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Siberian Hearts
John Buck
Copyright © 2012 James Anderson
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior consent of the publisher.
The Publisher makes no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any commercial damages.
2012-07-18
Dedication
To all my Russian-speaking friends; and, as always, to my beautiful wife of many, many years.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my editor. You’re the best. Also, thanks to the very talented guy who did the cover.
Chapter 1
From the air, if anyone were unfortunate enough to be so far off-course, the small Siberian village looked like a greasy spot on a white blanket. The north edge of the village was lined with tall pine and birch, in which dwelled evil spirits, or so the villagers believed. Southward, a narrow meandering path eventually morphed into an eastbound road leading to Yakutst, a large city which had begun as a river port a few centuries back. To the west rose foothills constantly covered by snow except for the rare years when ancient looking rocks pushed their way to the surface. The east gradually sloped downward for about a mile until it leveled off into a thick forest, or, as the Yakuts called it, the tiaga.
The village, which had many names, mainly contained families belonging to a single clan. They were a humble people, generous and sweet, mostly ignorant of what lay beyond their borders and happy to be so. Ignorance is bliss only to the ignorant; consequently, they were, for the most part, blissfully happy.
The majority of the village consisted of yurts, all of which were made from animal hides stretched over pine and birch poles, looking like some tired giant sat on a few American teepees until they became short and fat. As the more ambitious men returned from working in cities or serving in the Russian military, they tore down their yurts and built wooden houses with stone or brick stoves and windows and thick plank floors. A few of these wooden houses stood like older brothers supervising siblings.
The village was located some miles to the northwest of Yakutsk, the capitol of Sakha, a Siberian republic in the far Eastern regions of Russian Asia. Ten miles from the village’s eastern boundaries lay the mighty Lena River, four miles across from bank to bank, even though it was still nineteen hundred miles south of its final destination.
In the winter, the river froze solid enough for large trucks to travel on, bringing supplies to the suffering city of 250,000. And, every June, when the ice melted, the Lena became a vibrant waterway, carrying countless ships loaded with everything from Chinese vegetables to American movies.
On the western edge of the village, just before the downward slope to the taiga, Little Natalya Bombla left her cousin’s yurt and stepped into the sparkling darkness. The night was clear with a full moon and Natalya could easily see her way through snow reflecting the lunar light like neon playing off silk. It was February, 1987, in the heart of Siberia, and a thousand miles of snow and ice and trees lay in every direction, waiting to ambush any living thing, daring all creatures in a frozen sneer to try the cold’s supremacy.
Natalya, like all of her village, was Yakut, a hardy tribe of indigenous Siberians. For many years, Natalya’s village had been overseen by her uncle, the good and wise father of her cousin Wolf Eyes. No one knew the old man’s age but he was growing very weak with the chest sickness and would soon take his place among the spirits of their ancestors. She was comforted to know that his spirit would watch over her as she grew. She loved her uncle very much and he loved her.
It was so cold that her breath froze and fell to the snow, making a slight musical sound the Yakut called the tinkling of the stars. It was so cold that she could hear trees explode in the distance. Squatting outside of the yurt, the girl slipped on the snowshoes she had made from flexible branches laced with reindeer gut and walked quickly through the village to her own yurt. There was a thick layer of fresh snow on the ground but she moved quickly and surely, as if she were born to the snow and cold, for indeed she was.
She looked into the night sky and saw the bright curtains of light furl and unfurl across the starry expanse like some mystic king’s giant, luminescent banner fluttering in a celestial breeze. She watched for a moment. God’s Curtains, as the Yakut called the northern lights, were always so beautiful. Even she, no matter how many times she viewed the spectacle, stopped and gazed in awe. Some waves moved faster, some slower. Each was unique and breathtaking. She shifted her eyes to locate the North Star and looked for the movement of horses, a game she always played with herself. The Yakut believe that the North Star, the only immovable part of heaven, is the stake to which the gods tether their horses.
As she passed her cousin’s sled dogs, none of them moved. It was cold and, if they did not need to expose their faces to the air, they wouldn’t. As she walked, she passed a young man of nineteen, her cousin Stefan, who had been checking on his valuable dog team.
He spoke in Yakut, a Turkic language their people had brought with them from far to the south hundreds of years earlier. People who hear the language for the first time think it is beautiful and melodic, like a lilting, syncopated mixture of Gaelic and Italian.
“Little Bird,” he said with mild surprise, “What are you doing out here?” It was at least sixty degrees below zero. Who would be out unless there was a need?
Her smile reflected in her oriental eyes; and, if he could see through the heavy horsehair scarf which covered her mouth to protect her lungs from the frigid air, he would see teeth as white as the snow around her. Natalya held up the small package she was carrying and spoke with great excitement. “Wolf Eyes gave our Babushka and me some horsemeat to eat. We still have some vegetables and dried fish. We will have a feast!”
Stefan smiled. The girl’s sweetness and prettiness were always a source of pride for their clan. “Ah,” he said, “Wolf Eyes is a good cousin to all of us. Have a peaceful night, my pretty little cousin.”
“And you as well, my cousin. I hope the spirits are kind to you.”
To the Yakut, everything has a spirit - trees, rocks, rivers, streams, even human waste is said to be a ribald old man dressed in sleek, brown furs, boastful but secretly afraid of being eaten by dogs.
Natalya reached the small door of her yurt. Stepping inside, she removed her snowshoes and brushed the snow off of her bearskin clothes and out of her thick, jet-black hair and smiled at her babushka, her grandmother. She skipped to the center of their yurt and sat on her small, three legged stool made by one of her uncles. She was so excited that she almost kicked the urine bowl placed by the door. She lifted one of her grandmother’s toeless feet and began to rub. For one so young, she had very skilled hands. Her grandmother felt great love in the girl’s hands.
Her babushka had lost the toes of both feet to frostbite when she was in her early thirties. It was the time that Natalya’s grandfather, her papuska, was three days late from a five-day hunting trip. Natalya’s babushka, at the time seven months pregnant with her ninth child, left the children with the oldest girl, fourteen year old Anna, the mother of Natalya’s best friend and cousin, Ludmilla, and walked the four miles in the minus sixty-seven degree night to the next small group of yurts to see if there was any news. There was. The man her husband had gone hunting with came back just an hour before, his right arm and chest lacerated by a Siberian Tiger. Natalya’s papuska was dead, his throat torn opened. Everyone was sorry. But, what could one do? Their advice to her was, as soon as the baby was born, work hard to find another man. She was a handsome woman and was known to keep