Quickly I feel myself growing chilled. Away from the fire the summer air this far north loses heat within minutes of the setting sun. The light from the massive bonfire misleads me as to what time it is, the sun down for several hours. It is well after midnight.

  We walk up into the hills. Soon the forest swallows us. A small dog joins our pack, its body misshapen and lumpy. Moonlight falls through the trees, the earth illuminated in patches. The path is well trod and smooth. There is no reason to be careful. I could walk it with my eyes closed.

  I follow behind Little Bat. I wonder if this scene feels familiar to him. He is the one who dreams of the One for Whom the Sky Never Darkens. It is Little Bat who sees multiple visions in the polluted waters of Tso Pema in Dharamshala. I wonder if this night reminds him of anything, of a place he visits before, a spot where he feels safe for no reason he can fathom.

  Then the trees stop and we are in a clearing. A few gray boulders rise up in an irregular circle. It is clear that they are not placed here by any human hand. Belek walks inside the rocks and sits on the ground. The child’s face is serious, somehow both ancient and youthful.

  Little Bat hands Uncle a small sack. Uncle lays down a white scarf and draws out several items. A singing bowl. A hand mirror. What must be the tiniest conch shell in existence. The child picks up the shell. My eyes are also drawn to it. It is perfectly formed but no bigger than the tip of a thumb, a mini-universe one can hold in the palm of the hand.

  You want to know which of these things is my dearest possession, says Belek.

  You can tell me anything you like, says Uncle.

  Do you know a long time ago Mongolia is an ocean?

  Really, says Uncle.

  Belek nods. That’s why Mongolian women cover themselves in coral. He runs a finger over the tiny conch. This shell forms during the life of the third Buddha, he says. Do you know who the third Buddha’s disciples are?

  I don’t, says Uncle.

  His is the Inanimate Buddhahood, says the child. He explains to Uncle how the Inanimate Buddha takes counsel with the wind and the rain, the stone and the stars. Now it is thousands of years later, Belek says, and each of His disciples still do only what they are meant to do. The child holds the shell up in the moonlight as proof.

  In the Night of the Weeping Mare

  No Matter How Much Butter I Lace in His Tea

  Listen without distraction:

  Each night that endless fall out on the grasslands of my childhood, I hear him tossing and turning, talking to someone in a loud voice as if that person is in the next room. I am eight years old.

  Mun and our father sleep in the ger we use for animals. Our best mare is pregnant with twins though a local animal healer intuits that something further may complicate the event. Because of the difficulty of the impending birth, my father or Mun stays close to the mare at all times.

  And so each night I sleep alone in the family ger with Övöö who cannot sleep. Övöö whose bones are beginning to stand out in his face. Just last month his beloved stallion breaks its leg when it steps in a marmot hole as Övöö is searching the grasslands for an errant lamb. There is nothing else to do. I watch the rifle shake as my grandfather takes aim. I believe he is shaking because he loves this horse above all others—it is the one he nurses by hand after its mother dies in labor. I do not think about the fact that the side of Övöö’s head hits the ground when the horse falls, a fall which further injures my grandfather’s already injured hip. Even before this accident, he walks with a slight limp, like a ship improperly ballasted. Now his right leg drags behind him, his tracks uneven in the grass, like something wolves would follow out on the steppe. Ever since the accident my grandfather spends the autumn days inside. Simply put, he is different, more inward. He is less like my brother, a spirit in need of open air. When I head out in the morning to drive the flocks to pasture, he is often sitting upright, a blanket pulled tight around his chest. I pour him another bowl of milk tea, dropping in a generous dollop of yak’s butter to keep the bones from jutting farther out of his face. I can see them no matter how much butter I lace in his tea. Each day his cheekbones grow more pronounced like small scythes.

