Wolf Totem

18

Chen Zhen stirred the milk and meat porridge. The rising steam smelled so good that all the dogs were lined up at his door whining hungrily. The porridge was for the wolf cub.

Gasmai had taught him the secret of feeding puppies. "They need to be fed milk and meat porridge as soon as they’re weaned,” she said. “It’s a sure-fire way to get them to grow big and strong. What they eat the first three or four months after being weaned determines their growth patterns, especially their bones. If you miss that window, you won’t have big, strong dogs, no matter what you feed them after that. Well-fed pups can grow to be twice the size of poorly fed pups, which will never be decent wolf fighters.”

Once, when their team was hauling rocks to build a wall, Gasmai pointed to someone else’s squat, skinny dog with ratty fur and whispered to Chen, “That dog is from the same litter as Bar. Quite a difference, wouldn’t you say?” Chen found it hard to believe that two dogs from the same litter could be so different. “On the grassland, it’s not enough to have dogs of good breeding; you also have to feed them aggressively.” Chen took that to heart, attending carefully to what went into his cub’s stomach. He followed Gasmai’s puppy recipe to the letter.

Gasmai had added, “After puppies are weaned, a contest develops between women and wolf mothers. The wolves hunt ground squirrels, marmots, and lambs to feed their young and teach them how to hunt.

They’re good mothers. No stoves, no fires, no pots, so they can’t make meaty porridge for their young. But their mouths are better than the pots we use. They turn the squirrels and marmots into a soft, warm meaty mix with their teeth, their saliva, and their stomachs, just what their cubs need and like. They grow like weeds.

“Women on the grassland earn work points by taking the night watch with their dogs, which is why they must be even more conscientious, more hardworking than the wolf mothers. Lazy women raise mongrel dogs; good women raise big dogs. Look at a dog and you’ll know what sort of woman lives in that yurt.”

Chen had changed many of his habits once he’d taken on the responsibility of raising a wolf cub, and Zhang Jiyuan teased him by wondering when he’d become so industrious, so motherly. In fact, Chen felt that he took more care than either a wolf mother or Gasmai. By increasing the number of daily chores he did, he was given the go-ahead by Gao Jianzhong to take some cow’s milk, which he supplemented with a meat pulp. Milk was clearly inadequate for developing strong bones; additional calcium was essential, which he supplied by including shavings of soft bone in the meat. He’d even gone to the medical clinic at the pasture headquarters to get some calcium tablets, which he ground up and mixed into the meat, something that neither the wolf mother nor Gasmai could have thought of. Even the meaty porridge seemed insufficient to Chen, who added butter and salt, making it so fragrant that he himself was tempted to try a bowlful. But since there were also the three dogs, he swallowed hard and decided against it.

The cub was filling out, its belly tight as a drum after each meal, like the fat, squinty-eyed laughing Buddha. He was growing faster than an autumn mushroom, and was already half a snout longer than the puppies he was with.

The first time Chen fed the mixture to the cub, he was concerned the animal might turn his nose up at the millet in the mixture, since in the wild wolves fed only on meat. He was pleasantly surprised when the cub buried his nose in the bowl and gobbled up the fragrant, warm contents, snorting and rumbling until he licked the bowl clean and, finally, raised his head. Chen later discovered that the cub would only eat millet when there was plenty of meat and milk mixed in with it.

The porridge had cooled off, so Chen placed the bowl on a rack just inside the door, opened it a crack, slipped out, and quickly shut it behind him. All the dogs in the area, except for Erlang, rushed up. Yellow and Yir stood and laid their paws on Chen’s chest; Yellow licked his chin to show his affection. The three puppies nibbled at his pant cuffs. But the cub stormed the door, buried his nose in the crack, and greedily sniffed the porridge inside the yurt. He clawed at the door frame, trying to get in.

The last thing Chen wanted was to put any of the animals ahead of the others. The cub was his favorite, but he was fond of the puppies as well, his puppies, and he couldn’t stand the thought of any of them being neglected. He wouldn’t feed the wolf until he’d pacified the dogs.

