by D. I. Telbat
"Well? What's going on?"
"For hours I've been awake, so I walked out to Three Rocks to watch the Chinese. That's when I saw them." He met my eyes. A chill passed up my spine. "There's about twenty of them."
I frowned. Twenty what? Sembuuk didn't finish. He slapped his leg and called Lucky Hunter to his side.
"Twenty?" I said, gulping. What could we do against twenty soldiers except sacrifice ourselves as decoys and hope the rest of the clan could ride like the wind on our too-few horses?
We mounted and rode out of camp just as Zima emerged from the ger to begin preparing the morning meal. She saw us heading east, but I couldn't meet her stern gaze, her disapproving eyes. Every time Sembuuk and I were together, something happened. It was expected, and she knew it could be nothing good yet again. I was worried as well. Two men and Lucky Hunter against twenty? Sembuuk and I had pulled some stunts together, but I hadn't thought he'd lost his mind completely!
Slowing our horses, we stopped at the edge of the forest. The sun was starting to peek above the golden Gobi.
"Have you been praying for the clan's deliverance?" he asked expectantly.
"Everyday, Sembuuk. Why?"
"Look!"
He pointed to the southeast. Halfway between Three Rocks and the incursion road, about twenty goats and sheep were grazing. I thought I was seeing things! Sembuuk grinned proudly. Climbing off his aduu, he aimed Lucky Hunter in the direction of the flock, then sent him out to herd the animals to us.
"These must be ours," Sembuuk said, "and they got scattered during that first day. They've possibly been holed up at a watering hole somewhere. Wolves probably got a few of them. But something must've spooked them recently, sending them back toward us."
I just nodded, still speechless.
Lucky Hunter herded like he'd never herded before, darting left and right, barking and nipping at their flanks until they succumbed to his charge.
"Andy, I wanted to share this with you," Sembuuk said.
"Thank you, Sembuuk. This is a good day. I believe you're right: God has preserved us through yet another obstacle."
As Lucky Hunter and Sembuuk worked together to keep the strays in line, I led the flock through the forest. It was a stampede of little hooves that overtook North Camp that morning. There was screaming and laughing as everyone ran about to catch the animals and crowd them into the corral—then frantically hemmed them into the horse-sized fence to keep them in.
We kept six goats and lambs for ourselves and drove the rest to Middle Camp where a rider was quickly dispatched to South Camp to announce we had enough food to possibly last the winter. All three camps came together at Middle Camp where there was dancing and laughing. There was even rejoicing for God's continual preservation.
It was a wonderful day, a day of days, but it seemed to fade into just another day of heartache when, on the following afternoon, we were sorrowfully reminded of our mortality.
Sembuuk and Gan-gaad had been out hunting and had found no game when they caught up to me and Manai on our way back to camp from the mountains. Gan-gaad was responsibly hiding the rifle in the cave every day, and I'd witnessed a continued softening of the hard man's heart.
Halfway down the mountain's eastern slope, we halted our mounts to watch a horse limp from north to south just beyond the tree line. Frowning, I counted the horse's legs—it had six.
In quick understanding, Gan-gaad charged down the mountain at a breakneck speed. The limping, six-legged horse stopped at the next patch of snow it came to and chomped at the moisture. Gan-gaad arrived a little before us, and everyone but me leapt to the ground.
Dusbhan was on the far side of the horse. He'd been wounded. Too injured to mount his aduu, he'd tied himself to the saddle and walked or was dragged beside the horse along the way.
"He's alive!" Sembuuk announced.
Gan-gaad scooped his nephew into his arms, and since we were only two hundred yards outside camp, he carried him the rest of the way.
Kandal and I were the only two with any type of medical knowledge, but there was very little we could do. Dusbhan had been shot twice at long range. Both entry wounds were from the back. One had shattered his hip on the right side. The other had lodged in his left lung. Each wound alone would've killed him in time. He was in God's hands. Just as discouraging was the infection in the hip injury, which I suspected had been there possibly for as long as a week.
