Koishkary, a big black weather beaten dzhigit stood on the dug-out roof and stared at a black point creeping under his knees in the hollow.

That point appeared first than disappeared again and finally a traveler appeared at the pass slope.

He hardly appeared here by chance. Since last summer the entire armies have passed that deserted steppe area and many things have happened at that time. Koishkary has seen them personally: murdering, chasing, panic running away and many other things like that.

Last year he has been working as a work-hand by Temir. And he remembered as soon as he has brought hay from the steppe one day and begun stocking it, soldiers ran into the aul. It was the entire troop and it stopped near Temir's house.

“Give us your horses!”

The aul was startled. Temir’s toadies and cads who were ready to risk a stab in the back of other people for their master, ran through yards gathering horses. As usually they took only poor men's jades, thin and shabby. The poor men rebelled but the bai's henchman, Tyuiebai explained them coolly:

“That’s all right! Bai’s horses don’t fit for riding. They are too fat. They got paunched outside. They would be worked out in such a heat.”

Beken's old woman was running after her jade getting mad of fear and grief and crying:

“You have no God inside! I am a lonely and helpless woman that's why you humble me! You took my jaddy. There are only bones. It comes back home after work hardly. If only you can be mercy for this time!..”

One of the soldiers (it seemed that he understood Kazakh) listened suddenly to old woman's crying and aimed his gun to Tyuiebai:

“We do not take horses of poor men,” he said in Kazakh. “Give us bai’s racers! Did you understand me? Watch it, you, henchmen! Drive the whole bai’s herd! We would choose!”

Suddenly Tyuiebai was lost so much that he even began stuttering.

“As you wish…But we have always done so…I…I…As you wish.”

And he drove the bai’s herd.

Obstinate and timid ignoramuses ran to the aul as a storm dragging lassos with loops. Everything disappeared in dust clouds. Ground began shaking under hoofbeat. Koishkary ran circling inside the herd, covered horses running wild with the lasso, pulled it strong and then the strongest horses sank down hard and even felt on the ground.

“Ah! You be damned, Koishkary!” the bai cried badly. On the hop Koishkary’s lasso found the bai’s favorite horse - the brown ambler. In despair Temir has even stared and stamped as if it wasn't the ambler but the bai himself whom the lasso has found.

“Be strangled with the same lasso! Wish you fall in the same loop, murderer!!” the bai’s babibishe, fat as a tub, cried near a mud stove yelling out curses.

Having heard the frightened cry of the bai, Koishkary thought that he might have made a mistake and even left the lasso a bit but the then the hateful baibishe cried and he rose in stapes in anger. He pulled the lasso so hard that the brown ambler wheezed and felt back and his hard body trembled.

“Excellent! Dzhigit!” the young soldier in uniform cried rapturously and threw the rein on the ambler.

It was the same fellow who spoke in Kazakh. It was him who ordered to leave all horses of poor men. He was smart, light, bracing and hung with weapon.

“Hey, you, come here!” he cried to Koishkary. “You are a work hand, aren't you?”

“That’s right”

“Then go and catch us the best horses of the bai!”

There was something attractive and nice in that young fellow. As if he cast a spell over the bai’s work-hand.

Having chosen the selected amblers and racers from the bai’s herd, the soldiers left the aul. Temir stood and roared as a blown horse. He seemed to blown out of anger. Cursing everybody as an angry tarantula the baibishe was rushing about the aul.

“Koishkary! Damn you, be swallowed by the ground! Where are you?” the bai cried at the top of his lungs. “Right now you go with Minaidar and turn back the horses!”

When the troop left the aul, the young soldier who spoke Kazakh ran to Minaidar and Koishkary. He was in the saddle expertly, hard, not as other Russians.

“So, comrades, are you not offended to ride on the bai’s horses?” he smiled and introduced himself:

“Andrei. Since my childhood I was a work-hand in the bai’s house in the Baganaly side. From that site I went to the war. I have been at war for one year. After the revolution I came back home. Have you ever heard about Bolsheviks?.. So, we are Bolsheviks,” he also said, stretched his hand to Koishkary, grabbed his beld and pulled him strong. “May we dzigiting?” he smiled.

“Who first would fell another one from the horse, ha?!” But then he remembered that Koishkary got frightened having heard stentorian voice of the bai and shortly explained that there came new times for poor men and work hands. “The main thing is not to be afraid or timid! It’s your time now! Not work-hands are power!”

