A bright stab of sunlight glanced off the window. “How many reindeer?” I asked.
“Between fifteen hundred and two thousand, I’d say.”
“Hard to miss.”
“Wait till we get up a little higher, you’ll see.”
A half hour later, she pointed down. Two flat wooden platforms were built high among tree branches—one partly covered with a bright blue tarp lashed over bulky objects, the other wrecked and decaying with damp and mold. They were the first signs of human activity we’d seen since leaving the Death Valley, and I found their presence reassuring.
“The high platforms protect their stores from wolves, but nowhere is safe from bears,” Roxana said.
In time, the helicopter rose over the edge of the forest and coursed over bare slopes covered with moss, bushes, and dwarf willows and birches. There were crags and promontories, deep ravines, shallow blue streams tumbling down to meet the river, grassy basins opening toward the sun. Each cliff face fell away to another world, another vista; the river, smaller now, clung to a more twisted path. It led us to a small sapphire lake at the foot of a mountain, traces of a campfire on its bank.
“They’ve crossed,” Roxana yelled. “Over the pass. There.”
The helicopter swerved toward the mountain, threaded its way between the steep rock faces of a canyon, over a bare, stony corridor. Roxana shouted, “It’s hard for them here. No water, no place to rest. And the sharp stones cut their hooves.”
The pass opened suddenly to a wide alpine slope that rolled down to a narrow, sunlit valley. Here, another lake spawned rivulets that fed a bog, which contracted at its eastern edge into a fast-moving stream that spilled through a narrow gorge. On the other side of the gorge, the ground dropped away dizzily. Far below, the river turned sharply around a rocky bank, and three white tents popped into view on a grassy plateau.
“There they are!” Roxana shouted.
She brought the helicopter down some distance away from the camp. Two men jogged out to greet us. They might have been in their twenties, thirties, or forties. Their broad, weather-beaten faces and grimy clothing hid their age. One had stringy hair and a long, curling mustache; the other pressed his cap on his head against the stiff wind whipped up by the spinning propeller blades. Roxana cut the engine, and we stood up stiffly, tossed our bags onto the grass. The men picked them up and began carrying them back to camp before we’d clambered down from the cabin to stand at last on the welcoming firm ground.
We went first to pay our respects to Ivan Nikolayevich and his elderly mother, Sofia, kicking off our boots before entering the largest of the tents. Ivan Nikolayevich was sprawled at the back, propped on folded bedding and a stack of padded jackets. Sofia was tiny, gnome-like, with black eyes that beamed alertly out of a deeply wrinkled face. She was perched on an upturned log beside her cook stove, smoking a cigarette with nicotine-stained fingers. Ivan hailed Roxana warmly, and they spoke in Eveny for some minutes, with Sofia following the conversation attentively, every once in a while punctuating some comment with a hearty, toothless laugh. Her gray hair still had some black streaks in it, though she looked to be over eighty years old.
A woman about my age entered the tent, carrying a bucket of blueberries, trailing two high-spirited girls about seven and eight years old, dressed in pink and purple sweatpants and heavy sweaters. The girls stopped short when they caught sight of me, an unexpected white visitor; they stared with rounded eyes and mouths agape. The woman smiled an apology, spoke briefly to them in Eveny, and they ran out of the tent as blithely as they’d run in, breaking into peals of laughter that carried on the cold air.
The woman introduced herself in Russian as Lidia, and inquired about my trip. I described the relative ease with which we’d found the camp. Lidia said that Roxana was an expert guide, that another pilot might easily have missed the brigade’s winter campsite at the mouth of the Sakhandja River and wandered far afield.
She explained that Ivan suffered with arthritis. His unsteadiness in the saddle had proved dangerous on several occasions, so he didn’t go out with the herd anymore, a fact that seemed to pain him more than the disease itself. This visit from Roxana, a distant relative, was therefore a boon, which he’d happily anticipated all day. With a wry smile, Lidia warned that at some point, when he and Roxana had exhausted the family news, Ivan would no doubt turn his attention to me, prodding me unrelentingly for my political opinions and stories about the United States.
