The Defender Read online

  “When do you expect your mother?” he asked Tim.

  “Soon. She never lets us stay alone in the dark, and it is almost evening. Maybe she got a lot of fish and it is heavy for her to carry,” he suggested.

  “Perhaps. But sit up until she comes, and keep the fire going. In weather like this it is easy to freeze without a fire.” He picked up his kuklianka. “Now I must be going. Tell your mother that the Lamut Turgen was here. She knows me.”

  The boy looked at Turgen with eyes which begged him to stay. “I like to watch the fire … when I am not alone. You know how to do everything, don’t you? When I grow up I will know everything too, just like you. Please don’t go for a while.”

  “I must,” Turgen told him. “I live in the mountains and want to be home before it gets too dark. It is good that you are not the cowardly sort.”

  “Why must you get home before dark?” Tim wanted to know. “Are you afraid of wolves? I hear they attack people in winter. But you have a gun. What kind is it? A good one?”

  Turgen threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, what a talker! You know about wolves and even guns. Someday you’ll surely be a hunter. And now, good-by. Mind you don’t fall asleep. I’ll be back soon.”

  CHAPTER 5

  NIGHT COMES QUICKLY IN THE NORTH, SO TURGEN walked briskly. His heart was troubled as he thought of the children. Only extreme want could have forced Marfa to leave them alone. For the closest neighbor, he knew, lived not less than half a mile away.

  “Poor woman! Here I have everything and she nothing. It is necessary to help her. But how?”

  Arriving home, he was moved by a sudden impulse to fill a sack full of frozen fish and partridges. Then, grabbing up some salt and tea, he started back to Marfa’s. So high were his spirits, he did not feel the weight of his load. As his skis carried him swiftly down hill, he could see from a distance bright sparks flying from the yurta’s chimney.

  “The boy is not sparing with the wood. That is good.” Then it occurred to him: “But maybe Marfa is home by now.” The thought abashed him, for he reasoned: “Suppose she refuses my gift and says ‘I am not a pauper that I should accept charity’?” And it was possible that she shared the distrust of the valley people toward him.

  At the door he stood for some time hesitating. Finally he decided: “Be what may. I will say that I have no money, but I wish to buy milk from her and will pay for it with these foodstuffs.” Nevertheless, he set the sack outside the door before he knocked timidly.

  Marfa’s voice said, “Who’s there? Come in.”

  As he stepped over the threshold the boy cried out in joy: “It is he, Mama. The kind man who built the fire and gave us the uikola. I told you he would return.”

  Marfa looked at Turgen, saw that he was embarrassed, and held out her hand in greeting. “Don’t mind Tim. Take off your kuklianka and come sit by the fire. Thank you for what you did for the children. I was working and was delayed. It always worries me to leave them alone, but what can I do?”

  Moving quickly, she placed a tea kettle on the fire, brought out a small table and said: “Move closer to the fire and the light. Have some hot tea with mill-cakes and the uikola you gave us. You are welcome to all there is. Tomorrow they have promised to pay me in fish. My last year’s catch was very poor and I have nothing left, although it is only January.”

  Marfa spoke simply, but her voice was charged with anxiety.

  Squatting before the fire, Turgen took out his pipe and with his bare fingers picked up a burning ember with which to light it. He inhaled deeply, then let his breath go. From behind the screen of smoke he looked at Marfa attentively.

  Now it came to him for the first time that he really did not know her at all. She was a thin woman of medium height, quick and determined in her movements. Her face had the prominent cheek bones and flattened nose of the Yakut. While she was not pretty, she was pleasing to look at with her dark, thick hair and hazel eyes full of kindness. “There is beauty of soul in her eyes,” thought Turgen, “but sorrow too.” He imagined he could read in them the truth she tried to hide: “If tomorrow I don’t get anything, I really don’t know what will become of us. You can see for yourself how poorly we live.”