Chen wrapped his arms around Yellow and then Yir, and twirled them in the air, rewarding them in the most intimate expression he knew. They responded happily by slobbering all over his chin. Then he picked up each of the puppies and lifted them high in the air. Once they were back down on the ground, he rubbed their heads, patted them on the back, and stroked their fur. All these were things he’d begun doing after taking in the wolf cub; prior to that, only when he felt like it would he show that sort of attention. Now, however, if he didn’t treat all the dogs the same, and they one day felt a sense of envy toward the cub, they might well turn on him and kill him. Chen had been surprised to learn that raising a wolf in a nomadic environment was like sitting on a powder keg, and that each day presented a challenge. At the time, everyone was busy with the birthing of new lambs, so there was little socializing among the herdsmen. Few knew that Chen had a wolf cub, and even those who had heard rumors did not come by to see for themselves. What would happen when the word got out? Riding a tiger was bad enough; getting off was worse. That went double for a wolf.

As the temperature rose, frozen winter meat was cut into strips and dried in the sun and wind. The bones, with shreds of meat that were covered with mildew and emitted a strange smell, were fine for late-spring dog food. Chen had a following of dogs as he headed toward the meat-basket wagon, Erlang out in front. He wrapped his arms around the dog’s massive head. Having grown more familiar with human behavior, Erlang knew this meant he was going to be fed, and he nudged Chen under the arm as a sign of thanks. Chen took a basket of bones down from the wagon, divided the contents in accord with the dogs’ appetites, and then ran back to his yurt.

The cub was still trying to open the door with his fangs. By this time, a month after his arrival, he was over a foot in length, and his legs were nice and straight; more and more, he was beginning to look like a wolf, especially now that the blue membranes had disappeared to reveal gray-yellow eyes, with pinpoint black dots in the center. His snout was longer and his ears were no longer catlike, having developed into triangles that stood erect above his head. He spent much of each day playing with the pups; but when no one was around and during the night, he was put back into his enclosure to keep him from running off. Even Yellow and Yir tolerated the presence of the wild addition, though they kept their distance. Whenever he went up to Yir and tried to find a teat, she flicked him away with her nose. Only Erlang was friendly toward him; nothing the little wolf did bothered him. He could crawl on the dog’s belly, he could jump all over his back and head, he could bite his coat and nibble at his ears, and he could relieve himself wherever he wanted. Erlang often licked the little cub, sometimes rolling him over on his back with his snout to clean his belly with his tongue, as if he were his own offspring. The little wolf had come to accept his surroundings and was happy to frolic with his puppy friends, even though his nose told him that this wasn’t his real home.

Chen picked up the cub, but no further intimacy was advisable when the little wolf was eager to eat. Chen opened the door and stepped inside, where he set the cub down in front of the stove in the light from the opening above, which he’d gotten used to. He turned to stare at the aluminum pan on the rack. Chen tested the porridge with his finger to see if it was too hot. It had cooled to room temperature, just the way the cub liked it. Wolves cannot handle food that’s too hot. The one time he’d been given hot food, he’d reacted by curling his tail between his legs, shuddering, and running outside to lap up the snow. It was only after Chen replaced the old pan with a new aluminum one that the cub would draw near to eat again.

Chen worked on the wolf’s conditioned reflexes by calling out, “Little Wolf, Little Wolf, food, food,” before each meal. The cub immediately leaped into the air, his reaction to the word food already stronger than the dogs’ reactions to commands. Chen quickly laid the pan down on the ground, squatted a couple of paces away, and pressed down on the edge of the pan with his spatula to keep the wolf from stepping on it and turning it over as he buried his snout in the food and gobbled it up.

Humans display that kind of gusto only during famines. This cub, though every meal was guaranteed, ate like a starving animal, as if the sky would fall if he didn’t bolt down every bite. Wolves eat without a thought for anyone else, and this one, true to form, did not display a hint of gratitude toward Chen Zhen, who patiently tended to his every need. To the contrary, at that moment he saw Chen as a mortal enemy intent on taking his food from him.

In the space of a month, Chen had drawn closer to the young wolf in a number of ways: He could rub him, hold him, kiss him, pinch him, carry him, and scratch him. He could carry him on his head, lay him across his shoulders, rub noses with him, and even stick his fingers in his mouth. But when the cub was eating, Chen didn’t dare touch him and could only crouch a safe distance away and watch. If he so much as moved, the cub would snarl, his black wolf hairs would stand up, and he would tense his hind legs, ready to pounce if necessary, quite prepared to kill. In order to change this behavior, Chen once reached over with a broom to stroke the cub lightly; before he knew it, the wolf had pounced on the broom, sunk his teeth into the sorghum stalks, and yanked it out of Chen’s hands. Chen backed up, shocked and more than a little frightened, while the cub, as if attacking a lamb, shook his head violently, tearing several stalks from the handle. Refusing to be deterred by a single incident, Chen tried the same thing several times more, with no change in the result; it was as if the cub saw the broom as its enemy, now a ruined enemy. Gao Jianzhong, who had recently bought the broom, was so angry that he knocked the cub over with the handle. In the end, Chen had to abandon his desire to touch the cub while he was eating.

