Wolf Totem

33

You can tame a bear, a tiger, a lion, or an elephant, but you cannot tame a Mongolian wolf.

The cub would rather be strangled than move to a new place. The brigade’s cows and sheep left soon after dawn and the caravan of transport wagons, separated into sections, crossed a western mountain ridge on their way to the autumn pastureland. Those from the Section Two students’ yurt, with their six heavy oxcarts, had not yet started out, even though Bilgee and Gasmai had sent people twice to tell them to get on the road.

Zhang Jiyuan took time off to help them move, but he and Chen Zhen were helpless in dealing with the fiercely stubborn cub. Chen never dreamed that they would fail in the move after weathering so many storms with the cub over the past six months.

The little wolf had been a recently weaned cub no more than a foot long when they’d put him in a wooden box used for dry cow patties to move from the spring pasture. After a summer of voracious eating, he’d grown into a midsized wolf. They didn’t have a cage big enough for him now, and, even if they had, Chen would not have been able to put him in it; besides, there wouldn’t have been space. There weren’t enough carts to begin with. All six carts were seriously overloaded (the students’ books alone filled one cart) and ran the risk of overturning or breaking down on the long trek. Weather was the determining factor in choosing a date for the move; the brigade wanted to avoid the coming rains. Chen was in a tough spot.

Sweat beaded Zhang Jiyuan’s forehead. “What have you been doing all this time?” he grumbled. “You should have trained the wolf to walk with you.”

“How do you know I didn’t try?” Chen fired back. “I could drag him along when he was small, but that couldn’t last forever. All summer long he pulled me where he wanted to go, and if I tried to assert myself, he threatened to bite me. Wolves aren’t dogs; they’d rather die than change. Have you ever seen a wolf perform in a circus like a tiger or a lion? No animal trainer could manage that. You’ve been around more wolves than I have, you ought to know that.”

Zhang clenched his teeth and said, “I’ll try again. If it doesn’t work this time, we’re going to have to do something drastic.” He walked up to the cub, herding club in hand, and took the iron ring from Chen. As soon as began to pull on the chain, the cub bared his fangs and growled, staying glued to the spot by leaning backward and digging in with all four paws. Zhang pulled with all his might but couldn’t budge the little wolf. So he turned around and draped the chain over his shoulder to pull like a coolie dragging a boat on the Yangtze River.

He barely managed to move the cub, whose paws gouged tracks in the sandy soil, leaving two small mounds at the end. Unhappy about being dragged along, the cub shifted his weight forward and prepared to pounce, sending Zhang flying headfirst to the ground and covering his face with dirt. That dragged the cub even farther, and now man and wolf were a tangled mess, the cub’s mouth no more than a foot from Zhang’s throat. Terrified, Chen rushed up, grabbed the cub around the neck, and held tight. The cub was still snarling at Zhang.

Both men were gasping for breath, their faces ashen. “We’re in big trouble,” Zhang said. “The move will take two or three days, which means a round trip of at least five. If it was only a day, we could leave him here and come back with an empty cart. But the guard at the wool shed and the workers haven’t moved yet, and if we leave him here longer than that, either they’ll kill him or the corps wolf hunters will. We have to get him to move with us. How’s this? We’ll tow him along behind a cart.”

“I tried that a few days ago. It didn’t work. I just about strangled him in the process. Now I understand the meaning behind ‘unbridled wildness’ and ‘death before surrender.’ The wolf would rather be strangled to death than follow our orders. I think we’re stuck.”

“I can’t accept that,” Zhang said. “Why don’t you do it first with one of the puppies to show him?”

Chen shook his head. “I tried that too. Didn’t work.”

“Let’s try it again.” Zhang brought over a loaded oxcart, slipped a rope around the neck of one of the puppies, and tied the rope to the rear axle. Then he circled the wolf, the obedient puppy tagging along behind.

“We’re going to a nice place,” Zhang said as he walked, trying to win over the cub. “See, like this, follow the cart. It’s easy. You’re smarter than a dog; you know how to do this, don’t you? Here, take a good look.”

The cub stared at the puppy, his head held high out of disdain. Chen coaxed and cajoled, dragging the wolf behind the puppy a few steps, though it was actually he who was being pulled along by the cub, who followed because he liked the puppy, not because he wanted to do their bidding. After completing one revolution, Chen looped the iron ring over the shaft, hoping the cub would follow the cart. But the moment the chain was attached to the cart, the cub pulled against it with all his might, straining harder than when he was tethered to the wooden post and making the heavy cart creak.

