Wolf Totem

8

Before Chen had dismounted, he smelled the meat cooking inside the old man’s yurt. Strangely, it didn’t smell like mutton, so he rushed inside. "Not so fast,” Bilgee barked. Chen stopped and immediately noticed that three sides of the floor covering were rolled up, and a new horsehide was spread out in the middle, on top of which lay seven or eight wolf traps. Steam rising from the pot filled the yurt with a rank odor; inside a black, oily liquid bubbled. Gasmai was on her knees next to the stove, her face covered with grimy sweat as she stoked the fire with dried dung. Her five-year-old daughter, Checheg, was playing with sheep bones, sixty or seventy of them. Batu, who was still recuperating at home, his face a patchwork of new skin, was polishing traps with Bilgee’s wife, Eeji. Chen sat down beside the old man.

“What are you cooking? Wolf traps?” Chen asked jokingly. “You must have strong teeth.”

Bilgee’s eyes narrowed when he laughed. “You’re half right. I am cooking traps, but my teeth are no good. If it’s good teeth you want, look at the traps. Good ones, wouldn’t you say?”

“But why are you cooking them?” Chen asked.

“To catch wolves,” Bilgee answered. “Let me test your sense of smell. What kind of meat is that?” Bilgee pointed to a bowl beside the stove. Chen shook his head.

“It’s horsemeat. I brought it back from the frozen lake. First I cooked a pot of horsemeat in water, and then cooked the traps in the soup. Know why? It’s how I get rid of the rusty smell.”

“I see!” Chen grew excited. “So that’s how you get the wolves to step into your traps. I guess we’re smarter than wolves, after all.”

The old man stroked his gray beard. “Not if you think like that. They have a keener sense of smell than dogs, and if there’s so much as a trace of rust or human odor, you’ve wasted your time. Once I cleaned my traps until there wasn’t a spot of rust anywhere. No wolves. Eventually, I figured out why. After setting the traps, I coughed up a bit of phlegm, and if I’d scooped it and all the snow around it up, that would have been fine. But I stepped on it, covering it with snow, and figured that would do it. The wolves smelled it out.”

“That’s incredible!” Chen said admiringly.

“Wolves are intelligent, they’re looked after by the gods, and they get help from all sorts of demons. That makes them a formidable enemy.”

Chen was about to ask about the gods and demons when the old man rose up on his knees to take a trap out of the pot. After Chen helped him fish it out, they laid it on a greasy gunnysack and put another one into the pot. The traps were so big and so heavy that he could only cook one at a time. “I had everyone in the family clean traps yesterday,” he said. “I’ve already cooked them once; this is the second time. And this won’t be the end of it. Pretty soon I’m going to brush on intestinal oil from a horse with hairs from its mane, then repeat the process. That’s when they’ll be ready to use. I’ll wear gloves and add dry horse dung when I set the traps. Fighting the wolves is like waging war. If you’re not careful, you’re lost. You need to be more meticulous than a woman, even more meticulous than Gasmai,” he added with a chuckle.

Gasmai looked up and pointed to a bowl on the rack. “I know how much you like my butter tea,” she said. “My hands are dirty, so help yourself.” Chen, who did not like stir-fried millet, was especially fond of Gasmai’s curds. He put four or five pieces in a bowl, took down a warm teapot, and poured a bowl of butter tea. “Papa was going to take Batu with him to lay traps, but Batu can’t go outside with his face like that, so Papa’s taking his favorite Han Chinese with him.”

Chen laughed. “Whenever wolves are involved, Papa can’t help thinking about me. Right, Papa?”

“Young fellow,” Bilgee said, “I think the wolves have got you in their clutches. I’m an old man, so I’m passing what knowledge I have on to you. Learn it well, and you’ll get your wolves one day. But don’t forget what I told you, that wolves are sent by Tengger to safeguard the grassland. Without them, the grassland would vanish. And without wolves, we Mongols will never be able to enter heaven.”

“Papa, since wolves are the divine protectors of the grassland,” Chen asked, “why kill them? I understand you agreed to the hunt at the headquarters meeting.”