Chen had prepared twice the usual amount of porridge this time, hoping there’d be some left over so that he could add a bit of milk and a little more meat, and feed it to the puppies. But when he saw how the wolf attacked the food, he knew that wasn’t going to happen.

Chen was given an opportunity to see how hard it was for wolves to survive on the grassland. In spite of their fertility, probably only one in ten cubs lived to adulthood. Bilgee said that Tengger sometimes punished the wolves mercilessly. A sudden storm that drops several feet of snow in a short period can kill off vast numbers of wolves, from cold or from hunger. A wildfire that blots out the sky can also wipe out vast numbers, burned or suffocated. Packs of starving wolves fleeing famine or natural disasters can slaughter half the local wolves. Few can survive the spring thefts of newborn cubs from their dens, autumn trapping, early-winter encirclement hunts, and the deep-winter hunts. The old man said that the grassland wolves are the descendants of hungry wolves. The original animals, which lived lives devoid of want, were subdued by hungry wolves fleeing from famine. The grassland had always been a battlefield, and those that survived were the strongest and wisest, the ones best suited to eating and fighting, animals who could eat their fill yet never forget what it was like to be hungry.

Chen discovered over time that grassland wolves held many sacred articles of faith where survival was concerned, of which the fight for food and independence were among the most fundamental. When he was feeding the cub, he never felt as if he were giving it life, as he did with the dogs. The wolf showed no gratitude, for he did not consider himself as being raised by a human and was incapable of reacting slavishly just because he saw his master coming with his food. The word raise was absent in the relationship between Chen and the cub. The wolf was his prisoner for the time being, not his ward. A unique spirit of obstinacy underlay his territorial nature; this knowledge sent chills up Chen’s spine, for he was no longer confident that he could successfully keep the cub and see him to adulthood.

In the end, Chen abandoned the desire to pet the wolf while he was eating and respected his noble natural instincts. He continued to crouch down a few paces away and observe the cub quietly, grateful for the lessons in wolf behavior.

The cub gradually slowed down, but even though his belly seemed about to burst, he kept his head buried in the bowl and continued eating. Chen saw that when the cub’s basic appetite was satisfied, he began picking and choosing, starting with the strips of meat and ending with the last little bits, his tongue like tweezers, picking up every little piece until all that remained of a once meaty porridge was a bowl of light yellow millet-no more meat, no more bone, no more fat, just grain. And still he didn’t look up. He was concentrating on the milk at the bottom, since that too was a favorite food. When he finally looked up, only dry kernels of tasteless, odorless millet remained. Chen laughed out loud. When it came to food, the little wolf was very shrewd.

Chen had no choice but to add a little meat, the remaining milk, and a bit of warm water, stir it into a soupy mix, and take it outside, where he poured it into the dog bowls. The dogs rushed up hungrily but immediately whined their disappointment, and Chen was made pointedly aware of the obligations of livestock raising, of which caring for dogs is an essential component.

The cub, so stuffed he could barely move, sprawled on the floor and gazed outside, where the dogs were finishing off his leftovers. Chen went up and called out to him: “Little Wolf, Little Wolf.” He just rolled over, legs held in close, belly sticking up, and head on the ground, where he looked at Chen, a mischievous glint in his eyes. Chen picked him up and lifted him high in the air, five or six times, frightening and delighting him simultaneously. His mouth was open, but his hind legs pressed against his tail and trembled. By now the cub seemed to be getting used to this game, recognizing it as a friendly gesture. Chen laid the cub on top of his head, then on his shoulder, where the still-frightened cub dug his claws into Chen’s collar.

After bringing the cub back down, Chen sat cross-legged and laid him belly-up to give him a good rubbing, the way both dog and wolf mothers do to their young to help them digest their food. Chen enjoyed gently rubbing the little wolf’s belly and listening to him moan contentedly, burp occasionally, and pass a bit of gas. The wild animal at his food had become a well-behaved pet, grabbing Chen’s finger with his paws and licking it, even biting it playfully. The look in his eyes was gentle and at times-when the rubbing was most pleasurable-tinged with laughter, almost as if Chen were a surrogate mother.

