by D. I. Telbat
". . . And over there, Luyant killed a giant doe three winters back. See the white stone that looks like marble? There's a meadow there, hardly more than a small clearing."
"I see the stone," I said, eying the landmark with my binoculars, "but no clearing."
"It's there, only obscured by trees. Look to the northwest, against the same rock face."
Focusing my glasses, I swept them slowly.
"What am I supposed to—" I stopped. "I think I barely see white smoke. It might be a hot spring. Or it could be nothing more than vapor."
"No." Gan-gaad shook his big head and took the binoculars to see for himself. "There's a spring there, but it's as cold as ice. And there's a deep cave in the rock there, too. I've been in it, seen the ancient drawings, even studied them a couple times, though I'm not a learned man. Ah, yes. It's a campfire." He gave my glasses back. "You know, they say Genghis Khan is buried in the mountains here. Somewhere in the west, but I think it was farther south, closer to where he died."
"How do we get down there?" I asked, staying focused on the mission at hand.
"This ridge forks in the north, then drops into the valley. Once we're down there, we'll follow the bottom of this mountain around . . ." He traced it with his finger. "Then we'll cross the meadow and catch them by surprise. I think we can be there by midday."
We remained kneeling so as not to give away our position with silhouettes against the horizon. When we did finally cross over the ridge, we did it quickly on horseback.
"I would much rather do this with a rifle, Pond," he said. "It makes little sense to hunt with no weapons."
"These men aren't enemies of ours. They're friends of the clan and we're only messengers to invite them to speak to Kandal and the others."
"What if they don't want to come?"
"Then I'll reason with them. I know Duulgii a little. He was going to give me a pup, once."
"You've come far, Pond, in a short time in this country." He sighed aloud. "It's unfortunate you come at a time of strife, though. Mongolia is truly the best place on this earth."
I rode on in silence. He'd never been outside Mongolia, but I agreed, the country was spectacular. For the most part, it was untouched by the direct threat of warfare. We'd merely suffered some indirect fallout from the wars around us.
The ridge from which we descended faded into the valley floor to a narrow game trail, and we took a sharp left to follow the base of the mountain in a wide arc. It was a beautiful, blue-sky day for a ride, but our every breath left a cloud of vapor lingering on the brisk air.
On our left, the mountain towered over us, looming almost threateningly, and on our right, we passed larch and cedar timber speckled over rocky outcroppings and ditches sculpted from the ancient flood itself. As we neared the meadow, we were wary and quiet, but not because we feared we would alert Duulgii of our presence directly. A meadow would be a place for deer and other animals to feed. It was them we didn't want to spook, for they would in turn alert Duulgii and his partner of approaching foreigners. And any foreigners, Duulgii was likely to consider as his enemies. We didn't want to be shot accidently.
The meadow came into sight and we dismounted. I stepped over a narrow crack in the ground caused by the region's many seismic disturbances. We didn't bother to picket our horses; we let them graze freely on the dry range grass as we walked quietly west along the edge of the meadow. Gan-gaad, an expert when it came to animal senses, hummed a quiet tune to communicate to four curious deer nearby that we were no danger to them. The deer, perhaps seeing humans for the first time, watched intently as we passed by them.
We followed a vague game trail through a small stand of trees, then slowed our pace as Gan-gaad led. Regardless of his bulk, he was more naturally light-footed than me. In the plains, he'd stomped about intimidating everyone, but here, he padded on the balls of his feet, barely disturbing the ground. He was a hunter at heart, and I wouldn't want to be the man's unsuspecting prey. The very fact that he had attacked a superior Chinese patrol only a few days earlier spoke for itself. The man was a predator.
The game trail drifted down to a seasonal streambed that was now dry, but Gan-gaad waved me forward and pointed up at the sheer rock face on our left to show me where water still trickled from ice. Or was he pointing at something else? I frowned and shook my head, not understanding what he wanted me to see or do. He leaned close to my ear.
"The path. Now, you lead. You have better luck with bullets than me."