“If there are too many of them, they lose their divine power and turn evil. It’s all right for people to kill evil creatures. If they killed all the cows and sheep, we could not go on living, and the grassland would be lost. We Mongols were also sent by Tengger to protect the grassland. Without it, there’d be no Mongols, and without Mongols, there’d be no grassland.”

“Are you saying that wolves and the Mongols protect the grassland together?” Chen asked, moved by what the old man said.

A guarded look came into the old man’s eyes. “That’s right,” he said, “but I’m afraid it’s something you… you Chinese cannot understand.”

“Papa, you know I’m opposed to Han chauvinism and that I oppose the policy of sending people here to open up farmland.”

The old man’s furrowed brow smoothed out and, as he rubbed the wolf trap with horse’s mane, he said, “Protecting the grassland is hard on us. If we don’t kill wolves, there’ll be fewer of us. But if we kill too many of them, there’ll be even fewer.”

An almost mystical truth seemed hidden in the old man’s words, one not easily grasped. Chen swallowed the rest of his questions, feeling a sense of uncertainty.

Once the traps were ready, the old man turned to Chen. “Come with me to set these,” he said. “Watch closely how I do it.” Bilgee put on a pair of canvas gloves and handed a second pair to Chen. Then he picked up one of the traps and took it outside where a light wagon was waiting. The bed was covered with a tattered piece of felt that had been soaked in the intestinal grease of a horse. Chen and Bayar followed with more traps; as soon as they were outside, the grease froze into a thin, oily coat, making the metal invisible. Once they were all loaded, the old man went to the side of the yurt and returned with a sack of dried horse dung, which he also loaded onto the wagon. Now that everything was ready, the three of them saddled up. But before they started, Gasmai ran out and shouted, “Chenchen, be careful with those. They can easily break your arm.” He assumed she was actually saying that for the benefit of her son.

As soon as Bar and some of the other big dogs spotted the traps, their hunting instincts kicked in, and they were about to run after them when Batu grabbed Bar by the neck and Gasmai wrapped her arms around one of the other dogs. Bilgee told them to stay. Then the three men and four horses trotted off toward the lake ahead of the loaded cart.

Clouds were pressing down on the mountaintops; a light snow was falling, velvety and dry. The old man leaned back to let the snow land on his face, where it quickly melted. Taking off a glove, he caught a bit more snow and rubbed it all over his face. “I’ve been so busy these past few days,” he said, “I forgot to wash my face. Snow does a decent job, and it feels good. My face gets smoky when I sit by the stove for a long time. The snow gets rid of the smell and makes the job easier.”

Chen washed his face with snow too, and then sniffed his sleeve. He detected the faint odor of sheep dung. “Will this smoky odor make a difference?” he asked.

“Not really. It’ll be gone by the time we get to where we’re going. Just remember, don’t let your coat or leather pants touch the frozen horsemeat and you’ll be okay.”

“Fighting wolves is tiring business,” Chen said. “The dogs kept exchanging howls with the wolves last night, angry howls, and I didn’t sleep a wink.”

“At home you Chinese get a good night’s sleep every night. But this is a battlefield, and we Mongols are warriors who are born to fight. People who need peace and quiet to sleep make poor soldiers. You must learn how to fall asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow and wake up the minute you hear a dog bark. Wolves sleep with their ears pricked, and at the first sign of danger, they’re up and away. You have to be like that too if you’re going to fight them. Me, I’m an old wolf.” He laughed. “I eat, I fight, I sleep, and I know how to cat-nap. Olonbulag wolves hate everything about me, and when I die they’ll chew me up, bones and all. I’ll get to Tengger faster than anybody. Ha ha…”

Chen yawned and said, “Students out here are beginning to suffer from nervous breakdowns. One girl’s already been sent back to Beijing. At this rate it won’t take many years before the wolves have sent at least half of us back down south. I’m not going to feed the wolves when I die. I want to be cremated.”

