Wolf Totem: A Novel (38 page)

“I’ve been out here almost a year,” Bao said, “and I can say that the pasture is a lot harder to manage than a farming community. Another major incident or two, and I won’t be running the show for long... Some people wanted you to be sent to the Capital Construction Brigade, but I insisted that you be sent to the Second Production Brigade. With your knowledge of raising livestock, I’ll breathe easier knowing you’re staying with Bilgee. That way, if anything I can’t handle comes up, I’ll look to you for answers.”

Uljii’s face brightened. “Has the revolutionary committee approved the move of the Second Brigade to the new grazing land?”

“Yes, and brigade headquarters has ordered me to see that it’s done, with Bilgee in charge of the move itself. He’ll decide when to move, how to set up the headquarters, and assign sectors. There were objections: too far, too many wolves, too many mosquitoes, no facilities; if something goes wrong, I’ll be responsible. Which is why I’ve decided to go there with you. I have to take a capital construction unit along to build a medicinal pool, a storage facility for the wool, a temporary headquarters and clinic, and to lay some roads through the mountains.”

Uljii had a glazed look, as if his thoughts were elsewhere.

“You’ll get the credit for this,” Bao said. “For your vision. There isn’t enough beef or pork for the needs of the country, so the government has increased our quota. All the brigades are complaining they’re short of grazing land, and no one will be able to fill the new quotas without opening up new land.”

“The lambs are still too young,” Uljii said. “They won’t be ready to move to the new grazing land for a while. What are your plans for the next few days?”

“I’m going to select the best hunters for a wolf team,” he said candidly, “and start sharpshooting training. I’ve already requested an increased supply of ammunition. I won’t rest until I’ve relieved the Olonbulag of the wolf scourge. I recently read a report of pasture losses over the past decade. Over half were attributed to wolves, more than blizzards, drought, or disease combined. Increasing the livestock population requires two conditions: eliminate the wolves and open new grazing land.”

“You’re making a mistake,” Uljii said. “Yes, the wolves are responsible for losses, but if you wipe them out, the absence of those losses will prove catastrophic.”

Bao looked up at the sky. “I’ve heard people say that you and Bilgee and some of the older herdsmen always take the side of the wolves. Go ahead, say what you want to say, you needn’t worry... ”

Uljii cleared his throat. “Worry? I worry about the grassland. I can’t be the one to see the land our ancestors passed down to us destroyed. I’ve been telling people about the wolves for many years, and I’m not going to stop now . . . I took on the responsibility for the grassland more than a decade ago, and I’ve seen the livestock population more than double. We supply twice as many cows and sheep as other pastures. Our most important responsibility has been to protect the grassland, since it’s the foundation of livestock raising. It’s a difficult task that requires keeping the population of grazing animals in check, especially the horses. Cows and sheep are ruminants, so they don’t graze at night. But horses never stop eating—they have to eat in order to stay fat and healthy—which means they never stop shitting either. It takes twenty acres to feed a sheep for one year, but two hundred for a horse. And their hooves are murder on the grassland. A herd can be in one place for a couple of weeks and leave it in ruins, nothing but sand. It rains a lot in the summer, so the grass grows fast, but for the rest of the year we have to move the livestock every month or so to keep the animals from eating every blade of grass in sight. Cows are also hard on the grassland. The biggest problem with them is that they come home every night, and not when they feel like it individually, but always together. Their weight and their heavy hooves tear up the ground, and if you don’t move often, the area around the yurts for a mile or more winds up as nothing but sandy ruts. Add sheep to the mix, and you have to move your base every couple of months or nothing will grow within a mile of the base camp. We live as nomads in order to give the land a chance to breathe. Heavy hooves and overpopulation are its greatest enemies.”

