August 30

​The time has come all too fast for us to pack up for the return to the town. Many of the men will stay on with the herds until the first snows arrive. But families must return.

I help my friend to reload the truck. The yurts are taken down. The latrines are topped with earth and stones. The last night we sit around the open fireplace and go to sleep in our blankets.
 
We wake before dawn and get in the truck. I look in the cabin for Great Grandmother to take her place between me and my friend’s husband, our driver. She is nowhere to be seen. My friend sees me looking. She points to the hillside.

​There in the dawn I see a small figure beginning to make her way towards the rocky outcrop where we had passed our afternoons. I want to run after her. My friend sees my distress. ‘She said you would understand. She wants to wait for the first snows to come. The herders will keep an eye on her’.