In the deep hollow of Saryg Göschge, we were protected from the wind. At first we found enough düüleesh to quickly fill our baskets, but then we had a hard time. Walking into the wind was almost impossible. Several times we stopped to rest. The resting itself was glorious: We turned our backs to the wind, dropped to the ground, and sat in the shadow of the filled baskets, panting and with our eyes closed, but fully aware that, for the time being, we did not have to fight the wind.

Back home, I cut the soft, grassy tops off the düüleesh and chopped them. While I was busy chopping, Mother melted the horse droppings over the fire. Then she mixed the düüleesh and the horse droppings in a bowl and added salt. She took a handful of salt from its bag, sprinkled it over the steaming, tangy mass, and said: “May we drink water rather than let the voracious pack perish!” We called everything that was eaten without salt water. Salt was very valuable and always in short supply.

The hendshe wolfed down what we put in front of it. “So,” Mother said solemnly, “it’s up to us to keep them alive.”

Unfortunately, Mother was wrong. Or maybe she was right, and we simply proved not to be up to it. For this is what happened. In the evening, Father came home with the big flock and reported that four lambs had frozen to death on the pasture, and that several more were close to dying. All he had been able to do was to skin the dead animals—which he had to do because of the wool quota—and as he did so, he noticed that they had a bit of fat left on the breast.

The next morning all the sheep that had nearly frozen to death the previous day were added to the little flock. There were many! Together Mother and I went off with this new flock, taking our baskets with us. We went back to Saryg Göschge, where we pulled düüleesh and picked up fresh horse droppings while we watched the flock. The cold continued, as did the storm. One lamb died. It was one of mine, the second-crop lamb of the middle one of my three stumpy-eared Blackface ewes. These ewes were sisters and so alike one might have taken them for triplets, but we distinguished them by age. The oldest sister was no longer alive. Pressed by Father, I had given her up for slaughter last winter. Now there was another gap in the family.

We didn’t notice until the lamb already lay there dead. If we had noticed earlier, when it stumbled or even when it fell, we might have been able to save it. But we were too late. I drew my knife from the sheath on my belt and started to cut into the dead lamb’s belly even before Mother had said anything. Because of the cold it was extremely hard work. My hands got cold, first the left one with which I stretched tight the frost-covered fleece, and later the right one, which I clenched to a fist and shoved between the skin and the body, where it stayed warm as long as it was close to the flesh but then got cold as well.