Chen looked at the scene in front of him: not a single yurt or sheep left. Panic began to set in. If they didn’t get on the road soon, they wouldn’t reach the temporary campsite before dark. With so many sections and so many twists and turns along the way, what would happen to Yang Ke’s sheep and Gao Jianzhong’s cows if they were lost? How would the two men find a place to stop for food and tea? More dangerous yet was the night shift, when everyone was tired and they didn’t have the dogs around. If something happened to the sheep because of the cub, Chen would be criticized again and the cub would probably be shot.

Anxiety finally hardened Chen’s heart. “He might die if we drag him along, but he’ll surely die if we let him go, so let’s seek life in death and drag him along with us. You get the carts moving and let me have your horse. I’ll bring up the rear with the cub.”

Zhang sighed. “Obviously, raising a wolf under nomadic conditions is just about impossible.”

Chen moved the cart tethered with the puppy and the cub to the rear of the caravan. Then he tied the rope from the last ox to the shaft of the cart ahead of them. “Let’s go,” he shouted.

Since Zhang couldn’t bring himself to sit on the cart, he walked along holding the rope tied to the first ox. One after another, the carts started moving. The puppy followed as the last cart began moving, but the cub stayed put even when the three-yard-long chain was stretched taut. Gao Jianzhong had picked the best and fastest six oxen for the move. They had followed grassland customs by feeding the oxen nothing but water for three days. When their stomachs were empty was the best time to put them to work. So when they got under way, the cub was no match; he was jerked forward and fell head over heels before managing to dig his paws into the ground.

Startled and angry, he struggled, clawing wildly as he rolled around and got to his feet time and again. He’d run a few steps, then stop and dig in. But then, once they were on the path, the carts picked up speed. The cub stumbled and bounced around for a dozen yards or so before he was dragged backward, pulled along like a dead dog, the hard grass stubble scraping off a layer of his fur.

The puppy cocked her head to look at the cub sympathetically; she whimpered and raised her paws as if telling him to walk like her or he’d be dragged to his death. But, too haughty to act like a dog, the cub ignored her and continued to resist…

Chen could see that the cub would rather endure the pain and struggle against the chain than be led along like a dog. His resistance marked the fundamental distinction between wolves and dogs; between wolves and lions, tigers, bears, and elephants; and between wolves and most humans. No grassland wolf would surrender to humans. Refusing to follow or to be led was a core belief for a Mongolian wolf, and that was true even for a cub who had never been taught by members of a pack.

As the cub struggled, the road grit rubbed his paws bloody, a sight that stabbed at Chen’s heart. The wolf, a totem for the stubborn grassland people over the millennia, possessed spiritual power that would shame and inspire awe in humans. Few people could live according to that code without bending and compromising; fewer still would pit their lives against a nearly invincible external force.

These thoughts made Chen aware that his understanding of wolves was still incredibly shallow. For a long time he had thought that food, and hence killing, was the most important thing for wolves; obviously, that was not the case. He had based that assumption on his understanding of human behavior. Neither food nor killing was the purpose of the wolves’ existence; rather, it was their sacred, inviolable freedom, their independence, and their dignity. It was this principle that made it possible for all true believers among the herdsmen to willingly be delivered to the mystical sky-burial ground, in hopes that their souls would soar freely along with those of the wolves.

After four or five li, the stubborn cub had lost about half of the fur around his neck, which was now bleeding. The thick pads on his paws were rubbed raw, exposing the flesh underneath. Finally the exhausted cub could no longer roll over; now, like a dying wolf dragged along by a fast horse and a lasso pole, he no longer struggled. When drops of blood began to fall from his throat, Chen realized that the collar had opened a wound there. He shouted for the carts to stop and jumped off his horse, picked up the quaking cub, and walked with him in his arms for a yard or so to loosen the chain. His arms were quickly smeared by blood from the cub’s neck. Seemingly close to death, the cub continued to bleed; he scratched Chen’s hands with paws whose claws had been blunted from his ordeal and were now a bloody mess. Chen’s tears merged with the wolf’s blood.

Zhang Jiyuan was shocked to see the state the cub was in. Walking around and around, but not knowing what to do, he said, “How could he be so stubborn? Doesn’t he want to live? What do we do now?”

Chen had no idea what to do except hold the cub; the tremors nearly broke his heart.

