The Exile

1 In the black yurt Djantemir Bai had pitched the yurts of his aul in a valley several versts from the town of Orsk. It was a fine place for wintering, and it was not the first time Djaniemir had come here. A dense growth of reeds stretched along he banks of the river Or. The herds grazed on a rolling plain nearby, where the obliging wind swept away any extra snow so that the sheep and horses could help themselves to forage in winter. And when a snowstorm broke, they could hide in the valley where, apart from the yurts, stood Djantemir’s house and a number of sheds for his goods. When the frosts grew severe, Djantemir moved from his yurt into the house for three or four months, but as soon as the thaw set in he returned to his white yurt. The black yurts of his kith and kin, servants and tyulenguts were scattered along the slope of the valley in strict compliance with seniority and dependence on the bai: the newer the yurt was, the nearer it stood to the bai’s white yurts; while farther away, on the very edge of the aul, huddled the old, black yurts of the poor, the jataks, who for offal from his board and for old rags slaved for him from dawn to dusk. In the farthest corner, almost on the pasture ground, stood the black yurt of the herder Shakir, who was as old as his home, which barely withstood the thrust of the steppe winds assailing it on all sides through the threadbare felt, tunduk, and the poorly fitting entrance flap. Shakir was well over seventy years old. Nobody in the aul, however, knew his exact age. He was an outlander to them. For thirty years he had been grazing the bai’s sheep and horses, and now for the first time he had been visited by a prolonged illness. Just before the Russian Christmas, a snowstorm had suddenly broken out. The shepherds were late in driving the flock to the refuge of the valley. The frightened sheep burst headlong into the steppe, while the confused shepherds, pressed in between the animals, rushed about helplessly. When the flock stampeded past the herd of the white-bearded Shakir, the old herder immediately sized up the situation. Whistling to his dogs, he overtook the flock on horseback and met it with loud shouts, whiplashes and a vicious attack from his trained dogs. The flock was forced to a halt, turned in the right direction and headed away toward the valley with no losses. Old Shakir paid dearly for rescuing the flock. An acute attack of pneumonia brought him down three days later. His wife, Kumish, gave him hot tea with milk to drink, rubbed him with sheep fat, and put little bundles with hot sand all round him. Shakir pulled through, but he was not his healthy self anymore. He was so weak that he lay still for hours or was shaken by a hacking cough. And in the night he was drenched with a wearying, slimy sweat. On learning about the rescue of his flock, the delighted Djantemir became generous and gave Shakir, apart from two sheep, a thin-legged colt from one of the herd’s best mares. The colt was pathetically weak, because Djantemir’s son Iskhak had been riding the pregnant mare so hard the previous year that her newborn could not get on its feet for three days and was already marked for the butch­er’s knife, when the children tearfully begged to have it spared. Shakir was not a fine herdsman for nothing. He realized at once that a handsome horse would grow out of this little weak colt, and when the bai sent him the present, the old man’s heart missed a beat for joy; he ordered his wife to crush two handfuls of millet and cook porridge for the colt every day. “Shakir, my dear, you would have been better off if you cared more for yourself,” old Kumish pleaded with him. “There’s only the skin and bones left of you, while you refuse to eat horse meat! You’re sick. You must get well. Nobody is going to work for us, and without work we’ll die of hunger.” “Never mind! I’ll be all right. Mark my words — he’ll grow up into a horse that’ll win any baiga,” Shakir per­sisted, breathless for his shattering cough. “We won’t have to feed him long; the snow is melting already — and that means spring is on its way. We’ll go to the jailiaou, and there he’ll fend for himself.” Kumish, swallowing her tears, meekly crushed the millet in a large wooden mortar, and added dung to the fire to keep it going. While Shakir was ill, his son, Jaisak, tended the bai’s herd. The first few days the old man explained lengthily to his son what to do under this or that circumstance, but eventually he realized that Jaisak understood everything quite well himself and there was no need to worry about him. With the advent of spring, the wolf packs became ag­gressive and sneaked up closer and closer to human dwell­ings. From his herders Djantemir started receiving ever increasing reports of a couple of fat-tailed rams or sheep having disappeared in the night, and at times a baby camel or colt was missing. Djantemir left for the Orsk Fortress to ask its commandant, General Isaiev, to stage a grand wolf hunt. But the general replied that a part of his gar­rison had marched off to fight the bands of the rebel Kenessary Kasimov, while the remaining troops had never hunted for wolves. But taking to heart the bai’s predica­ment, the general presented him a fine hunting rifle and two pistols. Back home, Djantemir gave the rifle to his son Iskhak, who was always sent to lend a hand to the herders when the wolves’ howls were heard too close to the pastures. Iskhak was still a youth and a general favorite of the entire family. He complied with Djantemir’s orders re­luctantly, holding that his father had enough of his own herders and shepherds. Once he got the rifle, however, he was eager to become a good marksman as fast as pos­sible so he could distinguish himself at some great toi. On learning