"Damn fool, why didn't you say so right away?" Seidakhmat swore and ran for his things.

But the boy was not offended in the least. How was Seidakhmat to know what feats he had just performed to reach him, what an oath he had sworn? Nor was he especially upset when he learned that the drivers had been found by Momun and Seidakhmat right outside the post and brought safely home. It could easily have been different. Danger is easy when it's over. Anyway, the rest of the men were found too. Seidakhmat took them to his house. Even Orozkul had let five men spend the night at his place—he had had to be awakened, too. The rest had crowded in at Momun's house.

And the storm in the mountains would not subside. The boy kept running out on the porch, and a moment later he no longer could tell right from left, above from below. The stormy night swirled and raged. The snow reached up to his knees.

And it was only now, when all the drivers had been found, when they thawed out from the cold and fright, that Grandpa Momun questioned them in detail about the events of that day, although it was obvious that the storm had caught them on the way. The fellows spoke. The old man and grandma sighed sympathetically.

"Oh, oh, heaven preserve us," they exclaimed and thanked God, pressing their hands to their breasts.

"And look at you, fellows, in those light clothes," grandma chided, pouring them hot tea. "How can you go into the mountains dressed like that? Just like children. Showing off, trying to look like city folk. And what if you'd lost the way and had to spend the night outside, heaven forbid? You'd turn into icicles."

"Who could have known such a thing would happen?" Kulubek replied. "Why should we dress more warmly? The trucks are heated inside. You sit there as if it was your own home and turn the wheel. Why, even in planes—they fly so high these mountains look like molehills from up there—outside it could be forty below, and inside people go around in shirtsleeves."

The boy lay on a sheepskin among the drivers. He huddled close to Kulubek and listened wide eyed to the conversation of the grown-ups. No one suspected that he was glad the storm had come and made those fellows seek shelter at the post. Secretly, he hoped that it would go on and on, at least three days. Let the drivers stay at their house. It was so good, so interesting with them. And grandpa, it turned out, knew all of them—if not them, then their fathers and mothers.

"There," the grandfather said to his grandson with a touch of pride. "Now you've seen your brothers, the Bugans. You'll know what kind of kinsmen you have. Look at them! Oh-ho, how tall and handsome our young ones are getting today. May God send you good health. I remember, in forty- two, when they brought us to Magnitogorsk to do construction work. . .”

And grandpa began to tell a story the boy had heard many times before. The guests smiled understandingly: old men are fond of reminiscing.

"We're tall all right," said one of the men when grandpa finished his story. "And yet we bungled the job—we let the truck roll off the road. So many of us, and we couldn't handle it.''

"How could you?" Momun hastened to reassure him. "Loaded with hay, and in that blizzard. It happens. God willing, everything will be set right tomorrow. The main thing is for the wind to quiet down."

The fellows told grandpa how they had come to the upper meadow on the Archa plateau. There were three huge stacks of mountain hay prepared for them. They started loading all three at once, piling the trucks higher than a house, so that a man could not get down afterward except by swinging down a rope. They loaded truck after truck till even the drivers' cabins were covered—all you could see was the windshield, the hood, and the wheels. They wanted to get it all at once, so there would be no need for another trip. Everybody knew that whatever hay was left behind would have to wait till next year. The work went fast and smoothly. Each man whose truck was full, drove it off to the side and returned to help load the rest. They managed to get nearly all the hay except for about two truckloads. After a short rest and a smoke, they agreed on who would follow whom, and started out all together in a column. It was a hard job coming down the mountains. They had to drive carefully, almost by feel. Hay is a light load, but it's inconvenient, even dangerous, especially on narrow roads and sharp turns.

They drove without suspecting what awaited them. After getting down from the Archa plateau, they followed the valley, and by the time they came out of the narrow pass, it was already evening. And then the blizzard struck.

"I've never seen it so bad," said Kulubek. "The sweat kept pouring down my back. All of a sudden everything turned dark, and the wind just tore the steering wheel out of your hands. It looked as if the truck would turn over any minute. And the road, you know, is so rough that even in the daytime it's not safe."

The boy listened with bated breath, without stirring, without taking his shining eyes off Kulubek. The same wind, the same snow he was talking about were raging outside. Many of the drivers and loaders were asleep by now, sprawled on the floor, dressed, boots and all. And everything they had gone through was being freshly relived by this roundheaded boy with the thin neck and large ears.