And dzhigit left with the troop.

In the evening the troop stopped in an aul near a river turn. There was high grass right to the stapes. Animals were nice and fat. Some people were looking at Minaidar and Koshkari with not good eye: it might be you who took them here!

And when the twilling hardly began, dogs began barking feverishly and a big weaponed troop ran into the aul. Shooting began. Crying and wiping cut the night silence…

They were the Whites. They took Andrei and his comrades. And though they didn’t kill them but beat them within in inch of their lives.

“They hired you as guides!” a thin leader quirky as a dragonfly roared on them and beat Koishkary’s beck with his kamcha.

He was beating so hard that a booming echo was following each stroke. It seemed that an old koshma was dusted off in the night.

In the morning the Whites left. The captured Bolsheviks were driven on foot, almost half naked. Andrei was so pained that he could hardly drag his feet. At parting he nodded to Minaidar and Koishkary silently.

“They must murder them, poor men,” Minaidar sighed.

“Yes, they do… And we can do nothing do help them,” Koishkary said sadly.

The Whites took the bai’s horses too. Koishkary begged them to turn the horses back but they wouldn't even listen to him. Furthermore one of the aul men, a sky black fellow cried pointing to dzhigits and wanting to save his own horses:

“Take them too! They are Red spies!“

Temir was as near to be out of breath because of annoying and anger when he heard about that. His yellow stick with a cooper top was dancing on heads of Minaidar and Koishkara standing in front of him sadly. Ulzhan, the baibishe, cried hopping mad:

“Kill! Kill these dogs! They don’t worth a one ambler!”

But Temir was satisfied only with beating. He gave horse wranglers to the court of the aul elders. Aqsaqals decided that the bai lost his horses because of Beken's old woman and Koishkara. The old woman was the initiator: it was she who cried first, and Koishkary catched the ambler and some other bai's horses with his own hands. If not those trouble-makers, the troop would drive the jades and left then.

Right there according to the wise aqsaqals’ decision they took everything from the old woman and the wrangler to repay the cost of nine bai’s horses. Temir drove away Koishkary. He must be Bolshevik. Naïve aul women looked at dzhigit with anger and curiosity:

“God! Who is he really? A man or a werewolf??”

Only Kulbike felt sorry for him:

“He is the real dzhigit!” he said. “He forced them to speak about him!”

After that even Koishkary went to the Russian villages. He worked there for hire and fed himself and his parents.

***

Soon Koishary saw a traveler. That was a soldier in a grey great-coat, he was running towards the aul. And in some minutes Koishkary cried out:

“Oi-bai! That must be Peter!” and he ran towards the man.

It was Peter indeed. The Peter with whom Koishkary has been working as a work-hand by Temir for long five years.

“Where are you from? Where are you running? What has happened with you?” Koishkary began asking the man when they met but Peter only said:

“Later, later! But now hide me somewhere…So nobody could see me.” And he looked around scarcely.

Koishkary became cold. Peter appeared to be a fugitive! And there is a heavy punishment for whose hiding a fugitive. But he couldn’t drive away Peter! They have been working side by side for five year. And not only working but they became close friends and lived in kind of perfect harmony. When Peter was taken to soldiers, Koishkary grieved so much as if he lost his blood brother. They hugged at parting.

“Look after my mother. Don’t let her become a beggar!” Peter asked him leaving. And Koishkary promised to do his best. And then they met again.

“Eh, Petra, isn't it you? Have you come back, dear, safe and sound?” old woman Umut, Koishkary’s mother met the fugitive gladly.

“Oh, Petra, son! You, apyrmai, became a big dzhigit, didn’t you?” the scrubby and pale old man smiled.

It was Etykbai, Koishkary’s father.

Umut and Etikbai loved Peter as their own son. When he and their son worked together by Temir, Umut washed and sewed for him. Curious women asked her sometimes:

“And why do you love this Russian?”

And Umut answered always:

“Wasn’t it God who created the Russian? He’s the same as my Koishraky. They work together, live together. They protect each other. Then why should he be stranger for us?”

Peter has also become very attached to Umut and called her as Koishkary did - “azhe”.

“Hello, azhe! I am safe and sound as I was. But I am in danger! Hide me! Don’t give me up!”

Peter sighed. Umut frightened. Her seamed face became pale.

“How can it be, son? What has happened?" Etykbai startled too.

