Galsan Tschinag

Finally winter arrived. I was glad that it did and that our yurt could be moved back into its comfortable solitude. Maybe I was also glad because lately everybody had been telling me that I was a big boy and that the time had come to show whether I could guard my flock by myself

Sure, I thought when they told me, sure I can guard my flock and look after Grandma. But I would need a yurt of my own, a big white yurt with many pretty furnishings—a palace yurt!

The hendshe fell to me. It consisted of lambs born late in the year or out of season, and of grown animals that, for one reason or another, could not follow the big flock to the distant pasture.

In the mornings, when the big flock had left the hürde and disappeared from sight, 1 drove my own flock to its pasture. The big flock always went uphill to the mountain ridge, whereas the hendshe went downhill to the mountain folds that were sheltered from the wind. But first, half the flock had to be untied from the höne, and the lambs and kids led out of the yurt one by one so they would not run around inside and perhaps cause damage. For the flock's other half all I had to do was open the door of the small wooden shed and the young animals inside, which were not tethered, came out on their own.

The days of winter, which seemed so short to the adults, seemed long, infinitely long to me. I was not to play but rather to take the flock to its pasture, and 1 was told to watch the wind, the sun, and the grass, to watch how the animals reacted to them, and to watch how each of the animals behaved. It was also important to be on my guard against wolves and eagles. Should any appear, 1 was told not to be afraid and to grab quickly my shepherd's crook, which I carried over my shoulder like a gun; I was to aim it at them, produce a bang, and scream loudly.

But the days of winter were not only long. More than anything, they were cold. My face and hands got particularly cold. It was strange, but people in the mountains did not wear gloves: gloves did not exist. Instead, our sleeves were long, and anything sharp-edged, cold, or hot, anything we could not touch with our bare hands, we grabbed through these long sleeves. Only toys — stones covered with hoarfrost— were to be fingered by your bare hand and touched by your skin so they could come alive and change into people and animals, into yurt utensils and other such things.

As a result my hands got cold. But what did it matter? Rather, I assured myself once again of how much I had at my fingertips and of how pleasant my life was. And besides, I had my glow stone, which I carried in my breast pocket like a little stove, a tiny sun, and which my freezing hand could touch and warm itself on any time. My right hand often reached into my breast pocket, warmed itself on the glow stone, and passed on the warmth to my left hand and my face.

The stone was the size and shape of a horse dropping, was smooth and purplish-black, and every morning was heated in the embers. It retained the heat for a long time, and when I arrived back home in the evening and took the stone from my pocket to put it aside, it still felt lukewarm.

Every morning my dog Arsylang welcomed me when I stepped out into the world. Compared to me, the world was incomparably awesome as it lay in front of me in all its mystery. And every evening it was Arsylang, again, who brought me back safely from the world of mysteries and dangers to the shelter of my parents' yurt. In the mornings, we had to hurry ahead of the flock, and in the evenings, follow behind. That was the number one rule for anybody who was willing to take upon himself the dangers lying in wait for his flock. But Arsylang always watched out for me: In the mornings, he ran out ahead of me and in the evenings, he trailed along behind me.

During the day, he crouched next to me and watched me play. I wanted him to join in, but smart as he was, he did not grasp that the sheep and goats had to be kept apart from the yaks and horses, or that the yurt had to be round and the stove at its center. From time to time I chided him, sometimes even shoved his neck, but then consoled him when I thought I detected in his greenish-brown eyes something like traces of guilt and of helpless sadness. Then I would stop playing the solitary game and play other games with him, games that he, too, was able to play: We skipped and ran, wrestled and rolled around in the snow. I was always the first to get tired and when I did, we would give up on that game as well and instead busy ourselves with the flock. Arsylang was quick, was sharpness itself, and skilled in guiding the flock. Sometimes he would punish a kid that had climbed on rocks or got up to some other silliness instead of eating its fill. His punishments varied. At best, the offender was given a little fright. At worst, he would chase an animal until it collapsed. But he inflicted the harsh punishment only when I wanted him to, and I swear that Arsylang's teeth never broke the skin of any animal in the flock.

On windless Sundays we hiked up to the top of Doora Hara. From there everything was visible as if in the palm of my hand: The big rivers that were now covered with ice and snow and were glinting in places; the ails along the bank on this side of the Ak-Hem; Tewe-Mojun, the Camel's Neck, and Saryg-Hol, the Yellow Lake, both brought into being by Sardakpan, the giant hero and creator of the Altai Mountains; the six Kazakh yurts that lay in regular intervals along the Homdu's left bank and almost always gave off clouds of thick smoke; beyond Ak-Hem and on the Homdu's right bank the center of the Ak-Hem sum, which was Kazakh; the bushes starting at Dshedi-Geshig and stretching along the Homdu until they disappeared in the ravine between the mountain ridges of Ortaa-Syn and Borgasun; the center of Tsengel sum, which was Tuvan; and finally the mountains in the distance, above all Harlyg Haarakan, the vast blue-white, snow-covered peak.

1 had been to fewer than half of these places, but 1 knew all of them by name, and I knew pretty much where things were and who lived where. I knew because Grandma had a good memory and, unlike Mother, the patience to answer all my questions.