Within a few moments, the road became invisible. The trucks held close to one another like a row of blind men clinging to the leader, blowing their horns constantly to keep from going off to the side. The snow tumbled down like a solid wall, covering the headlights. The windshield wipers were not fast enough to clear the glass of rime. They had to drive leaning out of the side windows, but what kind of driving is that? And the snow came and came without a stop. The wheels began to skid, and the column had to halt before a steep rise. The motors roared like mad, but it was useless. The trucks could no longer make it uphill. The drivers jumped out of the cabins and ran to the front of the column, finding their way from truck to truck by the hallooing of those ahead. What could be done? It was impossible to make a fire. Remaining in the cabins meant burning up all the remaining fuel, and there was hardly enough left as it was to get them to the Soviet farm. Yet if they didn't heat the cabins they'd freeze to death. The fellows didn't know what to do. The all-powerful machinery stood powerless. Somebody suggested piling out the hay from one of the trucks and digging in. But it was clear that the moment the hay was untied, there wouldn't be a stalk left: the storm would sweep it off before you blinked an eye. Meantime, the trucks were being fairly buried under snow, the drifts had piled up higher than the wheels. The fellows lost their heads completely, chilled to the bone in the wind.

"Then suddenly I remembered, aksakal," Kulubek told Grandpa Momun, "how we had met our little brother Bugan on the road on the way to Archa." He pointed to the boy and stroked him gently on the head. "He was running by the roadside. I stopped a moment. Sure—to say hello. We talked awhile. Right? But why aren't you sleeping? It's late."

The boy smiled and nodded. But if anyone could guess how hotly and violently his heart began to beat with joy and pride. Kulubek himself was talking about him. The strongest, the bravest, the most handsome of all these fellows. If he could only grow up to be like him.

And grandpa, too, spoke words of praise, putting more firewood into the stove:

"That's how he is, our boy. He likes to listen to men talk. Look at him—all ears!"

"Well, I can't even imagine what made me think of him at that moment," Kulubek went on. "So I tried to tell the fellows—I had to shout, the wind blew all the words away. 'Let's try,' I shouted, 'to get to the forest post, or we shall perish here.' 'But how can we get there?' the fellows shouted back at me. 'We'll never make it on foot. And we can't leave the trucks here, either.' So I said, 'Let's try to push them uphill. After that the road is downhill all the way. All we need is to get to the San-Tash hollow,' I said, 'and from there on we can get to the foresters' on foot, it's not too far.' The fellows understood. 'Come on,' they yelled, 'take over the command.' Well, then . . . We started with the lead truck. 'Get into the cabin, Osmonaly!' And all of us, as many as we were, set our shoulders to the truck. It did start moving, but not for long. Our breath gave out. And there we were—we couldn't let go, either. It seemed to us that we were pushing a whole mountain uphill, not just a truck. And what was in it —a haystack on wheels! All I knew was that I yelled with all my strength, 'Come on! Come on! Come on!' But I couldn't even hear myself. Wind, snow, not a thing to be seen. The truck howled, screamed like a living creature, struggled with every ounce of strength. And there we were behind it, our hearts about to burst to pieces, our heads reeling . . ."

"Ah, ah," Grandpa Momun kept sighing. "Poor fellows —such trouble. It must have been the Horned Mother Deer herself who stood over you, her children. It was none but she who saved you. Or else, who knows. . . . You hear that? It doesn't quiet down outside, whirling and whirling."

The boy's eyes were closing. He tried to force himself to stay awake, but his eyes kept closing. And, half-asleep, catching fragments of the conversation, he mingled reality with imagination. It seemed to him that he himself was there, among the fellows caught in a storm in the mountains. He saw the steep road rising up the dazzling, snowy mountain. The blizzard burned his cheeks, slashed at his eyes. They were all pushing up the truck with the hay, huge as a house. Slowly, slowly they inched up the road. And now the truck no longer climbed, it was giving up, sliding back. It was terrifying. The darkness was so dense, the wind so searing. The boy shrank with terror, afraid the truck would slip and crush them. And at this moment, the Horned Mother Deer appeared as if from nowhere. She pushed the truck with her horns, helping them, forcing it up. "Come on! Come on! Come on!" the boy cried out. And the truck began to move, up and up, until they reached the top, then it rolled downhill by itself. And they pushed up the second one, the third, and all the others. And every time the Horned Mother Deer helped them. Nobody saw her. Nobody knew she was right next to them. The only one who saw and knew it was the boy. He saw how every time when the men seemed to be failing, when the going got too difficult and it seemed their strength would not hold out, she would run over and push the truck uphill with her horns. "Come on! Come on! Come on!" the boy would cry. And all the time he was next to Kulubek. Then Kulubek said to him, "Take the wheel." The boy climbed into the cabin. The truck hummed and trembled. And the wheel turned in his hands as though of itself, as easily as the barrel hoop with which he used to play at driving when he was little. But suddenly the truck began to list, keeling over sideways. It crashed down and broke to pieces. The boy began to cry aloud. He felt disgraced. He was ashamed to look at Kulubek.

"What's the matter? What's wrong?" Kulubek woke him.

The boy opened his eyes. And his heart was filled with happiness because it all had turned out to be a dream. Kulubek lifted him up in his arms and hugged him.

"Dreamed something, eh? Got scared? Hey, you, great hero!" He kissed the boy with his hard, wind-roughened lips. "Come on, I'll put you to bed. It's time to sleep."