“Tell the truth,” Koishkary couldn’t stand. - “Who are you?”

“I am Bolshevik!” Peter answered.

The hosts startled and looked around. “Bolshevik!” After the last year driving of the bai’s horses the old men heard this word many times. Once Etykbai asked Kanysh, the aul merchant: “Who are they, those Bolsheviks?” - “Robbers and blood suckers, troublemakers and bandits”, the merchant explain shortly.

Since that time when somebody called Koishkary as Bolshevik, Etykbai became outraged and took exception to it: “What do you say? Has my son ever done robbery?”

People in aul were talking about Bolsheviks often. Two or three gathered somewhere and chattered about mysterious troublemakers. Nobody surely knew who they were that’s why all absurd and cruel things were imputed to them.

Minaidar and Koishkary thought about Bolsheviks in other way after they met Andrei. Especially Koishkary broke his head over it many times. Could Bolsheviks be extortioners? Andrei called himself Bolshevik but is he an extortioner or a robber? Would any robber speak aobut freedom? Would he take care about poor and deprived men? It was he who impressed us: “Everything is in your hands now! If the poor work-hands gathered, bais would be flattened out.” And who is against Bolsheviks? Who floats absurd gossips about them? Who? Who? Koishkary didn’t know it. And then after he heard that awful word from Peter's mouth, he became completely mixed up. All his doubts and fears rose up in his mind.

“Oh, Creator! What does it mean?” the old Umut cried frightenedly and looked at her son.

“Don’t be afraid, azhe. Whom else can be Peter as not the Bolshevik? All work-hands are Bolsheviks! I am also Bolshevik!” Koishkary said suddenly.

“Your hand, my friend!” Peter smiled and shook his hand hard.

Etykbai and Umut looked at each other perplexedly and sighed. They were obviously puzzled. But since that minute they also began account themselves as Bolsheviks…

Etykbai was sent outside as a watchman and Peter and Koishkary left alone to rest and talk about everything. But old friends could hardly feel happy to see each other as frightened Etykbai felt in and whispered in a fog:

“Coming!”

Sledges with two horses put in ran with squeaks behind the window. Hairy sheepskin hats, grey great-coats gleamed, revolvers on belts, guns on sledges. One of those jumped off the sledges was fat, black and moustachioed. Koishkary looked through the window and became pale:

“Auesbai, son of beliaf!”

“But who is he? Kazakh?” frightened Umut asked looking around helpless. “Try to talk to him…”

Peter shook his head gloomy:

“No luck. Somebody must have already been squealed. Ah, how could I have missed so much! I shouldn't come here...”

Two soldiers ran into the dug-out holding rifles atilt. Peter rose and put up his hands. Auesbai entered and bent his brows dreadfully. He had a gun in his hands. One soldier began frisking Peter, another one stood near them.

“Dear master, I see that you are Kazakh’s son. This young man has been grown in our aul since he was a child,” Etykbai began unsurely but Auesbai aimed his gun on the host and roared:

“Shut up, you, old dog! Or I would finish you in a second!”

Etykbai trembled and even covered his eyes with his hand because of fear.

“Why do you frighten the old man, my dear son? Don’t do it,” Umut said tenderly grabbing Auesbai's great-coat flaps but he pushed her in her chest with all his mights tat Umut flew right to sill crying.

Auesbai bristled his moustaches dreadfully:

“Just look at that, what a nest he has done for himself?!”

“You make a mistake, I…” Peter began but a tall red-hair soldier stroke him with the club and Peter felt on the ground as thought mown down.

Koishkary, stunned and lost, stood and hardly understood what was happening around him. Peter was lying consciousness, all in blood, and he, his old friend, couldn't do anything to help him. And he was standing trembling of epicene fury. No good! He remembered as one day Temir began beating him with kamcha for some fault and at that moment Peter ran to him and gave his back under beating. That means the real friend…

And when Koishkary remembered that, he grabbed the tall man's throat.

“Why are you beating him, ha?!”

They began scuffling. The gun barked two times. Koishkary jumped down the tall man’s throat and began strangling him but Auesbai jumped and adroitly stroke dzhigit's temple with gun handle. Blood flew and Koishkary opened his hands. Feeling free the tall man ran on him…

People crowded around Etykbai’s dug-out. Somebody was standing with their eyes rolled out of fear, other were crying, arguing, making different guesses but everyone was climbing forward, pushing and dying of curiosity. Someone who has already found out what was happening didn't decide to tell their feeling about that even and hesitated fitting to the crowd's opinion.

