Called to Gobi

by D. I. Telbat

  Late one night after the evening meal, I claimed I was going for a ride, which was no lie, though it wasn't the full truth. Saddling one aduu, I grabbed a good amount of extra rope, and rode out to the plain. The vehicle headlights crisscrossed the plain, showing me where each vehicle was, so I rode down to within two hundred feet of the road. There, I staked my horse and jogged into the old camp. I was very cautious and made only three trips back and forth. The wolves were back, tearing at the rotting bodies, but they left me alone.

  Back at my aduu, I tied down fourteen stove pipes. Nearly every pipe was dented and cracked, but the tin was thin enough to straighten out by hand.

  I rode first to South Camp and called out as I approached so their dogs didn't attack. Most of the camp was asleep, but not for long. They were thankful for the pipes and I received many embraces. Middle Camp was the same, though seven-fingered Jugder pulled me aside and chastised me for not taking him along. The chastisement he gave me was nothing compared to the lashing I was certain to receive once I rode into my own camp and Zima saw what I'd done. It was late now, and she alone was awake at the central fire. Joking with her, I said I'd sent the aduu into the old camp alone to retrieve the pipes, but that didn't help matters. Though I feared she would kick me in the shin again, she was only quiet for a spell. Finally, she wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me.

  "Is this going to be a habit of yours?" she asked.

  "Which part?"

  "The part where you run all the dangerous errands that no one else wants to do."

  "Only if they have to be done. I have no intention of making you a widow, Zima, even after we're married."

  She nodded.

  "I know there's no stopping you, Pond, but don't sneak off next time. That hurts me. At least let me say good-bye."

  "You're right, Zima. I'm sorry."

  "The gers are almost finished."

  "Yes, I see that. Everything is coming along nicely."

  "Tomorrow, I'm going to Middle Camp. South Camp gave them their horse hide so one of the women can make me a new del. It'll be their wedding present. I've never worn a new del. I used to always receive Skaamaan's old clothes."

  "That's nice of the other camps to do that for you. You deserve it—with all the extra work you do for them even with your arm bound up." I looked into the fire and counted the days. "The last ger should be finished in three days. Today's Thursday. Pass the word that we'll have a wedding and Autumn Festival on Sunday night."

  "Can we start at noon?" She grinned. "That way we can play kekbar until dark, then have a dostarkhan. Everyone can toast us!"

  I'd heard of kekbar, a wild form of polo, except with a dead goat instead of a ball. We didn't have a goat, but I knew we'd improvise.

  "We have a lot to do before then."

  And we did. The gers had to be finished and more wood needed to be stacked inside our fenced courtyard. Zima was busy making cheese and Sembuuk was off hunting much of the time. I'd been working on writing up the wedding ceremony for Kandal to read and perform for us. Though I'd considered accepting the Mongolian marriage ceremony, it was so Buddhist and spiritually pagan that I declined. Kandal, the eldest of all three camps, decided a nontraditional wedding was acceptable since Zima and I were both essentially foreigners. So that was resolved, but the next problem was that I'd never been to a wedding in my life. All I had to work with were the few I'd seen on television while in prison, so I figured I knew the basics—that it was to be done before God and witnesses. The rest, I guessed at. Zima was drafting her vows separately, which I couldn't wait to hear.

  But, I was nervous. Me? Married? I'd been praying non-stop for God's will on the matter, and every day I received confirmations that Zima would be helping and not hindering my first objective in life: my ministry for Christ. She'd already enhanced my endeavors to share the Gospel, and was constantly teaching the two children stories from the Bible and lessons to be learned. Kandal didn't like the seeming intrusion into Kazakh tradition, but he didn't speak much about it. In some ways, the old man was like Gan-gaad who'd seen the negative effects of the Russian Orthodox priests long ago. But he knew I wasn't the same, nor was I teaching such bondage. Since no one told us to be quiet, we shared Jesus' gift of salvation every chance we could.

