by D. I. Telbat
That day, the clan stopped before dark to set up camp. We'd traveled no more than twenty miles, and I realized with some concern that Gan-gaad was becoming more separated from us. While I helped set up the gers that evening, I resolved to go ahead and catch up to him before the distance became even greater between him and the slower-moving Lugsalkhaan Clan. So Zima and I could make plans regarding our future together, her adoptive parents needed to be consulted, and perhaps even given a dowry—of which I knew very little.
As the cook stoves fired up and the evening meal was prepared, I wandered amongst the gers in search of Lugsalkhaan to convey my decision. I was stopped often by different families, asked questions of my origin, and complimented on my grasp of their language. Here, I found children with books, their parents or other tutors prohibiting them from running off to play until their studies were completed. It's true that Mongolian literacy rate is at ninety-percent, even amongst nomadic clans, though one wouldn't know it by observing Gan-gaad's clan.
Since I hadn't found Lugsalkhaan, I backtracked toward his dwelling when a giant shadow loomed from the sky over my shoulder. I flinched and dove to the ground where I found myself half-buried in mud from a wash pot. Laughter erupted around me and I sheepishly wrung my hands and brushed off my clothes. As I stood, the settling flap of wings on Duulgii's outstretched arm alerted my curiosity. And then I found the source of my fear: a giant golden eagle with a wing-span of eight feet perched on Duulgii's arm. In one claw a marmot was gripped and pierced through by the black, curled talons.
Duulgii took the marmot from his eagle and gave the eagle a sliver of venison as a reward.
"No need to fear my raptor, Andy!" Duulgii laughed with the others. "Unless you're a fox with a nice winter coat! Come, touch her. She brings in more food in a day than I could with the dogs in a week."
The brown and seemingly frazzle-feathered hunter eyed my approach. Her head twisted this way and that every few seconds, as if ready to be off to hunt for more prey. I stroked her soft neck feathers and noticed some of the other Kazakh men had eagles as well. All were fully grown eagles, and I said as much to Duulgii.
"They were born in the early summer. This one is twelve years old, the best hunter we have. Already, even the young chicks we stole from the nest earlier this year are trained to hunt."
"But not just for marmots?" I asked. "You said foxes, too?"
"Raptor here has killed a couple foxes and even small wolves," Duulgii boasted. "She knows her limitations—which are cattle, I suppose!"
We all laughed.
"How does she kill a wolf?" I asked.
"She dives onto its back, breaking its spine. When I see her dive and not return to the sky right away, I know she's captured something too large to carry. I find her by her cries and oftentimes by a cloud of dust as she continues to fight and hold on to the wounded animal. She shows no mercy, Andy, especially this one, which is why we send them to hunt at different times. The eagles will kill each other over a carcass."
"And she's the oldest here? Only twelve years old? I thought eagles lived to be about fifty."
"They do. We normally release them back to the wild after a decade, but this raptor refused to be loosed."
I shook my head. Amazing! The more I thought about it, the more I recalled having seen the carnivores in the sky the last couple days, but I hadn't thought about them being birds of prey belonging to falconers!
"We can't all eat this marmot, Duulgii," I joked. "Let her hunt more! I'd love to see this."
"It's another bird's turn now. My raptor would hunt all day if—"
The raptor suddenly took flight as if startled. I ducked with the others as all the eagles flapped their giant wings and soared into the air. Their masters were momentarily speechless. They'd given no command to fly. It made no sense! Beside me, Duulgii and the others yelled at their eagles to return. But the birds didn't heed the men or boys running after them.
Curiously, I stepped away from the yelling and put an ear to the wind. There was a noise in the air, something foreign. Whatever it was, it had spooked the eagles. I continued to the west up a small hill above the expanse of gers. Around me, the flocks of sheep stopped grazing and became suddenly alert as well—but not because of me.
Now, I wasn't the only one to hear it. Even the falconers had ceased their calls skyward to glance about the campfires for the source of the disturbance.