Lidia mentioned that several men were out with the herd. They would be driving the reindeer back to camp within the next hour or so for the evening roundup.
“Roundup?” I asked.
“That’s when we see to any animals that are sick or hurt. We milk the nursing mothers then too.”
I assumed that Lidia knew the reason for my visit, but I didn’t say anything about Misha just then, and she didn’t bring him up. I sensed a certain etiquette at work: personal topics would be raised at appropriate times. The camp was dedicated first to its demanding work—nearly two thousand reindeer couldn’t be put on hold—and the needs of visitors were, of necessity, a lower priority.
As we talked, Lidia had been making tea. Now she poured the dark liquid into mugs and handed them around. By then the two men who’d ferried the luggage had slunk noiselessly into the tent and were sitting cross-legged on reindeer skins laid along the perimeter. They accepted the tea without fanfare, while Sofia watched everyone keenly from her corner, smoking her cigarette down to its nub.
More introductions were made. The men were called Gosha and Nikolay. A warm, friendly feeling prevailed. When the tea was consumed, Roxana produced a bottle of vodka from a pocket of her commodious field jacket.
“We must feed the fire!” she announced in Russian with a theatrical flourish, and there was hearty agreement from Ivan and a murmur of assent from Sofia. The stove was a covered rectangle made out of sheet metal, its chimney rigged to protrude from a hole in the side the tent. The tea kettle and two pans sat on its flat top, and a hatch door opened on one end. Sofia leaned over to open this door with her tiny, wizened hand. I could see the low fire murmuring inside, casting a yellow-orange glow across the blackened inner walls.
Roxana poured vodka into her mug, then splashed it across the fire. The flames leapt instantly, consuming the flammable liquid in a few crackling moments of intense heat. There was silence in the tent, then smiles of approval, and the mugs were held out for Roxana to pour a round of celebratory drinks.
Dimly, the sound of bells reached us inside the tent, and everyone went out to watch the herd. The reindeer were coming uphill from a valley, moving with surprising speed along both sides of the river, kicking dust into a low cloud. Men rode reindeer—domesticated reindeer called uchakhs, Roxana told me later—along the edges of the herd, keeping them headed in the right direction, while the tiny figures of dogs darted about. The herd looked to be about a mile away, an undulating sea of fur. As it drew closer, the ground trembled under the impact of thousands of hooves.
The advance guard of reindeer burst onto an enormous trampled meadow and started filling it, milling around. Soon, hundreds—then, impossibly, many hundreds—of animals were swirling counterclockwise, creating an enormous whirlpool of fur, muscle, and clattering antlers. The air reverberated with their grunts and short, rasping barks, as well as the high-pitched shouts of women and children who dashed about the periphery, waving their arms to drive back animals who were veering away from the group.
Gosha, the man with the ropey locks and long mustache, strode with a devil-may-care attitude among the jostling mass of long snouts and bony haunches. He looped halters around the necks of several and led them to milking stations where Sofia, Lidia, and another woman relieved stretched, heavy udders.
Other men stood by restlessly, scrutinizing the herd, fingering lassos, and soon the sizzling whir of hurled rope was added to the general cacophony. The men shouted with pleasure at a catch, moaned in disappointment at a mis
s. If a captured animal resisted being pulled to the outside, the herder pulled himself to it hand-over-hand. I saw one man twist an animal’s antlers until it fell with a heavy thump onto its side, whereupon children dashed in and sat on the writhing body. The man knelt by the reindeer’s side, pulling a small bottle out of his pocket and placing it on the matted grass.
“What’s he doing?” I asked Roxana, who stood alongside me.
“Looks like he’s about to clean out a hoof wound or an infected cut.”
“Really? What kind of disinfectant is he using?”
“That’s probably potassium permanganate. I’ve seen them use an antibiotic powder, too.”
I craned my neck to watch the operation, but the swirl of reindeer kept getting in the way.
Not far away, Ivan Nikolayevich—the portly, white-haired grandfather of the group—squinted attentively at the choreographed work, occasionally taking long draughts on a short pipe cupped in his muscular palm.