The wolf was a handful, but an enjoyable one. Chen imagined a scene from antiquity or from some current distant spot in which a loving wolf mother licked the belly of her “wolf boy” after his feeding, and the cub grabbed his toes and giggled. A wolf pack surrounded the scene peacefully, even bringing meat to feed the little one. Throughout time, how many wolf mothers had raised infant children and how many humans had raised wolf pups? Chen found himself living out some of the marvelous tales of wolves he had heard over the years, and he was able to both sense and actually touch the warm, gentle side of wolf nature. Deeply moved, he wished he could repay the respect the world of humans felt for these wolf boys, be they Hun, Gaoju, Turk, Roman, Indian, or Soviet. He bent down to touch the cub’s wet nose with his own; like a dog, the wolf licked his chin, which pleased and excited him. It was the first time the cub had shown any trust in him. They were growing closer emotionally, and he wanted to savor everything this pure, innocent friendship offered. He fantasized that his own life had begun to stretch back into antiquity, and he felt unimaginably old.

The one thing that nagged at him was that the wolf had not been orphaned or abandoned; raising an animal under those conditions constituted a natural, primitive love. He, on the other hand, had stolen his cub from its den, an entirely selfish act intended to satisfy a desire for novelty and for study. His story was not a patch on the stirring tales of humans and wolves that had been passed down through the ages. The thought that the mother would one day come to seek revenge was never far from his mind. His impulses had not been noble; rather, he had acted in the name of scientific and cultural progress. He hoped Tengger would understand this callousness and new savagery-for what he wanted was to enter the wolf totem realm of the grassland people.

After eating his portion of the food, Erlang walked slowly over to Chen. Every time he saw Chen stroking the wolf cub, he came up to watch inquisitively, and sometimes he licked the cub’s bulging belly. Chen rubbed Erlang’s head; the dog smiled at his master. Ever since Chen had taken in the wolf cub, the distance between him and Erlang had shrunk dramatically. Was there a bit of the wolf in him too, something Erlang had sniffed out? He suddenly saw how intriguing his situation had become-for here were a man with wolfish characteristics, a dog with a wolfish nature, and a genuine wolf all living together on the grassland. His life had suddenly become more exceptional than the stories of wolf boys.

Since becoming bewitched by the grassland wolves, Chen felt that his already listless, weary blood had weakened further and that what seemed to be alien wolf blood had begun to flow in his veins. His view of life had altered-he treasured it even as it became more vigorous and fulfilling. He now understood why Jack London’s story “Love of Life” was tied up with a dying wolf, why when Lenin was critically ill, he had asked his wife to reread it aloud to him. The Russian dictator had died peacefully, listening to the struggle between man and wolf. His soul may well have been taken to see that of Marx by a wolf totem that belonged to a different race. If even the truly great, with their astonishing vitality, come to the grassland-the land of the wild wolf, and its life force-then why not an ordinary man like him?

The cub began to squirm in Chen Zhen’s lap, a sign that he had to relieve himself. He also spotted Erlang and wanted to play with the big dog. So Chen let go, and the wolf bounded up and onto the ground, where it created a puddle of urine, then flew at Erlang, who happily sprawled on the ground to let all the pups climb him like a mountain. The wolf was first onto Erlang’s back, and then proceeded to knock away all the puppies that tried to follow, howling to any that would challenge him as king of the mountain. Two male puppies fought back, biting the wolf cub’s ears and tail, until all three tumbled off their mountain, with the puppies landing on top; they began biting the cub all over. He fought back angrily, legs flailing, sending dust flying. A moment later, Chen heard one of the puppies yelp in pain and saw blood on its paw. Obviously, the wolf was no longer just playing.

Chen picked the cub up by the scruff of his neck and carried him to the puppy, where he held the wolf’s nose up against the injured paw and rubbed it in the blood. It had no effect on the cub, who bared his fangs and showed his claws, sending the puppies scurrying in fright over to Yir, who first licked the bloody paw, then bounded over to the wolf and roared at it, ready to bite. Chen quickly scooped him up in his arms and turned his back to Yir, his heart pounding, dreading the possibility that someday one of the big dogs would kill his wolf cub. Raising a little tyrant like this with no cage or pen worried him. But first he needed to calm Yir down, which he did by rubbing her head. When he set the wolf cub on the ground again, Yir ignored him and led her puppies off to play by themselves. The wolf clambered again onto the back of Erlang, a fierce animal that was both tolerant and fond of the cub.

After he’d fed the animals, Chen cleaned out the wagon to move to the new pastureland. When he looked up, he saw Bilgee coming toward him on a wagon filled with wood. He jumped down, scooped up the wolf cub, and put him back in his burrow, quickly covering it with the wooden plank and setting the rock down on top. His heart was racing.