In the morning, our friend and brother, Dusbhan, passed away. The only comfort I had was that he was a believer and we would see him again soon. Zima, upon picking through Dusbhan's pockets, found my binoculars and a number of pages that I'd given him from my journal before he'd left. Excitedly, I studied the pages, flipping through them with understanding. None of the others could identify Dusbhan's sketches and labels, but I knew what they were right away. I'd given him the pages for this very purpose.
"They're his wishes in death?" Bolor asked, peering over my shoulder.
My eyes sparkled.
"Remarkable!" I said. "Dusbhan's death wasn't in vain. He's mapped out an entire route west of the mountains!"
"West of the mountains?" Sembuuk picked up one page and examined it. "Has anyone ever been that far west?"
"I know it by other maps. Duulgii may make even more sense of all this," I said. "Dusbhan has shown us a low valley route between the mountains by which we can access the west side of the Altays. We'll be able to avoid the Chinese altogether. And if we find a good refuge with water along the way, we can stop and wait out the winter."
It was good news in the midst of a heartbreaking event. Everyone had appreciated Dusbhan's quiet and brief time with the clan, and he would be mourned as if he were one of the clan himself. Zima and I grieved him more than even Gan-gaad. Dusbhan had been one of the clan's first converts from the first people I'd met in Mongolia. But along with the bitterness, our grief was sweet as well. Soon, we would see him again.
#######
Beveg, Manai, and I spread the map of the world out on the floor of my ger. Zima looked on from against the wall as she sewed a del together of goat skins. Two days had passed since Dusbhan's funeral—a most somber occasion. And though we'd planned to leave and trek northwest, a savage cold spell had overtaken the mountain range. Both land and animal were silent and still. Thus, the map, and anything else we could think of to explore within the confines of the gers, kept us distracted from the danger ahead of us.
"Don't tell us where we are, Pond!" Beveg instructed as she gazed at the colorful map with English words. Like Ziva, she preferred to call me by my miss-name. "I saw a map in my primer long ago." Those were bold words for a seven year old, but she stabbed a finger at east-central Asia right on the mark. "There's Mongolia, but it's in the wrong language."
"The language is English," Zima said. "It's what they speak and write in America where Pond is from."
But the children didn't seem to hear her.
"God made all of this," Manai said in awe, and swept his tiny hand over the oceans and continents.
"It took six days, Manai," Beveg taught him as the older sister she pretended to be.
"I know!" Manai pouted. "Beveg, I've been listening at night, too!"
A head poked through our felt door. It was Sembuuk. His cheeks were nearly frostbitten from being outside. He climbed in and nearly crumpled the map before Beveg moved it protectively aside.
"The weather is breaking." He rubbed his hands over our stove. "Kandal and Jugder agree."
"What does Gan-gaad think?" I asked. "He knows this region best."
"He says if the wild animals are about, we can be about."
"And have you seen any wild animals?" Zima asked.
"Not yet, but I've heard them along the north wall. Wolves, I think. They're hungry."
"Grrrrr!" Manai growled like a wolf and attacked Beveg, wrestling with her as she giggled and fought back.
"We'll see what it's like in the morning," I said for everyone. "I want to leave as badl
y as anyone. The soldiers will be out searching soon enough. Only by the grace of God have we not been found yet."
Two more days passed before the great cold spell broke. On the third day, we packed up, burdened our backs and our beasts, and met the other two camps on the mountain slope. Though the terrible cold of thirty below had passed, it was still colder than I was used to in New York. Five below was warm by Mongolian winter standards. Still, prolonged exposure of flesh to such a bite could cause frostbite. Thus, we all wore face masks with slits for eyes and only the nostrils fully exposed.
It was in this intense cold that we labored up the mountain slope so carefully. Muscles and bones are more susceptible to injury in such temperatures, and our goal of merely making it over the mountain was great enough for the first day.