The old man was still laughing. “You Han are wasteful, and a whole lot of trouble. A man dies and requires a coffin, wasting wood that could be used to make a wagon.”

“I won’t need a coffin,” Chen said. “Just toss me onto a fire.”

“But a fire requires wood too,” the old man said. “Wasteful, really wasteful. We Mongols are frugal revolutionaries. Lay us out on a cart when we die, head south, and where the body bounces out is where the wolves get their next meal.”

“Are you saying that besides letting the wolves eat the body so that the soul can go to Tengger, it’s also to save trees? There are no trees out here.”

“Even more than saving trees, it’s important to turn meat-eaters into eaten meat.”

“Meat-eaters into eaten meat?” That was a new phrase for Chen, and thoughts of sleep vanished. “What exactly does that mean?”

“We grasslanders eat meat all our lives, for which we kill many creatures. After we die, we donate our meat back to the grassland. To us, it only seems fair, and it’s good for our souls when we go up to Tengger.”

“You’re right,” Chen said. “It is fair. If the wolves fail to drive me back to Beijing one day, I might just say okay to letting them eat me when I die. With a whole pack sharing one body, it has to be a quick meal, probably faster than cremation.”

This pleased the old man, but a worried look soon darkened his face. “In the past not many Chinese ever came to the Olonbulag. The seven or eight hundred inhabitants of the one hundred and thirty or forty yurts were all Mongols. Then came the Cultural Revolution, and a hundred of you students arrived from Beijing. You’ve been followed by soldiers and big wagons, with drivers, and now they’re putting up buildings. They hate wolves, except for the pelts, which they love, and sooner or later their guns will put an end to them. Then you won’t be able to feed the wolves even if you want to.”

“Don’t worry,” Chen said spiritedly. “When the big war comes one of these days, the atomic bomb will get us all, people and wolves, and no one will be feeding anyone.”

The old man made a circle in the air with his hand. "Atom…atomic bomb, what’s that?”

Chen Zhen did what he could, including gestures, to explain, but it was no use: the old man couldn’t comprehend it.

They’d nearly reached the northern edge of the frozen lake, where the horses had died. Bilgee reined in his horse and told Bayar to stop the cart and wait there. With two of the traps and a small spade, along with the bag of dried horse dung, he and Chen rode over to where the dead horses had lain. Stopping from time to time, he checked out the area. The dead horses, of course, had all been touched, and it was possible to see under the light blanket of snow where animals had sunk their teeth, that and the paw prints in the snow. “Have the wolves been back?” Chen asked.

The old man examined a few of the carcasses. “Not the big pack,” he replied. “Uljii was right when he said it was probably up north past the public road. They are masters at waiting patiently.”

“Then what about these tracks?” Chen said as he pointed to the ground.

“Mostly fox, plus the tracks of one female wolf. There must be several females up here who are staying with their cubs, all operating independently. He thought for a moment, then added, “I was hoping to catch the alpha males and some of the larger males in the pack, but with all these foxes around, that won’t be easy.”

“Have we wasted our time?”

“Not really. Our most important job is to trick the wolf pack, make them think that since we’re laying traps, we won’t bother to launch an encirclement attack against them. That way they’ll be back to finish off these horses. We’ll surprise them.”

“Any chance we could get a wolf in one of these traps, Papa?”

“You bet there is. Let’s set them for big animals, wolves not foxes.”

The old man circled the area twice before choosing a spot next to one of the carcasses. Chen dismounted and started digging in the snow, while Bilgee crouched down and scraped out a circle about a foot and a half across and a couple of inches deep with his little spade. He then gouged out a depression in the middle. After putting on the gloves smeared with horse grease, he laid his trap on the ice and stepped down on both sides to set the springs, like a pair of oversized tweezers, pulling the sides, with their pointed teeth, down flat on the ground. Then he laid a cloth pad, shaped like an embroidery frame, over the depression, but beneath the metal base of the trap. Finally he hooked a metal rod onto the pad.