“He won’t let us pull him along now, and he’s not yet fully grown,” Zhang said, wiping off the sweat on his forehead. “Even if we manage to get him to the autumn pastureland, we’ll have to move every month. How will we take him with us? I think… I think we ought to… set him free, here… and let him live on his own.”

Chen’s face was steely gray. “You didn’t raise him!” he shouted. “You don’t understand. Live on his own? That’s the same as killing him. I’m going to see that he grows to adulthood. I’m going to let him live.”

Fired by his determination, Chen jumped to his feet and ran over to the cart carrying cow dung and other odds and ends, where, puffing with anger, he untied the rope and moved the cart to the end of the caravan. Then he picked up a willow basket and dumped out half a load of the dry cow dung. He’d decided to convert the basket into a prisoner transport, a temporary jail cell in which to move the cub.

“Are you crazy? This load of fuel is how we’ll eat and drink tea on the journey. If it rains, we won’t be able to eat. And we’ll need dry dung for days after we get there. How dare you dump that just so you can transport the wolf! The herders won’t forgive you, nor will Gao Jianzhong.”

Chen quickly reloaded the cart. “I’ll borrow some from Gasmai when we get to camp tonight. Then when we get to the new pasture, I’ll go collect cow dung. Rest assured, you’ll have your meals and your tea.”

Having barely escaped death, the cub stood stubbornly on the ground despite the pain in his paws; his legs were still shaking, and blood continued to drip from his mouth, but he stiffened his neck and dug in his heels in case the cart started off again. He stared at it with a defiance that said he was prepared to fight to the death, even if his paws were rubbed raw, down to the bones. Chen crouched and laid the cub on the ground with his paws up in the air. Then he went for some medicated powder to treat his paws and neck. Seeing the blood dripping from his mouth, Chen took out two pieces of meat, spread the powder over them, and held them out to the cub, who swallowed them whole. Chen hoped the medicine would help stop the bleeding. He then retied the basket and rearranged the odds and ends to clear a space on the cart. After laying down a piece of untanned sheepskin, he tore off half of a felt blanket to use as a cover; the space was barely big enough to contain the wolf. But how was he going to get him into it?

Undoing the chain, Chen rolled up his sleeves and picked up the cub. But as soon as he took a step toward the cart, the cub began to growl and struggle. So Chen ran, hoping to toss the cub into the basket. Before he got there, however, the cub chomped down on his arm and wouldn’t let go. Chen screamed in pain and fear. He broke out into a cold sweat.

The cub did not let go until he was back on the ground. Chen shook his arm to relieve the pain. He looked down and saw that, while he wasn’t bleeding, there were four purple welts on the skin.

Zhang’s face was a ghostly white. “You’re lucky you snipped off the tips of his fangs, or he’d have bitten through your arm. I don’t think we can keep him anymore. When he grows up, even blunted fangs could break your arm.”

“Don’t talk about his teeth, okay? If not for that, I might have been able to return him to the grassland. Now he’s handicapped. How could he survive with fangs that can’t even break the skin? I maimed him, so I’ll have to feed him. Now that the corps is here, and they’re talking about settling down, I’ll build a stone pen for him after we settle, and there’ll be no need for the chain.”

“All right,” Zhang said, “I won’t try to stop you. But we have to find a way to put him on the cart and get on the road. Let me try, since you’re hurt.”

“I’ll carry him,” Chen said. “He doesn’t know you, and he could bite your nose off. Tell you what. You stand there with the felt blanket and cover the basket as soon as I toss him in.”

“Are you crazy? He’ll bite you, and hard, if you pick him up again. Wolves are ruthless when they’re that angry. He’ll go for your throat if you’re not careful.”

Chen paused for a moment. “I’m going to have to pick him up, even if he bites me. I guess I’ll have to sacrifice a raincoat.” He ran over to one of the carts and took out his army raincoat, with green canvas on one side and black rubber on the other. Then he took out two more pieces of meat to keep the cub busy while he forced himself to stop shaking, opened up the raincoat, and flung it over the young wolf. He quickly tightened his grip and carried the frantically struggling cub, disoriented and unable to see where to bite, over to the cart, where he tossed him in, raincoat and all. Zhang ran up and dropped the felt blanket over the basket. By the time the cub struggled out of an opening he’d made in the raincoat, he’d become a prisoner. After the two men secured the felt cover with a horse-mane rope, Chen collapsed on the ground, gasping for breath and drenched in sweat. The cub made a turn in his new prison, prompting Chen to jump up to be ready if the cub tore at the felt blanket or rammed his head against the basket.

