Radigan Neuhalfen - The Steppe

Radigan Neuhalfen

The Steppe

Radigan Neuhalfen

Chapter Two

After a tragic incident in Ulaanbaatar, I had purchased a pair of horses, given my apartment key to a friend, and ridden out into the steppe with no schedule for return.

That was in the springtime; it was now late summer.

There are few foreigners deep in the steppe. Indeed, there are few people at all in Mongolia, the most sparsely populated country in this world. I had met only a handful of foreigners in small settlements and collections of gers during the months I had been riding the steppe—a very occasional volunteer, or anthropologist, or missionary.

But Buddha, it seemed, was none of these. Buddha, I believed, must be an extraordinary individual.

I did not wholly expect Buddha to be an American. In any country, the popular identification of a foreigner’s nationality is often less than accurate. Nevertheless, I was excited by the prospect that he could be an American. After an extended period living in a foreign culture, there is a singular enjoyment to be found in speaking with a person of your native culture. It had been a long time since I had spoken with an American.

Thus, I rode south from the ger by the little stream, seeking Buddha.

I rode in a searching pattern, traversing back and forth in widening arcs. I did not know how long it would take to find Buddha.

I did not find him the first day. As the sky was turning orange as the sun fell away, I halted for the night.

I unburdened my horses. From my pack, I pulled out a pair of rubber buckets, my hammer, and stakes. I staked the buckets to the ground to prevent them from upsetting, and poured water into them for the horses. As the horses drank, I fastened the hobbles onto their legs.

Then I laid out my campsite. I unrolled my bedroll upon the steppe and placed my saddle and pack near it, to the northwest, with the optimistic intention of breaking the breeze. I made no fire, and ate a supper of cold jerked mutton and tinned beans and hard candy.

I walked many meters to the southeast and defecated. I did not bother to first kick a hole in the ground with my bootheel. Though downwind of my own site, the odor would alert and warn all of the creatures for kilometers around that there was a human upon the steppe.

Using water from a canteen, I soaped and rinsed my hands. I ran a razor over my face and brushed my teeth.

I retrieved my heavy sheepskin deel from my pack. I laid my hat on top of my saddle. I pulled off my deel and my boots, wrapped myself in the sheepskin deel, still wearing my jeans and socks, and lay on top of the bedroll. I lay on my back, facing the Mongolian sky—according to tradition, sacred since before the time of Chinggis Khaan.

Such was my typical endday. I conducted the procedure in an efficient manner that had been refined over many repetitions. Rarely did I make a fire, for there was a constant lack of fuel, usually dung, and there was a constant risk of igniting the whole dry steppe.

I fell to sleep easily, enjoying the cool air upon my face.

That night, I awoke abruptly. I heard sounds. I lay flat on my back, staring straight up into the sacred sky, my hands folded across my chest, listening. Within a few seconds of waking, the sounds became less vague and more recognizable. They were atrocious sounds.

They were harsh sounds of clanging and scraping, sounds of struggle. The sounds were faint and far distant, coming from somewhere out upon the steppe. I could not discern exactly from which direction the sounds came. Amid the din, I heard one and then another shriek.

I raised my head, putting my chin to my chest, to listen more intently. As I did so, the sounds began to dissipate. They became fainter until vanishing, within two or three seconds.

Wearing the sheepskin deel, I got to my feet. The steppe was palely lit by the moon. The moon was on the wax, but was yet a sliver. By the stars, I guessed that it was long after midnight.

I looked at my horses. They were ranged out behind me a hundred or so meters. They appeared to be perfectly asleep.

The steppe was quiet. A slack breeze from the northwest blew cool over my face. I pulled on my boots and pushed my knife in its sheath into my right boot. I tied my sash around the sheepskin deel. I retrieved my hunting rifle and a magazine of ammunition from my pack. I inserted the magazine into the rifle but did not load the chamber.

I scanned the steppe several times and saw nothing. The steppe was black and quiet. My horses slept.

I began walking. I walked toward the west, where there was a slight rise in the land several hundred meters away. I walked slowly, carrying my rifle in my right hand.

On the rise, slightly elevated above the surrounding steppe, I stood and looked in every direction for a long while. I saw nothing. The steppe was purely black; the grass was obscured in the lightlessness. I heard nothing. The breeze was stronger on top of the rise, and my head without my hat grew cold.

I looked once more to the west, then turned back to my bedsite. My horses were nigh invisible in the blackness of the steppe.

I spat to my left and began walking, lifting and planting my feet cleanly, enjoying the feel of my feet in the sturdy leather boots.

I removed my knife from my boot and laid it and the rifle on the ground at the side of my bedroll. I untied my sash and lay down, not taking off my boots. I lay on my back, looking at the stars. I fell to sleep quickly.

The next day, I continued searching for Buddha in the same manner as the previous day. I pushed south in wider and longer arcs, east to west, west to east. At midday and in the afternoon, the sun was hot.

While riding, I thought upon the singularity of the previous night. In the months I had been on the steppe, often I awoke during the night. Whenever I did, I lay awake awhile and enjoyed the pleasant steppe night. The nights were always uneventful. It had rained only a few times. I had never had such an experience as the night before.