At first, in all the commotion, I hadn’t even thought to look for Misha, but as the processes of milking and caring for the enormous herd dragged on, I scoured the faces of the six or seven men in constant motion among the animals—all of them grimed with kicked-up dirt and streaks of muddy sweat. A younger man worked without a lasso, in clothes less worn and filthy than the others, but I wasn’t close enough to notice any resemblance to the Facebook photo I’d seen weeks before.
Eventually, the long-legged reindeer were led out of camp, haunches rolling under dense brown hides, hooves ringing dully on exposed rocks, leaving the trampled meadow clotted with flattened pads of fresh dung.
His shoes gave him away. The others wore rubber waders folded down at the knee, while he strode in Nike sneakers like the ones on the floor of his closet in Mirny. He knew I was there to see him—that was clear from the dark, searching glance he gave me as the last of the animals cleared the area. Apparently, he’d been informed of my visit.
“Mikhail Tarasov?” I said as he approached.
He nodded.
“Natalie March.” He was tall, like Vera and me. Dark like his Sakha father. Thick, unkempt hair flowed over the shoulders of his camouflage jacket, twigs and dirt caught in its knots. His features were strong, handsome. He walked with his chest high and shoulders back. Just as his sister had weeks before on the steps of the Capitol Building, his strong, supple grace drew my eyes and left me mesmerized.
“Who are you?”
“Meredith Viles hired me to find you.”
“And you have.” He frowned slightly. “How?”
I told him about the letter from the magazine and my call to the editor, the trip to Death Valley, and how Roxana Amasova had tracked him down through the helicopter pilots.
For a moment, we were silent. There was a lot to say, but it wasn’t clear what should come next. It dawned on me suddenly that Misha might not know about his sister’s death. I might have to tell him, and that news would need to come before anything else.
“I met your sister in Washington,” I began. I explained how she’d travelled to the US on a cultural visa after he disappeared. When it became obvious that he hadn’t been aware of her trip, and therefore probably didn’t know about her death, I said I had some very bad news.
“About Saldana?”
“Yes.”
He seemed to guess immediately. His face darkened, and he braced himself. “What is it?”
“She is…I’m sorry to tell you this…” How many times before had I given this news? Usually standing in a gleaming white corridor or a muted waiting room, the family members already stricken, having gleaned the truth from the somber look in my eye or the set of my jaw. There was no easy way to say it.
“She’s gone. I’m very sorry.”
His eyes closed. A few moments later, he said, “How?”
“Murdered.”
He winced, stood firm. “Tell me.”
I explained the police’s theory that Saldana had surprised a burglar in her hotel room. Because I knew he was going to ask, I described the manner of death, the fact that it would have been over in minutes.
His face was a mask of anguish. “Does my mother know?”
“Yes. She stayed in Yakutsk to wait for you in case you showed up there, but after your sister’s death, she returned to her village to be with your grandmother.”
He remained silent, staring into the distance. I imagined his mind circling warily around the new reality in his life—rejecting it, accepting it. He drew a ragged breath. He’d gone quite pale suddenly; his lips were nearly white. “You’re sure it was Saldana?”
“I identified the body.”
A strangled noise erupted from his chest. Then, nothing. He stood rooted like an ancient tree, motionless. I imagined sheer destruction, like a blitzkrieg, happening on the inside.
“I’m so sorry,” I said again, feeling the uselessness of words.
THAT NIGHT, IN honor of the visitors, two mountain sheep were slaughtered and cooked on an open fire in the middle of camp. The meat was fatty and tender and fell off the bone, and I ate it greedily. The huskies, who had devoured their portions raw, lay down on the blood-soaked peat among the gnawed bones, and blinked their blue eyes contentedly before nodding off.
Sofia observed me from the other side of the campfire, not unkindly, but I started to feel discomforted by her steady gaze. I had a feeling that nothing escaped the old woman’s notice. Sofia called Roxana over and whispered in her ear. Roxana returned and squatted at my side to relay the message. “Sofia says the meat of mountain sheep is especially good for the eyes.”
