Wolf Totem

7

Most wolf hunts on the Mongolian grassland take place in early winter. By then, the marmots have begun their hibernation. Fatter and more nutritious than rabbits, marmots are among the wolves’ favorite foods. But once the marmots go down their holes, the wolves turn their attention to domestic livestock, forcing the pasture residents to launch counterattacks. At this time of year the wolves have new winter coats, supple, unmarked, bright, and thick. Pelts from this season command the highest prices. Early-winter wolf hunts were the primary source of income, outside of work points, for livestock herders, and an excellent opportunity for young hunters to display military skills and courage; they honed their scouting abilities, choosing the right place and time to fight. In the past, early-winter wolf hunts were used by tribal heads, barbarian leaders, khans, and Great Khans to train and drill their people. This tradition, passed down over the millennia, has been followed in modern times. Preparations for the hunt were completed after the first big snow of the year, when the tracks of wolves in the snow were the clearest. Even with their long legs, wolves cannot run particularly fast in fresh, wet snow, which gives the advantage to horses, whose legs are so much longer. Early winter, with its new snow, is the season of death for wolves, and the herders use it to repay the wolves for their arrogance and allow the people to take revenge for a year of hardships.

The customs of the grassland are understood by people, and by wolves. As this hunt would make clear, the wolves had gotten smarter in recent years, for as soon as the first snow settled on the ground, and the grassland turned from yellow to white, the wolves either crossed the northern border, went deep into the mountains to hunt gazelles and wild rabbits, or remained in the wild country once the snows had sealed up the mountains. They endured despite their hunger, getting through the days by gnawing on animal bones or the dried, rotting skins of earlier kills. Then, once the ground hardened, they became fast runners again and, sensing that the people had lost their fighting spirit, returned to plunder and loot.

At the headquarters meeting Uljii said, “In early-winter hunts over the past few years, we’ve brought back mainly half-grown and small animals, few big ones. So from now on, we need to be more like the wolves and abandon conventional tactics. We hunt when and where we feel like it and take them by surprise, stopping for a while, then hunting some more, winning the fight by being random and unpredictable. That way the wolves won’t be able to spot patterns and cannot guard against us. We don’t normally hunt in the spring, so I suggest we break with tradition and have a spring hunt, mounting a surprise attack. The pelts might not be as fine as those in early winter, but it’ll be a month before they begin to molt, and even if we don’t get the highest prices, we’ll be rewarded with an additional supply of ammunition.”

It was decided at the meeting that, in order to lessen the terrible impression left by the wholesale slaughter of horses, and to carry out orders from above to eradicate the evil Olonbulag wolves, all able-bodied headquarters personnel would be mobilized for a major antiwolf campaign. “Since it’s springtime, I understand that you’re all busy with the birthing of livestock, and that it won’t be easy to take you away from your work,” Bao Shungui said, “but if we do not take the offensive against the wolves, we’ll have failed to carry out our responsibilities.”

“It’s been our experience,” Uljii said, “that after a major battle, the main body of the pack leaves the area, since they know we’ll retaliate. I’m guessing they’re in the border region somewhere, and as soon as they think something’s up here, they’ll rush across the border. We need to wait awhile, at least until the horseflesh they gorged themselves on is only a memory, and they start thinking about all the frozen meat they left behind. The marmots and field mice haven’t come out of their holes yet, so there’s nothing else for the wolves to eat. They’ll risk a confrontation to return for more horsemeat, I’m sure of it.”

Bilgee nodded his agreement. “I’ll set some traps around the dead horses as a decoy,” he said. “The alpha male will spot the traps and assume we don’t plan to attack. When headquarters organized hunts in the past, they always took a pack of dogs along when they set the traps. This time we’ll set the traps before the attack, which will confuse even the smartest alpha male. If we catch a few of the wolves in the traps, the rest of the pack won’t know what to do. They’ll stare at the horsemeat from a distance, not daring to approach but unwilling to leave. That’s when we surround them. We’ll have them right where we want them, most of them anyway, and this time we’ll bag several alpha males.”

Bao Shungui turned to Bilgee. “I hear the wolves out here avoid places where there are traps or poison, and that older animals or pack leaders will leave tooth marks on poisoned meat to ensure that the females and the young eat only around the poisoned area. I’ve even heard there are alpha males that can drive a hunter crazy by removing his traps as if they were land mines. Is that true?”