  Knowing the end was near kept us striving fervently forward. Besides spending time with the others, Zima and I fellowshipped with one another as well. And when we were apart in the mornings doing our chores, I often noticed her pausing to read her Bible. She loved the Book of Psalms. And when she was finished, she would tuck the Bible under her ragged overcoat to carry it always with her like I did mine. From some of the things she'd said, I knew she assumed all Christians carried their Bibles and praised Christ as much as we did. I didn't have the heart to tell her that professing Christians didn't always carry their Bibles on them wherever they went. She would've been surprised to hear that many people who claimed to be Christians didn't even read their Bibles every day. And even worse, that many who called themselves Christians in America seemed to live their lives no differently than the rest of the world.

  Though I told her none of this, she could easily conclude from the Word that the world would grow worse and worse, not better, until Jesus Christ came to save humanity and the world from itself, and judge the wicked. And with this conclusion, she pressed forward with our mutual ministry amongst the Kazakhs. Her desire to serve her new God encouraged me to do the same. She recommended that immediately after our wedding and subsequent "honeymoon" to the south to find Gan-gaad's clan, we should start a church in the three camps. A church, she insisted, was all that was missing from the peaceful Gobi Altay forest.

  Sunday morning, the day of our wedding, I rose early and hiked to the west. I left the dimness of the belt of larch and cedar, and climbed the steep, rocky slope of the nearest mountain. After crossing the expanse of a glacier, I pressed myself until I was panting for air in the high altitude. The peak I reached wasn't too high. It wasn't even snow-capped yet like those to the north and west. But I was high enough to see fifty miles of steppes to the east. As I watched the sun rise, tears came to my eyes in that rugged, forgotten land.

  Too few ever leave the comfort of their lives to seek out their purpose in the world. I knew that morning without a doubt that I was where God wanted me to be. My regret was that I hadn't gotten there sooner.

  When the orb of the sun was above the horizon, I sighed and smiled in my contentment, and read Revelation 3:8. Though I'd never led a church before, I knew the components that the Body of Christ required. Knowing didn't mean it was going to be easy to raise up believers around me, especially in those Last Days when Satan seemed to be fighting to claim every soul for himself. And that's why I needed to be praying and arming myself for the work ahead—that I, with the church we would found, could have a little strength, keep the Word of God, and not deny His name. To the end.

  Revelation 3:8 became my mission statement, and I determined not to stray from it through whatever came next.

  Before I left my mountain, I prayed for two things specifically. I prayed for the church, even if only Zima and I remained its only members. And then I prayed for my bond with Zima to be Christ-centered and -purposed, until whatever end God destined for us.

  With those two exciting thoughts, I tucked my journal and Bible into my coat and dashed down the mountain.

  I wasn't the only one who was excited about the day. When I strode into camp, guests from South and Middle Camp were already arriving. They turned their horses into our corral and their dogs tested Lucky Hunter's well-marked boundaries. Zima had departed for Middle Camp, from where I guessed she would arrive when the time was right. Since I was the only one who had a watch, I often kept it in my backpack to keep it safe. The time was of no concern to the Kazakhs—during the night, we slept, and during the day, we worked. Except on this day. No one seemed to pay any mind to our previous arrangement to begin the celebration at noon. As soon as each camp's chores w
ere completed, it was simply time to start the ceremony. That was that. Thus, I had to sneak away into the woods for an hour to finish my wedding gift for Zima.

  Watching the others carve the plates and cooking bowls had given me the idea for my gift. When I'd been splitting wood, a cracked piece of larch wood had rolled against my foot. For the last few days, I'd been hollowing out the bottom of the block to form a box. And the cracked part had a gnarled knot in its top that made a natural handle for the lid. The box itself was no larger than my hand. For the lid, I'd fashioned it to fit snugly on the box, and then I'd carved Zima's name in Mongolian Cyrillic and English. The lettering was decorative around the lid's handle. Now, I'm not a stylish man, nor am I one who's skilled to decorate objects in this world, but I must say, the box looked quite sharp, especially considering I had no sandpaper. For sandpaper, I ground fine sand from the stream against the wood with a stone until the wood became smooth.

