People of the Tiger

Ihla’s counsin, Gresha, took us for a while in the forest a few miles upriver from Krasny Yar. It had never been harvested. We saw bear tracks and the dung of wild boar. We also so ant hills more than a foot tall. A hungry bear had smashed one of the ant hills. A vulture circuled above the tree canopy. On the way back to the village, Gresha stopped at a monument for a friend, who had drowned in the river on this day two summers ago. His body was never found. The monument was on the bank of the river near where he was last seen.