The Mysteries of the Shaman Stone

“Dear hunter citizens, an enemy has attacked our Motherland! Fascist hordes ruin and burn entire cities, killing our brothers, sisters, and daughters. Our long-suffering people are being taken to Germany and driven into slavery. They spare no one, even the elderly with small children. If we do not destroy them, they will come here; they will invade your land. In this crucial moment for our Motherland, the Soviet government calls on you to defend our Motherland and help defeat the German invaders with weapons”.

This fiery speech and the newspapers these people brought with them did their job. All the tofalars who arrived enrolled in the Red Army, promising to come to the recruiting station in a week to be sent to the front. When the endiltment officer left, the most respected older hunters gathered near my father to hold the council. And then one of them remembered the ancient belief and invited everyone ready to perform this rite to do so.

“The numbers of wolves have increased, and while we fight, there will be even more of them, but everyone decides for himself,” he said. A week later, a detachment formed of tofalars was shaking in the heated goods wagon, going to the front. Dressed in the same uniform, with trimmed hair, they all looked alike. Only when it was deep night, the soldiers from other wagons heard howls at night, watching in surprise dozens of wolves running along a slowly moving locomotive. The echelon guards tried several times to shoot at them, but after a severe ban by the enlistment officer, they stopped doing this. The political instructor was the same person who came to meet with the hunters. Having formed several battalions from the Siberians of the Irkutsk region on the orders of the command, he was going with them to the front. Not understanding at first what the soldier who came to him at the stop was asking for, and then, recognizing in him the very shaman who helped him to assemble a detachment of future scout snipers, he decided to listen to him carefully.

“You know, commander,” speaking in a roundabout way and realizing that, and realizing that if he tells the truth, the communist political instructor would never believe him, my father decided to go for a trick. “Look, commander, a lot of soldiers have crosses on their chests and icons in their backpacks and nobody tries to hit the icons! Now imagine that the wolves that run after us at night are also our icons or our own kind of spirits, so please put a ban on trying to shoot them, commander. Otherwise, my soldiers (my father had sergeant insignia on the tabs) would start to get sick.

And he invited him to his wagon to take a look at the soldier who, while being a wolf, was wounded at night from a rifle. The wound was not very serious, but still he was confined to bed.

“You see, a soldier got sick, commander, because his spirit was being shot at,” my father said.

The officer shook his head and, without saying anything, went along the train. He had all kinds of freaks in his submission: Orthodox Christians, Muslims, Buryat Buddhists and now also shamans with their spirits! But according to the internal instruction, saying that political officers and commanders were not recommended to ban soldiers from worship in the war, so as not to reduce their morale, Ivan Pavlovich, seeing the head of the echelon guard, forbade shooting at wolves at night. Knowing that he was informing the secret agents about everything and to disperse any doubts, he told him:

“Captain, we have every cartridge counted, and you squander ammunition. Do wolves attack you personally or do you want to reduce the combat effectiveness of our army?” he asked.

Realizing where the enlistment officer was heading, and fearing any charges against him, the captain, up to this point pretty confident because of his ties with the Special Forces, sprang and said:

“Yes, Comrade Officer, we’ll do everything,” he said and rushed like a bullet, holding his belly, huge from stealing rations from his soldiers, while thinking to himself: the damned political instructor spoiled everything, taking away all the fun (every night this overfed, like a wild boar, security guard, taking a rifle from the watch, would shoot at the wolves running next to the steam locomotive just for amusement). And the only thing that saved the Tofalars was that he was a storekeeper before being enlisted and could not shoot at all. Having achieved cunningly what he wanted to from the enlistment officer, my father, gathering his fellow countrymen, suggested that they ask to be put in the same detachment at the front, claiming that their knowledge of the Russian language was poor.

“Otherwise, you all understand how bad it will be. We will be shot by friendly fire on the first night! And there will be no discussion! And this way, we will have twenty people who performed the rite and the same number of those who didn’t. For others, we all look alike. This will give us an opportunity to keep our secret.”

Part IV

Upon arrival, the soldiers were assigned to platoons, battalions, and regiments. My father and his comrades were lucky, as a separate platoon of sniper-scouts was created especially for them, and the commander was their old acquaintance, officer Ivan Pavlovich. Over time, he learned the Tofalar secret, keeping it until the end of the war. The ability of hunters to turn into wolves at night helped to solve seemingly impossible tasks, and at war, one must always comply with an order. You can even turn into the devil, but it must be beneficial for the command. In order to understand how the Tofalars fought, I will tell you about one case. Before the offensive, Ivan Pavlovich received an order to take the prisoner not from the front line, but from the rear, located a hundred kilometers from the front line. No one asked how he would do it, giving two days for the whole operation. The command was only interested in the result. It was just not possible for a man to walk such a distance on foot and return back unnoticed with a captured prisoner. For a wolf, though, covering the distance was a matter of maybe four hours. My father and three soldiers set off on the mission. Having turned into wolves at night, five hours later they were in the city occupied by Germans. Hiding at the road guarded by a patrol that went by every hour, they began to wait for a convenient moment to attack it. They needed weapons. There was an hour left until dawn, this time was quite enough. Among them was a wolf whose father was a shepherd, and therefore he strongly resembled a large dog, which they took advantage of. Seeing the patrol from afar, the wolf sat on the side of the road and, pressing his ears against his head and making a touching face, wagged his tail, just like a dog would.

