Payback for the killed steppe animals
Lieutenant Ivan Cherkasov went through the entire war, saw many deaths, did not like writers and war songs.
With his fair-haired wife Natasha and an emerald German accordion, he crossed the country's expanses in an echelon, arrived in the back of a lorry at a small outpost near the Mongolian border, settled in a corner room of a log barracks, and rose to the rank of captain in eight years. Around there was a steppe, a steppe and a steppe, where surviving lamas returned from the Krasnoyarsk camps. The soldiers loved the captain, the captain loved his wife Natasha, who until recently left the room in a light white dress and carried water from the well in a shiny bucket. But she died recently.
Killed three queens
The trouble came unexpectedly. Cherkasov hunted together with his friend, a village teacher Buryat Azarov. The teacher played the violin in the evenings, and the captain listened to amazing music telling about the steppe. On the teacher's rattling motorcycle, they rushed in the swirling dust past the swift herd of gazelles, and Cherkasov, laughing white-toothed and not aiming, shot at the rushing living mess. He killed three queens and returned with Azarov to the outpost on a moonlit night to send an outfit on a cart for prey. On the porch of the outpost headquarters, the red lights of cigarettes flashed. The hunters were greeted by the frightened and pale faces of the soldiers. In the window of the captain's room the yellow light of a kerosene lamp flickered and a shadow darted in a garrison cap, apparently a daylight …
- Natalya Pavlovna is dying! the tall and thin Gainutdinov, the foreman of the outpost, said in a trembling whisper.
- Borya, to the hospital! - shouted a crazed Cherkasov, frantically opening the barracks door.
Promotional video:
The motorcycle roared and bounced. Cutting through the night with a white ray, Azarov rushed through the wet grasses to the regional center … Tired, he returned in the morning with a young doctor. Covering his face with his palms, the numb Cherkasov sat on a stool and did not even turn at the knock of the door. Natasha is dead.
“Heart,” Doctor Azarov said dully, sitting down on the high back seat of the green motorcycle.
After the funeral, life at the outpost froze. Cherkasov was petrified and numb. Only a month later Cherkasov heard Azarov's violin. Then he touched the accordion keys again and remembered the forgotten melody, the laughing face of his wife, but this did not melt the melancholy, but became sharper.
Wife visit
At night the captain was awakened by the hasty and familiar clatter of heels. The wife was walking. Delighted, he woke up and sat down on the bed, preparing to smoke. But his hand suddenly froze over the box of matches. Natasha is dead, she's gone! The steps approached. In the storehouse, Gainutdinov cried out in fright, and one of the soldiers squealed thinly and tearfully. Suddenly the room smelled of mold and it became cold. And the fierce moon filled the captain's crumpled bed with a splashing and greenish glow. Cherkasov was going crazy.
The door creaked and slowly opened. The captain stumbled back to the wall and cried out: in the doorway, in a white dress, stood Natasha with a loose braid falling over her chest. But the familiar face was alien and dead. She looked at her distraught husband for a long time, then slowly walked along the cold floor of the long and narrow barracks, past the numb soldiers who stood at their beds in white shirts and pants. The door opened softly, the white dress floated out into the night and disappeared into the moonlight.
“Comrade Captain, Comrade Captain,” Gainutdinov, who woke up, whispered in fright, “it was a witch … a witch … Tatars know a witch … We must go to the Buryats, this is their land, they know a witch …
Aged Cherkasov with unsteady steps left the room to the soldiers. The dark hair of the swarthy captain was laced with gray. The outpost lost its peace. A friend and a stranger Natasha in a white dress came to the barracks every night and disappeared at dawn. And once Sergeant Major Gainutdinov told the captain that he had heard her sorting through papers in the headquarters office. Early in the morning, having saddled a tall black one, Cherkasov went to the village, the huts of which were scattered along the banks of a small river. In all the yurts and in the village they already knew that at night the deceased wife of the captain came to the outpost, who during her life was like a white flower in the green steppe.
- Vanya, this is not your Natasha, this is a werewolf! - said Azarov with flashing eyes.
His wife, cheerful and black-eyed Dulma, screamed in fright and stared at the gray-haired Cherkasov, who looked expectantly at Azarov. The captain did not believe in God or in devil.
“We must go to the zhodchi charmer,” the teacher continued more calmly, pushing a green mug with strong and whitened tea to his friend. - Now many lamas have been released from the camps. Wait, in the evening I will bring the Gylyg Lama to the outpost, he is a spellcaster.
- Borya, will this … lama kill … a werewolf? - Cherkasov asked uncertainly in a hoarse voice.
- He will not kill, but only drive away, - the teacher replied calmly.
“He is a friend of ours and a very good man,” Dulma added, deftly cutting the fat tarbagan with a small knife.