  I tell no one that for the past several nights I hear my grandfather talking in his sleep, calling for khüren, the brown one, though there is nothing plaintive in his voice. He speaks as if beckoning someone who walks farther along a path to please slow down, wait. Around my twin I raise the icy white sheet in my mind. If Mun and my father find out that Övöö is calling for his dead horse, it would signal the obvious. That he is close to crossing over. I keep this news to myself because I don’t want it to be true. Words have power. To speak something is to help ring it into being. Övöö is my world. In my eyes he can never die.

  By the end of the week the mare has yet to give birth despite being in great distress. I am awakened by the sound of her whinnying, which seems to unspool forever, a brittle ribbon that cannot be cut. Mongolian horses don’t cry like that. Even when they are in great pain, the horses of the eternal blue sky remain silent, only whinnying when spooked by the scent of a wolf on the wind.

  I sit up in bed. My grandfather is standing under the hole in the roof of the ger where the stovepipe shoots up into the night. He pulls aside the small rug that is traditionally used to cover this opening, revealing the stars. Without turning to me, he asks if I’m packed.

  Packed, I repeat.

  He nods, still gazing at the sky. Someone is coming for you and your brother, he says. Slowly he closes the opening. Outside, the mare’s cries continue, the sound not unlike a kind of music.

  Every House Is a Hotel

  The following afternoon I am the first to spot the dust from an unknown horse trampling over the grasslands. I feel my heart sink.

  Why are you afraid, Mun asks. I wonder how much to tell my brother, but I don’t raise the icy sheet in my mind fast enough and already he knows. Where does Övöö say we’re going? he asks.

  I don’t know, I say. On the wind I hear scraps of song. Our father is inside with the mare, trying to coax the babies out by playing the music of the horsehead fiddle, an ancient method for bringing on a birth in any animal including humans. Mun and I are guarding the flock. We sit astride our horses and watch the cloud of dust draw nearer, hoping that this path might turn away from us.

  Instead the path presents itself as one man on a horse. Because it is autumn, he wears a long deel and the traditional boot with the curled toe. As he approaches, he raises his hand and calls to us. How are your herds faring?

  The goat meat is good when hot, Mun replies. I wince as he essentially tells this stranger to get to the point.

  The man remains unperturbed by Mun’s rudeness. And your horses? Are they yet to foal, the man asks. It is a strange question, not something a stranger normally broaches on first meeting.

  I feel the suspicion grow in my brother. This year many of our mares are dropping strong foals, he says.

  And are they done giving birth, the man repeats.

  More or less, says my brother. At the word less the man nods, evidently contented by this.

  Because ours is a culture of nomads, every house is a hotel. At any hour of the night a Mongolian may knock on your door and be allowed to claim a blanket and a bit of floor space, a bowl of whatever is cooking on the fire. Such hospitality can be traced back to the days of Chinggis Khaan. In that world, denying a man food and shelter is an offense punishable by death. Though I am only a child, to me, it is one of the best features of our country, a tradition born of the vastness of the grasslands. Often when a stranger knocks on the door, it is not unusual for the men to break open a bottle of spirits, to build a fire and sit around the flames for an evening of song as the bottle is passed from person to person. In a culture not centered around televisions, this is how we spend our nights on the grasslands. The few times strangers knock at our door seeking hospitality are always moments of great delight. But today, after what my grandfather tells me the night before, this stranger’s arrival feels foreboding.

  Though there is still plenty of time in the day for this man to put more kilometers behind him, he asks our father for shelter.

  Aav is distracted. The four of us are standing in the ger we use for animals. The mare leans heavily against the wall. I can feel the tremendous heat emanating from her body. The smell in the room is strong. It stays on my clothes even after I leave. Father picks up his bow and places it on the strings. His own father lies in between two worlds, and the belly of his prized horse is unnaturally distended. As Övöö says: if anything is to be done, then do it and do it well. Wearily my father positions his fingers.