The carts were now ready to set out, but Chen was worried that the flimsy willow basket would not be strong enough to hold an angry, powerful animal. He coaxed and cajoled, and even tossed several pieces of meat into the cage. After bringing the dogs back to the rear of the caravan to keep the cub company, he signaled to get Zhang moving. On one of the carts, Chen found a club, which he was prepared to bang against the basket to stop the cub from struggling if necessary, while he rode alongside to keep an eye on him. He fully expected that the cub would try to chew a hole in the basket to get loose from a prison far worse than any chain.

He needn’t have worried, for when they began moving, the cub stopped struggling; rather, fear showed in his eyes, something Chen had never witnessed before. Not daring to lie down, he lowered his head, arched his back, and, with his tail between his legs, stood staring at Chen, who watched as he grew increasingly frightened, to the point where he shrank into a ball. He wouldn’t eat, drink, growl, or bite; like a seasick prisoner, he’d lost the capacity to resist.

Shocked by this turn of events, Chen stuck close to the cart as they crossed a mountain ridge. The cub’s eyes seemed to show that his head remained clear, though he was clearly exhausted, his paws were injured, and his mouth was still bleeding. But he didn’t dare lie down to rest, as if out of an instinctual fear of the cart’s motion and of being lifted off the ground. After six months with the cub, Chen was still flabbergasted by his repeated, unfathomable behavior.

The caravan traveled fast but at a smooth pace. As Chen rode along, he was quickly lost in thought. How had the often violent cub suddenly become so fearful and weak? That was so unlike a grassland wolf. Do all heroic figures have a fatal flaw? Was it possible that the grassland wolf, which Chen believed to have evolved to the point of perfection, had a character defect? He turned his attention to the difficulties facing him in the frequent moves they would be making throughout the winter. The cub would be fully grown by then, and there simply wouldn’t be enough resources to transport him from place to place. No solution presented itself.

The oxen smelled the cows after they crossed over the hill and picked up the pace in order to catch up with earlier caravans some distance away.

As they were moving through a mountain pass on the edge of the summer pastureland, a light truck came from the opposite direction, trailing clouds of dust; instead of waiting for the carts to yield, it drove off the road and continued past them.

Chen saw two rifle-toting soldiers, some laborers from the brigade, and a herdsman in a thin deel. The herdsman waved; it was Dorji. Chen’s heart was in his throat again at the sight of the skilled wolf killer in a truck that had become infamous for killing wolves. He rode up to the front. “Is Dorji taking people to hunt wolves again?” Chen asked.

“There’s nothing around here but mountains, lakes, and streams,” Zhang said. “The truck would be useless in places like that, so how could they be going to hunt wolves? They must be going back to help move the storage shed.”

When they reached the grassland, a horse came galloping toward them from the caravan up front. They saw it was Bilgee, looking grim. “Was Dorji on that truck?” he asked breathlessly.

They confirmed that he was. “Come with me to the old campsite,” Bilgee said to Chen. Then he turned to Zhang Jiyuan. “You go on ahead with the carts; we’ll be right back.”

“Check on the cub when you can,” Chen whispered to Zhang. “If he gives you any trouble, don’t do anything till I get back.” He then galloped off with the old man.

“Dorji must be taking those people to hunt wolves,” Bilgee said. “These days, his skills have been in great demand. Since he speaks Mandarin, he’s becomes the wolf-killing adviser to the corps, leaving the cows to his younger brother. He takes people out hunting every day. He’s on great terms with the officials. A few days ago, he even helped one of the division big shots shoot several wolves. He’s their hero now.”

“How do they hunt when there’s nothing but mountains and rivers? I don’t get it.”

“When a horse herder told me he was taking them back to the old campsite, I knew what he was up to.”

“What?”

“He’s putting out poisoned bait and setting traps on the old campsite. The old, sick, and injured wolves are in such bad shape that they have to survive on leftover bones from the pack, or food left behind by people and their dogs. They go hungry half the time. So whenever the herders move to a new place, they look for food in the ashes and garbage at the old sites. They’ll eat anything, rotting sheep pelts, stinking bones, sheep skulls, leftover food, and stuff like that. They even dig up dead dogs, sheep, and cows. All the old herdsmen know this. Sometimes, when they’ve left something behind during a move, they go back to get it and see traces of wolves. As good-hearted believers in Lamaism, they know those wolves are in bad shape, so they’d never set traps or leave poisoned bait behind. Some even leave food for the old wolves when they move.”

