Snow Leopard: Stories from the Roof of the World

10. Two Snow Leopards, My Father, and Me

— 83 — 011 Whenever people talk about snow leopards, I can’t help but think back to my childhood, to the story of my father and the two snow leopards he killed with his bare hands. My father, Abutalip Dahashof, was born into a Kazak family in 1913 in the high Altai Mountain region near the place where the borders of Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and China come together. By today’s standards, his family of nine lived simply and was poor. During the late 1920s the local people who lived in the Altai region of Xinjiang engaged in resistance against nationalist forces. One day in 1926 a bomb exploded in the doorway of my father’s family’s house, killing everyone except my father and uncle. At thirteen and four, respectively, they had no choice but to begin a wandering life, making do for their livelihoods as best they could. Many Kazak families migrated westward, some as far as India, Pakistan, and Turkey. My father and uncle, however, traveled eastward to Gansu Province, where they learned to herd livestock for a meager living. Through the kind introduction of others, my father met and Two Snow Leopards, My Father, and Me A l i A b u t A l i p D A h A s h o f ChinA—Much can change in a generation. A son admires his father’s heroic deed but finds a different path for himself. ( t r A n s l A t e D f r o m C h i n e s e b y r i C h h A r r i s ) A l i A b u t A l i p D A h A s h o f — 84 — married my mother. But the three were so poor that they could claim but a single sheepskin and a woolen rug as possessions. Under the newly established People’s Republic of China, some Kazaks in Gansu settled near two large lakes, Suhai Nor and Bulunyn Nor, near the border with Qinghai and Xinjiang. The new government provided most families with livestock to help them start herds. My father and others were given about fifty sheep, as well as a few cattle and camels. He settled in the Bulunyn Nor area (Aksai Autonomous Kazakh County), and within a few years his herd had increased more than fourfold. Life remained difficult for my father and others like him. On the edge of the beautiful but harsh Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, little precipitation and cold climate slowed vegetation growth. Summers barely warmed, and winter temperatures typically reached minus 34 degrees Fahrenheit. One particularly cold winter day my father had gotten up early, mounted his horse, and driven the sheep herd to the grassland pastures. The sheep suddenly stopped and refused to move any further. My father quickly rode to see what had frightened them. Almost immediately he encountered something hiding in the tall grass but was unable to make out exactly what it was. Then my father thought, “Ah, surely this is a wolf that has come to eat some of my sheep.” His first thought was wolf because the grazing area was a plateau marsh with no mountains, cliffs, or talus rocks— the natural habitat for snow leopards. He never considered that the sheep might be fearful of a large cat. He dismounted and approached cautiously. To his amazement, he found not one but two snow leopards. His sheep dog began to chase the two cats along the adjacent lakeshore, barking furiously all the while, with my father in close pursuit on horseback. The snow leopards eventually stopped running and turned toward the dog, glaring and baring their teeth. Seeing that this situation could end badly for his dog, my father whipped his horse into a gallop and quickly caught up to the animals engaged in the standoff. From his horse he managed to grab the long tail of one of the snow leopards from behind and began beating its head with his leather whip in the other hand until T w o S n o w L e o p a r d s , M y F a t h e r , a n d M e — 85 — it was no longer breathing. The second snow leopard, sensing that its life was in peril, fled the scene. It ran along the other bank of the lake with the...