  At a loss how to console her, and embarrassed by his own distress, Turgen turned to Tim as a safe subject of conversation. “You know, you have a fine son, Marfa. He was generous enough to offer me half of his mill-cake. He should be a great help to you.”

  “Well,” Marfa answered hesitantly, “but it will take time. However, the young do grow up fast. If only God will give me the strength to raise them and put them on their feet.” Then she added more cheerfully, “Do sit down. We’ll have some tea. Everything is ready.”

  Feeling bolder and more at ease now, Turgen said, “Thank you, I will. Only permit me to give you a present. It is right here outside the door.”

  Without waiting for her reply, he got the sack of provisions and brought it into the yurta.

  “Mama, Mama,” Tim cried, “now you don’t have to go to work. Look at all the food he brought us!”

  Marfa leaned against the wall and her eyes filled with tears. Turgen was more embarrassed than ever. But before he could think what to say or what to do, Marfa recovered her composure and thanked him warmly. “My husband used to tell me that the Yakuts avoided you because you lived in the mountains and … were friendly with wild rams. He also said that you were kind and that the people stupidly spread false tales about you. Now I can see this for myself. Sit down. Do. Talk to Tim while I go to prepare a real dinner.”

  That was an unforgettable evening for Turgen. Though few words were exchanged, he felt that much had been communicated because the hours held so much of friendship and hospitality. Tim was long asleep by the time he was ready to leave.

  It had not been difficult to persuade Marfa to supply him with milk in return for provisions. “To tell you the truth,” he said, “I have so much food that it will take care of all of us. And I need your milk. I used to get milk from the valley people, but now as you know they do not approve of me. I am sorry about this, and I should be more than sorry if they caused you any trouble because of your kindness to me.”

  Marfa’s voice was firm as she answered him: “You are my friend, Turgen. You are saving my children and me from want and perhaps starvation. Who can forbid me to choose my own friends? Do not fear. I will look out for myself. Before I was timid, but now I am a mother and in my home I am mistress.”

  So Turgen’s friendship with Marfa and her family began. In the next fours years, until Tim was nine and Aksa six, it grew and flourished. “Surely God Himself directed my footsteps to their yurta,” Turgen would often think.

  All would have been well, except that the evil let loose in the valley was spreading and the feeling of the people against him grew and grew.

  CHAPTER 6

  FROM MARFA, TURGEN LEARNED WHAT HIS NEIGHBORS thought of him and said of him. Although he cared, he was a proud man and did not think it necessary to justify his actions to anyone. Furthermore, he was discovering that solitude can be a very pleasant thing. Now that visitors no longer came with their trifling requests, he had time to enjoy his small kingdom. Here he had lived all his life and he loved it—the mountains with their strange enchantment, the brook, the lake, the forest, the simple yurta. And always there was with him the memory of the wife and son his love and knowledge had not been able to save though he tried every art at his command. The flowers he had planted on their grave bloomed each summer and beckoned him on warm days to sit there on his bench with his pipe for company.

  Turgen was one of those lean, muscular men to whom the years are kind. His coppery skin, so free of hair, was finely wrinkled under the narrow, kindly eyes, deepset beneath bushy brows. His gray hair grew in untidy rows like a neglected field. But his hands kept their firmness, his eyes their sharpness, his feet the spring of youth. How old was he? Impossible to say, for he had stopped reckoning the years when he reached fifty. “
Why count the winters?” he asked himself. “You live through them, and thank God. For whom is it necessary to know?”

  In short, Turgen looked like what he was—a kindly man, built to endure the life of a hunter and fisherman. In both these pursuits he was very skillful. And he was not poor, though many considered him so because he owned neither horses nor cows. No one is really poor who can have food for the taking, and Turgen had besides valuable pelts which were ready exchange for cartridges, yarn for nets, barley-meal, salt, and other provisions supplied by a merchant who called once a month. Kamov was the merchant’s name. His visits gave Turgen much pleasure, for he brought news of the world and was always ready for a friendly chat.

