Peaks of Shala

by Rose Wilder Lane

“But you are from Scutari—we are all from Scutari—Cheremi, Rexh—and he asked us to his house?”

Perolli looked at us with scorn. We had been guests in the house of Sadiri Luka, he explained, with weary patience. If he had been twenty times a traitor to Albania, could a guest have killed him? And on the trail he had not carried a gun; no one could kill him, unarmed. He could go to Scutari in safety, if he went unarmed. But, of course, he would not do that, for that would be shameful. For two years he had been living in upper Thethis, unable to go to Scutari without risking his life, though he was a merchant, and poor, and could have made a business for himself in Scutari. But it had all been a mistake, said Perolli, which he would clear up.

Sadiri Luka had lost all he owned in Ipek when the Serbs came in. He escaped with only his rugs and the few pieces of silver we had seen. But his flocks, which were in summer pasture on the high mountains, had not been taken. Sadiri Luka had come back to his people in upper Thethis, and in the winter he had brought his flocks there. And in the spring he had sent them back to their summer pasture, now on the other side of the 1913 frontier. For this the price had been put on his head, as a traitor. How could his shepherds come and go with his flocks across the new frontier, guarded by Serbian troops, unless he were a traitor to Albania, unless he had secret dealings with the Serbs? For two years his sheep had got safely to their summer pastures and back again, while all the other flocks of Thethis had been taken by the Serbs or killed at home because there was no longer pasture for them.

The explanation, however, was quite simple. Sadiri Luka was a successful smuggler of his sheep. He explained to Perolli how he did it, for both of them knew by heart these mountains, which were strange to the Serbs. Once safely across the frontier, the flocks were comparatively safe, for the high plateaus where they grazed were uninhabited and hard to reach; so far, none but Albanian shepherds of Ipek had seen them there. Sheep, when they had no bells or lambs, were silent things, and the flocks were moved by night. Sadiri Luka said that, if he had reached Thethis in time, he could have saved all the flocks by smuggling them through the ways he knew; already his shepherds were taking with them the few lambs born in Thethis in the last two years.

There was no question that Sadiri Luka was a true Albanian. For the Serbs had relied on their possession of the pasture lands to starve the tribes on the border into treason to Albania, so that the frontier could again be moved forward. Sadiri Luka, with his flocks, could have been a powerful weapon in Serbian hands, an object-lesson to the people of the advantages of friendship with Serbia which would have been well worth paying for. But he preferred to risk his sheep by smuggling them. The price on his head had been a mistake. The chiefs of Thethis had already said this to Perolli, and talk with Sadiri Luka had convinced him that it was true. Therefore he was very happy, and sang along the trail.

But joy is not a lasting thing on Albanian trails. We had gone but a little way, perhaps half an hour, when the skies opened again. The water fell with such force that we feared we would be washed from our foothold, and, gasping and drenched, clutching bowlders and deformed trees, we struggled into the shelter of a leaning cliff. We had hardly reached it when around its corner came two women under loads of wood. One was old and withered, with a strange, sharp expression; the other, as she put down her burden and straightened her back, showed us a most beautiful face. The pose of her head was regal, her forehead and eyes and mouth struck the heart with their perfection of beauty and sorrow.

“You are a happy girl,” she said to Frances, after our greetings. “I have never before seen anyone so happy. Why do you come to our sad country?”

Frances said we came because we loved the Albanian people and wanted to know them better.

“We would bless the trails that led you to our house,” they said, and added, “but ours is a sad house.”

“Why?” we asked, and the old woman answered, while the younger stared into the sheets of rain that veiled Thethis from us.