The boy and grandfather lived on a forest cordon. There were three women on the cordon: grandmother, aunt Bekei, the grandfather's daughter and wife of the main man on the cordon, the buster Orozkul, and the wife of the auxiliary worker Seydakhmat. Aunt Bekey is the most miserable in the world, because she has no children, and Orozkul beats her when she is drunk. Grandfather Momun was nicknamed the agile Momun. He earned this nickname by his invariable friendliness, his readiness to always serve. He knew how to work. And his son-in-law, Orozkul, although he was considered the chief, for the most part traveled around the guests. Momun went for cattle, kept an apiary. I’ve been working all my life from morning till night, but I have not learned how to make myself respect.

The boy did not remember either father or mother. I have never seen them. But he knew: his father was a sailor in Issyk-Kul, and his mother left for a distant city after a divorce.

The boy liked to climb the next mountain and look at Issyk-Kul through his grandfathers with binoculars. Towards evening, a white steamer appeared on the lake. With pipes in a row, long, powerful, beautiful. The boy dreamed of turning into a fish, so that only his head remained his own, on a thin neck, large, with protruding ears. He will swim and say to his father, the sailor: "Hello, dad, I am your son." He will tell, of course, how he lives with Momun. The best grandfather, but not at all cunning, and therefore everyone laughs at him. And Orozkul shouts!

In the evenings, the grandfather told his grandson a fairy tale.

***

... In ancient times, a Kyrgyz tribe lived on the banks of the Enesai River. Enemies attacked the tribe and killed everyone. Only a boy and a girl remained. But then the children fell into the hands of enemies. Khan gave them to the Pockmarked Lame Old Woman and ordered them to end the Kirghiz. But when the Pockmarked Lame Old Woman had already brought them to the shore of Enesai, a maral uterus came out of the forest and began to ask for children. “People killed my deer,” she said. “And my udder is overflowing, asking for children!” Pockmarked Lame Old Woman warned: “These are human children. They will grow up and kill your deer. After all, people are not just animals, they do not spare each other. ” But the deer mother entreated Ryabaya Lame Old Woman, and brought her children, now her own, to Issyk-Kul.

The children grew up and got married. The birth of a woman began, she suffered. The man got scared, he began to call mother deer. And then an iridescent ringing was heard from afar. The horned mother-deer brought a baby cradle on her horns - beshik. And on the beshik's bow, the silver bell rang. And immediately the woman was born. His first-born was named after the deer mother - Bugubay. From him went the clan Bugu.

Then one died richer, and his children decided to install maral horns on the tomb. Since then there has been no mercy in the Issyk-Kul forests. And there were no deer. Deserted the mountains. And when the horned mother-deer left, she said she would never return.

***

Autumn came again in the mountains. Along with the summer for Orozkul, the time for visiting the shepherds and herdsmen departed - it was time to pay for the offerings. Together with Momun, they dragged two pine logs along the mountains, and therefore Orozkul was angry all over the world. He would settle in the city, they know how to respect a person. Cultural people ... And for the fact that he received the gift, then logs do not have to be dragged. But militia, inspection inspected the state farm — how would they ask where the forest came from and where. At this thought, anger towards everything and everyone boiled in Orozkul. I wanted to beat my wife, but the house was far away. Here, even this grandfather saw the deer and almost came to tears, as if he had met his brothers.

And when it was very close to the cordon, they finally quarreled with the old man: he all asked for a grandson, this walk, pick up from school. It dawned on him that he had thrown logs stuck in the river and rode off after the boy. It didn’t even help that Orozkul drove him on the head a couple of times - he broke free, spat out blood and left.

When the grandfather and the boy returned, they found out that Orozkul beat his wife and drove him out of the house, and his grandfather said he was firing from work. Bekei howled, cursed his father, and the grandmother itched that she had to submit to Orozkul, ask him for forgiveness, otherwise where to go on old age? After all, his grandfather is in his hands ...

The boy wanted to tell his grandfather that he had seen deer in the forest - they came back all the same! - Yes, my grandfather was not up to it. And then the boy again went into his imaginary world and began to beg the deer mother to bring Orozkul and Bekei a cradle on the horns.

Meanwhile, people came to the cordon outside the forest. And while they pulled out a log and did other things, Grandfather Momun minced behind Orozkul, like a faithful dog. The visitors also saw deer - it is clear that the animals were not frightened from the reserve.

In the evening, the boy saw a cauldron boiling over a fire in the courtyard, from which came the meat spirit. Grandfather stood by the fire and was drunk - the boy had never seen him like that. Drunk Orozkul and one of the visitors, squatting by the barn, shared a huge pile of fresh meat. And under the wall of the shed, the boy saw a deer-horned head. He wanted to run, but his legs did not obey - he stood and looked at the disfigured head of the one that had been the Horned Reindeer Mother yesterday.

Soon everyone sat down at the table. The boy was troubled all the time. He heard drunken people munching, gnawing, sniffling, devouring deer mother’s meat. And then Saydakhmat told how he made his grandfather shoot a deer: he frightened that otherwise Orozkul would expel him.

And the boy decided that he would become a fish and would never return to the mountains. He went down to the river. And stepped right into the water ...