“Look, Hans, a dog! Just like my shepherd!” one German said to another.

“Come here, I’ll give you a pat,” another German said.

The wolf, wagging its tail with increasing intensity, on half-bent paws, was getting closer and closer to them. A quick jump – and sharp fangs closed on the neck of the enemy. The second German fell next, his throat cut as if with a razor. Clutching their teeth tightly over the clothes of the dead soldiers, the wolves dragged them into the bushes about twenty meters from the road. Returning to his human form, my father praised his comrade:

“Cunning stunt, eh?” he said. Everybody smiled amicably and started waiting for the needed car. The Germans are very punctual people, so, appearing exactly five minutes later, the German driver could not drive over a huge dead dog lying on the road. All attempts to go around it on a narrow road failed, and the man, getting out of the car and wrapping up his sleeves, grabbed the animal by the hair, trying to pull him out of the way. Suddenly, the hair in his hands turned into air, and he received a strong blow to the head. The last thing he saw in his life was the terrible transformation of a dog into a man! At this moment, in the passenger compartment of the car, two scouts were rounding up a clueless German colonel. Immobilizing and gagging him, they led him to the front line through the forest. Having traveled more than half the way, they decided to have a rest in the dense woods. Having pulled a gag out of the mouth of a heavily breathing Colonel, they heard his words spoken in good Russian:

“Russians, they’ll get you. If you untie me, I guarantee your life,” said the Colonel.

“Fuck you,” – my father told him and they started waiting for the night to come. The Colonel listened, turning his head in all directions, apparently thinking that he would be found. He even tried to scream, confusing the sound of a running boar with his liberators. But, having received a good kick in the butt, he shut up! The hunters knew that a dog would never follow a wolf’s trail. The German shepherds, trained on concentration camp prisoners, cowardly pursuing their tails, refused to take a wolf track, leading their owners in a circle. As the night closed in, the scouts made drags from the trees, tied a shaking Colonel to them, and, having made two collars on each side of the belts, became wolves, got into harness and pulled the drags to the front line. With each meter, it became increasingly dangerous as, pushing themselves against the ground, they approached the neutral strip. Having almost reached a safe place, they heard the German "heil"! “What should I do now?” my father thought for an instance. And again it was their friend who saved the situation: barking, twisting his tail, and with an ingratiating face, he ran to the two Germans standing at the machine-gun post. One of them, stroking the wolf on the head, threw a stick, the wolf brought it and sat down, as if asking for rewards.

“What a smart dog,” – he said and went to the dugout shelter to get some bread. Emerging from the shed in two minutes – enough to drag the prisoner to the positions of scouts – the German saw his comrade lying with his throat cut. Screaming:

“Russians!” he rushed to the machine gun but it was too late.

The Colonel turned out to be very valuable prey for the command. All the scouts participating in the operation were awarded the Order of the Red Star, and my father – the Order of the Red Banner.

Having said this, the old Shaman fell silent and started lighting his pipe. Then he shouted something to a boy playing next to him, who in a minute brought a wooden box. The old man began to carefully take out rewards wrapped in a rag. There were more than twenty rewards in all, and all of them were combat awards.

“Yeah! These are only given for real feats of arms,” said Nikita and then asked:

“What happened to your father after that?”

“He returned from the war, he was guarded by very strong spirits. Twenty-four of his fellow hunters did not return home. But thanks to each of them, hundreds of fascists also did not return to their homeland. Now few people remember that war! But even in our taiga, we have a monument to our lost brothers. It was made by young people right at the foot of the waterfall, not far from the Shaman Stone. I will show it to you later. In the meantime, come along with me,” and, getting up from his seat, The Shaman led us to the dogs tied to the pillar. “Come closer, Alexander,” he said to me.

For some reason, I did not want to do this, but with my friends watching me, I took a few steps towards the dogs. The dogs stiffened and, sniffing the air, began to rush at me.

“And now you, come here,” he pointed at Nikita, who approached calmly and began stroking the dogs. “We don’t have that much time, Alexander, tomorrow morning will perform the rite,” said the Shaman and went to his yurt.

Part V

Already very tired by the evening, we wandered to our home. There were two hours remaining until midnight when I mentally felt that she was calling me. Grabbing a backpack and a rifle, I stealthily stepped outside and went in the direction of my girlfriend who was calling me.