Yellow and Yir, tails wagging, rushed out with the puppies to greet the old man. Chen followed to unload Bilgee’s cart, take care of the ox, and lift down the old man’s heavy carpenter’s kit. Prior to every move to new grazing land, Bilgee came over to make repairs to the students’ wagon. “Papa,” Chen said nervously, “I can manage; you don’t need to come do that for us.”

“Manage isn’t good enough,” the old man said. “This is going to be a long trip, and there are no roads. It’ll take two or three days to get there. One wagon breaking down along the way will slow the entire brigade.”

“Well, at least you can go inside for some tea while I unload our wagon.”

“Your tea is too black for me.” Then, without warning, he walked over to the burrow. “Let me see your wolf cub,” he said darkly.

Flustered by this unexpected development, Chen tried to stop the old man. “There’s nothing to see,” he said. “Why not have some tea?”

“It’s been almost a month,” Bilgee said, his rheumy eyes glaring, “and still you won’t let me see it!”

“Papa,” Chen said somewhat desperately, “I’m raising it to breed a litter of wolf hounds… ”

The old man’s face showed how angry he was. “Nonsense!” he roared. “This is absolute nonsense. You might be able to get a wolfhound with wolves from somewhere else, but not Mongolian wolves. What makes you think a Mongolian wolf would mate with a dog? He’d just as soon kill and eat her.” As his anger grew, his goatee quivered. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you people lately. I’ve lived on the grassland for over sixty years, and this is the first time I’ve even heard someone suggest what you’re doing. Do you really think you can raise one of these? Alongside a litter of dogs? How can you speak of wolves and dogs in the same breath? Dogs eat people’s shit; wolves eat people. By eating shit, dogs are nothing but slaves to humans. But wolves eat human corpses to send the souls into the bosom of Tengger. Wolves and dogs, as different as heaven and earth, and you plan to raise them together? And if that wasn’t enough, you’re actually hoping to mate this one with dogs! If we Mongols wanted to mate your Dragon King to a sow, what would you Chinese think about that? You’d call it blasphemy! Well, what you’re doing is an affront to our ancestors. And to Tengger! You’ll pay one day, and so will this old man…”

Chen had never seen Bilgee so furious. The powder keg had finally exploded, blowing Chen’s heart to pieces. The old man was like an angry wolf, and Chen was afraid he might kick the rock and hurt himself or, worse, pick it up and crush the wolf cub with it. And he was getting angrier by the minute. “When I first heard that you were raising a wolf cub, I wrote that off as an example of how you Chinese students really don’t understand grassland customs, that you are ignorant of our taboos, and were just trying something new that you’d give up after a few days. But then I heard that Dorji was raising one too and that you planned to breed wolfhounds. You can’t do that! I want you to dispose of that cub right now, in front of me…”

Chen knew he’d really stepped over the line this time. No one had raised a wolf on the grassland for all these thousands of years. You can kill a warrior; you cannot humiliate him. You can kill a wolf; you cannot raise it. Now here was a young Chinese deep in the heart of the grassland, on Mongol ancestral land, where the inhabitants worshipped Tengger, a sacred place where they paid homage to their wild forebear, their master of wisdom, their war god, and the protector of the grassland, the wolf totem, and he was raising a wolf as he would a dog, a true outrage. If this had occurred in ancient times, he would be labeled a sinner, a pagan, and would surely have been drawn and quartered, his corpse thrown to the dogs. Even now, what he was doing ran counter to the national policy on ethnic minorities, an act that unavoidably incensed the grassland inhabitants. But what disturbed Chen the most was what this was doing to Bilgee, the elderly Mongol who had brought him into the mysterious realm of the wolf totem, and whose careful instructions had made it possible to steal the cub in the first place. He could hold out no longer, could not keep defending his actions. “Papa,” he said, his voice quaking.

The old man waved him off. “Don’t call me that!”

“I was wrong, Papa,” Chen said, pleading with the old man, “and you’re right, I don’t understand grassland customs, and I’ve offended you… Tell me, how do you want me to dispose of this poor little wolf?” Tears virtually gushed from Chen’s eyes, spilling onto the grassy ground where the cub had been playing happily only a short while before.

The old man, caught by surprise, could only stare at Chen, suddenly not sure what to do now. He knew that no matter what Chen said, the young man had been bewitched by grassland wolves. He was, after all, a sort of adopted half-Mongol son, and his fascination with the wolves far exceeded that of most Mongol youths. But now he’d done something the old man found intolerable. He’d never encountered anything like this before, and didn’t know what to do about it.