“Until that rascal isn’t killed, we would have no rest!” Temir get angry and nobody knew where he appeared there from.

“Right words! One sheep roll would ruin the whole butter leather bottle. One rascal makes the whole area scandal-famous!” the mulla Omar kept the bai's words in a hurry.

But young men and dzhigits who feel sorry for Minaidar and Koishkary were fidgeting from foot to foot in a silence…

Auesbai left for the night in Temir’s house. Petra and Koishkary were brought in sledges and pushed to a wooden shed of the bai. Ulzhan the baibishe took off the key from the pocket of her rich fox fur coat smiling malevolently and closed both dzhigits personally.

“I knew that the holy memory of the ambler and frisky racers would punish these sons of beliaf. And here is the reconing!...”

According to old Kazakh tradition bai and baibishe should be protectors of their aul habitants. They should protect their aul agains any outside danger. And that fact that baibishe has personally closed Koishkary been beaten to blood left a bad aftertaste in souls of her tribesmen. But Temir and Ulzhan were so blind with their anger that they noticed nothing at all. However they could have their own consideration.

The bai’s work-hand, Minaidar, was ordered to watch the sled. Auesbai impaled his with his eyes, waved with his gun in front of his face and roared:

“Hey, you, but-eyed fool, keep in mind: if you left them, I would kill you!”

And Minaidar trembled and became pale.

The aul was rushing, hooting, quarrelling. Women who were going to bring water, taking off ash, collecting kizyak were discussing this even endlessly. Everyone did it in his own way. There was somebody who praised Auesbai to high heaven. He was a son of a city merchant, “Shala-Kazakh” or “Half-Kazakh” as they were called scornfully in auls. He was a distant relative of many habitants in this area. He had some rumpy-pumpy with Temir for a long time. People in auls said about Auesbai:

“He must have got in on the act with the power. They say he would be promoted soon.”

Old men held him um as an example for the young fellows:

“This man would rise high! Such a fellow could make his way in life!”

And that day Auesbai became the real hero of the day. His name was on the tongues of men.

“Auesbai brought here a hundred of soldiers,” a bandy legged grimy Gabbas said with an air of importance. “He left them somewhere behind. They might come tomorrow!..”

At those words ruffling he stoke his head as if it was he who has brought that hundred of men. Famous gab of wind Janibek seemed not to be behind Gabbas.

“Auesbai killed a hundred of Bolsheviks in this crusade,” he said

The old Etykbai was kept in this aul as a stranger. His family owned there only three houses. Two of his relatives - Rakhmet and Sugur - were quiet and shy people of average incomes. At home near his fireplace there was nobody braver than Rakhmet but in public he was hsy and even cowardly. And Sugur was loser, if you cut him, he would say no word. Both had no idea about relative honor and dignity. True they accepted Etykbai as their relatives gladly but at that time they repudiated him openly. They didn't only protected his sun but didn't come closer to him being afraid of gossips and sometimes even speaking ill about the old man together with other people.

Temir treated his guest in a city-manner. He sent a runner to the next Russian village to bring some home-brew, gathered all named and honorable people of aul, laid the dastarkhan generously. Ulzhan the baibishe was walking happy and festively as if she had a grandson born. She put a horse belly fat - kazy, a horse sausages - karta,  under-crest-part - zhal and a rump - zhaya into the kettle.

“Dzhigits! Some of you might have never tested arak in your life. Well, Kazakhs have never any fancy to this drink. But today - drink it! My today guests are special, dear. They give their lives for our peace. They bring troublemakers to senses. I hope you understand what an honor is it for us to sit with such people at one dastarkhan!”

And Temir shook the kesushka with home-brew so as if it was kumis. But it seemed that this “drink of the Satan” was a usual thing for the most part of the people being present there. Everyone shuffled and smiled.

“It’s not a sin to drink in honor of such a high guest!” Tyuebai noticed.

A big precious table-cloth was taken from a trunk box and laid in the middle of the room. Tyuebai noticed to himself that the last time when that striped table-cloth was laid, it was when Temir’s father, the godly Turlybai, came back from Mecca. People gathered at the rich dastarkhan at that time were drinking the holy water - “zeyam-zeyam”.

“The health of the master Auesbai!” Temir sounded rising the kesushka with the home-brew.