With his heart in his throat, Chen watched the old man complete the dangerous, difficult job, setting a trap that could crush a man’s arm. Bilgee was breathing hard and drenched in sweat. He carefully wiped the sweat off with his sleeve, not wanting it to drip onto the dead horse. Now that Chen was on his first trap-laying trip with the old man, he was able to see how it worked. When a wolf stepped on the cloth pad, the weight would push down and release the metal rod from the hook. The springs would snap and close the serrated ends around the animal’s leg, breaking the bone and tearing the tendons. No wonder the wolves were afraid of the traps. If they hadn’t been frightened by the metallic sound of snapping traps, Chen would have died for sure during his earlier encounter with the wolf pack.

All that remained was to cover and disguise the trap. This too had to be done with extreme care. After catching his breath, Bilgee said, “You can’t cover this with snow, it’s too heavy, it’ll push the pad down. Also, if the sun comes out, the snow will melt, the metal parts will freeze, and the trap won’t snap shut. Hand me the horse dung.”

Bilgee took the sack, grabbed a handful of dried dung, rolled it into little balls, and spread it on top of the cloth. The airy dung gradually filled in all the gaps, and the pad stayed suspended above the trap; also there was no fear of melting snow. The last thing the old man did was hook the chain connected to the trap to one of the horse bones and told Chen he could cover that with snow. After he’d instructed him on how to cover all the exposed parts, he sprinkled a little snow over the dung and smoothed out the surface with a sheepskin until it appeared undisturbed.

A light snow continued to fall, quickly erasing all traces of activity. “How will the trap catch wolves but not foxes?” Chen asked. “I set the rod deeper than usual,” Bilgee replied. “A fox will be too light to spring the trap. But not a wolf.”

The old man surveyed the area again and paced off a few steps. “You do it this time,” he said after choosing the second spot. “I’ll supervise.”

“Why so close together?”

“A wolf can be merciless with its own body. If one of its legs is caught in a trap, it’ll chew it off and escape on three legs. By setting two traps, if I get a leg in the first one, the pain will have the animal running around in circles, pulling on the chain, and its rear leg could trip the second trap, which I’m setting at the far reach of the chain. If a front and a back leg are caught, even if it chewed them both off, it couldn’t get away.”

Chen felt his heart clutch and his hair stand on end as he tried to come to grips with the ruthlessness of the war between man and wolf. Both sides used cruelty to attack cruelty and cunning to thwart cunning. However much Chen hated the ferocity of the wolves, when he contemplated the sinister use of the cruel trap he was setting, his hands shook. The trap would be perfectly concealed alongside the irresistible temptation of a meaty horse carcass, where only the smell of horsemeat, horse grease, and horse dung hung in the air-no human or metal odors. In Chen’s mind, even the most cunning wolf would take the bait, suffer a broken leg, and wind up being skinned, its bloody, hide-less carcass thrown to the wild. He was reminded of all the Han armies, from the Zhou through the Qin, the Han, the Tang, the Song, and the Ming, that had been drawn deep into the grassland, thanks to beautifully executed traps, and annihilated. Mounted warriors in olden days had not relied on overwhelming numbers to sweep away advanced civilizations. The true defenders of the grassland had employed military prowess and wisdom learned from the wolves to protect their territory against the fire and steel, the hoes and plows lined up behind attacking Han armies. The old man spoke the truth, but Chen could not keep his hands from shaking.

Bilgee laughed spiritedly. “A little soft in the heart, I take it. Have you forgotten that the grassland is a battlefield, and that no one who’s afraid of blood can call himself a warrior? Doesn’t it bother you that those wolves wiped out an entire herd of horses? If we don’t use violent means, how will we ever beat them?”

Acknowledging the truth of the old man’s words, Chen breathed deeply and, despite his mixed feelings, scraped out a spot in the snow and ice. But as he was placing the trap in the indentation, his hands shook again; this time it was from fear over what could happen if he wasn’t careful with this, his first attempt. As the old man stood beside him giving instructions, he stuck his herding club into the trap’s gaping mouth; if it accidentally snapped shut, the club would keep Chen’s hand from getting caught. He felt a warm current throughout his body; with the old man standing by to help, he managed to stop his hands from shaking and laid his first trap without incident. As he was mopping his brow, he discovered that Bilgee was sweating more than he was.

