The Mysteries of the Shaman Stone

Chapter One

The plane, having lifted off the ground, began to bite into the sky with a loud howl. I thought that the vibration and the roaring inside an old AN-24 would scare all passengers but taking a closer look, I realized: those flying with me were experienced people. Taking into consideration the fact that Irkutsk and Bodaibo are only connected by this mode of transport, I calmed down and started watching the earth moving away from us, without noticing how I fell asleep pretty soon. Suddenly, the loudspeaker that looked like it had seen a lot started reproducing the hoarse voice of the flight hostess right above my ear, heralding the imminent touchdown. This woke me up immediately and brought me to my senses. The AN-24 that must have been of my age, made a U-turn and plunked into the liquid mud of the Bodaibo airport, throwing thousands of splashes in all directions from under its belly. I crossed myself, woke up my Moscow pal Nikita who was sitting next to me and started bringing my cell phone to life. Vitim was the only thing I wanted to see as soon as possible. Ugryum River, what are you like? – I kept on thinking. I heard so much about this mysterious and Nordic river from Herman and then there was this movie with a pursuit in taiga and gold rush I saw as a child, which stirred up my interest to this river and the surrounding nature even more.

Meeting us at the airport, an old acquaintance Herman immediately offered to go with him to hunt some bear. The day before, he put a smelly bait in his hunting area destined for the predator that was walking around his winter hut and frightening people and dogs. And he was sure: the bear had already found it and we had to hurry in order to go up Vitim to get to the winter hut and meet the beast while it was still daylight. Herman was a local entrepreneur, a hunter, fisherman and a descendant of a small, vanishing ethnicity, the Tofalar, whose representatives are mainly settled in the Nizhneudinsky District and only a few of them, like Herman, were uprooted and dispersed all over our huge country. Without much delay, the three of us – me, Nikita and Herman – left the airport to go to the boat station where a “Crimea” boat was waiting for us. The three of us hopped into it and, together with two huskies Buran and Baikal, went up the river at quite a pace. You would not believe it: the higher we climbed up Vitim, the larger grew my admiration for nature around me. The soft carpet of the forest was interrupted by the ragged rock that climbed up the sky with its snow that has not yet melted on the peaks. The wild, primordial nature fascinated me with its beauty, and the same feeling that our ancestors must have felt, the ancient people who went hunting some prey without knowing what was awaiting them, was filling my chest. “If we’re lucky,” Herman said, “the Deer crossing will be behind that hill, and we’ll be able to see these beauties.” Very little time passed, and far away, right in the middle of Ugryum River, we saw a herd of seven deer swimming rapidly. The leader was swimming in front of the herd; he could be distinguished by the huge horns that struck immediately. The animals, which we took by surprise, snorted loudly with their nostrils, trying to get to the shore as soon as possible and enter their habitat, that is, Mother Nature. Meeting humans was never a good thing for the deer. We slowed down, watching these forest beauties jumping out of the water to the river bank one by one and disappearing in the woods. When the last one of them disappeared in the taiga, we accelerated and continued our journey. Suddenly we saw another deer not far away, which was swimming in a strange kind of way – slowly and in circles. Getting closer with our boat, we understood the animal’s behavior – there was a small calf swimming next to its mother and the latter, fearing for its safety, was blocking it from us. Pushing it with its face, the mother was helping it to swim faster. Herman, in order not to frighten the two, moved the boat aside, and soon the deer disappeared from my view.

Chapter two

The beginning was promising but, as it turns out, even more exciting adventures were waiting for us ahead. As a resident of Moscow, who managed to escape from the urban pile of concrete and brick, poisoned by cars and other charms of oxygen civilization, I felt as if my lungs were being filled with an invigorating and deliciously taiga-smelling river air like a balm.

Our tea-drinking a bit later on, when we landed on the shore for relaxation, only added additional minutes of bliss to my euphoria – something that you can experience by tasting tea freshly brewed from the immediately freshly picked forest herbs and berries. These latter, slightly wilted from winter frost, were like red beads hanging on small lingonberry bushes. Having had some tea and asked Herman about our one-hour-long rest, I decided to take some photos of Vitim shores while strolling along its banks.

