“I would have come but for the blizzard, sir.”
“I wonder about that. I mean, I know you have a pocket watch, Max. And I noticed it didn’t start snowing until well after eight o’clock, by which time we’d already begun to eat.”
Max shrugged. “That’s true. But I took one look at the sky and I just knew it was going to be bad. So I stayed home.”
Grenzmann jumped down from the saddle and tossed the reins behind him.
“Well, then, it’s lucky for you that I feel able to ask you again for tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow night?”
“Yes. I believe we’re having goulash, made from horse meat, of course. But you won’t know the difference, believe me. Last night, the cook made sauerbraten and I couldn’t have told you if it was horse or beef he used. Really, I couldn’t. So. Will you come?”
Had it not been for his concealed guests, Max would certainly have refused, but all he could think of now was how to get rid of the captain as quickly as possible.
“Yes, sir. And it’s kind of you to ask me. Of course I’ll come.”
“Good.”
Molnija lifted his nose in the air and snorted; then he clapped his hoof on the snow and lowered his head as if trying to find some grass. If Max hadn’t known that the big Hanoverian stallion could smell the two Przewalski’s horses, he might have said he was hungry.
“All that talk of food has made Lightning hungry, I think,” said Captain Grenzmann.
Max threw down his axe. “If you’ll wait here a moment, I’ll bring him a bucket of feed, sir.”
“Don’t trouble yourself, Max,” said Grenzmann. “We can help ourselves, can’t we, boy?”
“It’s no trouble at all,” he said, hurrying toward the stable. But Molnija was already trotting there on his own ahead of him.
“Really, Max,” said Grenzmann, striding after him. “I can do it. You’re not my servant. Not when you’re here, at your own home. As I said before, you and I are friends. I feel there’s a bond between you and me. Perhaps it’s because of the way you speak German, I don’t know. It’s strange. But there it is.”
With Grenzmann close on his heels, Max hurried around the corner just in time to see Molnija turn into the stable. Surely, he thought, the game was up now; with any luck, Kalinka would have had the presence of mind to hide herself in the loft, but there was no way that Grenzmann was going to overlook the presence of two “forbidden” horses in Max’s stable. He would very probably shoot the horses and then Max himself.
But when the old man reached the stable door, he found Molnija with his muzzle in a bucket of fresh feed—placed there, he imagined, by Kalinka—with no sign of Temüjin or Börte. Astonished, he glanced around the stable several times but, as if by magic, the two horses had vanished.
Grenzmann caught up with the old man and smiled. “I can see you were expecting us, Max.”
“Sir?”
“The feed you had prepared. That was most thoughtful of you. A peace offering, perhaps?”
“Er, I did wonder if you might ride out this way, sir,” said Max. “It being such a beautiful morning.”
Grenzmann looked about him and took a deep breath.
“I wonder, how many more such mornings will there be for us Germans?”
“Many more, I hope, sir.”
“What do you think will happen to Lightning when I leave, Max?”
“I haven’t given it much thought, sir.”
“Well, I have. Since that awful business with your Przewalski’s horses, it’s been on my mind a lot. Shall I tell you what I think will happen to him? To Lightning? To all of your precious animals here at Askaniya-Nova?”
Max shrugged. He might have reminded the captain that almost all of the animals—the deer, the llamas, the bison, even the zebras—had been shot by the Germans for their kitchen, but he hardly wanted to provoke an argument with Grenzmann. Not when he was being so friendly.
“I think the Red Army will butcher this horse and then eat him. That’s what will happen to him.”
“Then why not take him with you, sir? When you leave.”
“I’d like to, Max. Really, I would. But even a horse as fast as this couldn’t keep up with a motorized group of SS. Especially as we may have to try to fight our way out of here.”
Grenzmann let Molnija finish the last of the feed in the pail and then lifted his head into his hands.
“So what will you do, sir?”
“Only one thing I can do, really.”
To the old man’s relief, Grenzmann took hold of the horse’s reins and then led him outside, where he mounted the animal again and turned him toward the big house.