Gan-gaad led the way on horseback, and as I had studied Dusbhan's maps and notes with him, he was the most adept man to take point. Jugder, Bolor, and Olz followed him, each leading their strings of horses that carried the heaviest ger structures and other supplies. Any riding horses available were for the elderly, the woman with a still-nursing infant from South Camp, a couple other men and women who were to trade walking for riding periodically, and myself. All but five goats had been slaughtered for meat and skins, including the sheep. The goats were the most sure-footed on the mountain shale with Lucky Hunter and the other dogs yelping for superior herding place. Those who walked were interspersed throughout the moving clan, though mostly in the rear, and Sembuuk and I came last, both on horseback, though Sembuuk and Kandal were to trade off and on.
Barely had Gan-gaad crested the top of the first ridge when the very distant rumble of a labored engine reached the animals' ears—the goats first and then the horses. They gazed back at the forest. Only then did we humans hear and follow their keen eyes. But keen eyes weren't needed to behold what terror we saw.
"Lord God, have mercy . . ." I whispered.
A muted puff of smoke from a twenty-five-millimeter cannon out on the plain announced the danger. An instant later, the report of artillery boomed with an explosion of rock and ice not far to our right. Tanks and armored personnel carriers had approached our section of the woods to search that very day. Upon seeing us over the trees from the steppe, they'd opened fire.
"Get up the mountain!" I shouted as a second round exploded to our left. They were sure to have us targeted now. "Run!"
But my words were ill-needed, for the scrambling had already begun. Above, Gan-gaad rode back into my sight. He disappeared in a cloud of smoke, but he rode through it down the slope. Expertly, he leaned down and plucked up two children from the ground and plopped them in front and behind him on his horse. It was Manai and Beveg who he'd rescued, and our eyes met over that distance in terrified understanding that it would be a slaughter again if we didn't get over the ridge and out of sight of the plain.
The pack horses lunged ahead—a chaotic scramble of near panic—and passed their three handlers. Sure-footing was no longer considered on the dangerous mountainside as we charged, crawled, and clawed upward.
"Why are they shooting at us?" I yelled as Sembuuk and I whipped our horses forward.
"They think we're a resistance!" he shouted back. "It's Duulgii's fault—and his radio!"
Yes, it was Duulgii's fault, but we'd all agreed to bring him back into the clan and now was hardly the time for casting blame.
Ahead, Li Chong scooped up a child and ran forward. An artillery round landed between two pack horses and blew flesh and shrapnel in every direction. The other horses in the train were wounded and continued to drag torn carcasses behind them. Sembuuk drew a skinning knife and cut the lead rope with one slash to free the horses that weren't too badly wounded. In almost the same motion, he swung Kandal by the arm onto the horse behind him. Less gracefully, I swung Zima up with me as she clutched a kid goat.
Half of the clan had reached the ridge crest and were spilling over the edge, but the rest of us were in disarray. The dogs and remainder of the goats were nearly trampled under hoof as Lucky Hunter and the others tried so loyally to maintain herding order. Bolor, Beveg's father and friend to all, died instantly in another explosion, a mare with him. Not a limb of either was left intact.
"Hiya!" I shrieked and whipped my mount.
A shell screamed overhead and blew up, peppering us with rocks and blinding us with burning hot shrapnel. My aduu screamed and reared, one side of her face singed and the eye blinded. Zima slid off the horse with her kid goat until I settle the terrified animal. Rounds burst around us. Screams and cries were everywhere. I searched for wounded clan members to help, but Zima and I were the last on the slope still alive. Zima mounted up again behind me.
In shock, and with only one eye, my aduu pranced sideways up the mountain. At the top of the ridge, she reared again, nearly spilling us. We danced in a circle and paused to gaze down upon the plain. The tanks had ceased their firing since their targets had passed out of sight. Only Zima and I were in their sights now. A few yards away from us lay the bodies of our dead.
*~*
Chapter 31
More movement at the base of the mountain caught my eye. Infantrymen on foot—and two on motorbikes—began to ascend the mountain with great haste. We were still out of their small arms range or they would've been shooting. As crippled as the clan was now, we could never outrun a pursuing force.
