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But Amud would whip Janis, and Janis would probably tell; he would feel betrayed. And- Did the Kazakhs have radios? Could they call in the crews from their out-stations? Or police from somewhere, or marines?
The Kazakh rode up on his shaggy pony and uncoiled his whip to wake Janis. I shot him in the chest, and he fell off his horse like a sack. The pony was well trained; he hardly moved.
I waved to bring my five men to me, and we crawled through the gap. The sight of his dead ex-master didn't bother Janis; he looked excited. The Kazakh was armed, as Janis had said. I gave the boy the sword, gave the Kazakh's military rifle to a Navajo named Arnold, and the pistol to Cody George. Then I told all of them what I wanted them to do, and nobody argued. They all looked as if they thought I knew what I was doing. After I'd put on the Kazakh's sheepskin cloak and cap, I got on the pony, helped Cody get on behind me, and told Janis to follow alongside. The others went back through the gap to do what I'd told them.
The ranch buildings were low and mostly oblong, and their roofs were rounded. They were made of construction flex, but riding up to them, you couldn't tell, because thick outer walls of sods had been built around them for insulation, and thick sods had been laid on the roofs. Their windows were small, and there weren't very many. Besides the finished buildings, there was almost a village of small round buildings nearby that weren't finished yet, for when the Kazakh brides arrived. The flex walls were up, and there were piles of turf waiting to be set.
Janis was ski
As I rode in among the buildings, I could see a building with a lean-to on one side. A corner of the building was in the way, but I could hear a hammer clanging on iron; it had to be the smithy. The smith was Russian, Janis had told me, an indentured laborer whom the Kazakhs had given privileges. Janis didn't like him, perhaps because he had privileges, or maybe because he was Russian.
Janis pointed at one of the largest buildings, next to the windmill. "That's where the Kazakhs live," he said. Then he pointed at another: "And that is the horse stable." He started toward it, as I'd instructed him. His hand was inside his long cape, holding Amud's short curved sword; his job was to kill the stable boss, a Kazakh with an arthritic hip, and get his gun and sword.
A Kazakh came out of an outbuilding and crossed to another, not fifty meters away. He never paid any attention to Cody and me; I suppose he was used to everything being all right. Janis saw him too, and pretended he was going to another long building, maybe a lambing shed. Cody and I got off the pony just outside the door of the Kazakh bunkhouse, and I looped the reins around a hitching rail there. Then we walked in.
The door opened into a fairly wide, shallow room with pegs around the wall for cloaks and wet boots. It would keep cold air from rushing into the rest of the house when the door was open. Then we went through the i
"Cody," I said, "go outside and see if anyone's coming." I hoped no one had heard the shooting through the thick walls. While I reloaded my pistol, I walked over to the women, talking Russian at them the best I could. They'd already quieted. Both of them were naked-the Kazakhs kept them that way-and one looked about six months pregnant; I don't think she was sixteen yet. I'd read the Koran; these Kazakh settlers weren't very good Muslims.
"Where do they keep their rifles?" I asked.
Both women began talking at once, then the young one quieted. The older woman was pointing toward a corner of the building. In that room, she told me, also in Russian. One of the men we'd shot would have the key on his belt. Carrying a butcher knife, she went with me to look for the key. After we looked at a Kazakh, she would slash his throat, even if he looked dead. She was a little bit crazy.
We checked out the three by the blanket without finding the key. I took the holstered pistol from one of them and put it on my belt as a spare. Then I heard two shots outside, not loud at all through the sod walls, and I ran over and opened the outer door, just enough to see out. Cody was crawling out from under a big man in shirt sleeves, and there was a hammer lying on the ground. The blacksmith, I decided. Cody was having trouble getting free; it looked like one of his arms might be broken. Then a Kazakh came ru
From where I was, I could only see in one direction, and it didn't seem like a good idea to go out. Besides, one of us needed to be here and hold the armory with its rifles. Back in the main room, I saw the older woman opening the armory door. The pregnant girl had put on a pair of pants from a dead Kazakh and was buckling on his pistol belt. I could see a ladder fastened to a wall, and a trapdoor above it in the roof. From the roof I'd be able to see around. But first I needed to see the armory and get a rifle. I couldn't hit much with a pistol except up close; with a rifle I could reach out.
In the armory were rifle racks, one of them almost full. I took one, an obsolete military model, and checked to see if the magazine was full. It was. I took two spare magazines from an open box, put them in a deep pocket in my Kazakh cloak, and went back out of the armory. The pregnant girl was standing by the i
Then I went to the ladder and climbed it. The trapdoor opened below the roof ridge on the side away from most of the buildings. I could hear some shouting, but no shooting, and crawled to the ridge on my belly. From there I could see across the buildings and into the horse pasture on the far side. One of the herdsmen on shift was just sitting his horse about four hundred meters away, about as far as I could make him out by dimday. He seemed to be looking in my direction. There should have been another one, but I couldn't see him.
That's when I heard three shots below, in the bunkhouse, two of them almost at the same time. I stayed where I was, hoping that the women would take care of things down there. There was more shooting from a building near the horse stable. A Kazakh ran out, stopped around the corner of the door and waited, pistol in hand, as if he thought someone might follow him out. I raised my rifle and aimed as well as I could, given the distance and the light. Then I squeezed off a single round, and he fell. No one shot at me, and it occurred to me that if a Kazakh saw me, he might not be sure I wasn't another Kazakh.