“Apyrmai, I am afraid to become sick… I have never tasted it in my life,” some of not-courageous men murmured. But there was nothing to do. “If Temir said - even if you die, you should drink!” the other more courageous insisted.

The home-brew has loosen their tongue little by little.

“Master Auesbai! Your brothers wish to hear good news from you. Be so kind and tell us what happens in the world…What is heard about the Kazakh “Alash-Orda”?” sweaty and red Temir asked.

“Alash-Arda” is making its deal,” Auesbai answered in an important manner. “Alikhan went to Omsk for negotiations with Kolchak.”

“Oh, such a good man, oh, sarbaz!.. He knows no rest, poor fellow… Day and night he thinks about us, Kazakhs," guests groaned and amazed turning noses and rising heads.

It became noisy in the bai’s house. They were speaking louder and louder, noisy interrupting each other and soon nobody listened to anyone.

The night was frosty. At day snow was melting and now it has frozen in an icy extract. The night of death covered the steppe. Somewhere single stars shined through gloomy clouds walking on the cold sky. A hard and uneasy sleep seized the aul. A bad feeling creeped into hearts sleepless men.

Minaidar was sitting on a log near the wooden shed hiding his head in neck of a hardened fur coat. He looked as a bogy. He was a watchman that day. Sitting for hours in a sad pose he has been thinking bitterly: “Aparmai, what was their guilt?” Both Peter and Koishkary were his old friends. He could say they became so close as relatives. Because he had no relatives in the whole world except of them. Minaidar didn’t knew how and where he was born, what his family was or whose son he was. Since he was a small child he remembered himself only as Temir's work-hand. But he is twenty-three now. And he has seen nothing good yet… Sometimes a lasting grief seized him when he came to Etykbai, laid himself on a bedding, sad and depressed and kept silence for a long.

“Are you ok, shragym? Why are you lying and sighing?” Umut asked. What a tender word - “shragym”.

“My dear, apple of my eye, my light” - Umut was the only one who called him, Minaidar, so. Nobody else in the whole world told him such words. And there was nobody else to tell.

Вздыхал Минайдар, спрашивал старуху:

“Sheshei, tell me, you might know, have I ever had parents at all?”

“Of course, my dear?! How could it be without parents?” Umut answered tenderly. “I haven’t seen your father. I have only heard that he died. But I have seen your mother, I remember. She was round-faced, black-eyed, so fine looking. She could hardly leave holding you. “My Mintai, my diear,” she said… She loved you as all mothers did.

According to Umut’s stories Minaitai imagined his mother face and figure in his mind. When he closed his eyes, he saw a round-faced, black-eyed and sweet woman. She took him to his breast, kissed and said tenderly: “My Mintai! My one and only!..” It is so good when you have your mother. And then his mother was sold according to Umut’s words. When? Why? Who did it? When Mintai was thinking about it, his heard was wrung and began bleeding. At that moment he was ready to strangle do death with his clingy knotty fingers his hateful enemy who sold his own mother...

Minaidar came to his senses back and started:

“Who is here?”

It was Etykbai standing in front of him crooking of cold and grief.

“Dear Minaidar, haven’t you found out: are they at least alive?”

The old man was crying; his lips were shivering.

“Poor, poor father!.. He’s ready to give his own soul for his own son…”

“It’s so evil, son…” Etykbai dried his eyes with his fur coat sleeve. “The old women, the poor creature, couldn’t come to herself at all…”

Yes, that's the truth.

Sweet Umut who has been always feeling sorry for everyone was stunned by grief then. It was her only son. And that quite old man who would not hurt a fly in his life didn't know what to do. He was walking and crying at nights. Who would feel sorry for them? Who would feel pity? Who would help them?

“Nobody would! There isn't such a man!” Minaidar thought sadly and offendedly.

Midnight was close. Sand-blind gleam of lamps died in windows. Froze became angrier, then it didn't nip but bite. A big sheep coat didn't seem to Minaidar so heavy. A strange feeling seized him. First he felt hot then cold. There was ringing in his ears, black rounds flew in his eyes. His thoughts were spreading along many strange paths. What's to him? He felt good. He’s in his fur coat, he has recently eaten hot food. But how could be those poor men in the sled? They must felt frozen to bones. They must be hungry. They were beaten. Blood dried on them. And nobody worries about it, nobody troubles. Why are they scoff at the poor men so hard? Etykbai came closer to the sled, looked at cracks, went around and listened to. From time to time the old man looked at Minaidar pitifully. He seemed not to decide him to open the door. May be he should really try to do it?

