The defender

This is the story of the Lamut, Turgen, who lived alone high in the hills of northeastern Siberia and had for friends a herd of mountain rams.

Turgen, whose name means “fleet-of-foot” in the Lamut tongue, was a lonely man. It had not always been so. When he was younger he had had a wife and a son whom he loved. But both had died of an illness that burned like fire, and rested now in a single grave under the larch tree outside his door. He had also had the liking and trust of the Yakuts who were his neighbors in the valley below. Among them he was famed for his knowledge of medicine. Knowing him for a kindly, generous man, they came to him for healing grasses, and were never refused. He, in turn, visited them and sat by their komeleks, or fire-places, to exchange the latest news.

All this was in the past. Turgen no longer received callers or went into the valley, except to take fish to the widow Marfa and receive milk for his own use. Marfa and her two children, a son Tim and a daughter Aksa, were Turgen’s only friends. For the most part he stayed close to his yurta, a simple hut perched between two cliffs above a mountain stream. On sunny days, when he was not hunting or fishing, he loved to sit on a rough bench under a great larch tree and smoke his pipe while watching the activity in the valley below. The mountains were full of mystery and peace. Because of them he could think of the past without regret.

You wonder why the people of the valley shunned Turgen. The reason, you will say, was no reason at all. Word had spread among them that he was friendly with the wild rams who lived in the mountains. “Who ever heard of friendship between a man and mountain rams?” the Yakuts asked. It was impossible. And if it was impossible, then Turgen was a sorcerer--a partner of the devil.

Gossip, starting like a small fire, got bigger and bigger. One occasion especially helped this evil rumor. On a holiday, years before, the people of the valley had gathered to eat and drink and dance. As always, the shamanist was present--a man believed to have power to communicate with the good and evil spirits who were part of an ancient faith. And as always he ate and drank with the gayest of the company.

The shamanist had long been jealous of Turgen because of his influence over the Yakuts. For one thing, Turgen was a sober man and kept his wits at all times, which the shamanist did not do. As the shamanist was dependent upon voluntary contributions for his living, he could not tolerate the thought of yielding any authority to another.

On this day the party went on hour after hour, until the shamanist from an excess of food, drink, and excitement fell down unconscious. To the superstitious Yakuts, who revered him greatly, he was in a trance and they waited eagerly to hear what he would report about his conversation with the spirits when he awoke.

A woman named Stepa went to him and wailed:

“Arise, O Shamanist, and open our eyes, ignorant people that we are. Tell us our future and what we have to fear.”

In a short while the shamanist rose, looked about him with wild eyes, seized his tambourine and struck it several times.

“I saw,” he muttered, “I saw a dark cloud swim across the sky to Turgen’s yurta. I looked. I looked, and in it was the figure of a devil. A real devil, with horns and a tail like a cow’s. I spoke, putting a spell upon him, and he changed into a wild ram. I made the spell stronger, and he vanished in the exact spot where Turgen lives. O my friends! Beware of the devil in the ram’s hide!”

With that, the shamanist fell to the ground again exhausted.

Amazed, the Yakuts said to one another, “He has seen the devil! Let us be thankful that the devil passed us by and went instead after the soul of Turgen.”

But here the woman Stepa, who wanted to be in the shamanist’s good graces, interrupted. “Beware the devil!” she screamed. “He can come to you too. You say that Turgen is a Christian--but has anyone seen him pray when the priest visited us? No. Believe me, the devil is looking to have such people for a friend. Beware of Turgen! Avoid him!”

The Yakuts were more impressed by the shamanist’s vision than by Stepa’s words. Still they listened and remembered. When, not long afterwards, the shamanist had another vision in which Turgen was associating with the devil, the simple started to believe. They did not condemn Turgen, nor would they harm him. “If he has bound himself to the devil,” they said, “that is his affair. We’ll just stay away from him.”

They did so, and time passed. People might even have forgotten the story of Turgen’s sorcery had not a simple, foolish man named Nikita come running to the village one day to report in great excitement that he had seen Turgen sitting on the bench beneath his larch tree while a mountain ram strolled nearby.