  What he got from the merchant Turgen shared with Marfa and her children. It was a holiday for him just to sit in her yurta sipping tea and saying nothing. To Marfa he had little to talk about, but with the children he talked freely of many things—mostly of the life around them, and of his boyhood. When the children, full of curiosity, wanted to know more and more, and questioned him about other marvels he knew, he told them tales to make their eyes grow big—tales of the great warrior Tugan and his son Chaal, a famous athlete; stories of the animals and fish who inhabited the tundra; legends explaining the sun and moon and stars. The sun, it seemed, was servant to the Great Spirit, a powerful warrior clothed in armor of precious stones and wearing a crown of fire. The moon was his sister and one of her duties was to guard the stars, those eyes of countless angels, to make sure they did not go out and plunge the world into darkness.

  Yes, Turgen knew everything.

  These evenings were rare. In winter he did not call for his milk oftener than twice a month but spent the long evenings weaving his nets or smoking his pipe while he stared into the fire and reflected on the odd turns that life takes, on the joys that he knew in the peace of his mountains. Or if the solitude became a burden, he would take down from a shelf a reed he had carved long ago from a willow tree. And placing it to his lips he would bring forth a sweet, sad melody that would express thoughts impossible to put in words.

  After that he would lie down to sleep like a marmot, covered snugly under two blankets made of the skins of rabbits and wolves. If he was fortunate, he would be carried off in dreams to another and happier life. What he liked best was to dream of his wife and son, to re-live the fine times they had together. But to his regret nice dreams were few, the winters long and stern.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE MOUNTAIN RAMS HAD BECOME A PART OF TURGEN’S life almost by accident. It all began so long ago that he never gave thought to it until one day Marfa out of curiosity asked him a question which brought to mind an almost forgotten incident.

  “Why do you call them rams?” she wanted to know. “Are not they the same as sheep ?”

  “Yes and no,” Turgen answered. “In the family of domestic sheep only the males have horns. But all wild rams have horns. Of course, those of the female rams are smaller.”

  Marfa nodded. “But is it not strange that only recently you came to love the rams? Surely you knew them before.”

  “Of course I knew them. When I was young I used to hunt them.”

  “You killed them?” Aksa asked in a shocked voice.

  “I did,” Turgen admitted. “It was a sin. Unfortunately, one has to live many years to understand what is good and what evil. Living alone is a help to thinking, and often something will happen to open a man’s eyes.”

  He paused, got up and put wood on the fire, sat down again and puffed on his pipe.

  “Let me tell you what happened to me twenty or more years ago. It was winter. November. Government officials called to order me to act as guide to an important foreigner, a hunter. The man was impressive—tall and stern and clean-shaven. I couldn’t understand a word he said but an interpreter explained that he had come to hunt our mountain rams. I wasn’t very anxious to go with him, but what could I do ? The authorities insisted.

  “Well, I led them up the mountain. A hunt—pah! It was a picnic. There were about twenty people in the party, including Russian and Yakut officials. There was so much to eat and drink that soon all were acting as if they were insane—shooting at everything and anything until the hills echoed with their noise. One thing I must admit though. They had excellent guns.”

  Tim ventured an observation. “With such guns they undoubtedly killed many animals.”

  Turgen’s smile was contemptuous. “No. How could they? They couldn’t even aim straight. In two weeks they killed two wolves, ten rabbits, and one bear they roused out of his lair. As for rams, I confess that I was crafty and led them places where rams were usually not to be found. Yet a family of five did appear suddenly out of nowhere. O, Lord, what firing there was! They all fired at once, seized by greed. And somehow they managed to kill the largest one, who was probably old and the last in line. At least, that’s the only way I can explain their luck. The poor fellow fell, and while the other rams vanished so quickly that not even the dogs could catch up with them, the hunters threw themselves upon him. What a disgusting spectacle it was. And for what?, So that the important visitor could have a pelt and some horns. The horns were truly fine. ‘He will brag about them for the rest of his life,’ the interpreter said.

