Cart Rouble

This is a short story written to satisfy in name only the requirement of writing a story about Car Trouble. What does it all mean though? No idea.

St. Petersburg, December 1916

Sergei’s breath almost froze in the air before him as he peered over the bridge into the darkness of the Nevka. The bundle he and his co-conspirators had tumbled into the river had now sunk from sight but that was no confirmation, given what he had witnessed. He jumped as a pistol fired close by his head, and spun round to address the secret service agent. “For God’s sake Oswald, mind my head you imbecile”, he snarled, “what are you shooting at, the bloody fish?” Oswald, jumpy, unsure of himself and scared, holstered the gun and instead ran down the steps from the bridge back towards the palace, “it is done!”, he shouted to no-one in particular. Sergei ignored him and looked back to the oily surface of the water, but despite a close scan could no longer see anything. It surely was done. Behind Sergei’s head, in the opposite direction, against the current and against all nature, a shape moved, functioning on pure instinct, all sanity fled. Almost silently and determinedly did Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin doggy paddle into the distance, out of history and into legend.

East of St. Petersburg, near  Murino, days later.

Ivan Karpov and Nikolai Petrov had ridden the cart from their squalid settlement at Ustye for several hours, struggling through the snow and ice lining the rutted tracks. Their horse was exhausted and Ivan’s fingers frostbitten, stuck by wet ice to the reins. The men had a bottle of home brewed vodka between them, but it did little to warm them. The cart carried them and slabs of peat for burning, taken from a store out in the wood, to be carried to their destination at Kamenka, whose stony ground bore little burnable material, in return for furs and food.

Despite their exhaustion the men sang as they shared the bottle, folk songs of supernatural peril and evil. The sun was dying and while both men would never admit their fear of the local witches nor would they happily remain out after dark in the middle of nowhere. They still had several miles to go when a particularly deep rut caused the cart to skid and collapse sideways, the left-hand wheel skewing off, the axle broken and the men upturned from their seats. As they picked themselves up and considered their options the horse whinnied and span round, freeing itself from Ivan’s grasp and tearing skin from his hand, then galloping away into the wood behind them.

“God’s sake, what do we do now!” Ivan slammed a broken spoke into the ground and cursed the skies. Nikolai, more sanguine, tutted as he prodded at the wheel on the ground. “If we take a beam of wood from the other side of the cart we should be able to fix up an axle to get us the rest of the way”, he said, “but I don’t think we’ll get that done today. We’ll be sleeping out tonight. We’d best start a fire”.

“And where will we find dry firewood? We’ll die out here. Christ, we’ll have to walk the rest of the way and come back. What are you doing? There’s no way there’s any dry wood here, and anyway where are we?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him?”
“Who..” Ivan turned to follow Nikolai’s pointed finger and stepped back involuntarily at what he saw. A thickly bearded, unnaturally tall, dark hooded figure stood in the road, intensely staring at the men. A feeling came over the two peasants, of being in the presence of supernatural evil. They shrank back towards the lee of the cart, crossing themselves for protection. The figure approached, his thick robe covering his feet, seeming to float towards them.

“Get away! Demon! Witch!” shrieked Ivan, all bravado gone, hand full of wood to protect himself. Nikolai was also scared, but looked more closely at the bearded figure’s apparel. “That’s a monk’s robe… You, are you a monk? Are you a priest?”. The approaching horror stared directly at him, something like hatred in his eyes. Nikolai ducked back behind Ivan. “I don’t mean to pry…” he muttered.

Ignoring the two men, the figure began to work on the front of the cart, assembling pieces of shattered wood as if they were a mere jigsaw puzzle, using twine from the nearby reeds and ferns to bring the blocks together. As the men watched, astonished, from well behind the cart, the creature lifted the wheel by himself and slotted it back onto the makeshift axle that he had created. They looked at each other in astonishment, at the man that could lift a wheel it took three men to roll.

Finally, once the cart was back on two wheels and settled on the rutted pathway, the hooded figure lifted the harness and put it over himself then grunted as he assumed the bridle and put the bit between his teeth. Then he snorted and began to walk, pulling the cart as if it were a child’s toy.

Ivan and Nikolai looked at each other in some kind of bewildered horror, then as one launched themselves into a run, jumping onto the cart as it trundled forwards under this unnatural propulsion. As they lay in the bed of the cart, they found themselves holding each other, as they dared to lift their heads over the front of the cart to view the incredible creature that was pulling them. “That can’t be a man”, Ivan said, needlessly stating what seemed obvious. “Yet it is..”, Nikolai said simply, “And he seems to be …. helpful?”

Ivan wracked his brain to recall local legends, anything that might explain what was happening, as they bounced along in the darkness. The creature seemed to be guided only by the full moon, as if he could see perfectly. Ivan stopped thinking and grabbed Nikolai’s shirt. “Have we made a deal with the devil? Did you say anything?”. Nikolai gently removed his hand. “No… maybe he just wants to go the same way?”.

With nothing else to do, the men simply stayed put, sat in the cart, draining the last of their samogon, drifting into the darkest of dreams.

They were awakened by the thud of the cart stopping in its tracks. Ivan suddenly lurched into life and raised his head to look over the rim of the cart.

The creature was there, staring directly at him. Unharnessed and free. His hand was out, palm open, awaiting payment.

Ivan kicked Nikolai awake, “hey, hey, get up. He’s here, he wants something.”

Nikolai groaned and opened his eyes, rubbed them and lifted himself slowly. The cart had stopped just outside their destination, Kamenka. It was early still, and there did not seem to be anyone there to greet them as yet. Just the tall, bearded, robed man. His hand out in request.

“What do we do?” Ivan slowly climbed down from the back of the cart, and the figure walked slowly towards him, hand still open, a groaning noise coming from his throat.

“I think he wants paying”, Nikolai said simply. He patted himself down and scrambled around himself and the cart. “Have we got anything?”

Ivan did not dare to think what might happen if they could not find payment. He slid his hand into his coin purse. He had a few kopecks on him, as did Nikolai. Without talking they gathered their meagre coins together, and had around 1 rouble. Ivan reluctantly approached the figure and dropped the coins onto its palm, one by one.

Grunting in something approaching satisfaction, the hand curled shut and the figure withdrew, walking into the forest alongside them. Once he had vanished into the trees, Ivan and Nikolai felt something like a shroud lift from them.

At the same moment, the cart before them collapsed again, the wheel flew sideways and the axle the creature had fixed on broke once more. They looked sadly at the slabs of peat sliding away from the bed of the cart onto the ground. A shout from the village gate caused them to raise their heads. The villagers of Kamenka were coming out to view the wreckage and probably laugh at them.

Ivan and Nikolai were not initially believed when they talked about the strange mechanic who had aided them, unbidden, and charged the equivalent of three days labour for his troubles. But as other people reported his presence, the mad monk who repaired carts became a figure of local legend, as he wended his way between the two villages, always on the same path, once again, or as it ironically translated, raz puti.

For the creature itself, which once had held the leadership of the nation in its thrall, this new role was oddly comforting, to repair rather than destroy or corrupt seemed a fitting reversal, even as the nation it had once infected fell apart around it.