I didn't argue, but I still didn't know where to go. The trail went down, but he was motioning upward. Carefully, I studied the face of the rock. Was that another path? It led at a steep angle upward, but it was by no means a safe route. Most of it was loose gravel that had crumbled away from the rock face. But forty feet up the face, I saw an actual ledge, and I assumed that was the location of the cave.
Gan-gaad nudged me from behind and I stepped onto the path leading upward. My boot sole was steeply angled—so much so that I thought my ankle would sprain if I didn't slip off the mountain altogether. Facing the rock, I edged my way along with my back to the drop-off, my right foot leading. Ignoring the dead air at my heels, I tried to concentrate on shifting my feet forward. Glancing back at Gan-gaad, I kept my hands on the rock in front of me for balance. Again, he urged me forward, an impatient look on his face as if I were taking unnecessary precautions. But I continued no faster, even for his sake. I loved heights . . . as long as I was looking up at them from below.
Twice, I nearly lost my footing completely. If I started to fall, I planned to shove away from the rock with all my might, with the hope of breaking my fall by landing in the tree tops and branches of the trees below.
But my feet finally reached level ground on the ledge, and I breathed a prayer of thanks.
To my left, the mouth of the cave opened. It was a black hole four feet wide and almost as tall as me. Gan-gaad licked his lips, ready for confrontation, and prodded me forward yet again. With one eye, I peered into the cave mouth for two seconds, then withdrew quickly to allow the image to process in my mind. The cave floor angled downward like a low-grade ramp to a single room cavern where a small fire was burning. Glancing up, I saw wisps of smoke drift skyward. Beside the fire were two men, one with his back to me, the other, his left side to me. Both had been laboring over skins in their laps. Horse hides, I decided. They'd probably killed their horses for food and winter coats.
What concerned me most was that it was a good thirty paces down the ramp. That was plenty of distance to get shot if I didn't reach them before they recognized me. None of this I could convey to Gan-gaad, but he'd said he'd been there before, so he knew what lay ahead.
I took a deep breath and cupped my mouth. Why startle them when I could announce our presence? We had them cornered now. They had to listen to us. Gan-gaad saw my intentions and gripped my arm like an iron vice. He shook his head as if to say, "No warning!"
Shoving away from the rock, I two-stepped down the ramp with barely a whisper from my boots on the pebbly floor. Gan-gaad saw we had the upper hand; we weren't being shot at right away, so he moved up beside me.
We were five paces from the man with his back to us when the other startled and spied movement at his elbow. He reached for a rifle on the rock floor, but I was already on him, and his hand overshot the weapon. I plowed into him hard and sent him tumbling with the hide still on his lap. Gan-gaad did the same to the man with his back to us. Shoving the man hard, he sent him sprawling into the fire, but he rolled out the same instant.
"Are these them?" Gan-gaad asked hungrily, his fists clenched as we stood over them. He wanted a fight.
The men were on their backs, staring up at us with looks of terror in their faces. I recognized Duulgii by his filthy snow leopard hat, but neither of the two appeared to be a fraction of the men they once were. They looked worse than Gan-gaad and Dusbhan did when I'd found them half-starved. These men had thinning hair and sunken cheeks from malnutrition.
> Duulgii's fight wasn't gone, though. His hand wrapped around a piece of firewood.
"We're just here to talk, Duulgii," I said. He probably thought otherwise—me being a foreigner and Gan-gaad's accent identifying him as a Mongolian. "We jumped you because we figured you'd shoot first if given the chance."
"Just to talk?" Duulgii asked, his voice weak and scratchy. He glanced at his partner who was brushing sparks off the felt of his del. "I thought you were . . ."
"You thought we were the Chinese, I know." I acknowledged the radio and transmitter against the cavern wall to my right. "Just be glad I found you before they did, and believe me, they're searching high and low for you. Come on. Kandal, Jugder, and the others want to talk to you."
Gan-gaad moved around me and gathered their rifles. Both were AK-47s, Russian-made.
