Page 178 - LEIBY

178 Leiby – Border Smuggler

them. She heard Mirushka’s last words and scolded the monk.
“What are you waiting for? Let’s go there and check it out.”

Reluctantly, the monk reined his horse to his cart. He threw a
regretful glance through the window at the cup of warm milk
and hunk of cake that were waiting for him on the table and
climbed up onto the driver’s seat. The nun and the young girl
settled themselves down behind him on the cart bench.

The tavern was a well-known establishment in the area, and
finding it posed no hardship for the monk. Miriam led him and
the nun around the building to the back courtyard, and there,
sure enough, lay a mortally injured man, unmoving, his face
covered with dark bruises, and blood spurting from his many
open wounds.

The monk glanced at his watch impatiently. He had no desire at
all to deal with this latest problem, he just wanted to be sitting
at his desk, eating his breakfast and preparing the sermon he
had to deliver to his parishioners. He faced fierce competition
from the fervent communist preachers who sprouted up all the
time like mushrooms after rainfall and tried to convince his
congregation of the truth in the communist ideology.

The sound of clinking keys broke the deathly silence as the
innkeeper peered out of the door. His glance fell on the still
figure lying on his lawn and he shrank back in horror. “Of all
the places in the world, this had to happen just here,” he griped.
“He’s not even a customer of mine, it’s nothing to do with me.”
He walked slowly towards the small cluster of onlookers.

“We have to call for medical assistance, and also for the police,”
the nun decided and turned briskly to the main street.

“Call for medical help only, not the police,” the monk stopped
her in her tracks.

“But why?”

“They’ll only blame us for all this…” he explained. “The
communist-loving authorities will be only too happy to lay the