Bilgee looked up at Tengger and sighed. “I know you Chinese aren’t religious and that the soul means nothing to you. You’ve really taken to our wolves over the past couple of years, I know that, but you don’t know what’s in my heart. I’m old and getting frailer by the day. The grassland is a hard, cold place to live in, and we Mongols spend our whole lives here doing battle, like savages. Sickness takes its toll, and we don’t live long lives. I’ll be going to Tengger in a few years. How can you think of keeping a wolf that might one day take my soul up to Tengger and raise it with a bunch of dogs? That would mean that I’d committed a sin and Tengger might not accept my soul, but send it down to the dark, suffocating hell under the Gobi. If everyone out here treated wolves like slaves, the way you do, the souls of Mongols would be lost.”

“Papa,” Chen said quietly, defending himself, “I’m not treating this wolf cub like a slave. If anything, I’ve become its slave. I wait on it like I would a Mongol king or a prince. I milk a cow to feed it, I mix porridge for it, I cook meat. I worry about it being cold, or sick, or bitten by dogs or hit by people, or carried away by an eagle or by its mother. I haven’t been sleeping well lately, and Gao Jianzhong has begun calling me the wolf’s slave. You know I revere wolves more than any of the other Chinese. Tengger sees everything, Tengger is fair, Tengger won’t blame you for anything.”

This stopped the old man. He knew that Chen was being earnest with him. If Chen waited on the little wolf the way he would a deity or a king, then was that offending the gods or revering them? Bilgee wasn’t sure. Even though Chen Zhen’s methods ran counter to traditional Mongol customs, he had a good heart, and there was nothing the grassland Mongols valued more. The old man’s gaze softened; he was no longer an angry wolf. Chen hoped that with his wisdom and farsightedness, the old man would be willing to break precedent for a young Chinese man who truly valued the wolf totem and would spare the life of the month-old wolf cub.

Chen saw a glimmer of hope. He dried his eyes and took a deep breath. Forcing himself not to panic and to stay calm, he said, “Papa, the only reason I want to raise this wolf is to understand what they’re really like and how they behave. I want to figure out why they’re so formidable, so smart, and why the people revere them. You can’t imagine how much the Chinese hate wolves. We call the most malicious people wolves; we call sex fiends wolves; we say the greediest people have the appetite of a wolf; the American imperialists are referred to as ambitious wolves; and anytime an adult wants to frighten a child, he cries out ’Wolf!’ ”

Chen could see that Bilgee’s attitude had softened, so he mustered up the courage to soldier on: “In the eyes of Chinese, wolves are the worst, the most vicious, the cruelest things alive, but you Mongols revere them as if they were gods. You learn from them in life and feed them in death. But still, watching and studying wolves from a distance doesn’t tell me what I need to know. I figured the best way to do that was to raise a cub on my own, to observe it close up, to be with it every day. I’ve only been at it a little more than a month so far, and already I’ve seen incredible things I never saw before. These animals are truly worthy of reverence. But most of the students out here still haven’t changed their opinion. If they don’t understand wolves, just think of all the millions of Chinese who’ve never been out here. More and more of them will be coming, and if they really do manage to wipe out the wolves, what will happen to the grassland? It’ll be disastrous for the Mongols, but in the long run even worse for the Chinese. I tell you, I’m worried. I couldn’t stand to see the destruction of this beautiful grassland.”

The old man sat on the rock over the cub’s burrow and took out his pipe. Chen hurriedly lit it for him. “It’s my fault,” Bilgee said after taking a puff. “I’ve been a bad influence on you… But now what? I know you weren’t thinking of me when you decided to raise that wolf, but you have to think of Uljii and of the brigade. He lost his official position, and demerits were recorded against four horse herders. You know why, don’t you? They say it was because he came down on the side of the wolves, that he held off organizing a wolf hunt for too long. They also said that I’m an old wolf, the head wolf in the brigade, and that our Second Brigade is a wolf’s den. And now, at a critical moment like this, the brigade has a student who’s raising a wolf cub. Why aren’t students in other brigades doing that? Doesn’t that prove that you’ve been badly taught by someone in the Second Brigade. Wouldn’t you say you’ve handed them the ‘weapon’ they need?”

The look of melancholy in the old man’s eyes came to Chen in waves; the dejection in his voice increased.