Towards dusk, I came upon a campsite with a fire and a figure. I had ridden over a small hummock from the east and suddenly was looking at the site, a couple kilometers away. The sun was in front of me.

I rode to the site. The figure was squatting to the north of the fire, looking at the fire, his elbows on his knees with his hands in front of him.

He looked at me as I drew up.

He looked familiar.

I addressed him from atop my horse.

“Are things well?” I said, in English.

He opened his mouth slowly to speak. “Things are well,” he replied in English.

Immediately, I thought his accent was peculiar. He did not sound like an American. He could be an American nonetheless, I thought. After years in Mongolia and months on the steppe, my own accent probably sounded quite strange.

I twisted the reins over the flat pommel and swung out of the saddle. He stood up. He wore a dark-green deel with a blue sash. The deel appeared dusty but not dirty, old but not worn. I walked to him and held out my hand.

“My name’s Radnaa. Or Rad,” I said, hearing in my voice the excitement of speaking English.

“I’m Baatar,” he said.

Hero. A common Mongolian name, I thought of it, and nothing more. It is not unusual for expatriates and emigres in any country to take local names. “Radnaa,” of course, was not the name printed in my own passport, wherever that was.

“Good to meet you,” I said. We shook hands.

His face bore sparse whiskers and a half-smile.

“Welcome to the steppe,” he said after a moment.

I laughed.

“Here, I have vodka,” I said.

I stepped back to where my horses stood. I opened one side of the big pack, reached in, and grasped the neck of a half-liter bottle of vodka. I turned back to Baatar with the bottle in my hand. He had squatted onto his haunches. He was looking into the fire, still half-smiling.

It was then that I was struck by the penury of the campsite. Blackened stones were circled around the small fire. The stones were tightly stacked two rows high. To the west of the stone firering was a small, loose pile of sticks. A short, stout wooden stick, charred on one end, lay in front of Baatar. There was no grass for many meters around—only dry, brown dirt. Behind Baatar, to the north, a dirty and worn blue blanket lay crumpled. There was only him, the blanket, the firepoker, the pile of sticks, the stones, and, within the stones, the small fire of sticks and grass.

I reached back into my pack and located two small metal cups. With the bottle and the cups, I squatted at the east side of the fire.

I uncapped the bottle and filled the cups. I reached out my arm to pass a cup to Baatar.

When I looked at his face, I was startled by how intently he was staring into the fire.

He looked up and accepted the cup with his right hand.

As he stretched for the cup and touched his left hand to his right elbow, the long sleeve of his deel pulled back, and I saw that his right wrist was bound in leather.

I lifted my cup and said, “Bottoms up.”

“Togtooyo,” he said, in Mongolian.

“Togtooyo,” I repeated.

We drank the vodka.

He handed back the cup. I refilled the cups and set them on the ground between us.

We looked into the fire as the sun fell down. We did not talk.

It was pleasant to be before the fire as the steppe darkened.

I picked up my cup and drank the vodka. I looked into the ending of the sun.

“Thanks for the vodka, mate,” Baatar said then.

He lifted his cup and tossed down the vodka. I looked at him, but he said no more. He set the cup on the ground and turned his head toward the west. It was then that I saw the sword.

On the other side of Baatar, near the blanket, lay a large sword. The firelight glinted off the long, curved blade. It looked like an old Mongol sword, of the kind that the hordes had carried when they conquered the world 800 years prior.

Without removing his gaze from the western horizon, Baatar reached behind him with his right hand and gripped the handle of the sword. He stood, the sword hanging from his hand. He began walking into the west.

I watched him walk away. Quickly I called, “Baatar, may I sleep at your fire tonight?”

He stopped and rotated his head back to look at me. His eyes were expressionless. “No worries,” he said. He turned his head again to the west and resumed his stride.

He disappeared shortly over the rise that lay in the steppe to the west. I sat at the fire for a few moments. The sun was nearly gone.

I rose and set about my endday routine, moving quickly in the dregs of the daylight. I placed my bedroll, saddle, and pack on the east side of the stone firering.

For a short while, I strained to look into the dark steppe for Baatar and listened for him. After I concluded that he was not returning imminently, I snuffed the fire with dirt.

I lay down on my back, facing the sky. There was no breeze. I watched the stars appear.

I realized that I was exhausted. I fell to sleep heavily. It had been a long day on the steppe.

I awoke deep in the night. The partial moon dimly lit the steppe.

Baatar was not there. As I peered around the firesite and the steppe, I heard the sounds.

The sounds came from a far distance. They were the same sounds that I had heard the night before, the same clangs of conflict, the same occasional shrieking.

I looked to my horses; they were asleep.

I got up and walked about the steppe, circling the campsite, but I saw nothing, and I could not tell from which direction the sounds came. I returned to my bedroll.

The sounds were faint, but they did not fade.

I lay and listened to the sounds for what seemed a very long time before falling back to sleep.

Order The Steppe

Chapter Two of The Steppe

Chapter Two