“Young man,” Bilgee said after exhaling his relief, “you do the next one all by yourself. I think you’re ready.”

Chen nodded and walked back to the cart to get two more traps. Picking a spot by a second horse carcass, he carefully laid the third trap; then they each took two of the final four traps and set them separately, the old man telling Bayar to assist Chen.

The sky remained overcast as dusk settled in. After examining Chen’s work, the old man smiled and said, “You’ve concealed them well. If I were a wolf, you’d get me for sure. But it’s getting late. What do we do now?”

“Well, I’d say we use a broom to remove our footprints and count our tools to make sure we don’t leave anything behind.”

“You’ve learned a bit of cunning,” the old man said approvingly.

They began sweeping, from where they’d started all the way back to the wagon, inspecting their work as they went along. “How many wolves do you think we’ll catch with these traps?” Chen asked as he was putting away the tools.

“Don’t ask about numbers when you’re hunting. You won’t catch anything if you do. After the people do their job, they leave the rest to Tengger.”

They mounted up and, pulling the wagon behind them, rode off.

“Will we come back tomorrow morning to see how we’ve done?” Chen asked.

“We can’t go back, whether we get any or not. If we catch one, we need to give the pack plenty of time to see what’s happening. They’ll get suspicious when no one comes to claim their prey, and they’ll surround the dead horse site to figure out what to do next. The job we’ve been given isn’t to trap a few wolves, but to draw the pack out. No need for you to come here tomorrow. I’ll check things out from a distance.”

They made their way home in a good mood. Chen was thinking about a litter of wolf cubs and was planning to ask Bilgee how he should go about getting one, knowing it was a dangerous, difficult type of hunting that required exceptional skill, but was also one of the most important means of controlling the rampant growth of wolf packs. Wiping out one den of cubs meant one less wolf pack to worry about. But wolves call upon their highest powers of intellect and most ferocious skills in order to keep their young safe. Chen had heard tales of gripping adventure and lucky escapes regarding the theft of wolf cubs, and he was mentally prepared to take on the challenge. Two spring seasons had passed since the hundred or more students had come to the grassland, and none of them had single-handedly stolen a litter of cubs. Chen knew there was no guarantee that he’d be the first, yet he’d planned to accompany Bilgee as often as necessary to learn how it was done. But after the killing of the horse herd, the old man had no time for cubs, and all Chen could do was ask him to pass on his experience.

“Papa,” he said, “while I was tending sheep the other day, a female wolf took one of my lambs right under my eyes and carried it up to Black Rock Mountain. She must have a den up there, and I’m thinking of going back tomorrow. I was going to ask you to go with me…”

“I can’t tomorrow,” Bilgee said. “There’s too much to do around here. You say she went up to Black Rock Mountain?”

“Yes.”

The old man stroked his beard. “Did you follow her?”

“No. She was too fast for me. There was no time.”

“That’s good. If you had, she’d have led you on a wild-goose chase. They won’t return to their dens if they’re being chased.” The old man paused a moment. “She’s a clever wolf,” he said. “Last spring the production teams found three dens with cubs up there, so this year no one’s going back. I’m amazed that a wolf would go there to have her cubs. You can go tomorrow, but take others with you, and plenty of dogs. Make sure you take brave and experienced herdsmen. I don’t want you and Yang to try it alone; it’s far too dangerous.”

“What’s the hardest challenge?” Chen asked.

“There are plenty of things to worry about,” the old man replied, “but finding the den is the hardest. I’ll tell you how to do it. Get up before dawn and find a spot high up in the mountains. Lie there until just before sunup, then scan the area with binoculars. After hunting all night, the wolf will be coming back to feed her cubs. If you see where she goes, that’ll be where her den is. Start a circular search with some good dogs, and you should be able to locate it. But then you’re faced with the difficult task of actually getting the litter, and that means dealing with an angry mother wolf. Be very careful.” His eyes became veiled. “If not for the loss of those horses,” he said, “I wouldn’t let you do this. Stealing wolf cubs is normally something old people on the Olonbulag are reluctant to do.”