“The mother of your cub will come one day,” he said. “That’s for sure. And she won’t come alone. Olonbulag wolf mothers protect their young like no others. They have an amazing sense of smell, and I predict that this one will find her cub one day. When she does, she’ll take her revenge on this camp. There’s nothing Olonbulag wolves won’t do, however evil, and this brigade doesn’t need another incident. If something terrible happens, Uljii and the other brigade officials will be down for good. If a wolf pack came after your sheep and killed great numbers of them, the cost of raising this wolf cub would be a huge loss of communal property, and there’d be no excuse. You could count on jail time… ”

A chill gripped Chen’s heart, which had barely begun to warm up. Raising a wolf in minority territory violated ethnic policy; doing it around a flock of sheep was just inviting the wolves to come, and that would be an indication that he had intentionally sabotaged production. If that somehow was tied to his father’s problem as a “capitalist roader,” which would definitely be in accordance with policy, that would implicate lots of other people. Chen’s hands began to shake; it was looking more and more as if he’d be sending the wolf cub to Tengger that day.

The old man softened his tone even more: “Bao Shungui is in charge now. He’s a Mongol who forgot his roots a long time ago. He hates wolves more than you Chinese do, and he won’t keep his job if he doesn’t hunt them down. Do you think he’ll let you raise this cub?”

Chen felt he had little hope, but he had to try: “Can you talk to him, tell him I’m raising it to get a better handle on how to deal with wolves? A scientific experiment.”

“You talk to him. He’s staying with me tonight, so come over tomorrow. ” The old man stood up, turned for a last look at the rock, and said, “Aren’t you afraid that when the wolf grows to adulthood it’ll attack your sheep? Or you? Or somebody else? Wolf bites are toxic; a man can die from one. I’m not going to look at it today after all; that’d just upset me. Come on, let’s work on the wagon.”

The old man didn’t say a word while he was repairing the wagon. Chen Zhen still hadn’t prepared himself emotionally for the possibility of having to kill the wolf cub, but he knew he mustn’t make things any more difficult for Bilgee and Uljii.

Chen and the old man finished repairs on two wagons and were starting on the third when the dogs began barking. Bao Shungui and Uljii rode up, Bao leading the way. Chen quieted the dogs. “Your wife said I’d find you here,” Bao said, “and this gives me an opportunity to see Chen’s wolf cub. The pasture revolutionary committee has decided to let Uljii stay with you. At first they wanted to send him to perform manual labor with the Capital Construction Brigade.”

Chen’s heart was racing. Word traveled across the grassland faster than a horse.

“Yes,” the old man said. “You did well for him on that.”

“The league leadership was excited to learn that you were opening up new grazing land. They view it as extremely important, and want it to be as successful as previous years. With that much added grazing land we can double the number of livestock, and that’s good news. You two took the lead on this, so I made a point of letting Uljii stay with you. That will make it easier for you to discuss things.”

“Uljii’s the one who took the lead. His heart is never away from the grassland.”

“That goes without saying,” Bao said. “I’ve already reported that to the leadership, and they hope Comrade Uljii will find a way to make amends for his errors.”

Uljii smiled weakly. “Let’s forget amends,” he said, “and talk specifics. The new grazing land is a long way from here, and moving is going to present lots of problems. The pastureland truck and two tractors with rubber tires should be assigned to the Second Brigade to help out. And we’ll need extra hands to clear a road.”

“I sent someone to call a meeting of brigade officials tonight. We’ll see what happens.” Bao turned to Chen. “Those two wolf pelts you sent up, I gave them to the tanner and had them delivered to my old boss. He was impressed that a student from Beijing could bring down such big wolves. He sends his thanks.”

“How could you tell him I killed them? The dogs did it. I can’t take credit for what they did.”

Bao patted him on the shoulder. “If they were your dogs, then you killed them. Authorities always get credit for their subordinates’ contributions. That’s one of the great traditions in our armed forces. Well now, let’s have a look at that cub of yours.”

Chen glanced at Bilgee, who held his tongue. “I’ve decided not to raise it after all,” Chen replied quickly. “It’s against the customs of the herdsmen, and dangerous to boot. Being responsible for a wolf attack would be too much for me.” While he was talking, he removed the rock and slid the plank away.