“Not quite,” Bilgee replied. “The poison sold at the co-op has a strong odor, and if dogs can smell it, you know the wolves can. I don’t use poison, since there’s always the chance I’d kill the dogs. I prefer traps. I’ve got a special way of laying them so that hardly any wolf can sniff them out.”

Bao sensed that assigning Uljii, the commander of a cavalry company, to the grassland had been the right decision. Sending Bao as military representative had also been the right thing to do. He tapped his mug with his pen and announced, “Then that’s how we’ll do it!”

The order was given that no one was to hunt wolves north of the grazing land without headquarters permission, especially with rifles, which would frighten them off. Everyone was told to be ready to set out on a wolf extermination campaign at a moment’s notice.

People began choosing their horses, feeding their dogs, repairing lasso poles, sharpening knives, cleaning rifles, and readying ammunition. Everything progressed with a quiet rhythm, as if they were preparing to tend to birthing stock around the Qingming Festival, or to shear sheep in midsummer, or to bale straw at midautumn, or to slaughter animals in early winter.

Early morning. Clouds darkened the sky and pressed down on the distant mountains, shaving off the peaks. The Olonbulag seemed flatter than ever, and gloomier. Snow swirled lightly; the wind barely blew. Metal chimneys poking through the tops of yurts were like asthma victims struggling to breathe, releasing an occasional cough and sending puffs of smoke to settle on the ground around the snow-covered barracks that was dotted by animal droppings, patches of hair, and tufts of dying grass. The late-spring cold front was hanging on, giving no sign that it was ready to yield to warmth. Fortunately, the livestock still had a layer of fat sufficient to keep them warm until the snow melted and the grass sprouted with the coming of spring. New buds were close enough to the surface that sheep could get to them by kicking the snow away.

The sheep lay quietly in their pens, lazily chewing their cud, content to stay where they were. Three cold and very hungry guard dogs that had barked through the night huddled together and shivered in the doorway of the yurt. When Chen Zhen opened the door, the dog named Yellow stood up and rested his paws on Chen’s shoulders as he licked his chin and wagged his tail ferociously, begging to be fed. Chen laid down a big platter of bones. The dogs grabbed them and lay down, stood the bones on end, and began to chew and gnaw. Crunching sounds accompanied the gradual disappearance of the bones, marrow and all.

Chen also brought out some lamb from inside the yurt for the bitch Yir, a dog with a shiny black coat. Like Yellow, she was a hunting dog from the Great Xing’an Mountains, with a large head, a long body, long legs, a narrow waist, and short fur. Both were born hunters, fast, agile animals that could do considerable damage with their teeth. They were excellent foxhunters, especially Yellow, a well-bred, quick-learning dog with unique skills. He was never fooled by how a fox swished its bushy tail, but caught it in his mouth, then put on the brakes and let the fox strain to keep moving. By abruptly opening his mouth, he sent the fox tumbling in a somersault, its neck and abdomen facing up. Yellow had only to trot up and sink his teeth in the fox’s neck, and the hunter was presented with a flawless fox pelt. If they encountered a wolf, Yellow and Yir alertly, nimbly, and fearlessly engaged it, snapping and grappling, but always managing to avoid being bitten, buying time for the hunter and other dogs to catch up.

Yellow had been given to Chen by Bilgee and Gasmai. Yir had been brought over by Yang Ke from his landlord’s place. The Olonbulag residents always gave the students the best things they owned, and when these two dogs grew to adulthood, they outstripped their canine brothers and sisters in every respect. Batu often invited Chen and Yang to go hunting, mainly because of the two dogs. Just since the previous winter, Yellow and Yir had caught five large foxes. The fur caps Chen and Yang wore in the winter were gifts from their two favorite dogs.

Yir had a litter of six pups soon after the Spring Festival. Three were immediately spirited away by Bilgee, Lamjav, and one of the students. That left one female and two male pups, a black and two yellows. They were roly-poly animals, like little piglets but more appealing.

