Cemetery Path

Tonight write an ending for this story:


     Ivan was a timid little man - so timid that the villages called him "Pigeon," or mocked him with the title "Ivan the Terrible." Every night Ivan stopped in at the tavern which was on the edge of the village cemetery. Ivan never crossed the cemetery to get to his lonely shack on the other side. The path through the cemetery would save him many minutes, but he had never taken it - not even in the light of the full moon.
     Late one winter's night, when bitter wind and snow beat against the tavern, the customers took up their familiar mockery.
     Ivan's sickly protest only fed their taunts, and they jeered cruelly when the young Cossack lieutenant flung his horrid challenge at their quarry.
     "You are a pigeon, Ivan. You'll walk all around the cemetery in this cold - but you dare not cross the cemetery."
     Ivan murmured, "The cemetery is nothing to cross, Lieutenant. It is nothing but earth, like all other earth."
     The lieutenant cried, "A challenge, then! Cross the cemetery tonight, Ivan, and I'll give you five rubles - five gold rubles!"
     Perhaps it was the vodka. Perhaps it was the temptation of the five gold rubles. No one ever knew why Ivan, moistening his lips, said suddenly, "Yes, Lieutenant, I'll cross the cemetery!"
     The tavern echoed with their disbelief. The lieutenant winked to the men and unbuckled his saber. "Here, Ivan. When you get to the center of the cemetery, in front of the biggest tomb, stick the saber into the ground. In the morning we shall go there. And if the saber is in the ground - five gold rubles to you!"
     Ivan took the saber. The men drank a toast: "To Ivan the Terrible!" They roared with laughter.
     The wind howled around Ivan as he closed the door of the tavern behind him. The cold was knife-sharp. He buttoned his long coat and crossed the dirt road. He could hear the lieutenant's voice, louder than the rest, yelling after him, "Five rubles, pigeon! If you live!"
     Ivan pushed the cemetery gate open. He walked fast. "Earth...just earth....like any other earth." But the darkness was a massive dread. "Five gold rubles..." The wind was cruel, and the saber was like ice in his hands. Ivan shivered under the long thick coat and broke into a limping run.
     He recognized the large tomb. He must have sobbed - that was drowned in the wind. And he kneeled, cold and terrified, and drove the saber into the hard ground. With his fist, he beat it down to the hilt. It was done. The cemetery...the challenge....five gold rubles.