Just an extract.
Eleven sheep are visible on the Somdo slope above the monastery.
….GS calls out to me, ``Why are those sheep running?`` and a moment later hollers, ``Wolves!``
All six sheep are springing for the cliff but a pair of wolves coming straight downhill are cutting off the nearest animal. In the hard light, the blue-gray creature seems far too swift to catch, yet the streaming wolves gain ground on the hard snow. Then they are whisking through the matted juniper and down over steepening rocks and it appears that the bharal will be cut off and bowled over, down the mountain, but at the last moment it scoots free and gains a narrow ledge where no wolf can follow.
In the frozen air, the whole mountain is taut; the silence rings. The sheep’s flanks quake and the wolves are panting; otherwise all is still, as if the arrangement of pale shapes held the world together. Then I breathe and the mountain breathes, setting the world in motion again.