On the other side of the wavering orange flame, Sofia reached up and gently tapped the corner of one eye. I smiled my thanks.
Misha didn’t appear for dinner. He had stalked off after I told him about his sister. I had the sense that everyone in the camp had heard the terrible news. There was a gentle somberness in the way they treated me, and what ought to have been a festive event was fittingly subdued. The Evenki, who lived in such close quarters, were delicate about space and privacy, Roxana had explained. They entered conversation slowly, paused at the opening of a tent to be invited inside, were not given to intrusive questions or abrupt displays of feeling. But for all their modesty and gentleness, they were hardly strangers to violence and sudden death: two of Sofia’s sons had died before they were thirty—one in a barroom knife fight, one by falling through ice.
After dinner, a couple of herders put up a small tent at the edge of camp for Roxana and me. It was tall enough to stand inside, with narrow beds on either side. The canvas edges were folded under and secured with rocks the size of fists. It quickly filled with the warm, smoky smell of the reindeer skins the men had dragged in. The fur was coarse and surprisingly dense—each thick hair distinct and vaguely tubular. It felt alive under my stroking fingers, which soon picked up a hint of animal oil. The poplar branches under the hides were still springy with sweet-smelling sap, and these smells mixed with the dank, muddy river and the aromas of blood and cooked meat and vodka that clung to my clothes.
I badly needed rest. But I had a strange sense of disorientation that came from not being sure exactly where I was on planet Earth. I recalled the map Roxana used in the helicopter and tried to mentally pinpoint our present location—somewhere in the Verkhoyansk Mountains—but the exact spot hardly mattered in such vastness. There was a small stove in the tent, a mini-version of Sofia’s. I loaded it with kindling and lit it—partly to take off the chill and partly to give myself something useful, tangible, to do with my hands.
In the glow and warmth of the heated stove, I fell asleep quite easily, almost too quickly, as if I’d tripped and tumbled down a grassy slope that led to unconsciousness, and when I picked myself up and looked back the way I’d come, a mountain ram with magnificent curled horns was standing on a rock promontory a hundred feet above me. The ram was angry. The atmosphere crackled with its rage. I understood the way one did in dreams that the anger was directed at m
e—although it encompassed others as well, possibly many others—and that it was urgently up to me to placate the powerful animal before it did great harm. I started trudging uphill, the earnest words warbling in my throat being stolen by the wind. It came to me that I was doing it all wrong, everything. Even my straining legs were making no progress; they only rolled like bicycle tires in the selfsame groove. The ram lowered its head, glowering down at my puniness and ineptitude, and its horns unfurled into black banded spears. I grew slower, thicker, dumber, as the bloody meat congealed in my stomach swelled to twice and three times its size.
Roxana woke me—I’d been thrashing. “You’re having a bad dream.”
I sat up. The dream had been so vivid that I had to tell someone. I half believed that somewhere in the jagged peaks that ringed the valley there really was an angry ram, and everyone—not just Roxana, but all the herders—needed to be warned.
Roxana listened closely, without surprise. “That’s Bayanay.”
“Who?”
“He’s an old man, the keeper of the animals. He owns them—we’re like his children—and he also is them. You made him angry somehow.”
“Why? What did I do?”
She glanced around the tent. “Did you feed the fire?”
“You mean with vodka?”
“Did you?”
“No. But you can’t be serious.”
“You must do it now.” She pulled a bottle of vodka from the pocket of her coat. Only an inch or so of liquid remained at the bottom. “Take it. Pour the vodka on the fire.”
I felt shocked, oddly betrayed. I’d thought of Roxana as educated, rational, yet now she was insisting I perform this superstitious trick. Worse—the dream was still holding me hostage, and I found myself eager to obey. Anything to appease Bayanay. I grabbed the neck of the bottle, splashed the last of the vodka straightaway onto the smoldering, blackened boughs inside the stove. When the flame leapt almost as high as my hand, I dropped the bottle with a cry of surprise and fear, as if a creature of the netherworld had reached out to capture me.
FINDING KATARINA M. Page 19