Chen didn’t dare ask any more questions. Bilgee had been incensed over the decision to launch a large-scale raid on wolf dens, and Chen was afraid he’d stop him from going if he pressed the issue. And yet stealing wolf cubs required knowledge; since his goal was to raise a cub, not kill it, he’d have to move quickly, not waiting until the cubs were weaned and had opened their eyes. He planned to check with Batu, the best wolf hunter in the brigade. Still incensed over the loss of the horses, he would definitely share his experience with Chen.

Night had fallen by the time they made it back to the old man’s yurt. Inside, the rug had been restored to its original state; three lanterns in which sheep’s oil burned lit up the spacious yurt, and the squat table in the center was laid out with platters of fresh-from-the-pot blood sausage, sheep’s stomach and intestines, and fatty meat, all emitting fragrant steam. The stomachs of the three hardworking men growled. Chen took off his deel and sat at the table; Gasmai laid the platter of sheep gut in front of him, since that was his favorite, then picked up a platter of the old man’s favorite, sheep breast, and placed it in front of him. She then handed Chen a little bowl of sauce made of Beijing soy paste and grassland mushrooms; it was what he liked to dip the fatty lamb in. The condiment had become a staple in both yurts. Chen cut off a slice of meat, dipped it in the sauce, and put it in his mouth; it was so delicious he all but forgot about the wolf cub. What they called fatty sheep intestine, the finest meat available in the grassland, wasn’t fatty at all. About a foot in length, it was stuffed with strips of greaseless sheep stomach, small intestines, and strips of diaphragm. In short, while it was made of sheep parts that were normally discarded, it was a vital part of any Mongol banquet, crisp and chewy, fleshy but not greasy.

“You Mongols aren’t wasteful when it comes to consuming a sheep. Instead of throwing away the diaphragm, you turn it into a delicious dish.”

“When hungry wolves eat sheep,” the old man said with a nod, “they finish it off-fur, hooves, everything. When natural disasters hit the grassland, finding food isn’t easy, not for people and not for wolves, which is why every part of a sheep is consumed.”

“Then you must have learned how to eat sheep from the wolves,” Chen said.

They laughed. “Yes, that’s about it,” they agreed. Chen ate three more lengths of sheep intestine.

Gasmai laughed happily, and Chen recalled her telling him that she preferred guests who wolfed their food down. But knowing just how wolfish he must have seemed embarrassed him, and he dared not eat more. He knew how much Bilgee and his family liked this particular delicacy, and he’d already finished half of it. Gasmai cut off a piece of blood sausage and picked up another length of intestine with the tip of her knife. “I knew you wouldn’t be in a hurry to leave,” she said with a smile, “so I cooked two lengths of intestine. One’s for you, all of it, and I expect you to be like a wolf, no leftovers.” Everyone around the table laughed as Bayar reached up and took the second link from Gasmai. In the two years he’d been there, Chen had still not figured out what sort of relationship he should have with Gasmai. Elder sister-in-law seemed most appropriate, but sometimes he felt she was more like his own big sister, while at other times she was like a kindly old aunt or a perky younger one. Her happy nature was like the grassland itself-bighearted and innocent.

Chen finished off an entire length of intestine, which he washed down with half a bowlful of butter tea. “Bayar isn’t afraid of grabbing a wolf’s tail or crawling into a wolf’s den or riding a wild horse,” he said. “Aren’t you afraid that something will happen to him?”

“That’s how we Mongols are,” Gasmai said with a smile. “When he was young, Batu had more courage than Bayar. There was no adult wolf in the den Bayar crawled into, and since cubs don’t bite, clearing out the den was nothing to brag about. But when Batu crawled into a den, the mother was still inside. And he had the courage to drag her out.”

Amazed by this bit of news, Chen asked Batu, “How come you never told me? I want to hear it now, in detail.”

