Yaks at the Crossing

The ford belonged to the yaks when I arrived and continued to belong to them for the better part of an hour. They drank, considered, drank again, occupying the crossing with the massive unhurried authority of animals wearing their own winter coats in July.

I stood at the distance their horns suggested and studied the etiquette of the situation, which is: there is no situation, there is only waiting. The Niva and I have learned this together. Mongolia is an extended seminar in the uselessness of impatience.

When they moved off at last, single file up the far bank, the water they left was cold and clear over the stones. I crossed in first gear, grateful, somehow, to have been delayed by something so calmly in charge.