When the tank shells had first exploded, the birds in the vicinity had taken to the air in fright. Then they'd settled again in their rock or tree roosts. With a prayer on my lips, I saw them take flight again, though I wondered in wide-eyed horror what tragedy awaited us next that had caused them to escape once more into the sky.
It began as a low growl. Then, a trickle of rocks and pebbles vibrated around my horse's hooves. Our aduu reared again, but was quickly calmed without my urging, her ears flicking with curiosity.
Then, with ten times the force of a freight train, the mountain began to shake and bounce. The noise and motion of the ground moved more and more. Boulders buried under the frozen earth emerged from the snow as if pushed upward by a mighty hand. Our horse stood to balance itself as the ground shook even more violently. The boulders became so unsettled that they began to tumble like bowling balls down the slope. The soldiers below tried to escape death by the crushing, rolling granite, but the mountain heaved too severely for them to find their footing to run away. They crouched in place and tried to hide in crevices as the boulders tumbled over and through their ranks. Of fifty infantrymen, at least two dozen were crushed in the first minute.
The quake faded in sound and motion, and I patted my horse's neck and spoke soothing words as I urged her beyond the rim of the mountain and out of sight of the forest. Behind us, the remaining foot soldiers fled back into the woods and beyond to their vehicles.
I guided my aduu through the scattered remnant of the clan. Those not badly injured clung to the weeping and wounded on the western slope. The great rugged mountain valley lay below us, but we'd never reach its safer landscape if we froze to death here, where the wind tore at our clothing and took our breaths away. Almost all had wounds of some sort. Zima jumped to the ground to tend to a wounded woman from Middle Camp. Moving through the people, I found Gan-gaad at the front. One of his ears had been completely swiped off and his scalp was bleeding, skinned to the bone.
"Get us moving," I said to him. Sembuuk was near enough to hear. "We'll have to wait to lick our wounds at the cave, not out here."
He nodded. The cave was three hours away by horse. Those of us who had explored the valley knew that, but the people didn't know. If they would've realized the distance to their shelter that night, they never would've started moving again.
Jugder approached me as the word to move reached him. His shoulder was wounded and he limped terribly, but there was nothing but bravery on his face.
"Andy, if we start down the mountain and another earthquake occurs, we'll be caught in rock slides." He kept his voice low. The seven-fin
gered man held my reins and inspected my horse's eye. "Your mount is badly hurt as well."
"We all are. That's why we need to keep moving southwest to the cave—to keep our minds on the goal and not on our losses. The earthquake was an act of God," I said with bold assurance. "It pushed the soldiers back. God knows our plight. Let's go."
Everywhere I looked, my friends wept and held one another. No one was exempt from loss. Families were split, the dead were abandoned, but none were forgotten.
"Pond, take this one." Zima pushed a child of three into my arms. "He can't walk. I bandaged his leg. This cave . . . it will hold us all?"
"It'll do." I turned from her to find Sembuuk comforting Beveg, her father no longer with the living. "Sembuuk, take Manai and some tools and ride ahead. See if you can make a safer path along the mountain to the cave."
The child in my lap picked at my chest and I flinched as he held up a piece of metal the size and shape of a finger that had burned through my clothing and embedded itself in my flesh. Shrapnel. I smiled down at him as he held up his prize proudly.
"Good boy. There are others, too. See if you can find them."
I rode toward the back where the dogs warily guarded the two remaining goats. Lucky Hunter trotted up to me with a third, dead goat in his jaws. He dropped it at my horse's feet.
"Good dog." Leaning down, I patted the loyal dog on the head. I'd discovered that he and the other canines preferred admiration more than edible treats. Then, I gripped the dead goat and tied it behind my saddle until it could be dressed.
"Andy," someone called.
Turning, I saw it was Duulgii with his Russian companion next to him. Duulgii lay on his back, his head on a rock, and a gashing wound across his abdomen. It was strange how quickly even the blood from our wounds was freezing into a thick Jello consistency.
"You have it bad, Duulgii," I said, finding no reason at this point to mince words.