The Storm Leopards

by Holly Webb

  It sounded as though the argument about the snow leopard had already started on the way there.

  “We have to get rid of it,” one of the men said firmly, taking off his coat – not a deel, Isabelle noticed, but a warm padded anorak like her dad might wear. “What if it comes back? They kill for pleasure, you know. It’ll go mad in the sheep pens next – it could kill the lot.”

  “We can’t, Erdene,” another man said, shaking his head. From the way Odval looked gratefully at him as she handed him the cup of tea, Isabelle guessed he was her father. “You know that would break our contract. We need that money.”

  The two women in front of Isabelle murmured in agreement, but a younger man leaned forward eagerly. “Who’s going to tell?” he broke in. He was hardly more than a boy, Isabelle realized, and another boy squashed up next to him nodded fiercely. She recognized them from the photograph – Odval’s brothers.

  Odval’s father glared at them, and they looked down, muttering. Isabelle smiled to herself.

  “So what do you say we should do, Yul?” one of the other men demanded. “Just leave that beast to kill all our stock? You know we can’t afford it. Not if we have another winter like last year, another dzud.”

  “Guard the herd better, until the creature gives up and goes away. We’ll set a watch, not just leave it to the dogs,” Odval’s father suggested.

  Odval’s mother sat down with the other two women, and Odval came to curl up next to Isabelle and whispered, “The dzud is a terrible hard winter. The white death, we call it. Last year many of our herd died.”

  The men went on arguing back and forth for a while, until at last Odval’s father shook his head. “We can’t hunt the snow leopard. You know we can’t. We rely on the money from the handicrafts.” He looked over at Odval’s mother, and she nodded. “We can’t risk losing it. Besides, the creatures are…” He stopped, searching for a word. “Unnatural. Don’t you remember the story? It’s bad luck to kill one.”

  The other men shifted and sighed uncomfortably as he went on. “One of my cousins shot a snow leopard and wounded it, and it went to ground, hiding in a cave up in the mountains. He watched for it for three days and he heard it wail, like a ghost. Then at last it was silent. My cousin went back to his ger, triumphant, and then the message came, from the monastery where his son was studying. The boy had been taken ill. He’d lain on his bed crying out for three days, and then he died.”

  “That’s just superstition,” muttered the taller of Odval’s brothers, and the other nodded. But he looked sideways as he did it, as though he wasn’t quite sure. The other men muttered and frowned and seemed to agree with Yul. They finished their tea, and went back out, talking about mending a crumbling wall on the sheep pen.

  Isabelle looked round at Odval. “That sounded hopeful,” she whispered.

  “Yes, if the snow leopard doesn’t steal from us again.” Odval nodded and got up, going to fetch a plate of food, which she brought back to share with Isabelle. “Are you hungry? There’s some curds left, and cheese. It’s good, you should try it.”

  Isabelle nibbled on a piece of curd, not quite sure what it was. But it tasted sweet, and milky, and she was very hungry.

  “It’s definitely only you that knows where the snow leopards’ den is?” she asked Odval quietly.

  Odval glanced over at her mother, who was busy by the stove, and whispered back, “Yes. But my brothers and my uncle could find it maybe, if they tried. Snow leopards leave prints in the snow, and they scratch rocks. They could track her. Or make a trap and bait it with food. I’m not sure I trust Sukhe and Altan to do as my pa says.”

  Isabelle shuddered. “Perhaps we should go back to the cave and keep watch?”

  Odval nodded, but then she made a face. “I can’t. My ma needs help with the felt animals. And I have to do my schoolwork.”

  “There’s a school here?” Isabelle said.

  “No, quite far away in the town. Next year, when I’m bigger, I’ll have to go and stay in the dormitory by the school.”

  “By yourself?” Isabelle looked at Odval sympathetically. “Won’t that be strange?”

  But Odval looked surprised. “No. Sukhe and Altan loved it. There’ll be other girls to talk to. And a proper teacher! Here I just have to study by myself. But I still have to get the work done; I can’t go up the mountain now.” She stood and pulled a couple of workbooks from a drawer in the wooden bed. “I wish I could…” she added, looking anxiously at the door of the ger.