Yang Ke, cautious by nature, fawned over his dog and her pups. He prepared a meaty broth of millet and shredded lamb for Yir nearly every day, using up half the yurt’s monthly ration of grain, which was based on a Beijing standard-thirty jin a month per person: three of “fried rice” (cooked corn millet), ten of flour, and the remaining seventeen in millet. Most of the millet went to feed Yir, so the students had to model themselves after the Mongols by making meat the foundation of each meal. The herdsmen were given only nineteen jin of grain a month, all of it millet. Gasmai had taught Yang and Chen how to prepare food for a bitch with new pups. As a result, Yir had an abundance of milk, which made her pups hardier than those raised by the Mongol herdsmen.

The third guard dog was a husky black five- or six-year-old Mongol breed with a broad snout and wide mouth, a burly chest, and a long body, a male who roared like a tiger and was absolutely ferocious. He was covered with battle scars: black, hairless gouges on his head, chest, and back, all of which made him both ugly and fearsome. At one time there’d been a pair of yellow eyebrows above his eyes, but one of them was missing, lost perhaps to a wolf. Now it almost looked as if the dog had three eyes, and Chen called him Demon Erlang, after a fictional character in classical literature.

On his way back from a neighboring co-op one day, Chen had felt a chill on his back, something that made the ox up front jittery. He turned to look, and nearly fell off the wagon when he found himself face-to-face with an ugly, fiendish-looking dog the size of a wolf, his tongue lolling out of the side of its mouth. He tried to scare him off with his cow-herding pole, but that didn’t work, and the dog followed him all the way home. Several of the horse herders recognized the dog. They said he was a mean animal with a bad habit of attacking sheep. He’d been driven out by his owner. The herdsmen advised him to drive the dog away, but Chen felt sorry for him, and the fact that he could live with wolves and survive the brutal winters piqued his curiosity. There had to be something special about the animal. Then too, since moving out of Bilgee’s yurt and losing contact with the impressive Bar, Chen felt as if he were missing his right arm. “The dogs belonging to the students,” he said to the herdsmen, “are hunters, fast but young, and they lack the ferocity of a big dog like this, with experience guarding a livestock pen. I think I’ll keep him around and see how he does. If he kills another sheep, he’ll pay with his life.”

Two months passed, and Demon Erlang still hadn’t gone after another sheep. Chen could tell that the dog was fighting the urge by staying clear of the pens. “In recent years,” Bilgee said to Chen one day, “there’s been an influx of short-term laborers, and they’ve just about killed off the grassland population of wild dogs, which wasn’t all that big to begin with. They lure them into adobe houses, where they hang them up and drown them by pouring water down their throats. Then they skin and eat them. This dog looks like it barely escaped the same fate; it stopped its roaming and kept its wildness in check. Wild dogs aren’t afraid of wolves that eat sheep, but they are afraid of men who eat dogs.”

Demon Erlang guarded the sheep and drove off would-be attackers with his vicious barking, and he never shied away from a good fight; there were often traces of wolf blood on his snout when morning came. Winter passed, and few of Chen’s or Yang’s sheep had been taken off or killed by wolves.

There were times when Chen felt that Demon Erlang was more wolf than dog. The wolf is the ancestor of the dog. One of the earliest inhabitants of the northwest grassland-the Quanrong race-considered a pair of white dogs to be their original ancestors. The dog was their totem. Chen often wondered why the inhabitants of the grassland would venerate a domesticated animal-the dog-and he concluded that grassland dogs had been savage animals many centuries before, wild beasts whose wolfish nature had not receded, or wolves that possessed some of the characteristics of dogs. The dogs venerated by the Quanrong people might well have been a pair of white wolves. Was this ferocious animal he’d brought home one of those dogs with strong wolfish instincts? Or might it be a wolf with dog instincts?

Intent on getting close to the dog, Chen often squatted down to rub and scratch him, but there was hardly ever a reaction. To Chen the animal was an enigma, but that did not stop him from treating him well and learning more about him as he went along. Wanting to become his friend, he stopped calling him Demon.

As he waited for Yang and Gao to get up, Chen stayed outside to feed the dogs, play with the pups, and pat the expressionless Erlang.

The four Beijing classmates-one horse herder, one cowherd, and two shepherds- had shared a yurt for more than a year.