Duulgii rose weakly to his feet, then pulled the other man upright. His partner was wounded, I noticed, but not by anything we'd done. There was dried blood caking his pants, and his thigh was bandaged.
"Who's he?" Duulgii asked, casting a glance at Gan-gaad who was inspecting the radio gear. "He looks Mongolian."
"That's right, he is. But he's with the clan now. He's friendly."
"Well, he doesn't look friendly."
"None of us are friendly," I stated harshly, "with you risking our lives like this—bringing the Chinese onto our doorstep!"
Gan-gaad snapped his head toward Duulgii.
"I'm not friendly because I hate Russians."
"Where's Lugsalkhaan? I'll only speak to my brother-in-law."
"He's dead. I buried him myself in secret so his name lives on. The others don't know."
"Who's leading the clan?"
"Kandal, Sembuuk, Jugder, and a few others."
"And you?"
"I do my part."
"You still tell your stories?"
"Every chance he gets," Gan-gaad said. "I'd gag him if the others didn't actually pretend to enjoy his adventures."
I laughed as the tension subsided.
"The Chinese are looking for me?"
"Of course." I waved at the radio equipment. "They can track all this, but only when you're transmitting. I suspect you're not on the air long, so they're having trouble narrowing the search. Right now, they're hunting the woods on the eastern slope and killing everyone they find."
"So," Duulgii said, swallowing, "Kandal is not happy that I've brought this on the clan." He shook his head sorrowfully. "I can't meet with them. Jugder will kill me, I know."
"Maybe you deserve it," Gan-gaad said. I cast him a silencing glare. He shrugged. "Maybe he does."
"What do they want to talk to me about?"
"Ceasing what you're doing. If you stop, the Chinese will stop hunting the woods."
"I can't stop." He shook his head again. "It's for my people. They rely on this intelligence."
"Then go north or south," I said, making it sound like an order. "Anywhere that isn't endangering lives."
"Look at us. We can't travel. We're nearly out of food and it's not even truly winter, yet."
"You'll die without the clan," I said, "and the clan surely won't allow this radio business in their midst." For a moment, I let him think about that. "May I offer a word of reason?"
He nodded.
"Every time you transmit, people die. You're causing death. Sometimes it's death in Russia. Sometimes it's down here among your adopted clan. Within a month, if you continue here, you'll be dead from starvation, or from Chinese torture. If you don't quit for the sake of others' lives, then quit for your own sake. Walk away, Duulgii. Just walk away."
Duulgii's partner cleared his throat. He appeared as if he were ready to burst into tears, maybe because he was in worse shape than Duulgii. When he spoke, he spoke in Russian, and I knew enough to understand.
"Moskva is lost, comrade. I'm finished. He's right. We can't even get to the ridge to spy the plain. Duulgii, we are dead."
"Will the clan take us back?" Duulgii asked me.
"I believe so, but I'm putting you in Jugder's camp. He can keep an eye on you two. Middle Camp needs a couple extra hands to help with firewood, anyway. Gather your things." Then, I went over to Gan-gaad. "Pack up the radio gear. I'm turning it over to my contact in the Chinese military as an act of good faith. They won't leave us alone, otherwise."
"And what of these?" He held up the rifles.
"They can be used for hunting, but they'll remain stowed in this cave, otherwise, and only we and Dusbhan knows of this cave. Hear that, you two? Don't tell anyone back in camp about this cave. It would defeat the clan's efforts of peace if someone were found with a gun among us. If one of these guns disappears, I'm holding you two responsible."
The trek back to camp was a considerable challenge. Duulgii and his Russian partner were so weak they had to ride our horses. This wouldn't have been a problem except it meant that Gan-gaad and I had to walk, and Gan-gaad wasn't up to his full strength, either. It was sunset when we arrived at camp. Nearly frozen, Duulgii and the Russian were sleeping in their saddles. Gan-gaad was shivering with such ferocity that he spilled his first cup of tea at the central fire. I was weary, but not so disabled that I couldn't assist the others.