Something was wrong. Very wrong. No one moved within the clan, not even the animals. I gazed over the tops of the gers and found Zima on the opposite eastern side of the camp. An infant was on her lap. Her eyes likewise were scanning the camp for my blond head that stood above everyone. She located me above the camps with the livestock on the hillside. Like the others, she surely wanted to know what the distant noise was.
It was a motor, I decided. An engine. More than one, though. And a rumble, like machinery, to the southeast of us. But the small bowl in which we'd camped around a spring caused the sound to be distorted and echoed around us. As I was highest, I could hear the best. I glanced into the sky where the eagles drifted on warm air currents. They could see what we couldn't.
Trying to swallow, I sensed grave danger. My mind compiled everything in an instant. China had bombed the American coastline and the US capital. The fighter jets I'd seen that morning had been flying over Mongolian airspace, and Mongolia had no national guard, only about six thousand border guards, an army of about eight thousand, and a police force. And now, the rumble of heavy machinery that shook the ground. Machines where there were no roads or fuel depots or—
I was running before they came into sight, leaving the sheep behind. Leaping over a campfire, I fell against a ger, breaking some of its wooden framework, but I couldn't stop then.
"Get the horses!" I shouted accidentally in English, then corrected myself in Mongolian. "Pick up everything you can carry! Get the kids!"
A few people began to move as I dashed past them. Most stared at the near horizon, watching the animals' reactions, waiting for more sign of danger. Zima, too far away to hear me, saw me running toward her. I prayed she saw the fear on my face.
"Get the horses and run!" I yelled to everyone I passed.
Zima kept the infant on her hip, but reached down and shouldered my backpack. That was good. I kept it stocked and ready to go. She knew what was necessary and seemed to ignore the brace on her arm and the pain within.
A crack of thunder sounded over my left shoulder. I stopped and turned in time to see one of the clan's few cattle shiver violently, stumble forward, then collapse dead. At that instant, a green, all-terrain vehicle seating three men skidded to a halt on the southwest perimeter of the camp. A man in black jumped out of the back of the vehicle with an assault rifle. He aimed and fired again. Another head of stock slumped to the ground. He aimed at another, fired, and another.
The men were Chinese.
*~*
Chapter 17
The camp erupted in utter confusion and screams around me. Horses and sheep stampeded through the camp away from the gunfire. Still, I stood my ground and watched a second vehicle appear. This one was an oversized armored personnel carrier with eight wheels. It was big enough to carry twenty men in is belly, but I saw only three men emerge and begin to quarter the dead animals. A fourth man on top of the carrier manned a mounted machine gun. He held his fire, though he swept it over the clan threateningly.
I'd seen enough. It could only get worse now. Grabbing at an aduu as it ran by me, I caught its halter, and was dragged beside it until I could settle it down enough to mount. Though I had no reins or lead rope, I'd seen the Mongols ride their horses bareback without reins as the animals were neck reined and even partially voice-trained.
It took all of my strength to control the frightened animal as it high-stepped in a panic through the camp. I heard more gunshots. My horse danced in a circle around a boiling tub of stew, spilled it, and then bucked me off. I landed on my back, the wind forced from my lungs. Another horse was com
ing toward me at a full run. When I tried to sit up or roll away, I found I couldn't breathe. At the last instant, I raised one arm, praying the beast wasn't scared blind. It vaulted over me, its hooves clearing me by an inch.
A clansman stood over me. With one hand, he yanked me to my feet. In his other hand he held a Russian assault rifle. He held it against his shoulder and fired at the Chinese. The gunshot made my ears ring. I saw one of the Chinese soldiers clutch his belly, and another leveled his machine gun at us. Gasping, I dove to the ground yet again, this time into the stew. The clansman fell on top of me then rolled away, his head half-missing from a small artillery round.
Machine gunfire swept across the camp, tearing chunks out of gers and flesh alike. A dog ran past me and snapped at my hand. I scrambled to my feet as more gunfire churned dirt to my left where another clansman returned fire. People were screaming. Animals were crying. Dogs yelped and growled, fleeing in terror in every direction.