Cherkasov often came to the teacher and was his own person in this house. Natasha was friends with Dulma and also ate tarbagan meat. They were accustomed to the steppe and knew that the meat and fat of tarbagan are very beneficial to health. The communist Cherkasov was sincerely friends with a hunter-teacher who often came to the outpost and played his famous violin. But before the captain would never have believed that Azarov believed in werewolves, witches and knew lamas.
Caster Llama
A flaming pink circle of the sun hung over a distant hill, long shadows fell from the poplars, and the steppe turned pink blue when Cherkasov heard a distant rumble and saw a motorcycle with two riders appear in the steppe. Gainutdinov shouted something loudly and cheerfully, the soldiers fussed and carried from the dining room to the barracks a short-legged table that had to be set for the spellcaster. The lama was bald, muscular and dressed in Russian clothes. He had an oval head with a prominent crown and a pleasant light face. Lively and black eyes at once covered the steppe, and the outpost, and people. Azarov carried a yellow leather suitcase behind him. With his hands clasped behind his back and stooping slightly, the lama walked from corner to corner of the barracks and thought. Cherkasov suddenly noted to himself that prisoners and soldiers from the penal battalion walk like that.
“The Gylyg Lama lived in the Krasnoyarsk camps for fifteen years and returned to the steppe,” Azarov said quietly when the captain went out onto the porch of the barracks. - Do you remember, Vanya, I had a purulent abscess below the knee? The Gylyg Lama found a white pebble in the steppe and drew it around the abscess. And at night all the pus leaked out.
Apparently, the teacher respected the lama and rejoiced at his release and appearance in the steppe. Cherkasov leaned over to him and asked:
- Can your lama friend destroy the ghost?
- A man in vain thinks that he can kill what is not created by him. Every creature has its own creator. We cannot destroy what exists. But we may well agree with him or forbid him to interfere with people, - suddenly the lama said in pure Russian, leaving the barracks.
- In the Mongolian language there is no word "to heal", - added Azarov, - instead we say "conjure".
In the twilight, the lama with Gainutdinov lit incense. Gray layered smoke and fragrant smells of herbs floated through the barracks. The soldiers cheered up and crowded at the door of the storehouse where the foreman lived. Cherkasov and Azarov remained in the captain's room. The lama opened a yellow suitcase and put on an outlandish red and yellow dress, with bells attached and flying tassels. Then he quickly pulled a tall and sharply curved yellow cap over his head, with a black woolen cape falling over his face. On a table set at the very entrance, the caster laid out many things: an oblong book wrapped in red silk, two large tambourines, a huge white shell, a short tubular bone with slots, and a bronze bell.
“You don’t need to light the lamp,” he said dully from under his cloak, turning to the foreman and recognizing him as an accomplice.
Tried to walk through the door
The night was moonless and dark. Sticky fear began to creep into the barracks again. But suddenly a loud and uterine voice of a lama was heard, then tambourines thundered several times, a bell rang thinly, and suddenly a shell rumbled invitingly. Cherkasov shuddered, and the shore of the Baltic Sea appeared before his eyes: salty, foamy waves noisily ran into the sand and swayed the corpses of German soldiers, women and children …
Suddenly a heavy slumber fell on the captain, but the loud and menacing shouts of the lama did not stop. Cherkasov lost track of time. Waking up for a moment, he suddenly heard the familiar and terrible creak of a door. Someone tried to open the door from the outside and could not. The vague and heavy outline of the lama jumped high in front of the door, bells on clothes rang. The lama was waving his arms and screaming something terribly in ecstasy, it was felt that he was exhausted and the door was about to swing open.
Suddenly, a bone pipe howled thinly and piercingly, the creak stopped and the door slammed shut. Cherkasov fell asleep … The light-haired and cheerful Natasha ran across the green meadow, then the captain saw himself with a rifle in his hand and a dzeren's womb jumping high in a deadly flight. The gray-haired captain cried and laughed in his sleep. In the morning Azarov woke him up, and he heard the cheerful laughter of foreman Gainutdinov. A Gylyg Lama in Russian clothes stood under the poplars and talked animatedly with the soldiers. The captain again felt the exciting and inviting smells of the morning steppe and heard the crying of cranes …
Three days after the werewolf's spell, Cherkasov went hunting with Azarov. A motorcycle rumbled across the green steppe, tarbagans soared over the grass, gleaming rifle barrels peeped out from behind the hunters. Having rounded the gentle hill, the friends saw a herd of dzerens flying across the blued midday steppe. The motorcycle stopped abruptly, Azarov and Cherkasov jumped to the ground.
- I'll get it! - Azarov shouted recklessly and threw up a weighty rifle.
But the graying captain suddenly whispered sadly and pleadingly:
- Don't, Borya, don't shoot …