  Isabelle chewed her bottom lip. What if Sukhe and Altan did try and track Grace? She slipped off the bed and turned determinedly to look at Odval.

  “Could you tear a bit of paper off the corner of the book? If you draw me a map showing how to get to the den, I can go and make sure that they’re all right.”

  Odval nodded eagerly. “Would you be all right, climbing up on your own?”

  “Yes,” Isabelle told her firmly. She wasn’t sure that she would be at all, but the snow leopard and her cubs were so precious, she couldn’t bear to think of someone hurting them. “If anyone comes too close to the den, what should I do?”

  Odval frowned. “Shout, I suppose. Frighten the snow leopards away.” She smiled. “It’s better for you to do it. My uncle or my brothers wouldn’t hear you, would they?”

  Isabelle giggled. “No, I suppose not. They’d just think that the snow leopards heard them coming.” She gave Odval a hug and felt the girl stiffen in surprise, and then hug her back hard. She must be lonely, Isabelle decided, with two brothers so much older, and no school to go to. There didn’t seem to be any other children here for her to be friends with, only the baby. Perhaps that was why she had gone off on her own so much. She had found the snow leopards to love.

  Odval scribbled her a little map, and Isabelle put her deel and boots back on, and a warm furry hat. Then she slipped out, opening the door when Odval’s mother wasn’t looking.

  And she set out alone to make the trek back up the mountainside.

  It was much, much harder on her own. Even getting as far as the obo, Isabelle was breathless. By the time she got to the scree slope, she was almost ready to give up, and go back and tell Odval that she couldn’t do it – they’d just have to go together later. Her arms ached from hauling herself up the grassy climb between the boulders, and she’d scratched her cold-numbed hands on a sharp ridge of stone under the snow. Now that she was out here, she couldn’t help thinking of the snow leopard’s claws and teeth, too. What if Grace was frightened and leaped at her?

  But then she thought of the cubs – especially little Sky. She gritted her teeth and struggled on, picking a trail up the scree slope, pausing every other step as small pebbles tumbled past her.

  At last, she came to Odval’s watching place, the rocks where they had sat before, with a clear view up to the snow leopards’ cave.

  All was silent, and for a moment Isabelle wondered if they were sleeping. But even though she couldn’t hear the leopards, Isabelle was almost sure they were there – watching her. She sat still, hardly daring to breathe, her hands tucked tightly inside her long sleeves. Finally, the two cubs came cautiously nosing out of the cave, slinking around the rocks, trying to be as careful and graceful as their mother.

  Perhaps she’s left them to go hunting, Isabelle thought, hoping the leopard wouldn’t have been daring enough to go back to the herders’ camp in the daylight.

  The larger cub sniffed the freezing air and waved his club-like tail. He forgot about being sensible and graceful. Instead he bounced on his fat paws and sprang at his sister. He rolled her over and over, and Isabelle bit her lip, wanting to go and pull them apart. Sky was so little! But then the smaller cub wriggled out of her brother’s hold. She leaped up on to a ledge above, bounding down and landing on his back. The fight looked so fierce that Isabelle gasped, wondering if they were going to hurt each other. But even though they were growling and hissing, it all seemed to be a game. The two cubs rolled and wrestled for a minute
or so, and then they flopped down side by side, panting and licking at each other’s ears.

  Isabelle flinched as she heard a scuffling noise further down the mountainside. Had someone tracked the snow leopards to their den? Or worse, had she led someone to the den? Isabelle pressed her hand against her mouth, panicked. Could she even be tracked if she wasn’t actually here? It was so confusing.

  But then she forgot the strange dream-life she was leading, as she saw the mother snow leopard bounding up the mountainside in great leaps. Isabelle gazed, spellbound, as the cat’s strong back legs sent her surging forward. How did she cling on like that? Isabelle thought of her own slow, difficult ascent of the rocky paths and sighed. It was as though the snow leopard was made for this mountain. Isabelle could even see how her camouflage worked, as she stopped and crouched for a leap. Her dappled spots seemed to be part of the shadow-pattern of the rocks and snow – when she wasn’t moving, she was almost impossible to see.

