The Cossack Cowboy - Lester S. Taube

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       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 tilted 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

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