I skidded to a halt in front of Zima. With seemingly more calm than I felt, she held in her braced arm the reins of two horses as they pranced excitedly about. In her other arm, she held an infant. Taking the reins from her, I grabbed my backpack, slung it over a shoulder, and then cupped my hand to launch her onto the horse. Turning, I ran and ducked into a ger where I surveyed my wealth of gear I didn't want to leave behind.
Food and shelter was all I could think about. I snatched up a bundle of blankets I'd bought in Hasagt and a saddlebag of dried beef. My extra Bibles were tucked into the bundle of blankets, and . . . water! But my canteen was full inside the backpack already on my back.
"Hurry, Pond!"
Crawling out of the ger, I draped the saddlebags over the horse's withers and jumped onto its back, holding the blankets in one arm. If Zima could cradle an infant and ride with a brace, I could hold the bundle of blankets. She tossed me the reins to my horse and whipped her own into a run to the west. My aduu spun in a circle once, enough for me to see dozens of dead Kazakhs, several gers on fire, and more Chinese vehicles arriving on the hill to the south.
A five-year-old boy screamed with tears streaming as he knelt over a beloved dog now dead—trampled or shot, I couldn't tell. I heeled my horse up next to him, reached down, and grasped him by the back of his fur coat. Frantically, I yanked him upward to sit in front of me, straddling the horse's neck, then shoved the blankets into his arms.
"Hold these!"
I wrapped my arm around his midsection and my horse started away with a lunge. Ten steps later, we were flying across the steppe toward the mountains after Zima. She was two hundred yards ahead of me with a small pack on her back. How much had she been able to get? She must've jumped into action the second our eyes had met across the camp.
There was no need to look back as more machine gunfire steadily raked the Kazakh camp. Then I could hear no more crying, no more screams.
After a mile, I slowed my winded horse to a walk. To my right and left, other Kazakhs who'd managed to find mounts and escape were riding into the foothills of the Gobi Altay Mountain range. Zima was waiting for me at the top of a ridge. I reined up and turned to follow her gaze. Far away, the camp appeared to be a total loss. Fires and the endless column of military vehicles were destroying the camp as they drove straight through it, over the dead, wounded, and felt-covered gers. The convoy stretched as far as my eyes could see to the southeast. The initial recon vehicles had loaded up the carcasses from their kills and moved to the front of the column again.
"Butchers!" Zima said in disgust. "Why Mongolia? We have nothing!"
"It's not about Mongolia," I said. "It's about Russia. They're probably attacking Novosibirsk and other Russian military installations. Along this side of the mountains, they have a clean run right into Western Tava. There are roads most of the way, once they reach Hasagt. If the satellites really are no longer working, nobody will see them coming, and nobody would expect them to attack from Mongolia over the mountains, either."
Two men rode toward us along the ridgeline. One was Duulgii, but I didn't know the other. Duulgii still wore his falconer's sleeve, and he'd managed to grab a hefty pack, which he'd strapped to his aduu's rump.
"How many do you count, Andy?" Duulgii asked, his mount moving alongside mine. "How many escaped?"
"Perhaps twenty. Maybe less."
"Anyone who didn't get away quickly on horseback was killed," Zima said, her jaw clenched in anger.
"Have you seen Lugsalkhaan?"
"Not yet." I shook my head, then pointed to a number of moving dots on the opposite side of the camp. "But he might be among those who fled to the east."
"There's nothing to the east, only desert." Duulgii said. "They'll die there without shelter. And it looks like it'll be some time before this convoy thins enough to go back and salvage what's left of the camp. Look. The sheep go east as well. In a week, they'll be dead by wolves or thirst."
I watched the land below us, but I was also thinking of Duulgii and his companion. Both had time to pack gear, but neither had bothered to bring a family member in their escape. They'd been behind us with more than a few women and children still in the camp. This wasn't a healthy thought to dwell upon, so I sighed it away from my mind. Fear and self-preservation are a nasty mix. But what was done, was done.
"What do you suggest we do, Duulgii?" I asked.
He shot a thumb toward the west where the sun had set. It was near dark.