  With my box complete, I hid it under my clothes and returned to North Camp, which was as lively as I'd ever seen it. The men stood around the edges of the courtyard smoking handmade pipes and sipping quarts of airag prepared for the event. While they drank, the women hustled about with bowls of cheese and unleavened bread and meat stews and puddings and—I'm not sure what it all was, but they went all out.

  Until Sembuuk rode into camp and threw a small fox onto the ground at our feet, I hadn't noticed he'd been missing. His eagle sat proudly on his arm, glancing this way and that as Sembuuk told of the fox hunt. The children from all the camps actually stopped darting about to listen to his tale. Like American fishermen, I have no doubt Sembuuk embellished the story somewhat—which he made sound like a battle.

  When Zima arrived with a couple other women, my heart did flip-flops. She'd been sponged and bathed and her hair was rimmed with white flowers. Flowers! When I approached her—both of us with nothing but smiles for one another—I noticed they weren't flowers at all since it was too late in the year. They were feathers from one of the doves the eagle had killed. The feathers were knotted and twisted and then woven into her dark hair to look like daisies.

  "I've read stories of princesses and beautiful maidens," I whispered in her ear as she giggled, "but they all wither before you, Zima."

  She pulled a feathery flower from her hair and tucked it into the collar of my coat.

  "I trust you'll bathe before our wedding . . ."

  Teasing me, she flicked me on the ear, then moved away to mingle with the women.

  "Well, I was going to," I fumbled after her. "After the . . . the game we're, um . . ."

  Giving up, I marched into the woods. Where no one could see me, I sniffed at my armpits and breath. Yes, I needed a bit of scrubbing, but there was no point in bathing before the game of kekbar when we'd be handling the dead fox carcass and riding our horses to a lather. I'd bathe later, but I'd wash up a bit in the stream so I'd be more presentable before our many guests.

  Back in camp, we snacked on meat and cheese and congregated for an hour. The men admired our courtyard fence and made suggestions about how to weave it so tight that it would keep the mice out of the camp. But Sembuuk declared that mice weren't a problem in our camp while his raptor could still spread her wings. The women doted over Zima, and the kids wrestled with the dogs. Altogether, we numbered sixteen adults, six children, and the one infant that Zima had saved. None of the children of the clan were older than Bolor's daughter, Beveg, who was seven.

  Manai was still attached to me. I was honored to have his little arms wrap around my neck as he jabbered about a squirrel he and Lucky Hunter almost caught, or a fish he thought he saw in the stream. Even while playing with the other children, he often paused to search the camp for my face as if he were afraid I would disappear. And after he'd locate me, he'd smile and dart away. Since I'd saved him, he was my responsibility. It was the closest I'd been to being a father in my life, and it seemed an unspoken obligation that I was to adopt him. Zima already mothered the boy.

  When it came time for kekbar, I was anything but aware of such games and their ramifications. I followed Sembuuk's lead and saddled a horse. Everyone began migrating toward the open plain as the women closed up our camp edibles inside the gers—though only to avoid attracting the wild animals of the forest. The camp dogs, though rowdy, had been taught since pups to never steal food. They were to eat only what they caught themselves or were offered in their individual plates. Even a morsel of food that had fallen on the ground had to be coaxed into the animals' mouths.

  On the plain, Sembuuk designated the teams as Kandal explained the game's basic concept to me. The skin of a goat—in this case a tan fox—was the object of attention. One team tried to throw the skin across the opposing team's territorial zone. Different cultures have different versions of this game, some using hoops. I knew I wasn't good enough to play even before we started. Nevertheless, Sembuuk drew me and Bolor, a South Camp man of thirty named Olz, to play with him against the other six men. Bolor warned that Jugder from Middle Camp wasn't to be underestimated.

  My team, which mostly comprised of North Camp men, though Kandal was sitting out, started with the fox skin. We faced the opposing six riders and I suddenly realized the Kazakhs took the game of kekbar very seriously. Except for the cheering and jeering women and children on the forest edge, none of the men were smiling as they generally did during joyous occasions. The horses seemed to know what was happening, too, as if they'd been born for this game where they could prove their superiority through competition along with the men.