The old man sighed. “It didn’t take the outsiders long to learn all about the old wolves. Dorji has followed in his father’s footsteps, by leaving dead sheep stuffed with poison and setting traps when they move. They go back a few days later to skin the dead or trapped wolves. Why do you think his family sells more pelts than anyone else? They don’t believe in Lamaism, and they don’t respect the wolves. They don’t mind using the cruelest means possible to kill them all, including the old and injured ones. See what I mean? Wolves could never be as evil as humans.”

With sadness brimming in his eyes, the old man continued, his beard quivering, “Do you know how many wolves they’ve killed lately? The wolves are so spooked that they don’t dare go out to look for food. I figure that even the healthy ones will go to the old site to look for food, now that the brigade has moved on. Dorji’s far more devious than wolves. If they keep killing them, no one here will ever again go up to Tengger, and the grassland will be doomed.”

Chen knew there was nothing he could say to heal the wounds of this last hunter of the nomadic herdsmen. No one could stop the explosion of the farming population or the farmers’ plundering of the grassland. Unable to ease the old man’s feeling, all he could say was, “Watch me. I’m going to remove every one of those traps.”

They crossed the ridge and headed toward the nearest campsite, seeing tire tracks left by the truck, which had already driven to the other side of the slope. They approached the site cautiously, not wanting their horses to get caught in a trap.

The old man checked the area and pointed to the cooking pit. “Dorji’s good at setting traps. See those ashes? They look as if the wind blew them over there, but in fact he sprinkled them over the traps. And he left two meatless sheep hooves near them. If those had any meat on them, the wolves would be suspicious. But meatless hooves are trash, just waiting to trick the wolves. He smeared his hand with ashes to mask the human odor before he set the traps. Only wolves with the keenest sense of smell could detect his odor. The old ones’ sense of smell has been dulled with age.”

Shocked and angered, Chen could say nothing.

Pointing to half of the carcass of a sick sheep, the old man said, “I guarantee you that sheep has been poisoned. I hear they got some powerful poison from Beijing. The wolves can’t smell it, but once they ingest it, they’ll be dead before you can smoke a pipe.”

“Then I’ll toss that carcass down an abandoned well.”

“There are too many campsites. You can’t do that in all of them.”

They got back on their horses and checked four or five sites. Dorji hadn’t left anything at some of the sites, but he’d set traps or left poison at others. He’d planned it out well, employing plenty of deception. He would alternate methods, leaving small hills between the camps, so that if a trap caught a wolf in one place, that wouldn’t affect the ones set in the next spot.

They also saw there were more sites with poison than with traps. He’d made use of the cooking pits and the ashes inside, which was why he could finish so quickly; he hadn’t had to dig fresh holes for the traps.

They had to stop there, or Dorji would have seen them. The old man turned his horse around as he muttered, “These are all we’ll be able to save.” When they reached a site where Dorji had worked, the old man got off his horse and walked toward a rotten sheep leg. He took out a small sheepskin pouch, opened it, and spread some grayish white powder over it. Chen knew exactly what he was doing. The stuff was low-grade animal poison sold at the local co-op; not very powerful, it had a strong odor that was effective only on the stupidest wolves and foxes. Dorji’s work would be in vain now that the poison could be detected by most wolves.

The old man is, after all, smarter than Dorji, Chen was thinking. But a question occurred to him. “What if the smell dissipates in the wind?” he asked.

The old man said, “Not to worry. The wolves can smell it even if we can’t.”

At places where there were traps, Bilgee told Chen to pick up some sheep bones and throw them at the traps to snap them shut. That was one of the ways cunning old wolves dealt with traps.

Then they moved to the next site and did not turn back until the old man had used up all his low-grade poison.

“Papa, what if on their way back they see that the traps have snapped shut?”

“They’re probably off to hunt wolves, so they won’t worry about these,” the old man said.

“But what if they come back to check the traps and see they’ve been touched? You could be in serious trouble for sabotaging the wolf extermination campaign.”

“Not as serious as the trouble the wolves will be in. Without them, the mice and rabbits will rule the grassland. Then, when the grassland is gone, they’ll be in trouble too. No one can escape it. I’ve managed to save a few wolves. We’ll just have to be happy with that. Olonbulag wolves, run for your lives, run over there. To be honest, I hope Dorji and the others do come back and see what I’ve done. I’ve got a score to settle with them.”