"The mountain woods are our only chance. It's a bad time of year to have nothing. In a few days, we'll return to the camp for ger felt to build new shelters, but it would be pointless to continue the southern migration with no livestock or supplies. From here, we're only a few days out of Hasagt, but that may not be safe now, either."
After one last look at the plain below, Zima and I turned our horses around, and we headed toward the snow-capped mountains. I remembered one Scripture passage in Judges at that moment that seemed fitting, though it didn't necessarily apply to us. "The sons of Israel made for themselves the dens which were in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds." Though we weren't the children of Israel whom God saved from the Midianites, I was certain God heard my pleas for protection that night. Only He can give the helpless so much hope.
"Are you doing okay, Little Man?" I asked the boy sitting in front of me.
He looked up at me with big, brown eyes.
"My toes are cold."
"Try to wiggle them," I suggested. "Keep them moving. It won't be long until we stop and start a fire."
But the temperature was dropping rapidly, and few of those who had escaped had adequate clothing as I did for winter weather.
As we approached the mountains and the dark green belt of forest that girded them, I noticed a pack of wolves in the gathering darkness. They trotted toward us, but when our horses didn't shy away, I realized they were five clan dogs. They romped and chased each other around us as we trekked. They seemed to have forgotten the evening's terrors, their herding duties interrupted.
When we reached the timber line, it was below freezing. Our horses' heads drooped wearily, the duty demanded of them reaching its limit after the full day's journey.
I led the way weaving through cedar and larch trees. The canopy above was so dense, the moon and stars were blotted out. A little later, I found what I sought—a fallen cedar tree—and I helped my passenger slide to the ground. We listened to the wind in the trees, but above the sound of the wind was the sound of water. A brook was trickling over rocks not far away.
"It's a good place," Duulgii said.
Behind Duulgii were four more riders, one of them a woman. A couple of them carried children as well—but their faces communicated their grief. So many children had been lost.
"Set up camp here," Duulgii instructed. "I'm going to ride south to see who else escaped."
He and his riding partner departed when we needed them most. I tied my horse to a sapling and knelt in front of the boy I'd brought with me.
"How are
your toes doing?"
"Cold. And I'm hungry."
I gave him a stick of meat from my saddlebags.
"What's your name?"
"Manai."
"Well, Manai, my name is Andy. The woman over there is Zima." Zima stood next to the fallen log holding the baby. "You did a good job hanging onto these blankets for us. We'll need them tonight when we sleep. But before we sleep, we need to build a shelter and a fire. While you eat your meat, I need you to collect all the sticks and branches you can find, okay? Moving around will keep you warmer."
The boy marched off, accustomed to small chores, and I unwrapped my bundle of blankets. I positioned them in a sort of nest fashion for Zima to lay the infant to free her helpful hands. Already, the four other adults were also gathering wood. They'd brought next to nothing besides the clothes on their backs. Between Zima and I, this camp was sure to be doing better than most of the others who were probably banding together up and down the belt of forest.
Holding hands, Zima and I knelt together against the fallen tree.
"Lord God, we trust You in this difficult time. Give us wisdom to do what must be done and the strength to do it. And please give us the words to share with these others about Your love, which doesn't wane through stormy weather. In Jesus' name, amen."
The first thing I did was test to see how rotten the log was. The top seemed to have weathered better than the moldy bottom. Using my trenching shovel, I easily battered away the bottom of the log to make a sort of cutaway underneath it. The tree itself was three feet wide and would work nicely for what I had in mind. I gave Zima my lighter as I continued to excavate beneath the log. The ground was soft and I piled the earth aside. Under the log and extending on both sides, I dug a hole about two feet deep and nine feet square. This took a half-hour, by which time the others had a nice blaze burning. The tarp from my pack was ten feet square and I draped it over the log evenly on both sides. I anchored down the tarp ends in the piles of dirt I'd dug up, so even if it rained, the hole would stay dry. If we squeezed in, all of the adults could sleep five side by side, and the fifth at the head or foot. The three children could pile between us without much trouble. It would be tight either way, but we'd be warm and dry for the night. Perhaps the next day, I would think of some improvements.