Down below, the cub was trying to climb up the side, but when the dark human silhouettes loomed above, it huddled in the farthest corner, wrinkling its nose and baring its fangs, even though it was quaking. Light shone in Bao’s eyes. “Hey!” he exclaimed. “He’s big! It’s only been a month, but he’s twice the size of the pelts from the other pups. If I’d known they were going to grow like that, I’d have let you raise the whole litter. When they reached adulthood we could have killed them and supplied enough pelts to make a fine leather jacket. Would you look at the coat on this one! It’s much fuller than a cub that’s still suckling.”

Chen frowned. “I can’t keep feeding it; it eats too much. A huge bowl of meaty porridge every day, and a bowl of cow’s milk.”

“Swapping a little millet for a fine pelt is a bargain. Next year, when the brigades are out looking for newborn litters, we won’t kill any of them, not until they’ve doubled or tripled in size.”

The old man sneered. “It’s not as easy as you make it sound,” he said. “This one was fed by a bitch at first. Where are you going to find enough bitches to feed all the cubs you plan to raise?”

Bao pondered that for a moment. “Good point,” he said.

Chen picked the cub up by the scruff of his neck. He struggled, kicking and clawing the air. As he set him on the ground, Bao reached down and stroked his back. “I’ve never touched a live wolf before. Nice and plump. Very interesting.”

“Chen Zhen,” Uljii said, “you’ve devoted a lot of care to this cub over the past month or so, that’s obvious. Wolves don’t grow that fast in the wild. You’re a better mother than its real mother. I’ve known for some time about your fascination with wolves, how you ask everyone to tell you what they know about them, but I never thought you’d actually raise one in captivity. I wonder if you might be going a bit too far with this.”

Bilgee stared at the wolf cub. He put out his pipe and fanned the last of the smoke with his hand. “I’ve lived a long time,” he said, “and this is the first wolf in captivity I’ve seen. I have to admit it looks like it’s in good shape. Chen Zhen is devoted to what he’s doing. But raising a wolf around a flock of sheep doesn’t seem right. If you ask the herdsmen, they’ll be against it, down to the last man. Now that you two are here, let’s hear what you have to say about this youngster’s plan to perform a scientific experiment.”

Bao Shungui seemed taken by the idea. “It’d be a shame to kill it now,” he said. “Its pelt isn’t big enough to be of any use. It’s taken a lot to raise an unweaned cub this long, so here’s what I think. We let him continue for the time being, as a scientific experiment. Chairman Mao said, ‘We study the enemy in order to defeat the enemy.’ I’d like to learn more about wolves myself, so I’ll come by regularly to see how he’s doing. They say you’re planning on breeding a strain of wolfhounds.”

Chen nodded. “I thought about it, but Papa says it can’t be done.”

Bao turned to Uljii. “Has anyone on the grassland ever tried it?”

“The herdsmen venerate wolves,” he replied. “They don’t use them to breed hybrids.”

“It’s worth a try,” Bao said. “That would be a true scientific experiment. If you can come up with a breed of Mongolian wolfhounds, you’d have something that would make Siberian wolfhounds puny by comparison. Mongolian wolves are the world’s biggest and fiercest, so any mixed animals they sire will be the best. The army would be interested in something like that. If this works, we won’t have to go abroad to buy dogs for them. And if the herdsmen had Mongolian wolfhounds to watch over the sheep, wolves would probably stay away. So if any of the herdsmen complain, just tell them it’s a scientific experiment. But don’t forget, safety first.”

“If Bao says you can raise the cub, then go ahead,” Uljii said. “But I’m warning you, if something goes wrong, it’s on your head. Don’t make things hard on Bao. I think this is risky, and you’re going to have to keep it on a chain for the safety of people and sheep.”

“That’s right,” Bao said. “Don’t let it harm anyone. If he does, I’ll kill him on the spot.”

Chen was so nervous his heart nearly leaped out of his chest. “Absolutely! ” he said. “But I have one request. I know the herdsmen won’t approve, so please help me out with them.”

“They’ll listen to Bilgee more than they will to me,” Uljii said.

“Ah,” the old man sighed. “I’m afraid I’ve led this youngster astray. I’ll have to do something, since it’s my fault.”

The old man left his carpenter tools with Chen Zhen, harnessed the ox to his wagon, and headed home, followed on horseback by Bao Shungui and Uljii.

Like someone who has just won a reprieve, Chen was excited and exhausted. He sat down weakly beside the wolf pen and held the cub in his arms, squeezing him so hard he wrinkled his nose and bared his fangs. Chen quickly rubbed him behind the ears to relax him. Shutting one eye, the cub closed his mouth halfway, his tongue lolling from the side, and pushed up against Chen’s hand. Then he lay out straight and moaned contentedly.