The horse herder, the perfectionist Zhang Jiyuan, tended a herd of nearly five hundred horses with Batu and Lamjav. Because their appetites were so large, the horses were taken into the mountains so that there would be no competition with the cows or sheep over grazing land. It was wolf country. The herders lived in a tiny felt yurt that slept two at a time; in their makeshift kitchens, they cooked on a small stove fueled by dried horse dung. It was a primitive, dangerous, and exhausting life with heavy responsibilities, which is why their status among the herdsmen was so high. It was the proudest occupation among people who spent so much time on horseback.

Lassoing horses is a graceful, skilled art that lends itself superbly to the martial art of catching and killing wolves. In order to change horses, for themselves or for others, or to cut their manes or medicate them, or to geld or examine or break them in, horse herders have to lasso horses nearly every day. Since ancient times, grassland horsemen have been experts in the use of the lasso pole; they thrust the long pole out ahead of them as they race along on horseback, then loop a rope at the far end around the neck of the horse they’re chasing. An accomplished horseman will hardly ever miss. When the target is a wolf, as long as the horse is fast enough to keep up, sometimes aided by hunting dogs, the success rate is about the same. The noose is tightened around the wolf’s neck; then the rider drags the animal behind it, either choking it to death or letting the dogs kill it. Wolves are rightly terrified of the lasso pole, and if they spot a rider carrying one in the daytime, they flee or hide in the grass. Perhaps that was why the wolves only fought at night.

The Olonbulag lasso poles were the most efficient of their kind Chen had ever seen. They were longer, more finely made, and more functional than the poles from other banners he’d seen in magazine photographs back home; the Olonbulag horsemen were justifiably proud of their poles. The northern part of the Majuzi River region is where a breed of fine warhorses, the Ujimchin, have been bred throughout Mongolian history. For Mongols, horses are not just companions, but comrades-in-arms; survival has demanded it. In this sort of existence lasso poles are essential. The Olonbulag poles are unusually long, very straight, and polished to a sheen. The poles-anywhere from ten to twenty feet-are made of two lengths of birch glued end to end. Chen had seen one that was nearly twenty-five feet long; naturally, the longer the pole, the easier it is to lasso a horse or a wolf. They are as straight as a bamboo pole with no joints. To make them that way, the horseman must plane away the knots and other natural imperfections. Then the pole is heated over burning cow dung; once the wood is pliable, it is pulled straight with a special tool. A thin rod about five feet in length is fastened to the tip of the long pole, with braided horse mane on the end. A virtually unbreakable noose is then added to the braid. Woven not of cowhide strips, but of sheep intestine, it is the only part of the lasso pole the horsemen do not make themselves, given the skill involved in its construction. They buy them at a special counter at the co-op. Once fresh sheep droppings have been rubbed into the pole with sheep’s wool until it turns from white to the color of manure, it is dried and polished with a cloth until it shines like old bronze.

When a horseman rides with his lasso pole out in front, the weight of the noose causes the end to sag slightly; it sways with the motion of the pole, rising and falling gracefully, snakelike, with the movement of the rider. Wolves have all seen their brethren throttled by one of those lasso poles, which they likely assume to be some sort of magical and fearful snake. During daylight hours, a lone rider out in the wilds or up in the mountains-man, woman, old, or young-can travel undisturbed if he holds a lasso pole, almost as if it were a safe-passage tally given by Tengger.

Experienced horse herders were allocated eight or nine fast horses apiece, not counting the wild animals that belonged to no one in particular, all of which they were free to ride. They rarely rode one horse more than a day and often changed mounts more than once a day. The last thing they worried about was tiring their horses; they proudly galloped everywhere. Whenever one of them visited a yurt, out came the requests for favors: to swap horses, to deliver letters or bring things back, to send for a doctor, or to pass on the latest gossip. They always received the most smiles from the girls, which drove other men, those with only four or five horses, mad with envy. For all that, herding horses was the hardest and most dangerous work on the grassland, and the production team chose only the hardiest, bravest, smartest, most resourceful and alert individuals to be horse herders, men who were not afraid to go hungry or thirsty, men who could withstand extreme cold and heat, men who had the constitution of a wolf or a warrior. Only one out of four had the good fortune of being chosen as a horse herder; the grazing land they patrolled was the front line of the war with wolf packs. Many of the wolf tales Chen Zhen collected had come from Zhang Jiyuan. Whenever Zhang returned from the grazing land, Chen brought him food and drink and treated him like a favored guest; then they would sit up talking about wolves half the night, occasionally arguing heatedly. Before heading back to his herd, Zhang usually borrowed some books.