“Where are going to, Alexander?” – Herman asked me. Upon learning of my intention to take a walk, he forced me to take a five-shooter “Saiga 12-C” with me, filling its magazine to the brim – first with two rounds of three birdshot and then another three with expanding bullets, putting a bandoleer with twenty rounds in all on my belt and explaining to me that when I see a hazel grouse or a duck, the first two shot cartridges would be enough. However, if I stumble on a bear that often catches fish on small rivers flowing into Vitim and that would not want to leave, it is better to discharge some cartridge shots in the air but if the beast attacks, I should use bullets and shoot to kill. Fearing for my safety, Herman shouted to one of the dogs named Baikal: “Go with him,” pointing at me. And Baikal joyfully rushed forward, spending our entire small journey running ahead joyfully and returning to keep up with my pace, as if checking if there was any trouble waiting for us ahead, like bear or wolves. His joyful face was telling me: we had nothing to fear. With such weapons and a dog, there was not a drop of fear – enjoying nature, I kept clicking with my camera, capturing the beauty of the surrounding nature. About thirty minutes passed unnoticed, with me moving down the river, from where we came from with our boat. I walked about one kilometer down the shore, reaching the exact point where we saw the deer calf with its mother. Then all of a sudden, Baikal rushed to the river with loud barking: never had I seen anything like it before. Several wolves were sitting on the bank, blocking a herd of deer from coming ashore. The deer stood close to each other, and the leader who was in front of the herd bravely jumped on the wolves, hitting the water with its front hooves. Barking loudly, Baikal rushed at the rear wolf and, before I knew it, I was firing my shotgun into the air. The wolves, grinning and snapping reluctantly, moved a dozen meters closer to the forest, and by the looks of it they were not going any further and were not taking me seriously. Two of them, having separated from the pack, began to distract Baikal, and my sixth sense told me: the wolves are going to attack Baikal and me. Remembering that when hungry, wolves are capable of tearing their wounded brethren apart, I shot the second cartridge at the pack from about thirty meters. I then added a bullet shot. They did not like it and threw themselves to the forest, while Baikal rushed behind. God, if anyone could hear me scream: “Baikal, come here, Baikal!” I was so scared for the dog, without which, as Herman told me, it can get really tough in the taiga, and was mentally castigating myself for getting so far. Hearing my shouts, Baikal, came back from the forest, sat beside me and started watching the herd that was still in the river Vitim. After the wolves left, the deer started jumping out of water one by one, shaking the water off their bodies and cautiously looking at us. However, for some reason unknown to me, they did not go far. It all continued until there was only one deer left in the water, which was standing at about four meters from the shore and barely changed its position. “What’s all about here?” I thought to myself and started moving slowly towards the water. As I approached, the herd receded a bit, but the animal in the water would not move. When it was about seven meters away, by its side I saw a muzzle of a deer protruding for about thirty centimeters, which it rested on his mother’s stomach, and this allowed it to breathe. The area was above one meter deep and the fawn could easily drown if it were not for its mother’s body. It seemed that the fawn had clung to something at the bottom of the river. Not knowing what to do, I decided to go to the water and to see what was going on. Seeing a gun in my hand, the animal started jerking its head in fear, but the maternal instinct was stronger than the fear of death and only the scared eyes of the female deer that had suddenly turned wet, revealed her wild fear. Leaving only my shorts on and taking a knife, I entered the water; at a distance of about one meter, I submerged my head and saw the hind feet of the fawn tangled in some kind of rope. Thank God it’s only a rope, I thought to myself, and made a dive towards the calf’s feet, cutting the rope in two swings of my knife. The water immediately turned turbulent from eight deer feet, so I hurried up to get to the shore, in order to avoid getting a hoof blow to the head or any other part of my body. Once on the shore, I had to help the small fawn one more time. One of its feet was firmly held by the rope that extended towards the water, so I had to use my knife once again. The fawn must have become so tired and cold in the water that it barely paid any attention to me. This allowed me to realize the reason of its water imprisoning: upon a closer look, I realized that the animal had actually gotten into a fishing net left by someone. “What an awkward turn of events,” I said aloud to Baikal who was sitting next to me, and immediately I heard the sound of a motorboat approaching. The deer, having seen the boat, started towards the taiga. Only the mother of the calf turned its head to stare at me several times as if expressing its gratitude for saving her child. When the boat moored, the whole herd had already disappeared from slight. “What happened to you, Sasha, why were you shooting?” Herman asked anxiously. Having told about the events that happened to me, I showed the network lying on the shore. German and Nikita, having examined the net and the deer tracks interspersed with those of the wolves, took turns in shaking my hand, congratulating me on the first hunting trophy. I haven’t even noticed how I actually got one of the wolves and, as it turned out, the shot was in the head. Herman explained: most likely, I got the leader, which was the reason for such a rapid flight of the wolves. Throwing my trophy in the "Crimea", we moved up Vitim to the winter hut, which was only about forty minutes away now. For the rest of the way, the dogs growled, grinning at a wolf wrapped in tarpaulin: it was the thousand-year-old natural instinct speaking, something that cannot be etched by any civilization. Due to all our daytime adventures, we reached the hunter’s site by four in the afternoon and my friend, the owner of the site Herman, made a decision: today we should not go to taiga to hunt a bear. We would visit banya instead, have a good rest, and tomorrow hunt the predator with renewed forces. Nikita and I began to heat the bathhouse, while Herman began to skin the wolf. In about two hours, when the bathhouse was quite hot already, we were joyfully pounding each other with birch brooms, and so I ran out to cool myself a bit in the fresh air. A few meters away, I saw the skin removed from the wolf and I really wanted to try it immediately… I just could not help it: taking the skin from the pole, I threw it directly on my naked body and, apparently, immediately lost consciousness. Waking up about ten minutes later with a wolf skin on a naked body, from which water flowed for some reason, I frantically ripped it off, threw it back on the pole and, shaking from the cold, jumped back into the bathhouse.

