“Something’s happened,” said Kozlevich a bit later, looking at the crest where Balaganov was signaling with his arms.
The driver and the captain climbed back to the top of the hill.
The violator of the pact was lying on the road, motionless, like a doll.
The pink ribbon of his tie lay across his chest.
One arm was tucked under his back.
His eyes looked into the sky daringly.
Panikovsky was dead.
“A heart attack,” said Ostap, just to say something, anything. “I can tell even without a stethoscope.
Poor old man!”
He turned away.
Balaganov couldn’t keep his eyes off the dead body.
Suddenly, his face became contorted, and he barely managed to utter:
“And I beat him up over the weights.
And before that I used to fight with him.”
Kozlevich thought about the Antelope’s demise, looked at Panikovsky in horror, and started singing a prayer in Latin.
“Oh, come on, Adam!” said the grand strategist.
“I know what you’re going to do.
After the psalm, you’ll say:
‘God giveth, God taketh away,’ then:
‘We’re all in God’s hands,’ and then something totally meaningless, like:
‘At least he’s now in a better place than we are.’
There’s no need for any of it, Adam Kazimirovich.
We’re faced with a very simple task: the body has to be laid to rest.”
It was already dark when they located the final resting place for the violator of the pact.
A natural grave had been washed out by the rains at the foot of a tall stone marker.
It must have been standing by the road since time immemorial.
Maybe it once sported a sign like THIS LAND BELONGS TO MAJOR G. A. BEAR-WOLFSKY (RET.), or maybe it was just a survey marker from the times of Prince Potemkin—who cared anyway?
They placed Panikovsky into the pit, used some sticks to dig up some dirt, and threw it on top of him.
Then the Antelopeans put their shoulders to the stone, which was already loose from the passage of time, and felled it onto the ground.
The grave was complete.
In the flickering light of matches, the grand strategist scribbled an epitaph on the stone with a chunk of brick:
Here lies MIKHAIL SAMUELEVICH PANIKOVSKY A man without papers
Ostap took off his captain’s cap and said:
“I’ve often been unfair to the deceased.
But was the deceased a moral person?
No, he was not a moral person.
He was a former blind man, an impostor, and a goose thief.
He put all his efforts into trying to live at society’s expense.
But society didn’t want him to live at its expense.
Mikhail Samuelevich couldn’t bear this difference of opinion because he had a quick temper.
And so he died.
That’s it!”
Kozlevich and Balaganov were not happy with Ostap’s farewell tribute.
They would have found it more appropriate had the grand strategist waxed poetic about the great services the deceased had rendered to society, about his charity to the poor, his sensitive nature, his love for children, and everything else that’s usually ascribed to any dead person.
Balaganov even stepped forward to the grave, intending to express all this himself, but the captain had already put his cap back on and was walking away briskly.
When the remnants of the Antelopeans’ army had crossed the valley and negotiated yet another hill, they saw a small train station on the other side.
“Here’s civilization,” said Ostap, “maybe a snack bar, some food.
We’ll sleep on the benches.
And in the morning, we’ll head East.
What do you think?”