  She wasn’t carrying anything in her mouth, Isabelle saw, as Grace bounded up on to the ledge, so close that Isabelle could almost have reached out to touch the long fur fringing her belly. She hadn’t managed to catch anything, so the cubs would have to go hungry.

  They jumped up as they saw their mother coming, running along the ledge towards her eagerly. Isabelle wasn’t sure if she was imagining that they looked hopeful, and then disappointed… She wondered how long it was since they had all eaten. What if they were so hungry that Grace was tempted to go back to the easy pickings in the animal pens, just to feed her children?

  Grace shook herself and yawned, then led her babies into the cave. It looked to Isabelle as though they were going to curl up and sleep for the day. Odval had said that they were most active at dawn and dusk. Should she stay and keep watching for any hunters? Isabelle wrapped her arms tightly around her middle and pulled the furry hat that Odval had given her down further over her ears. It was so cold, even where she was sheltered from the biting wind in between the rocks. She couldn’t stay here for much longer, she realized. She would freeze. Already she could hardly feel her fingers.

  Slowly, carefully, she began to stumble back towards the camp, clenching and unclenching her frozen hands to try and draw the feeling back into them. She hesitated at the top of the scree slope, not wanting to take the first step on to those shifting stones. Without Odval to help steady her, how was she going to get down? Isabelle turned herself sideways, and began to inch downwards. She was almost back to the path when her ankle seemed to twist underneath her and she skidded horribly fast. She tried to scrabble at the rocks and catch herself, but they slid out from under her hands, and she rolled and tumbled down to the path, breathless and gasping.

  Isabelle lay for a moment, unsure how badly she was hurt. She had been so lucky not to have rolled further – there was a steep drop to the side of the path, and she could have fallen all the way down. She sat up slowly. Her hands were sore – and she had a feeling that they might hurt more when they weren’t so cold – but apart from that, she seemed miraculously unharmed. Isabelle let out a shaky sigh of relief, and then giggled. She was down, and safe, and in a few minutes she would be back with Odval. She could tell her that Grace and the cubs were well, hidden away in their den. But the snow leopards hadn’t eaten – which meant that at dusk, when she went out hunting again for her family, Grace would be hungrier and more daring than ever…

  Isabelle spent the rest of the morning watching Odval and her mother making tiny, beautiful objects from the felted wool. It seemed amazing that they were using wool that had come from their own sheep and goats. They didn’t just make Christmas decorations, either. Odval was stitching a tiny pair of slippers for a baby – they were gorgeous, a rich purple colour, with white snowflakes embroidered on to the front. But her mum didn’t let her help for long – she sent Odval back to do her schoolwork and started to spin yarn on a spinning wheel.

  “Is that from your sheep, too?” Isabelle whispered, looking at the tawny clumps.

  “No, that’s camel hair,” Odval told her, and Isabelle stared.

  “You can shear a camel?” she squeaked in surprise. She couldn’t imagine a camel standing still to let anyone cut its hair.

  “Mmm-hmm. Most of it just falls out, though, and we gather it up. Camels are really difficult to shear – you have to tip them over with ropes and then sit on them.” Odval giggled. “It takes a lot of people to sit on a camel. Ma spins the hair, and we sell it for people to knit with. You have to get a lot of muck out of it first, though. It’s always full of bits of straw and dirt.”

  Odval’s father and brothers came back to the ger for a midday meal, and afterwards Sukhe and Altan asked to borrow their father’s gun, so they could go hunting for marmots. Isabelle saw Odval watching them, with a strange look on her face.

  “What is it? Do you think they’re not really going after marmots?” Isabelle asked. She wasn’t sure what a marmot was, but she decided not to ask.

  “I don’t know,” Odval muttered. “They keep smirking at each other. I’m supposed to gather up the sheep dung to dry, to make khurgul to burn in the stove. If you help me, we could get it done quickly and go after them, couldn’t we?”