“Long walks, huh?” my friends said, “We have been waiting for like ten minutes, then we saw you swimming in the river, finally getting your fill of this exotic nature, and decided not to disturb.”

Chapter Three

At night I dreamed of wolves running next to me. Growling and grinning, we ran through the forest, and I was horrified to see wolf legs instead of my legs and arms, with which I deftly jumped over fallen trees and shrubs. This dream made me jump up and, apparently not fully awake, I took several steps through the winter hut until I ran into a table that was in the middle. Returning to my senses and eagerly drinking some water from the mug on the table, I could not get rid of the thought of what was a reality and what was merely a dream. At this moment, my eyes fell on my hands and my legs that were all covered in small scratches from the branches, while the palms were full of marks left by needles. What I saw almost made me faint. I need to ask Herman about all this, I thought and went to the river to wash myself. After that, there was breakfast and we left for taiga, right to the place where the bait was. As I walked, with each pass I took, my nightmare seemed more and more absurd to me, and in no time I forgot about everything. After three kilometers and having detected the smell of spoilt meat, Herman led us on a detour around the leeward side, so that the bear would not smell us. Having found the place from which the bait was clearly visible with binoculars and the rifle scope, we lay down, watching all the approaches to it, and began to wait. The bait hung on a very long branch of a huge tree, tied on a rope about three meters from the ground. Everything was done so that the predator could not get to the bait even in a jump and would walk around it until found by a hunter's bullet. Herman, giving Nikita a carbine, taking a knife and a walkie-talkie, decided to go to the bait to see if there are bear tracks. Watching him through the binoculars, I suddenly saw some movement on the side in the taiga. Peering into the bush, I felt that someone was watching us. Telling Herman about it over the walkie-talkie, again I began to observe the place where it seemed to me that: someone is there! “Well, there’s heaps of bear tracks here,” Herman replied over the walkie-talkie “I am coming back, keep your eyes open.” As soon as he began to move in our direction, some kind of animal, which was not clearly visible yet, but, judging by the outlines, it was very large, began to hurdle across from the side. The hunter felt the danger as well and asked Nikita over the walkie-talkie: as soon as the beast attacks, shoot to kill. “Why didn’t he take the rifle with him?” I only had time to think and a jarring shot form a carbine and then another one rang out next to me. I turned my head toward the place where I just saw the movement and saw a huge, supposedly five-year bear lying on its side, which was knocked down by two shots shot by Nikita right in the jump. The predator missed just a couple of meters to reach Herman, who had already begun to work with a knife, getting the very valuable and healing bile from the bear. So, while dressing the carcass, Herman discovered in its stomach the wire on which he hung the fish he had caught before to sundry it. The bear slurped it the day before, while Herman was on a fishing trip, having wreaked havoc in the cabin. “If I had some doubts before as to whether it is this bandit that paid me a visit, now I have no doubts,” he said aloud. Judging by the tracks, there is one more bear circling around in this area, a smaller one, and we still have time: we can sit in ambush for a few hours. Having made some fifty shots with the bear killed by Nikita and having made ourselves comfortable in the old place, we began eating the thick slices of lard with pickled cucumbers, drink strong tea with herbs from a vacuum flask and discuss the sudden appearance of the killed bear. For my Moscow friend Nikita, it was the first-ever trophy, and it was a bear, of all things. It was clearly visible how his eyes shone and how his chest was being filled with happiness and the opportunity to brag about it to his fellow journalists in Moscow. As for my own trophy – the skin of an enormous wolf – it was already the second day that I flaunted it, extending it and fixing it with nails over my headboard in the cabin. Suddenly, the dogs, that remained silent until that moment, began growling. The wool on the scruff of the hounds stood on end, and literally a minute later a flock of wolves jumped out and occupied the area where the killed bear lay. They began to sniff the lying animal, and one of them, lighter in color, jumped right on it and began to sniff the air around it, standing on its hind legs, apparently fearing those who killed such a formidable predator. Us, that is. When the wolves appeared, I was seized by a strange feeling of some kind of unity with them, and only with a great effort of will, restraining my inner desire to rush towards them, I resisted this act. What is going on with me? – and, without expecting it, I hit the barrel of Nikita’s rifle that was about to shoot. “No, don’t shoot,” I said and stood up right, brushing off the needles that stuck to my clothes during the long time I spent on the ground, watching the wolves run away into the taiga. Forty minutes later, loaded with bear meat, we returned to our hut. This is how another day in my life passed, away from all the benefits of civilization.

