The Storm Leopards by Holly Webb

Author:Holly Webb [Holly Webb]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781847158697
Publisher: Stripes Publishing
Published: 2018-08-17T16:00:00+00:00

It sounded as though the argument about the snow leopard had already started on the way there.

“We have to get rid of it,” one of the men said firmly, taking off his coat – not a deel, Isabelle noticed, but a warm padded anorak like her dad might wear. “What if it comes back? They kill for pleasure, you know. It’ll go mad in the sheep pens next – it could kill the lot.”

“We can’t, Erdene,” another man said, shaking his head. From the way Odval looked gratefully at him as she handed him the cup of tea, Isabelle guessed he was her father. “You know that would break our contract. We need that money.”

The two women in front of Isabelle murmured in agreement, but a younger man leaned forward eagerly. “Who’s going to tell?” he broke in. He was hardly more than a boy, Isabelle realized, and another boy squashed up next to him nodded fiercely. She recognized them from the photograph – Odval’s brothers.

Odval’s father glared at them, and they looked down, muttering. Isabelle smiled to herself.

“So what do you say we should do, Yul?” one of the other men demanded. “Just leave that beast to kill all our stock? You know we can’t afford it. Not if we have another winter like last year, another dzud.”

“Guard the herd better, until the creature gives up and goes away. We’ll set a watch, not just leave it to the dogs,” Odval’s father suggested.

Odval’s mother sat down with the other two women, and Odval came to curl up next to Isabelle and whispered, “The dzud is a terrible hard winter. The white death, we call it. Last year many of our herd died.”

The men went on arguing back and forth for a while, until at last Odval’s father shook his head. “We can’t hunt the snow leopard. You know we can’t. We rely on the money from the handicrafts.” He looked over at Odval’s mother, and she nodded. “We can’t risk losing it. Besides, the creatures are…” He stopped, searching for a word. “Unnatural. Don’t you remember the story? It’s bad luck to kill one.”

The other men shifted and sighed uncomfortably as he went on. “One of my cousins shot a snow leopard and wounded it, and it went to ground, hiding in a cave up in the mountains. He watched for it for three days and he heard it wail, like a ghost. Then at last it was silent. My cousin went back to his ger, triumphant, and then the message came, from the monastery where his son was studying. The boy had been taken ill. He’d lain on his bed crying out for three days, and then he died.”

“That’s just superstition,” muttered the taller of Odval’s brothers, and the other nodded. But he looked sideways as he did it, as though he wasn’t quite sure. The other men muttered and frowned and seemed to agree with Yul. They finished their tea, and went back out, talking about mending a crumbling wall on the sheep pen.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.