Kandal was all for bringing the two old clan members into camp, which was voiced at the camp meeting we held right away. But Sembuuk and Bolor were openly against it. However, it was agreed by all that we couldn't send them back out into the cold. Middle Camp could use them, if they behaved. No one felt hesitant about treating the late clan leader's brother-in-law with caution, and Duulgii didn't object to any of our decisions. I guessed he felt the burden of spying finally lifted. He was now among friendly people who had nearly everything that was once available to the original clan.
So, the next morning, the two newcomers were whisked off to Middle Camp where clan elder Jugder could oversee them. However, the issue wasn't concluded. I still had their radio, and the Chinese were surely still seeking to purge the forest, slowly working their way north until they found it. They wouldn't be appeased, I decided, until they had the radio in hand. Hopefully, they would simply leave us in peace when they finally had it.
It was a nice thought. If only situations go as planned every time . . .
*~*
Chapter 25
The following day, I spent time with Kandal and Sembuuk as we devised a safe way to deliver the radio to the Chinese. I was taking responsibility since I was the one who'd met Sergeant Xing on two separate occasions, and it was my idea to deliver the radio to him in the first place—rather than destroy it outright. Otherwise, we'd need to move the clan so far north and west into the depths of the Altay Mountains that no one would find us.
"That's not a bad idea," Kandal had mused as we nibbled on a midday meal near the stream. The water was frozen, so sections of ice were taken to the camp for thawing—cut directly from the stream with our axes. "But we'll keep that idea as a last resort. The journey would be hard and dangerous, the cold too severe. If it was certain we'd have game along the way—and a safe route to travel—we could make the trip. Oftentimes, the weather pushes the game into the mountain vallies more than the plain."
"Maybe we should send someone ahead to scout a route?" I suggested.
"You believe it will come to that? Us running from the Chinese?"
"I believe everything will continue to grow worse until the final days before Christ sets up His kingdom of peace on earth."
"Ah, you speak of the Book of Revelation again," Kandal said. "You were testing me. Yes, I've been reading. Will we still have the gathering tomorrow, even though you'll be tending to the radio?"
"Yes, I'll leave after the gathering."
"Someone who knows the mountains should go to the northwest," Sembuuk said.
"Dusbhan from my old clan would be a wise choice. With the right supplies on a mount, he could find the easiest route for us, perhaps avoiding the plain altogether. It would be best to stay in those mountain ranges, hunting along
the way."
"Fine," Sembuuk said. "Prepare him to leave, but keep this between us. The others would lose hope if we shared such a contingency plan of departure. Returning the radio may not go as planned."
That night, I paid South Camp a friendly visit to help with their wood cutting. As soon as I had Dusbhan alone in the woods, I explained our intentions to find safe passage north for the clan if we had to flee from the Chinese soldiers. After considering the responsibility carefully, he said he knew it to be a dangerous chore alone in such weather and terrain. But he understood the precautionary measure, and accepted the task. We agreed he would take two horses with minimal supplies, and I even insisted he take my sleeping bag, which would be both warmer at night and lighter for traveling than bulky skins. For hunting purposes only, he would fetch a rifle from the cave. I didn't worry that he would venture into the plain to assault the Chinese. He wouldn't attack them alone. Since many lives depended upon a safe, unexposed escape route, I believed Dusbhan took the assignment seriously.
"I'll leave tomorrow," he said, "and spend the night in the cave, then continue north. Using your binoculars, I can spy down on the towns of Hasagt, Bulgan, and Dund-Us on my way. If I relay my mounts, I may be gone three weeks, maybe less, but I may need to hunt, so it's wisest to assume a month. Is that too long?"
"Well, it's a long time, but hopefully we don't need to leave before that."
Looking down at the ground, he kicked at a frozen piece of wood.
"It would be wise to be accompanied by your God on this journey, wouldn't it?"
"Absolutely." His change of subject was a reminder to me that regardless of frantic events, the Holy Spirit was still working on hearts. The clan's spiritual safety was more important than their physical safety. "Do you feel God calling you?"
"Yes." He nodded. "I want what you have, but I don't know what to say or how to pray as you do."