Gao Jianzhong was a cowherd in charge of 140 animals. It was the least taxing of all the jobs on the grassland, and people were fond of saying that a cowherd would not trade jobs even with a county chief. The cows, which went out early and came back late, knew where the grazing land was and how to get home. The calves were tied by braided horse mane in front of the yurts, waiting for their mothers to return and feed them. Bulls, on the other hand, were a handful. They headed straight for the best grazing spots and were never eager to return home. The hardest job the cowherds had was rounding up stray animals. Stubborn creatures, if they didn’t feel like moving, the cowherd could beat as much as he wanted, and they would just straighten their necks, flutter their eyelids, and remain standing where they were. But the cowherds enjoyed more leisure time, so whenever one of the shepherds needed help, that was who they turned to. No yurt could get by without cows. They pulled wagons and moved belongings; the people drank and cooked with their milk, burned their dung, skinned them for their hides, and ate their flesh. All domestic matters were tied to cows. People who spent so much of their lives on horseback needed cows for the family. Cowherds, shepherds, horse herders, they all had their duties and were all linked together, each indispensable to the others.

Chen Zhen and Yang Ke tended a herd of more than seventeen hundred sheep, nearly all of them the Olonbulag bushy-tailed variety, famous throughout China. Their tails were as big as a small basin, the tail fat nearly transparent, plump and crisp but not greasy, the meat fresh and aromatic without having a strong muttony smell. According to Uljii, Olonbulag grass was the finest anywhere in the league, which made their sheep the best. In ancient days, they were given as tribute to the emperor, a favorite of Kublai Khan after he entered Beijing. Even now it is on the menu when national leaders hold banquets for Arab Muslim dignitaries at the Great Hall of the People, and, it is said, the leaders of these countries are more interested in the origin of the lamb than in national affairs. Chen Zhen wondered if the reason the Olonbulag wolves had such large heads and so easily outsmarted humans was that they often dined on Olonbulag mutton. A second variety in the flock was an improved sheep from Xinjiang, a hybrid created from breeding local sheep with the fine-haired sheep of Xinjiang. They produced great quantities of excellent wool, which commanded a price three or four times higher than wool from local sheep. The meat, however, was loose and gamey, and the herdsmen would not eat it.

Then there were the goats, not more than 4 or 5 percent of the entire flock. They did most of the damage to the grassland, the way they grazed, but the cashmere they produced brought a high price. On top of that, castrated animals were fearless. With them in the herd, lone foxes and wolves usually steered clear, not wanting to taste the sharp horns of the goats. For that reason, the role of lead animals went to the eighty or ninety goats in Chen’s herd. They knew where the grazing lands were, knew how to return home at night, and were choosy. When led out to lush grounds, they planted their feet and began grazing; if the grass was scarce, they quickly moved off. The goats were superior to the sheep in one additional respect: at the first sign of a wolf attack, they bleated, raising the alarm for the shepherds. The sheep, cowardly and stupid, would not make a sound even when the wolves were ripping open their bellies, and would passively accept the slaughter. Chen Zhen concluded that the herdsmen were experts at striking a balance, weighing the pros and cons of each animal, and accommodating them in the calibration so that the least harm and greatest benefits were achieved. The herders were superb at utilizing the strong points of every animal in the grassland.

Both shepherds worked together: one grazed the flock; the other kept watch at night. Ten work points were given for grazing the flock, eight for night watch. They alternated shifts and schedules. If one of them needed to be away, the other one could take both the day and night shifts, sometimes two days in a row. If the pen was in good shape, with good dogs guarding it, it was all right to sleep during the night shift, at least in the spring. But during the other three seasons, when they were on the move, away from the walled pens used for birthing, the sheep were kept within a semicircle constructed of wagons and large pieces of felt as a windbreak, but useless for keeping predators away. When wolves were on the prowl, the night shift made for hard, exhausting work, with no sleep, and constant rounds with a flashlight and a pack of dogs, shouting the whole time. The main goal of the night watch was to protect against wolves, Uljii said. Work points for night watchmen totaled roughly a third of all the points given out during the year. A major expense, thanks to the wolves.