  Isabelle swallowed. Gathering sheep poo? Really? But she nodded. After watching the cubs and their mother that morning, she knew that she would do anything to keep them safe. “It’s just grass,” she muttered to herself. “Grass that’s been all the way through a sheep, that’s all.” And she’d seen it burning, she thought. The ger had been quite warm, the stove obviously kept burning low all through the night. The khurgul hadn’t smelled bad.

  Odval’s father and some of the other men had taken the sheep back out to pasture again. Odval had explained that they knew the best places, close to the streams, and where it was windy enough to blow the snow off the grasses, but not too exposed. On really bad days, the sheep would stay in their pen and be fed on the dried grass. They herded the sheep on horseback and Uncle Erdene rode his motorbike.

  The two girls went into the pen and used spades to gather up the dung that the sheep had left behind, stacking it to dry so it could then be made into blocks for burning. They watched Sukhe and Altan disappear off up a different path to the one they’d used that morning, and Odval wrinkled her nose worriedly and worked even faster. The boys had only been gone for a few minutes when Odval looked at the piles of dung and nodded. “That’s good enough. Now we can go after Sukhe and Altan. If we take one of the horses, we can catch them up.”

  “But a horse won’t be able to go up the side of the mountain, will it?” Isabelle said.

  “They went that way,” Odval explained, pointing, “towards the old mine works. It’s been abandoned for ages, but the path is quite flat, easy enough for a horse. If it gets too steep, we’ll tie him up somewhere sheltered and leave him till we come back.”

  Isabelle watched while Odval saddled up the iron-grey horse. She knew that he didn’t have a name, but the mottled dark pattern on his flanks was so like dark storm clouds that she decided to call him Cloud, just to herself.

  Cloud seemed to be very good-natured, and stood calmly while Odval adjusted his saddle and bridle. He didn’t object to the two of them on his back, either, or all the hopping about as Odval hauled Isabelle up behind her. He just peered round at her curiously and snorted. Isabelle smiled to herself, imagining what Daisy would think if she could see her now. She’d never ridden like this before. On holiday she’d only been trail-riding, and then always on a very quiet pony in a long string of other riders. This felt like real riding, even if she was holding on to Odval.

  Odval walked Cloud cautiously, pulling him up at every turn along the path, to make sure that her brothers weren’t somewhere just ahead.

  After a few minutes, Isabelle tugged her arm. “I can hear voices!”

  “Yes, me too,” Odval agreed. The girls slipped down from Cloud, and Odval looped his reins around a bush. Isabelle realized in surprise that the stunted little bus
h was the biggest plant that she had seen up here. There were no trees at all.

  Leaving Cloud nibbling at the leaves, the two girls crept on down the path, and eventually stopped by a rocky outcrop so they could spy on Sukhe and Altan. The boys were standing looking down at something and talking to each other. The gun was propped up against some rocks.

  “Is it deep enough?” Altan muttered.

  “I reckon so. But we need to smooth out the sides.”

  “What are they looking at?” Isabelle whispered.

  “The old mine pit,” Odval whispered back. “It was a copper mine, but it never worked very well. There wasn’t much copper, and it was too hard to get what they did mine back to the city. So they never dug all that deep. It’s just a hole. People still try and dig in it every so often, but it never comes to much.” She scowled. “I know what they’re doing. It’s a trap. They’re going to try and use it to trap Grace.”

  “Even after what your pa said?”

  Odval nodded. “They want to show off. They want to be the big men who catch the snow leopard.” She sighed.

  They watched as the two boys fetched flat stones from around the path and lugged them to the edge of the pit. Then they climbed down with a spade, and all the girls could see was them occasionally climbing up to fetch a stone, cursing at how heavy they were.

  “Are they trying to stop her climbing out?” Isabelle asked doubtfully.

  “They must be.” Odval shook her head and gave Isabelle a hopeful look. “I think they’re trying to make the sides slope, so she can’t scramble up. It won’t work, will it? She’s much too good at climbing to get caught in something like that.”