Chapter Four

At night, in a dream, I again ran with the wolves, in front of everyone and with a female wolf on my side, which was supposed to be with me for the second year already. It was that very wolf that boldly jumped on the dead bear – now I knew: it was my she-wolf. The grey girlfriend was clinging to me from the side, playing with me, she wanted to have cubs with me, we were in the middle of spring and it was time to mate. So, playing with each other, the dominant couple of the pack moved away from the rest of the wolves, and we, playing and biting each other from excitement, started making love. Once again I woke up in a sweat from the thought of making love to a wolf! Maybe I was going crazy? I need to wake Herman up. Even more so, as I had marks left by branches on my hands and legs once again, and the bottom of my stomach was aching as if it had been corrupted. I only ever felt this way after spending a whole night voluptuously making love with a girl I really liked. “What the heck is that?” I swore and started shaking the shoulder of sleeping Herman. When we drank the second cup of freshly brewed tea, Herman at first only laughed at me. But when I showed my body, palms, and feet, he suddenly seemed thoughtful. Then he asked: “Did you put on the wolf skin on the first day?” I told him everything I remembered about that unfortunate story when I was washing myself in the bathhouse.

Herman remained silent, imbued in thoughts. “I don’t know. May it is true, but there is a belief among the ancient Tofalar taiga hunters! If on the first day a naked hunter puts on the skin of a leader he just killed and bathes in the river with the skin on, he turns into a wolfman. And after that he will be the most sophisticated hunter, having acquired instincts unknown to man and, thanks to his new wolf essence, he will know the habits of all animals in the taiga.” Having told this story to me, Herman became silent and suggested that we check this assumption at night. The day passed unnoticed, full of chores and things to do. At night, after relaxing in the banya, we went to sleep. Herman and Nick, who was already aware of my dreams, tied one of my legs to the bed and took turns on a night vigil. It was already past midnight when Herman heard the barking of the dogs that were on the lash, as well as the howling of wolves not far away from the hut. Herman decided to unleash the dogs and let them inside the winter hut. When on the lash, the dogs are defenseless before wolves, and the latter would often use this opportunity to attack. While he was busy with the huskies, about five minutes passed and, upon returning to the hut, he could not believe what he just saw: there was no one on the trestle bed where Alexander slept, only a rope bitten through with sharp teeth. He took a carbine, woke Nikita, and together they went to search for Alexander. The dogs were leading them directly to the wolves and soon Nikita saw the entire pack. The wolves were running in a parallel course, the leader stood out at the front with his girlfriend, a fair-haired she-wolf, running next to him. Nikita threw up his gun and shot at the leader.