Минайдар поднялся, направился к байскому дому.

***

“I am ok. I am used to be beaten…I could take everything, stand everything.” Peter said feeling Koishkary’s head carefully. Until the sun was shining, a sharp beam entered the shed cracks and friends could view each other. They both were in blood. Blood dried and covered them with a brown scab. Bones were aching. Bodies seemed to be not their own.

“What will happen with us?” Koishkary signed

“Who knows… Of course, they were happy to catch their enemies…And there is nobody to protect us…”

They both understood it. And both could clearly imagine what was waiting for them but no one decided to talk about it to the other one. Quieted down and dropped, they were cuddled together and warmed each other with heat and breath. But they didn't consol each other and had no sorrow, they were simply sitting on an old short fur coat in the dark shed in oblivion and draws. A soft-hearted soul would drop a tear involuntary looking at them.

“Poor fellows,” that soft-hearted soul would say. “They die in the flower of their age!..”

...The shed door scraped and opened. Somebody entered, rummaged around and then called whispering:

“Koishkary!”

Peter and Koishkary recognized that voice: it was Minaidar. They both jumped. There was no heaviness, pain or tiredness anymore. Their hearts were beating loud jumping right to their throats.

“Run! Save your souls!” Minaidar murmured confusedly.

“Where are the soldiers?”

“They are drunk…sleeping side by side.”

Peter acted blankly and energetically. In a few words he told Minaidar what to do. Minaidar should wriggle way into the bai’s house, gather and bring them all weapons. Koishkary should rope two bai’s trotters at tht time. Peter had one arm broken but he didn’t even take any notice of it. He knew that they couldn’t be slow, there would be no other change for them.

Baibishe had the best ears in the bai’s house but she had drunk the full glass of home-brew in honor of the master Auesbai and laid as if she was dead.

Etykbai started having heard sledges creaking behind the window.

“It is Apyrmai again, isn't it?” Umut whispered weakly.

The house was dark and cold, a bitch lamp was glancing hardly. Everything was turned inside out as it happened after funeral. And true, the worm and cozy home seemed to be a cold grave at that day.

“Azhe!” hurried voices were heard.

Peter and Koishkary entered. They both had bai's short fur coats and sheepskins. There were rifles and swords hanging on their belts.

Uncouthly and hardly Umut rose, hugged and kissed them both. Her hot tears dropped down behind their neckpieces. But dzhigits didn't delay, they had to run. Where? It hasn't been clear yet. Only one thing has driven them at that time - to run out from the jaws of death. If only they could fling off pursuers, everything would be solved by itself.

“Agatai, leave for one night at least!" a girl with black fluffy hair begged crying.

Koishkary called his sister lovingly “Montai” - the Bead. He used to tell: I would give my Bead only to her sweat one. And then her elder brother, the only family support went and nobody knew where. He left helpless parents and sister knowing that they wouldn't have anything to eat. Who would look after them? Who would take care of the young Montai? Or should his grey-bearded, weak-sighted and old father take a white stick in his hands and follow the bai's herd again? Should his ill crooked mother go from yard to yard, twitch fur, spinning and take off swills? What else have they to do?

“I can’t, my dear! Take no offence at me. I am the crossways now too. And there is a hard trial waiting for me. You will be grieving, You will eat your heart your… But dry your tears, drive away your grief, support our parents. Don’t be a weak girl! Be a son! That’s what I am asking you for, my dear. Come closer, I want to kiss you at parting.

He has been kissing his fragile sister for a long time. Umut and Etykbai stood near being confused as in a dream.

“So, you are going to leave now, son?” Umut asked.

“Yes, I am!” Koishkary answered.

“Let the luck be with you! Let the way of right people open for you! It will be difficult for us to live without you. But I am not complaining. I thank to the Almighty that he gave you to me. There is only one thing that I am asking you for: wherever you were, remember your old father, remember me, disconsolated, remember your age, remember that you are our only support, remember that...”

Umut didn’t finish. Tears were strangling her. It seemed that it wasn’t she who told but the good parting words were coming from somewhere aside.

When Pleiad went to horizon, travelers left the aul. Minaidar managed horses. Good runners of the bai bit snaffle bits and tried to tear rein. Sledges were flying along the smooth and used-up road. They swerved on-turn, a snow dust curled behind the hobs.

