Yerkebulan. A steppe story.

Yerkebulan. A steppe story by Galina Emelyanova.
...The steppe rarely gives back what people lose to it. On the ninth day, the authorities decided, "The boy was eaten by wolves." He could not have survived in the steppe for so many days alone... Batima went to a neighboring village to a seer who asked for beans and said - the boy is alive, but the spirits of the steppe would not return him yet.