Night watches were an important job for women on the Mongolian grassland. They stayed up all night watching the flock, then took care of their domestic chores during the day, which meant they seldom enjoyed a good night’s sleep. The people worked during the day; the wolves came out at night. The people were tired and sleepy, the wolves energetic and well rested. The wolves turned the people’s days upside down, beating down the women in one family after another, generation after generation. That was why the women in many yurts were often sick and died young, although the system also produced strong women who were not easily beaten down. Wolves multiplied quickly, while the number of grasslanders increased only slightly, which was why throughout history there had never been a large-scale land reclamation for the purpose of feeding the people. The wolves controlled the gradual development of the human population.

Sheep were the foundation of livestock farming in the grassland. They supplied meat for food, hides for clothing, dung for cook fires, and two sets of work points. They ensured a continuation of the nomadic lifestyle. But tending sheep was boring, wearisome work that tied people down. From morning to night, out on the green or snow-blanketed wilds, a man had only a flock of sheep to keep him company. If he climbed to a high spot and looked around, he would not see another person for miles in any direction. The weedy land attached itself to the lonely man like a disease. Chen Zhen felt old, very, very old. The grassland had not changed from time immemorial, nor had the nomadic lifestyle of its inhabitants; they continued to compete with the wolves for food, a merciless fight with no clear winner. The Olonbulag existed in a frozen time where the grassland had taken on an eternal ancient patina. Could the wolves have caused it?

For Chen Zhen there was one distinct advantage in tending sheep. Being alone gave him time to let his thoughts roam. The two cartons of books he’d brought from Beijing, plus the histories Yang Ke had brought, were just what he needed to mull over, like sheep chewing their cud, slowing digesting their contents. Every night he consumed the classics, old and new, under lamplight; in the daytime, he chewed on some of the finest examples of writing, domestic and foreign, as he watched over his flock. The aging paper of the book he was reading became as fresh and wholesome as the green grass. There were times when he would quickly read a few pages, but only after assuring himself there were no wolves in the area. People are out in the light; wolves stay back in the dark. The baying of wolves can usually only be heard from a distance. An idea that was never far from Chen’s thoughts had grown stronger in recent days: he was determined to find a wolf cub and raise it in his yurt, watching it day and night as it matured, hoping that familiarity would lead to greater understanding.

Chen Zhen was thinking about the female wolf that had taken one of his lambs a few days before and of the cubs that must be hidden in a den somewhere nearby.

He had just returned from checking the flock, and everything seemed normal. He lay down in the grass and stared fixedly at soaring vultures in the blue sky. Suddenly, he heard a disturbance among the sheep and jumped to his feet, just in time to see a large wolf holding a lamb by the neck. With a flick of her head, she flung her prey onto her back, held it there in her mouth, and ran along a stream up into Black Rock Mountain, where she disappeared. Normally, lambs will bleat in a crisp, shrill voice, and the bleats of one will get an immediate reaction from hundreds of others and their mothers, filling the sky with noise. But by sinking her fangs into the lamb’s neck, the wolf stifled the cry and was able to get away without disturbing the tranquillity of the flock. Hardly any of the sheep knew what had just happened, and maybe even the lamb’s own mother was unaware of what she had just lost. If not for Chen’s keen hearing and his alertness, he wouldn’t have known one was missing until he counted them that evening. As it was, he was as shocked as if he’d been the victim of a master pickpocket.

Once his breathing was back to normal, he rode over to where the lamb had been taken. There he discovered a depression in the ground. The flattened grass was all he needed to see to know that the wolf had not just come down out of the mountains; if she had, he might have spotted her earlier. No, she had lain in the depression, waiting for the flock to draw near before making her move. Chen looked up to see where the sun was in the sky. He calculated that the wolf had lain hidden for more than three hours. During that season, only female wolves would take a lamb in broad daylight, as a hunting lesson for her young cubs. Lamb was also the most tender, most easily digested meat for cubs that had not yet opened their eyes and were still suckling.

Seething with anger, Chen also felt lucky. In recent days, he and Yang Ke had lost a lamb every few days, and they wondered if eagles or vultures had carried them away. Thieves from the sky struck quickly, often catching the herders off guard long enough for them to fly off with one of the lambs. But an eagle swooping down out of the sky sent fright waves through the flock, which reacted with bleats that would not escape the shepherd’s attention. It was a mystery he and Yang had not been able to solve. Now that he had seen the wolf run off with a lamb and had discovered the depression in the ground, the mystery was solved. No more lambs would be lost to that trick.