  Perhaps I can be of some help, the man offers. When the only hope is a boat and there is no boat, I will be the boat, he says. Something beeps. The sound like two fingers gently tapping on your shoulder. The man smiles and presses a button on what looks like a brand-new digital watch. And so the world changes. My father begins to play. The music soft and sad, ice melting in the light of the chrysanthemum moon.

  Buildings Torched, Relics Smashed

  The guest says his name is Bazar. He is not a young man though there is a spryness about him. If I had to guess, I would say he is around the same age as my grandfather, perhaps a few years younger. He wears the clothes of a traditional herder. His horse is nondescript. From the looks of his animal, both man and horse have yet to travel far; perhaps they begin their journey in the nearby town of Bor-Urt. As it is not the Mongolian way to pry, we don’t ask him where he comes from, though his final destination is fair game. Bazar says he is traveling over the grasslands to see an old friend who lives within sight of the volcano.

  In our family I am the one who cooks. While my father tends to the mare and Mun works outside rounding up the animals for the afternoon milking, Bazar stays inside with me and Övöö, who lies sleeping. I can hear the air rattling in his throat. The stranger sits beside my grandfather, watching intently. He remains still, so still I wonder if he is meditating.

  The year Mun and I are born, Mongolia becomes an independent and democratic nation. Since 1924, Mongolia is a socialist country like our neighbor Russia. Our premier at the time, Khorloogiin Choibalsan, styles himself after Stalin. Under his leadership, the monasteries are systematically destroyed. Buildings torched, relics smashed, nuns violated, the loose pages of prayer books shredded and tossed to the wind. I know these stories of the purges from Övöö. How one group of monks takes refuge in a cave. When the soldiers find them, they build a fire at the mouth of the cave and kill every one of them. Still, through the dark years, believers like my grandfather hold on to the faith in secret. Today Buddhism is on an uptick. There are rumors that a monastery is to be reestablished in the shadow of the volcano Yatuugiin Gol. This rumor is one of the reasons why we summer here instead of moving farther east to less inhabited grasslands. Övöö says that for once in his life he wants to live somewhere where there may soon be holy men. I am eight years old. I have yet to ever see a monk.

  Bazar pulls a snuff bottle out of the folds of his deel. In Mongolia it is customary for old friends to offer each other snuff by way of greeting. Some bottles are quite elaborate, costing upward of half a million tögrög, but Bazar’s appears to be a simple container made of plastic. He extends his right arm while touching under his elbow with his left hand in the ceremonial position one assumes when offering such things to another. Gently he waves the bottle under Övöö’s nose. For a moment, the snuff works; my grandfather opens his eyes.

  How are your herds fattening, my friend, Bazar asks.

  The summer is good to us, says Övöö. He turns his head and looks Bazar full in the face. Something passes between them. In this instance it is obvious my grandfather recognizes this stranger kneeling beside him. He grabs the stranger’s arm and grips it tightly.

  If you walk the path, you arrive at the way that removes all suffering, says Bazar.

  My grandfather sinks back on his pillow. For the first time since he kills his horse, he looks content. He never again opens his eyes on the visible world.

  Generally the Zud Appears Once in a Generation

  My entire life is shaped in the time it takes the moon to cross the night.

  Bazar helps me make dinner. Surprisingly he demonstrates great skill in rolling out buuz, each dumpling stuffed with the meat of an old ewe who most likely wouldn’t make it through the winter. My father’s thoughts are elsewhere. Though today is the last week of September, already he is thinking about where we should spend the winter, if we should move to pastures farther south, or if we should head east toward the small city of Bor-Urt where we might spend our first winter off the grasslands. The zud can be fierce, the killing winds that come down out of Siberia, and can wipe out entire flocks within weeks. Generally the zud appears once in a generation, but as the climate changes, it is becoming more frequent, the Gobi starting to encroach northward as the grasslands die off. My father and his friends use the technical word for such change—desertification.

