Wolf Totem: A Novel (25 page)

After following the tracks Chen and Yang had made the day before for more than two hours, they arrived at the bramble-infested ravine. The spade was still stuck where Chen had left it, but there were fresh adult tracks on the berm. The rocks and dirt with which Chen and Yang had sealed up the entrance had not been disturbed; apparently the spade had frightened the female off. The dogs grew agitated as soon as they neared the sealed-up entrance, and began sniffing around; Erlang was restless, his eyes glowing with vengeance. Chen pointed to the nearby slope and called out, “Go.” The two dogs turned and followed the scents up the hill, each taking a different path, as the men went up to the second opening, where they found more fresh tracks. The seal there was also undisturbed. Dorji sent the others off to look for more openings, but before they’d made two turns around the area, Erlang and Yellow began barking off to the north. Abandoning their search, they turned and rode up the hill, Chen taking his spade with him.

When they reached the top of the hill, they spotted the dogs down below. Erlang was pawing at the ground and barking wildly; Yellow was helping. Dirt flew. “They’ve found the litter!” Dorji shouted as the four men rode down the slope, their horses nearly losing their footing on the loose rocks, until they were alongside the dogs, where they slid down out of their saddles. Instead of making way for their masters, the dogs kept digging; Erlang stopped every few moments to stick his muzzle in the hole, impatient to drag out whatever was in there. Chen walked up, wrapped his arms around the dog, and dragged him away. He was discouraged by what he saw: a hole no wider than a few inches had been opened in the ground, a far cry from the large dens he’d seen up to then. There was no berm, just some loose dirt covering the snowy surface, which the dogs had already trampled.

With a sneer, Gao Jianzhong said, “You call this a wolf’s den? A rabbit burrow is more like it, or home to some field mice.”

“Look closer,” Dorji said calmly. “This is a new hole. The dirt has been dug recently, and I’ll bet this is where she moved her cubs.”

Chen was not so sure. “Even a new hole would be bigger than this, wouldn’t it? How could an adult wolf squeeze through that?”

“It’s only temporary,” Dorji said. “Female wolves are thin enough that she could make it through. She’ll have left her cubs here and will have a new, permanent den somewhere else in a few days.”

“I don’t care if it’s a wolf or a rabbit,” Yang said, holding out the spade, “as long as it’s alive. We’re not going back empty-handed. Stand clear, I’ll start digging.”

Dorji went up and stopped him. “First let me see how deep it is, and whether or not there’s anything in it.” He picked up his lasso pole, turned it front to back, stuck the thick end into the hole, and moved it around. When it reached three feet or so he smiled. “There’s something down there,” he said, “something soft. Here, you try it.”

Chen took the pole and poked around. He too felt something soft and springy, and could barely contain his excitement. “There
is
something down there! There definitely is. Let’s hope it’s cubs.”

Yang and Gao each took turns and came to the same conclusion— there was something down there and it was alive. But none of them was quite willing to believe it was a litter of wolf cubs.

Dorji stuck the pole in as far as it would go, put his hand on it at the opening, and slowly pulled it out; he laid it on the ground following the direction of the tunnel below to determine the location of what they’d felt down there. He stood up, paced off the distance, and announced, “Dig here, but be careful; we don’t want to injure the cubs.”

Chen grabbed the spade away from Yang and asked, “How deep?”

“A couple of feet. The warmth from a litter of cubs is enough to soften the frozen earth, so don’t push too hard.”

After scraping away the snow above the spot, Chen placed the tip of the spade on the ground and gently stepped down, slowly increasing the pressure. The dirt caved in, and the dogs made a mad dash for the sunken tunnel, barking wildly. Chen felt the blood rush to his head, which began to throb. To him, this was more exciting than digging up a Han Dynasty tomb site, and brought a greater sense of accomplishment. In the midst of the fallen dirt, a litter of baby wolves, with gray coats and patches of black wolf hairs, came into view. “Wolf cubs! Wolf cubs!” all three students shouted after a moment of disbelief. Chen and Yang stood there immobilized.

“Why do I think I’m dreaming?” Yang said. “We really, actually got ourselves a litter of cubs.”

“Who’d have thought you two Beijing blind cats could stumble on a litter of Mongolian wolf cubs?” Gao smiled wickedly. “I wasted days preparing for a fight.”