Near a fork Minaidar pulled the rein.

“Well, what side now?”

One path led to the city, another one led to the thick wood. There in the wood some villages were hidden. In winder life was frozen there. A rear traveler drove there. Habitants of wooden bushes left their warm house only if there was a really big need. They were completely cut from the world during the long winter months. City news could hardly reach those places. People were satisfied with gossips from other small villages and auls. That was their life. The wooden and closed one…

The fugitives decided to drive through the wooden. They have been driving for the whole day with one short stop. To the evening they drove to a village hidden in a deep bush among snow banks. The village was rather big. Some people were driving animals to the lake on the village edge. Having seen the travelers some of them cried:

“Stop!”

A man with a shaggy beard came near to them. He had an old soldier hat on his head. He stared at the travelers with his sharp eyes and asked them about everything.

“Dive further,” he said. “There is a troop of Whites in the village. You are in for it if they catch you.” He didn't finish, turned back and went his own way.

At the same time three horsemen ran on the top of a snow heel. The Whites! They had rifles behind. Meeting with them promised no good.

“Come on fast! Drive into the gates!” Peter ordered and jumped off the sledges.

They drove into an unknown yard and looked around. There was no place to hide. A shock was at the backyards. Its edges were loosened, straw was thrown around. They ran to the shock without any hesitation, buried and became quite...

The watchmen who were riding round the village noticed couple of brown horses put into sledges. They stroke horses and rode towards. They found out that the travelers were Kazakhs thanks to their closes and were glad to an easy target. Horses were fat. A man with moustaches dismounted, ran into the house, dragged out a woman frightened to death.

“Tell me, you bitch, where did you hide them?!” the moustache man shouted beating the woman with a lash.

“I don’t know! By God, I don’t know!” the woman cried.

The tight lash made from eight raw hide belts burned the fat back of the woman. She screamed.

The soldiers ran into the house, made a mess, looked in a shed and a pantry. No fugitives were there.

“Then they must be in straw,” one said. “Take the fork and tickle them properly!”

The man with red moustaches began poking the fork into the straw breathing hardly.

“The end! We are dead!” Koishkary whispered.

“Lie! You won’t get us!” Peter cried with an awful voice and having jumped made three shots from his gut. All three watchmen felt on the ground. Their horses ran away napping.

“To the sledges” Peter ordered. “Turn it! We have rifles and enough of rounds. We won’t give up!”

They took weapon of the dead men and ran to their sledges. They drove their horses like beans. There has been no pursuit yet. Somewhere in the middle of the village some shots were heard. Then on snow bank some horsemen appeared.

It was growing dusk. Wind became stronger, snow began drifting. Clouds were crowding overhead. Snow was falling again and again. Their horses tired soon, began snorting and sneezing. Snowstorm began. A little after everything began turning, whirling in snowstorm howling, in ice wind. Snow closed their eyes, blocked their nostrils. They couldn’t see anything in two steps.

“Apyrmai! We must have wandered out of way. Lord forbid, we go astray!" Koishkary cried.

Sinking in snow banks horses stopped. But they have been going on the road a while ago. It was right near them, but where? Left or right? Koishkary got off the sledges and went looking for it. The wind rushed at him at the same moment and threw him in some steps aside. Stumbling and falling he suddenly felt hard ground under his feet and thought that he climbed on a hill. Then he realized: the road! Looking around he saw nothing but the night of death. Nothing could be seen: no place where sledges and horses should stand, no snow under his feet.

He began crying. There was no answer. He went astray! He stand alone in a night snowstorm steppe. No gun. Nothing. As yet he felt the road under his feet, he was going on her further and further first down the wind then windward and crying, crying, crying - at the top of his lounges and gasping of husk and breakdown. From time to time a squall flew on him in a wild anger trying to blow him off and throw from the road. The wind was twitching his wide fur coat, felt behind the neck, bosom, flaps and sleeves, came closer to the body, nipped and bit burning with cold. Soon Koishkary chilled to the bones. “It's easy to be dead with cold” he thought and despair and anger seized him. He bit his lips and cried curses. But he had no power anymore to stand against the tough wind, he went and went hiding his head closer to his shoulders, putting his frozen hands into fur coat sleeves and groping for a hard ground with his feet. He went and went being pushed by the wind… And he went astray in that snow whirl.

1929