No matter how guarded he was, Chen could not guarantee there would be no incidents. The wolves used tactics to fit a situation. While they lacked the wings of vultures, they were the true flying burglars on the grassland. Time after time they found ways to surprise people, always resulting in increased vigilance and the wisdom of hindsight.

Chen scratched Erlang lightly behind the ear, for which he received no sign of gratitude.

Snowflakes were swirling in the air when he stepped into the yurt and, together with Yang Ke and Gao Jianzhong, warmed himself by the stove, where dried dung burned. They drank tea and ate fatty meat and some curds that Gasmai had brought over. Since they had idle hours ahead, Chen tried to get them to go looking for a wolf cub. His reasoning, he believed, was convincing: Fights with wolves are inevitable, so by raising one of our own, we can get a better understanding of what makes them tick. Then we’ll know the enemy the way we know ourselves.

Gao Jianzhong, who was cooking meat, had a pained look. “Stealing a wolf cub isn’t child’s play,” he said. “The other day, Lamjav and some of the others smoked a female wolf out of a den when they were trying to steal a cub, and she nearly tore his arm off before three horse herders, one cowherd, and seven or eight dogs managed to kill her. The den was so deep it took them two days, working as teams, to get at the cubs. Even a sheep will defend her young. With a wolf, it’s a fight to the death. We don’t have a rifle. Do you expect us to take on a wolf with spades and herding clubs? Besides, digging up a wolf’s den is exhausting work. The last time I went out with Sanjai, we dug for two whole days and still didn’t reach the end. Finally we lit a fire and sealed the opening, figuring we’d suffocate the cubs inside. Sanjai said the mother wolf would know how to block off the smoke, and that there’d be a secret exit somewhere. By now you should know how wolves can trick us. The herdsmen say, ‘Wolf den, wolf den, empty nine times out of ten.’ The wolves move their dens all the time. If it’s that hard for the locals, what makes you think we’re up to it?”

Yang Ke, on the other hand, thought it was a great idea. “I’ll go with you,” he said. “I’ve got a pointed rod, sort of like a bayonet. I don’t believe the two of us can’t handle one female wolf. We’ll also take a chopper and some double-kick firecrackers. By hacking with the chopper and setting off the crackers, there isn’t a wolf alive we can’t scare off. And if we manage to kill one in the process, everyone will be talking about us.”

“Dream on,” Gao said sarcastically. “You need to be careful a wolf doesn’t turn you into a one-eyed dragon or give you rabies. That’d put an end to your scrawny life.”

Yang wagged his head. “Back at school, during the Red Guard faction fights, four out of the five members of our group were wounded. I came through without a scratch. So I know I’ve got luck on my side. Lamjav likes to say I’m a grass-eating sheep and he’s a meat-eating wolf. But if we go out and come back with a wolf cub, he won’t be able to say that anymore. I’d do it even if it cost me an eye.”

“Great!” Chen said. “You’re in? Don’t back out later.”

Yang banged his mug down on the table. “When do we go? The sooner the better. After this, maybe they’ll let us join their wolf-encirclement hunt, something I’ve dreamed of doing.”

Chen stood up. “How about as soon as we finish eating? We need to do some scouting first.”

After wiping his mouth, Gao said, “Gombu will have to watch the flock for you, and that means our yurt will lose a day’s work points.”

Yang replied snidely, “You’re so damned petty. What about that time Chen returned with a wagonload of gazelles-how many work points was that worth? You’re pathetic!”

Chen and Yang were saddling their horses when Bayar rode up on a big yellow horse. He told Chen that his grandfather, Papa Bilgee, wanted to see him. “It must be important if Papa sent for me,” Chen said.

“Maybe it’s about the hunt,” Yang said. “Go on. While you’re there you can get some hints on what we need to do to get one of those cubs.”

Chen jumped into the saddle. Since Bayar was too short to remount his horse on his own, Yang offered to give him a boost. Bayar said no. He led the horse over to the wagon, stood on one of the shafts, and climbed into the saddle. The two horses sped off.