Chen squatted down, carefully brushed the dirt off the cubs, and took a count. There were seven, each barely bigger than his palm, seven tiny heads snuggled up in a bunch, like a single, unmoving organism. Their eyes were partially open, covered with thin membranes, blue and moist, with little black dots in the center. “I’ve been looking for you for a very long time,” he said silently, “and now here you are.”

“These were born about three weeks ago,” Dorji said. “Their eyes are just about open.”

“Are they asleep?” Chen asked. “Why aren’t they moving?”

“Wolves are born sneaks,” Dorji replied. “All that barking and shouting a moment ago woke them up for sure. They’re playing dead. Pick one up if you don’t believe me.”

For the first time in his life, Chen was about to hold a living wolf in his hands, and he wavered. Picking one up by the ear, he held it between his thumb and forefinger. It didn’t move, its legs hung limply—no wolf-like reaction, no resistance, more like a dead kitten than a live wolf. Chen held it up so that they could all get a close look. He’d seen puppies that close before, and was immediately aware of differences between wild and domesticated canines. A puppy was born with a neat, glossy coat. But not a wolf cub. Granted, it had a coat of fine, soft gray fur, but mixed in were long, bristly, black wolf hairs. The cub’s head was black and shiny, as if coated with tar. Its eyes were only partially open, but its tiny fangs were fully formed, sticking out ferociously between the lips. Having been dug out of the ground, it carried the smells of dirt and wolf. No puppy ever smelled like that. But in the eyes of Chen Zhen, this was the noblest, the most treasured, the most beautiful little creature anywhere.

All the time he was holding the cub by the ear, it played dead, not moving a muscle, not making a sound. But when he touched its chest, he could feel the tiny heartbeat, frighteningly fast. “Put it down on the ground,” Dorji said, “and see what it does.” As soon as it touched the ground, the cub sprang to life and crawled as fast as it could away from the humans and the dogs. It moved like a windup car. Yellow was on top of it in two or three strides and was about to sink his teeth into it when all four men shouted for him to stop. Chen ran over, scooped up the cub, and stuffed it into his canvas schoolbag. Yellow glared angrily at Chen, a look that said he wanted to kill the thing to vent some of his loathing. Erlang, on the other hand, as Chen discovered, had just stared at the cub and wagged his tail.

Chen opened his bag, and the other men leaped into action, like boys out in the Beijing suburbs stealing birds’ eggs. Reaching and grabbing, they emptied the den of cubs, one at a time, holding them by the ears and dumping them into Chen’s canvas bag. After tying off the opening, Chen hung the bag from his saddle and prepared to head back.

Dorji looked around. “The mother is around here somewhere, so let’s take the long way around. Otherwise, she’ll follow us all the way to camp.”

The three students were suddenly aware that danger lurked nearby and that there were tiny wolves in Chen’s canvas bag, the very animals that caused such fear in the hearts of Han Chinese.

11

The three students mounted up and followed Dorji as he headed west through the reedy land, then turned south, skirting alkali dunes, intentionally choosing land too hard to leave hoofprints as they sped home. They were unavoidably nervous, feeling not in the least victorious, and overcome by guilt and trepidation.

Chen felt better when he thought about the wolf running off with one of his lambs. As a shepherd, he’d avenged a slaughtered member of his flock. Removing a litter of cubs, difficult as it might be, was easier than killing the same number of adult wolves. But the question remained: Why, if the Mongols had stumbled on this lethal means of keeping down the wolf population, did the wolf scourge persist? Chen decided to ask Dorji.

“The wolves are too clever,” Dorji replied. “They choose the perfect time to bear their litters. Everyone says that dogs and wolves were the same family back in antiquity, while in fact wolves have always been stealthier than dogs. Dogs have their litters about half a month after Lunar New Year’s. Wolves, on the other hand, have theirs at the very beginning of spring, when the snow has melted and sheep are having their young. That’s the busiest time of the year for us, the most exhausting and the most urgent. Once the lambs have been born and the people can relax a bit, the cubs have grown out of their dens. The only time wolves live in dens is when the females bear their litters. The cubs open their eyes at about a month, and a month or so after that, they’re out romping with their mother. There’s another advantage to having their cubs in early spring. The mothers can hunt newborn lambs to feed their offspring and teach them how to hunt. Tender lamb is a wonderful diet for the cubs.”

As Yang yawned over and over, Chen suddenly felt so tired he could barely stay on his mount. The prospect of sleep sounded good. But he couldn’t get the wolves out of his mind. He asked Dorji, “How come the herdsmen out here aren’t enthusiastic about looking for wolf cubs?”