  Sembuuk held the fox overhead as we started down the playing field, which Kandal was still defining with the heel of his boot. The other team charged us with barred teeth. At the last instant, before two riders collided with Sembuuk, he hurled the fox at me. Snatching the dead thing expertly from the air, I wrapped it around my arm. But while I was still reveling over my catch and the women's cheers, Jugder slammed his mare into the side of mine and sent us both flying. Diving clear, I thought my aduu was about to fall on me. I landed on the near frozen ground on my shoulder and head. My horse somehow kept her footing and, just shy of trampling me, pranced around my head. A rider leaned down, ripped the fox from my arm, then galloped away, the others in chase. The cheerleaders taunted me until I found my feet. My mare knew vengeance was in order as soon as I was mounted again, and she tore back into the game without much direction from me.

  Kekbar is rough. I was knocked from my saddle and bounced off the hard ground ten times in the first hour. About the time my mare was ready to play without me, I started to figure out she knew what to do better than I did. All I had to do was stay on her back and catch the fox when it was thrown to me. Sure enough, when the press of horses loomed against me, I gave her the reins and she twisted about to face our attacker breast to breast. This worked better than me trying to steer her, and us both getting confused in the process.

  Using my arm length and strength, I started to steal the fox from the opposing team more often, and after two hours, we were starting to pull ahead of the other team. I was glad when Jugder called for a water break, but it was really a strategy session to assign a double guard of riders on me.

  *~*

  Chapter 21

  During the break from playing kekbar, Zima gave water to me and my horse, and Manai told me to throw the fox to my mates more often. He said it was funny when the fox landed on someone's head unexpectedly.

  But the excited chatter suddenly vanished. The horses tensed and the dogs growled.

  "Pond. Look."

  I followed Zima's gaze to the east where five Chinese vehicles had driven to within two hundred paces of our kekbar field. They were sitting on their hoods or standing around their escort vehicles with machine guns cradled in their arms. One man was on crutches and another wore a bandage around his head. It seemed these soldiers were from the north, returning to China under guard, most of them wounded.

  If it were anyone but the Chinese watching us play, we would've
welcomed them to come closer. But as it was, our small clan could only stare with sad eyes, eyes that had seen them kill dozens of clanspeople without mercy. The Kazakhs would've sold livestock to the Chinese for a few tugriks or ammunition so they could've hunted wild game for themselves.

  Gino had taught me years before to listen to the small, quiet voice of the Holy Spirit at all times. He'd told me not to be driven or swayed by the faultiness of feelings and emotions, but to be a man sure of God's directing—even when I didn't feel like doing something. And in that moment, the Holy Spirit brought a Scripture to mind that may as well have been a trumpet in my head. It was Romans 12:21: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

  This time, I didn't want to listen to the Holy Spirit, but I raised my hand in greeting, anyway. Zima's mouth dropped.

  "What're you doing?" She gasped. "They're at war with America and Russia. You and I are both those nationalities!"

  The Chinese soldiers waved back enthusiastically.

  "We have to be bold in our God," I said under my breath, "to speak to the lost even in much conflict."

  "Pond! Did you hear me?"

  I kicked my mare forward. Alone, we trotted away from the others. The Kazakhs watched fearfully, probably wishing they could pull me back with an invisible rope.

  "Pond!" Zima hissed hoarsely.

  But I was too far now to turn back. Several of the Chinese straightened up and cocked their rifles. They glanced at their commander, a sergeant, who stepped from the cab of his transporter. He snapped orders at a couple of the men who weren't injured, and they spread out in a firing line to defend themselves from me.

  Slowing my mount to a walk, I stopped ten paces from the officer. A thin smile touched his lips, then his eyes drifted down to my feet hanging nearly down to the ground. He seemed to recognize me—and my boots—and I recognized him.

  "My Mongolian is not too good," he stated haltingly, "but not many have those boots in this land."