“With my own eyes I saw it,” he declared. “A wild ram in company with a man.”

Everyone knew Nikita for a careless talker who embroidered truth with a lively imagination, but the Yakuts were a superstitious people and like many others were easily convinced by loud shouting. “Think of it,” they said, shaking their heads dolefully, “a wild ram has become tame. Such a thing has never been heard of before. This really smells of the devil’s work.”

For these men had hunted the mountain rams all their lives and they knew that no wild creature in the world was so fearful of human beings. Hunting them was hazardous sport because the rams lived in the most remote crags. Many a hunter had fallen and been crippled for life trying to search them out. There was a saying that anyone who killed a ram was certain to meet misfortune, but this was one of those popular beliefs not to be examined too carefully for truth.

Of course, the Yakuts might have gone to Turgen and questioned him, but they didn’t. “Is it reasonable to ask a sorcerer why he takes the devil for friend?” they asked. “Better stay out of harm’s way lest the evil spirits reach out and take the inquisitive ones also into their net.”

So it was that the people of the valley no longer visited Turgen, or he them.

“Words that speak evil, though they have no teeth, can tear the heart,” was an old proverb. It hurt Turgen that the Yakuts turned from him, avoided his questions and all contact with him. It was as if a dead wall of ill-will had suddenly risen between him and the people of the valley. Because he was ignorant of any wrong on his part, he tried not to think too much and went about his own affairs. But solitude is not easy to endure, for the reason that thoughts cannot be trapped. They keep buzzing round and round in the head, like angry autumn flies, giving one no rest.

Turgen thought of himself as independent, healthy and strong and in need of no one’s assistance. Still it was difficult to be deprived of human talk and human association.

Fortunately for him, there lived in the valley a widow named Marfa with her two children--a boy Tim and a girl Aksa--at whose komelek he was welcome to sit whenever it pleased him. There he would smoke his pipe and entertain the children with some story, and on leaving hear the warm and comforting words: “Come again Turgen, and soon.”

Marfa owned a good cow which furnished milk sufficient for her own needs and for her friend. Turgen loved hot tea with milk, to him a real treat.

Marfa’s yurta stood near a lake which was surrounded by a forest, far from other dwellings. The Yakuts seldom visited her. Knowing that she was poor, they feared she might ask something of them, and because of the children they might be moved to rash promises. Conscience has a way of making itself felt, like a thorn in the body, so they reasoned that it would be safer to stay away and avoid temptation.

Marfa would have considered herself poor indeed had she not had a solid yurta and her fine cow. But one cannot live on milk alone. Necessity forced her to leave the children by day and work for some wealthy Yakuts. Her heart was never at ease with the children alone at home, but she had no choice.

Hers was not an easy life. In the summer she caught fish by nets from the lake, mowed the field grass to feed the cow in winter, made clothes for the children, and saw to it that there was firewood stored away for the cold weather. Trees were abundant, but it was beyond her strength to chop them down, and she had no horse with which to drag the logs out of the woods. So, in return for housework, her Yakut employer chopped and delivered wood for her. In spite of work and worry, she did not complain. She asked nothing of God, except good health for herself, her children, and her cow. God must have seen and been pleased, for all of them were blessed with the best of health.

The cow lived in a warm shed separated from the yurta by a thin partition which in summer opened like a window to admit her head. There she would stand chewing her cud and regarding everybody with her kind eyes. No wonder that she was considered a welcome member of the family. The children carried on long conversations with her, not in the least frightened by her great size and magnificent horns. They knew her to be good-natured and fully believed that she understood everything they said. Maybe she did. It is certain that she knew her name, Whitey, for she answered to it promptly when called. In the grazing season the children were charged to look after her lest she stray too far, but Marfa sometimes wondered whether it was not Whitey who guarded the children. In many ways her cow sense prompted her that her help was necessary if Tim and Aksa were to grow up well and strong, and she gave it gladly.