  In winters past, Övöö is always against moving into Bor-Urt. He says he would rather die than be cooped up in a city with its smells and lack of space, like an animal in a pen. I know what it is to be contained, he says. Remember? My father hangs his head. The conversation always ends with Övöö proclaiming: if you go, leave me here, before saddling up and riding out to the herds.

  During dinner, Bazar sits in the western position in the ger, the space meant for honored visitors. The rest of us take our places, though Övöö remains sleeping. If you’d like me to sit with him, I can, Bazar says. None of us ask what he means by this. It is plain to see—the quiet way he moves, his aura of calmness—that he is not a simple herder.

  Please comfort him in any way you can, says my father.

  Bazar nods. He crawls to where Övöö lies on the floor, tucked in among a pile of furs. Old friend, says Bazar. See your way through the bardo. Remember your essence.

  Even after I clear the dishes and carry them outside to wash, the stranger stays by my grandfather’s side. Even as the moon climbs in the sky, even as my father and Mun prepare to bed in the other ger. Even after I hear Mun’s cries as the mare’s time finally comes, kicking her legs and just barely missing my father’s face, the two of them trying to calm her as the dark head appears under her tail. How my father catches her first baby as it falls out in a glistening sack, the creature a midnight blue. And minutes later as Bazar is kneeling beside my grandfather, another hoof appears, the second animal’s legs splayed, lost somewhere in the darkness of the mother, our father sliding his hand up into the blood-heat and trying to steer the breached creature out, the mare eventually collapsing, the choice presenting itself of whether or not to slit the belly and save the foal or to cut the baby out piece by piece.

  Within his nest of blankets, Övöö opens his eyes. There is something different in his look. Perhaps his sight is filling with what Bazar tells me is the clear light of mind. The indestructible drop at the center of his heart chakra splitting into the red drop of his father and the white drop from his mother, releasing his very subtle consciousness back into the universe. Bazar begins chanting in a language I do not know, by the sound of it the music older than the earth. I hold my grandfather’s hand, rub his shoulder. He sits up and looks beyond the world.

  The Spirit Is Fully Dissipated

  Bazar stays for three days. He spends most of that time sitting in the lotus position beside the body of my grandfather. Occasionally he burns incense, chants, daubs the skin with yak’s milk. Though Övöö is no longer breathing, Bazar says his death is not yet complete, that my grandfather is questing through the bardo, the intermediate state, and that we must not disturb him on this most important journey. At sundown on the third day, there is a flash of lightning in the sky but no thunder. Bazar places a finger between Övöö’s eyes and holds it there. The spirit is fully dissipated, he finally says. I peer at my grandfather to see if I can notice a difference. Maybe the skin around his eyes looks looser, more relaxed. Maybe he appears less gray, less waxen, more like he is sleeping after returning from a long journey.

  My father nods. There’s a place about an hour’s ride from here where no one ventures, Aav says.

  Bazar looks off into the fire. Perhaps a full minute passes before he responds. You are aware of your father’s final wish to be free, he says.

  Now it is Aav’s turn to fall silent. Our father simply peers at the same spot among the flames. Finally he sighs. Because of the hardship in his life, I know how my father wishes to leave the earth, he says.

  And you consent to this, Bazar asks.

  Aav bows his head. Do you know how it’s done, he whispers. Bazar nods. A spark snaps in the fire.

  That night Mun and I lie on our leitur wondering what is to come. We both know of a ceremony called khödöölüüleh in which the body is wrapped in felt, then transported by oxcart to a remote place and left in nature. Sometimes those accompanying the body howl to attract wolves, thus speeding the process along. Most times the body is simply buried. Whatever is to come, may our grandfather’s journey back to this earth go smoothly.

  Our father is sleeping out in the ger with the mare and her new foal, which for the time being needs to be fed milk by hand until the mare recovers. Ideally the foal should be born some icy spring morning, when the days are growing longer and the earth greening. Instead it arrives on the cusp of winter. If the zud blows down out of Siberia, the area herders could lose everything. We would be no exception.