They reached the top of the ridge, where they saw several wild geese crying sadly and circling in the air, looking for their own kind. The old man reined in his horse, looked up, and sighed. “Even the wild geese can’t form a flock. They’ve eaten nearly all of them.” He turned back to look at the new pastureland that he had opened. Tears filled his murky eyes.

Chen was reminded of the beautiful paradise they’d found when he’d first arrived at the new pastureland with the old man. It had taken only one summer for the people to turn the lovely swan lake area into a graveyard for swans, wild geese, wild ducks, and wolves. “Papa,” he said, “we’re doing a good deed, so why do I feel we have to sneak around? I feel like crying.”

“Go ahead and cry. I feel that way myself. The wolves have taken away generations of old Mongol men, so why am I going to be left behind?” He looked up at Tengger with a tear-streaked face and wailed like an old wolf.

Tears streamed down Chen’s face, joining the old man’s tears as they fell onto the ancient Olonbulag.

The cub endured his pain, standing in the cage for two whole days. Chen Zhen and Zhang Jiyuan’s carts finally arrived at a gentle slope dense with autumn grass on the evening of the second day. Their neighbor, Gombu, was putting up his yurt. Gao Jianzhong had already released the cows onto the new pasture and was waiting for Chen and Zhang at a yurt site Bilgee had chosen for them. Yang Ke’s sheep were also approaching the new site.

Chen and his friends quickly put up their yurt. Gasmai sent Bayar over with two baskets of dry cow dung. After the two-day trek, the three friends could finally make a fire to cook and to boil water for tea. Yang Ke made it back before dinner, with a surprise for everyone-a rotten cart shaft he had dragged back with him, enough fuel to cook a couple of meals, which finally appeased Gao Jianzhong, who had been sulking over the dung that Chen had thrown away.

The three men walked up to the prison cart. When they removed the felt blanket, they were shocked to see a hole the size of a soccer ball in one side of the willow basket, made by the cub with his blunted claws and dulled fangs.

Chen looked closer and saw bloodstains on the chewed-up willow branches. He and Zhang quickly unloaded the basket, and the cub scrambled onto the grass-covered ground. Chen untied the other end of the chain and carried the cub up next to the yurt, where he sank the post, looped the chain, and placed the cap over it. The cub, after all the torture and shock, seemed to still be feeling the effects of the moving cart, for he quickly lay down in the grass. That way, his injured paws weren’t touching anything hard; he was so tired he could barely lift his head.

Chen grabbed hold of the cub and forced open his mouth with his thumbs. There wasn’t much blood from his throat wound, but one of his teeth was bleeding. Gripping the cub’s head tightly, Chen told Yang Ke to feel the tooth. Yang moved it back and forth. “The root’s loose, so the tooth is probably useless.” To Chen, it felt worse than losing his own tooth.

For two days the cub had struggled, causing a number of serious injuries to his body and ruining a tooth. Chen let go of the cub, who kept touching the bad tooth with his tongue, a clear sign that it hurt. Yang carefully applied some medicine to the cub’s paws.

After dinner, Chen prepared a basin of semisolid food, using leftover noodles, small pieces of meat, and soup. After it cooled off, he gave it to the young wolf, who gobbled it down. Chen could tell, though, that the animal was having trouble swallowing; it was as if something was stuck in his throat. Then he went back to touching the bad tooth with his tongue, soon began coughing, and spit out some bloody, undigested food. Chen’s heart sank; the cub not only had a bad tooth but something was wrong with his throat as well. But where would he find a vet who would examine a wolf cub?

“Now I understand something,” Yang Ke said to Chen. “The wolves are unyielding, not because the pack has no ‘traitors’ or wimps, but because the merciless environment weeds out the unfit.”

“This cub has paid too high a price for his wild, untamed nature,” Chen said sadly. “You can see what a person will be like as an adult when he’s only three, and what he’ll be like as an old man when he’s seven, but with wolves, it only takes three months to foresee an adult wolf and seven months to see into his old age.”

The following morning, when Chen was cleaning the wolf pen, he saw that the usual grayish droppings had been replaced by black ones. Startled, he quickly opened the cub’s mouth and saw that his throat was still bleeding. He got Yang Ke to hold the cub’s mouth open while he tried smearing some medicine on the wound with a chopstick and a piece of felt. But it was too deep for the chopstick to reach. They tried everything, all the home remedies, until they were both exhausted, regretting that neither of them had studied veterinary science.

On the fourth day, the color of the droppings started to lighten, and the cub regained his vitality. The two men breathed sighs of relief.