The Winter Horses(9)

“Thank goodness you’re alive,” she said, embracing the mare. “I thought you were both dead.”

Kalinka tried to embrace the stallion, too, but he was having none of it, and to have tried more than once would have been to risk a kick or a bite, so she embraced the trembling mare again, and this time she found there was blood on her hands.

“Oh, but you’re hurt,” she said, and as soon as she had found the wound—which was in the mare’s shoulder—she scooped up a handful of snow with which to wash it clean and, she hoped, to stanch the flow of blood. Kalinka held the snow over the wound for as long as her bare hand could take the cold, and the mare seemed to appreciate her attempt to help, for she dropped her nose onto Kalinka’s neck and licked it. But the flow of blood from the horse’s shoulder was only a little diminished by the snow poultice.

Kalinka debated out loud what to do. “It’s not like I can put a bandage or a tourniquet around this,” she said. “For one thing, it would have to be a very big bandage. And for another, I can’t see how it would possibly stay on. Stitches would be best, I think, but I’ve never done that kind of thing before. Besides, I don’t happen to have a needle and thread.”

She thought for a moment, and nodded firmly as she arrived at a decision:

“I think we’ll see how you are in the morning and then, if you’re still bleeding, I shall have to return to that old man’s cottage and see if I can’t steal a needle and thread. Although having seen his clothes, I don’t hold out much hope of that. I never saw such a ragged-looking person. Except perhaps myself, of course. But then I’ve got an excuse. He’s living in a warm cottage with a fire and a wood-burning stove, and I’m living out here, on the steppe. I’m sure if I lived in such a nice little place, my clothes wouldn’t look like a family of mice had been nesting in them.”





THE FOLLOWING DAY, MAX heard more gunfire in the distance, but this time he did not go and watch what was happening, nor did he go to saddle Molnija for the captain; instead, he stayed in and around his little blue cottage and tried not to think about what was happening. He washed his crockery, took out the hot ashes, did some dusting and swept the floor. A couple of times he caught his dog, Taras, looking at him in a strange way as if he held all men—including Max—responsible for what the German soldiers had done to the Przewalski’s horses.

“What could I have done?” Max asked Taras. “You tell me. I’d like to know. Really, I would. The Germans would have shot me, for sure. And then who would look after you, dog? Tell me that? And, after all, it’s not like the horses are the only animals at Askaniya-Nova. There’s all sorts of rare breeds that’ll need our help before this war is out—you mark my words. We’ll recover. You’ll see. The Germans can’t stay here forever. You heard what Captain Grenzmann said; the war is not going well for them, so God willing, they’ll be leaving soon. After they’re gone, things will get back to normal. I promise. It’ll be you and me and the animals, just like it was before.”

The day after this, things were even quieter, but still Max did not go to the stables to saddle Molnija for the captain.

“He can saddle his own horse from now on,” he told the dog. “I’ll have nothing more to do with the Germans. Not if I can help it. I don’t care what they do to me.”

Taras wagged his tail as if he agreed with his master and went outside, for there was a new and interesting smell in the air. After a while, Max thought he might take a walk outside, too. On other days, he might have remarked upon the beauty of the reserve, but now all he could see was how harsh and unrelenting life could be. The sun bounced off the snow and dried his lips until they cracked and felt like the skin on his feet, while even the hairs in his ears froze solid in the icy wind.

Inevitably, his footsteps led him to the part of the steppe where he had seen the two SS motorcycles hunting down the horses.

About halfway there, he decided he would cut off the tails and bury them, since he knew he could not have mustered the strength to bury the horses themselves. But when he arrived at the scene, he found the bodies of the horses were gone, and the only things there to remind him of the terrible event he had witnessed were several circles of bloodstained snow.

“Where have they gone?” he murmured. “I don’t understand. If there were any wolves about, they’d have eaten them here, surely. But there’s not so much as a shinbone left.”

Max was still wondering what had happened to the corpses of the dead horses when Taras lifted his muzzle into the air and barked loudly.