“Nothing keeps me here anymore.” With these thoughts, I went to the river, where my pack was waiting for me. As if rejoicing at my decision, they clustered around me and asked me to follow. The wolves were running much faster than me, looking around from time to time to see if I was managing to keep up with them. After spending some time running this way, I saw a cave. Entering it and looking around, I began to turn into a wolf. All my brothers were nearby, and we ran to hound a deer for a future night feast. Used for centuries, the animal corral tactics were not giving wolves any results this time. And I, dividing the flock into two groups, began to drive the deer expelled from the taiga to the river, where there was nothing left for him but to jump into the water, where we got him right near the shore. Having eaten enough raw deer meat, my girlfriend ran to the cave, where she lay down and started talking to me. Her slightly rounded sides betrayed her pregnancy, the reason I felt good and calm.

“You’re not going away anymore, aren’t you?” she asked.

“No, don’t worry, I’ll stay for good now.”

“What a cool idea you came up with during hunting today. That’s human mind showing. People often take our leaders into their world; you are the first who voluntarily came to our world, abandoning the human one. Our cubs will be the smartest of all, ever. At first, the spirits did not know that you were a wolfman.

Neither did you actually know that. So they allowed me to get pregnant from you. This has never happened from others who have accepted the rite. They knew who they were, and the spirits did not allow them to give birth to a half-wolf half-human. Therefore, if a person had no children before the rite, he remained single and childless forever.

“Can a wolf turn into a man?” I asked the she-wolf.

“Yes, there are my fellow tribesmen among you, but there are very few of them. To do this, you need to kill a person, tear out and eat his heart. In your world, these creatures are called werewolves. They are very cruel killers and do not remember what they did at night. Spirits take away their memory immediately after they kill a man, so that they do not remember all our secrets and cannot use them against us. We, wolves, are guardians of spirits, the Shaman Stone and the place where they are. And if a wolf that has become a human remembers the healing properties of the stone and other secrets of spirits while being in his world, he will bring other bad people here and try to destroy our world and take away the Shaman Stone.

“But what about Nikita and German? What will the spirits do with them?” I asked her, preoccupied with the fate of my friends.

“As soon as your Moscow friend moves away from the stone for the distance of one day’s journey, he will immediately forget about everything, and Herman is one of the initiated.

Having heard so many new things, and mellow from such delicious meat, having buried my face in the soft side of my friend, I fell asleep soundly.

In the morning, Nikita and Herman, waking up and not finding Alexander, became very worried and ran to the Shaman. The old man sat in the same place and stared aloof, paying no attention to the agitated guests who entered his home. No matter how many words Nikita said to him, waving his hands, not one muscle moved on the old man's face. He was not here, he was talking to spirits.

“Let’s go,” Herman pulled Nick’s sleeve. Rapidly getting out, Nikita, ran for the satellite phone. Pulling the phone from his bag and dialing the editorial, he started explaining anxiously the whole situation to the editor. In response, the editor was saying that he could not hear him and, hell, what a shitty connection and all. Then Nick called home to parents, not telling anything bad to them in order not to disturb them, and the connection was good. Then again he tried several times to call the editor. Only now he began to realize that as soon as he tried to talk about the stone, wolves and other things happening here, the connection failed immediately. The guess that visited his brain knocked him out of his rut, and Nikita, having never felt discouraged up to this point, dropped his hands and he sat on a stone.

“They will not let us out of here alive, and Herman is one of them, he brings visitors from afar, and they turn them into wolves. Who will look for them after that!” From these thoughts, Nick's legs began to fail and the head ceased to think. “At least Sanka was turned into a wolf and me; they’ll probably just kill me for learning about their secrets.”

After these heavy thoughts, he became suspicious of everyone, including Herman. The Shaman, who approached without warning from behind, scared him to death.

“We all should go to Alexander, today is the last day when he can be brought back, so the spirits told me.”

“Didn’t they tell you where to go and to search?” Nikita asked mockingly. Turning his head, he did not see anyone. “Am I talking to myself?” he thought. Then Herman came up and said:

“The Shaman is calling. We are going to look for Sasha.”

Nikita had no choice but to go along with everyone. Taking a backpack, he dragged along behind the Shaman who was riding a deer. Herman followed in the rear. They walked for a long time, about four hours, stopping for a rest only once to drink tea. Arriving at the cave in which Alexander was supposed to be, the Shaman, having examined it, said:

“His wolf skin is not here. If he destroyed it, it’s over: we won’t be able to do anything,” he said, lighting his pipe and singing a song in Tofalar language. Suddenly, he ceased signing:

“It was the she-wolf who hid the skin,” he uttered and started climbing up the slope in a swift manner that contrasted with his age. Putting his hand into a crevice, he pulled the skin into the light.

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