“The local herdsmen are Lamaists,” Dorji replied. “In the past, nearly every family had to send one member out to become a lama. Lamaists believe in doing good deeds, so they forbid random killing. Killing lots of wolf cubs, they believe, will shorten their own lives. Since I’m not a Lamaist, I’m not afraid of shortening my life. Manchurian Mongols don’t feed their dead to the wolves, and I wouldn’t shed a tear if every last wolf was killed. Once we learned how to plant crops, we began following the Han custom of burying our dead in the ground.”

Chen felt as if an ill wind were following him, stirring up a deep-seated fear in his soul. After having had no contact with wolves in the city, he now was the master of seven cubs whose mother was unimaginably fierce and cunning. Who could say that the litter in his bag had not been sired by the leader of the pack? Or the finest of the breed? If not for his obsession, the tiny creatures would surely not have fallen into human hands; they would have grown to adulthood and become intrepid fighters. But his arrival changed their fate, and he would forever be linked to all the wolves on the grassland, their eternal enemy. Wolf families on the Olonbulag, led by the implacable mother wolf, would come to him in the dark of night to demand retribution, forever nipping at the edges of his soul. He suddenly sensed that he may have committed a terrible sin.

By afternoon they were back in the yurt; Chen hung his bag on the wall, and the four men sat around the stove drinking hot tea, eating roasted meat, and discussing what to do with the seven cubs.

“What’s there to talk about?” Dorji said. “After we’re finished here, watch me. It won’t take two minutes.”

Chen was now facing the dilemma he had anticipated—the raising of a wolf cub. From the moment the thought had first occurred to him, he knew there would be resistance from the herdsmen, party officials, and fellow students. Raising a wolf cub was something only someone with an ulterior motive would consider. It not only flew in the face of politics, faith, religion, and ethnic relations but also adversely affected production, safety, and their state of mind. During the early years of the Cultural Revolution, the Beijing Zoo attendants had kept an orphaned tiger cub and a canine surrogate mother in the same cage, and that had turned into a serious political incident, viewed as extolling the virtues of the reactionary theory of class harmony, for which the attendants were subjected to strident criticism. Wouldn’t raising a wolf around flocks of sheep, herds of cattle, and packs of dogs be a public disavowal of separating friend and foe? Would he be seen as advocating the idea of considering one’s enemy a friend? Since wolves were the enemies of herdsmen, as well as their revered divinities, their totem (especially in the minds of the elders), their bridge to heaven, and as such, creatures to whom homage was paid, how could they be raised as pets, like domestic dogs? From the perspectives of religion, production, and safety, one need only consider the saying “Raising a tiger invites peril; raising a wolf brings disaster.” For Chen, the greatest concern was whether Bilgee would still consider him as a second son if he decided to raise the wolf cub.

Chen was not motivated by a desire to blaspheme the Mongols’ divinity, nor did he wish to defile their religious beliefs. Quite the opposite: He felt an increasing sense of urgency to raise a cub owing to his deep-seated respect for the Mongol people’s totem and his obsessive interest in the profound mysteries surrounding wolves, the way they came and went like shadows. But to avoid creating enmity with the herdsmen, especially with the old man, it was important to come up with reasons they could accept, however reluctantly.

Even before finding the litter, after racking his brain for days, Chen had finally found an argument he thought they might find reasonable: raising a wolf would be a scientific experiment to create a new breed of wolf hound. Wolfhounds enjoyed an excellent reputation on the grassland. Guards at the frontier station had five or six of the large, ferocious, and speedy animals. When they hunted wolves or foxes, they were fast, ruthless, and successful nine times out of ten. Commander Zhao of the frontier station had once gone out with two soldiers and a pair of wolfhounds to inspect the work of the militias in livestock regions. Along the way, his dogs had caught four large foxes. The commander had moved from place to place on his inspection tour, skinning foxes along the way, to the amazement of all the hunters who saw him. Not surprisingly, the herdsmen all wanted one of those wolfhounds; unfortunately, they were a rare breed at the time, and were considered army materiel. The herdsmen had no chance of ever getting a wolfhound cub, even if they were on good terms with the military. What were wolfhounds but the spawn of a male wolf and a female dog? Chen reasoned. So all he had to do was raise a male wolf to maturity and mate it with a bitch to produce a wolfhound, which he would donate to the herdsmen. Since Mongolian wolves were considered the finest in the world, if his experiment was a success, he might well produce a breed superior to German and Soviet army dogs, and might even be responsible for developing a new form of livestock farming.