The laughter during the meal had lightened Batu’s spirits a bit, so he took a big swig of the liquor in his glass and said, “I was thirteen. Papa and some other men had just found a den after a long search. It was so big, so deep, there was no way to dig in far enough, so Papa decided to see if there was a mother wolf inside by smoking her out. But even after all the smoke had cleared, no wolf emerged, and we assumed the den was empty. So I took some matches and a gunnysack and crawled in to get the cubs. I was barely inside when I saw the wolf’s eyes, no more than two feet from me, and I nearly peed my pants. I lit a match and I saw that that scared her, her tail between her legs like a frightened dog. I lay there, not daring to move, but as soon as the match went out, she charged. I didn’t have time to back out, and I figured that was it for me. Imagine my surprise when I realized she wasn’t coming at me, but was going to jump over me to get out of the den. Well, I knew they weren’t expecting that outside, and I didn’t want the wolf to get to Papa, so I found the nerve somehow to straighten up and block her way. My head rammed into her throat, so I pushed up and drove her head against the ceiling. Now she couldn’t get out and she couldn’t get away. She clawed madly, ripping my clothes, but it was me or her, so I sat up straight, pinning her throat and head against the ceiling to keep her from biting, then reached out and managed to grab her front legs. Now she couldn’t get her teeth or her claws in me. But I was stuck too. I couldn’t move, and my strength was running out.”

Batu related his experience dispassionately, as if it had happened to someone else. “Meanwhile, the people outside wondered what was keeping me. Sensing that something was wrong, Papa crawled in and lit a match. There I was, pinning a wolf to the ceiling with my head. He told me to hold on and not move as he wrapped his arms around my waist and began slowly edging toward the opening, with me pushing up with my head and holding on to the wolf’s legs as it moved with us. Papa yelled for the people outside to grab hold of his legs and pull; they had no idea why until his body was halfway out the opening. They stood there with their knives and clubs, and as soon as we got the wolf to the entrance, someone jabbed a knife into her mouth and stuck her to the top, while the others ran up and beat her to death. Once I recovered my strength, I crawled back into the tunnel, which kept getting narrower, until it was barely big enough for a child. But then it opened onto a room where a litter of cubs was curled up on a chewed sheepskin with clumps of fur everywhere, nine altogether, all alive. To protect her litter, the mother had nearly shut the entrance to the room where they slept with dirt and kept guard outside. The smoke hadn’t killed her because she’d made small openings here and there to the outside. All I had to do was move the dirt out of the way, reach in and grab the cubs, throw them into my sack, and back out…”

Chen could hardly breathe as he listened. Apparently, the family hadn’t heard the story in a long time, for they too were tense. Batu’s story was different from others Chen had heard about taking cubs from a den. “People say a wolf will fight to the death to protect her cubs,” he said. “But not this one. Why?”

“Actually,” the old man said, “wolves are afraid of people, since we’re their only predators. This wolf had nearly been smoked out, and when she saw someone holding a lit match as he worked his way into her den, how could she not be afraid? She was a mature wolf, but I could see she was no more than two years old, and that this was her first litter. It was sad. It’s something no one would have brought up if you hadn’t asked.”

There was no smile on Gasmai’s face. Her eyes glistened from a layer of tears.

“Chen Zhen’s going up to the mountains tomorrow to get a cub,” Bayar said, “and I want to go along. He and the others are too big to crawl inside. I’ll stay in their yurt tonight and head out with them first thing in the morning.”

“All right,” Gasmai said, “go ahead. But be careful.”

“No!” Chen said, waving his hands. “Something might happen. He’s your only son.”

“This spring our group raided one den,” Gasmai said, “and we still owe them three. If we don’t deliver at least one more litter, Bao Shungui will punish us.”

“I don’t care,” Chen insisted. “I’d rather not go than take him with me.”

The old man pulled his grandson over. “You stay home, Bayar. I’m going to catch a big wolf or two, and instead of cubs, I’ll give them the pelts to meet our quota.”