that his friend, also a bai’s son, was getting mar­ried in the neighboring aul, Iskhak diligently practiced shooting for several days, after which he mounted his horse, and without so much as saying a word to anyone, galloped off to the wedding, leaving Jaisak alone to look after the herd. That night a pack of wolves sneaked up to the herd much closer than it had at any other time before. The fright­ened horses nervously pricked their ears, listening intently to the wolves’ howls. And when the green dots of wolf eyes glittered in the dark, the horses stopped grazing alto­gether and gathered in a huddle: the colts and mares in the middle, the stallions in a tight circle around them to hoof off the attacking beasts. The sky was curtained with heavy, black clouds hiding the moon. Everything around was gloomy, the color of lead-gray. Six dogs growled furiously and tore at their leashes. Jaisak felt his mount tremble as it tried to move to one side, while the wolves leaped about quite near, their glit­tering eyes flashing against the rippling snow here and there. They looked like weightless and silent apparitions flit­ting amid the snowdrifts. Suddenly a huge wolf the size of a six-month-old calf came over the nearest snowdrift in a high bound and landed right in front of Jaisak. The young man did not lose his wits: his sling went into a whining whirl over his head, and the heavy stone hit the wolf’s ribs with a crunch. The animal jumped into the air, yelped from pain, and then melted into the murk like a lifeless shadow. That instant, at the other end of the herd, a piercing scream of agony rent the air. Jaisak unleashed the wolf­hounds and rushed in the direction of the scream. “Ait! Ait!” he shouted to the dogs, spurring his horse and reaching for his soyil. One of the wolves had crept up to the herd very close, and the moment a barely perceptible c***k appeared be­tween the cruppers of two stallions, he jumped through it and sank his fangs into the side of one stallion. Seized with unbearable pain, the stallion reared and froze for an instant like a motionless statue, the wolf still hanging on to the horse’s side and tearing pieces of blood-dripping flesh out of the defenseless belly. “Ait! Ait!” Jaisak shouted, rushing to the rescue. But the stallion had dropped to the ground by then and was writhing in the throes of death. Half a dozen wolves attacked him at once, the wolfhounds pounced on them, and seconds later everything turned into a confused, blood-mad, viciously growling and teeth-snapping mass. Chunks of hair and flesh, splashes of blood flew on all sides, more and more wolves leaped from behind the snowdrifts and pounced on the scuffling heap or on the herd which in­stantly backed away and gathered in a tight huddle again. The horses neighed, snorted, kicked furiously and trampled the wolves. The vapor hovering over the fighting animals reeked of blood. Jaisak killed two wolves with powerful blows of his soyil. One of the wolfhounds was lying with a ripped throat in a puddle of blood, and two wolves finished him off in a flash. Jaisak kept twisting on his horse like a gudgeon, dealing mortal blows to the wolves when suddenly the shaft of his soyil cracked and broke to pieces. Jaisak threw it away and swiftly grabbed his heavy shakpar; although it was not set with steel spikes like the ancient Russian blud­geons, its heavy blows cracked the wolves’ ribs and skulls. Jaisak felt that victory was already close at hand when a young wolf suddenly jumped onto his hack and started to tear at his sheepskin coat furiously. Casting aside the shak­par, Jaisak drew his knife and hit the wolf’s throat, chest, and any other place he could reach. The wolf’s fangs snapped by his ear like scissors. At last the fangs reached Jaisak’s flesh. Blood streamed down his shoulder and side. His eyes went dim from pain, but he kept hitting the wolf with the knife until the animal dropped into the snow. Mad with fright and free of the restraint of the bridle, Jaisak’s horse carried him at a gallop to the aul. Jaisak was more dead than alive when he was taken out of the saddle. The aul’s young men rode to the rescue of the herd which, unresponsive to the human voices, beat off the attacks of the depleted wolf pack together with the wolfhounds. On the snow lay six dead wolves and two hounds, and a third hound was at the point of death as he frantically pawed the snow. Two she-wolves were also bleeding profusely and crawling behind the snowdrifts when the jigits arrived from the ail and killed them; the rest of the wolves growled and snarled at people as they finished eating the dead horse and tore at the flesh of a still living mare, as its agonized neighing carried through the night. It was only before dawn that the jigits brought together the whole herd, in which one more horse and colt were missing. On learning that Iskhak had gone to the toi with the rifle and left the herd in charge of Jaisak only, Djantemir flew into a rage and sent two axakals to Iskhak with strict orders that he return to the aul at once. He then took away the rifle, and personally gave his son a whipping, as though Iskhak were only a small boy. Djantemir had old Abdullah sent to Jaisak to have a look at his wounds and heal them, and he ordered that his daughter Kuljan take food to Jaisak and Shakir every day. Time dragged. Shakir and Jaisak were lying side by side, covered with all the rugs and worn clothes that could be found in their black yurt. The first days Jaisak felt so bad he could neither speak nor think, and Shakir only sighed sadly, listening to him moaning, while old Kumish started to moan to herself against her will as she swayed from side to side, tears of pity and fear for her only son trickling down her swarthy age-furrowed cheeks.