  “It was this brutal murder,” Turgen went on, “that awoke in me pity for the rams. I was more sly after that and led the party only to places when rams would never go. When the officials grew angry, complaining that I was a poor guide and that because of me they were disgraced before the foreigner, I answered: ‘What can I do? Your shooting has frightened the animals away and they have run for perhaps a hundred miles.’ They complained and threatened some more. Then they held a council to decide where they could find another guide. But the Yakuts told them that Turgen was the best in the whole region. The affair might have ended differently, but it got cold suddenly, there was a blizzard, and the important visitor left post haste for his own country. Of course, I rejoiced that the rams were now left in peace. But for several winters I did not see them. They had gone from here. In time, as you know, they returned. I saw them rarely. They came and vanished. Still I was happy to have them living again in my mountains.” As they listened intently, Marfa and the children shared Turgen’s fears and happiness. Now they understood his affection for the rams.

  CHAPTER 8

  BY STEPPING ON TO A LEDGE OUTSIDE HIS DOOR, TURGEN on a clear day had a wonderful view of the valley below and the mountains above him. When he tired of watching the tiny figures of men and women scurrying about at the foot of his hill, he had only to turn his eyes upward to see a different and fascinating sight. For there, dodging among the crags, were specks which he knew to be wild rams.

  “How do they live?” he asked himself one evening. The hills were barren except for sparse tufts of moss, an occasional thin clump of grass, and now and then a tough, hardy shrub that could not contain much nourishment.

  His curiosity and pity aroused, Turgen watched the rams intently all that season and the next. He could make out nine individuals of what he assumed to be a family—or, as he called it, a tribe. In summer one lamb —or it might be two—were added to the number, but they disappeared with cold weather.

  Then Turgen began to worry. For with the cold weather came snow to cover the moss and grass and dry up the meagre shrubs. Even at a distance he could sense the animals’ despair as they searched avidly beneath the snow for any poor morsel to chew upon. Their grey-brown wool hung loosely on them now, and they moved indifferently, without spirit. Unless there was a hint of danger. Then they would lift their heads proudly and take themselves into the distance with incredible lightness and speed.

  “Poor things.” Turgen spoke his thoughts aloud. “To think that I used to hunt you to kill you! What harm are you to anyone? You who ask only for freedom.”

  But pity could not help them. He must find a way to give them practical aid. He considered one thing, then another. At last he fixed upon a plan.

  First he
built a light sleigh which he loaded with hay. Then, putting on skis, he pulled the sleigh to the ridge of the next mountain, dumped the hay, and returned home. Not a ram was in sight, but he could feel their inquisitive and fearful eyes upon him from behind the boulders farther up the hill.

  From his own door he watched them approach the hay warily, circle it and trample it, and stoop to nibble at it. They seemed to fear a trap. But when he went back to the spot the hay was gone. After that he took frequent offerings of food to them, and gradually the rams came to accept his gifts without hesitation. Although they never approached him when he visited the feeding ground, he caught glimpses of them in hiding, awaiting his coming. In order to gain their greater confidence, he made it a point never to carry a gun. He even gave up his habit of carrying an iron-tipped stick which helped him in climbing. For he knew that all animals fear the rod which gives forth noise and fire.

  It was not easy to conquer the fear of these wild creatures. It needed patience as well as understanding. But Turgen had both. Season after season he gave them care and attention, and was rewarded by knowing that they accepted him and depended upon him even though they did not fully trust him. A time came when they no longer hid from him but stood watching from a safe distance as if to determine what sort of being this was from whom they received nothing but good. And he had another satisfaction. The food he gave them worked a miracle in their appearance. They were no longer the sad, dishevelled animals of former days.

  His heart leaped for joy one day when he went to the feeding ground and discovered the entire ram family gathered in a group on a little mound near by.

  “Eh!” Turgen declared with pleasure. “You are truly a good-looking band—strong and healthy. And you eat now as if you enjoyed it.”