Seeing that Bao was paying close attention, Uljii continued, “The key to protecting the grassland is limiting the number of wolves we kill. There are many destructive animals on the grassland, but ground squirrels, rabbits, marmots, and gazelles wreak the greatest damage. If there were no wolves, squirrels and rabbits alone would lay waste to the grassland within a few years. Wolves are their natural enemy; they keep them in check. Protecting the grazing land increases our ability to ward off natural disasters. Take blizzards, for example. We experience them more often than most other areas. When a blizzard hits the grazing lands at other communes, they can lose up to half their herds. Our losses are never that great. Why? Because our land flourishes. Every autumn we cut down enough grass for emergencies, and now that we have grass cutters, we can mow the entire pasture and store up all we need against the possibility of a natural disaster. And because the grass flourishes here, it grows so tall that most snowfalls aren’t heavy enough to cover it completely. With a healthy grassland, erosion is avoided and the wells don’t dry up, so even during a drought, the animals have water to drink. With good grass, the animals thrive. No diseases have spread through our herds in recent years. Our production is up, so we’ve been able to buy machinery that helps us dig wells and build pens, which increases our resistance to natural disasters.”

Bao nodded and said, “What you say makes sense. Protecting the grazing land is what makes raising livestock possible. I won’t forget that. I’ll take officials down to the brigades as often as possible and make sure the herdsmen move on when they’re supposed to, and I’ll see that the horse herders stay with their herds twenty-four hours a day to keep them on the move and not let them stay in one spot too long. I’ll inspect every team’s grazing land once a month, and if there’s overgrazing, I’ll deduct work points. I’ll reward those teams that take pains to protect the land, labeling them model units. As long as I employ military management methods, I’m confident the Olonbulag will continue to be well managed . . . But I still don’t see how you protect the grazing land by relying on wolves. Are they really that effective?”

Seeing that Bao was still listening, Uljii smiled and said, “You’ll be surprised to learn that a nest of ground squirrels will eat more grass in a year than a gazelle, and they store up food for the winter. I’ve dug up their nests and found bales of the stuff down there, and it’s all the finest grass and grass seeds. They have four or five litters a year, ten or more young each time, and by the end of the year, one nest has become ten. You can figure how much grass that many squirrels can eat in a year. Rabbits are the same, with several huge litters every year. And you’ve seen the marmots, how they dot the mountainsides with their burrows. Figuring roughly, all those creatures eat several times more grass in any given year than all hundred thousand head of livestock in our pasture, which is the size of one of your counties down south. But there are only about a thousand people living here, and if not for the students from Beijing, there wouldn’t even be that many. With those numbers, what do you think the chances are that we could eradicate all those pests?”

“I haven’t seen many rabbits over the past year or so,” Bao said. “I admit there are a lot of ground squirrels near headquarters, but I haven’t seen them anywhere else. I’ve seen plenty of marmots and their burrows. But it’s the number of gazelles I’ve really noticed. I’ve seen herds of ten thousand more than once. I’ve even shot a bunch of them. They’re a true scourge, the way they graze like locusts.”

“Our pastureland is good,” Uljii said, “with tall, dense grass that hides the squirrels and rabbits. You have to look carefully to see them, but they’re there. You’ll see them in the fall. All those piles of cut grass are laid out to dry by the squirrels before they take it into their nests. The gazelles are nowhere near as destructive, because while they eat the grass, they don’t burrow into the ground. Ground squirrels, rabbits, and marmots not only eat and dig burrows but also reproduce wildly. Without the wolves, those pests would eat all the grass on the Olonbulag and have holes everywhere in a few years. The desert wouldn’t be far behind. If you insist on annihilating the wolves, you won’t have a job three or four years from now.”

With a snicker, Bao said, “I know that cats and raptors and snakes catch rodents, but I never heard that wolves catch them too. Even a dog won’t waste the energy to go after a rodent. Are you saying that wolves do? They eat sheep, and they eat horses. There isn’t enough meat on those rodents to stick between their teeth. Sorry, I don’t believe that rodents are on their menu.”

Uljii sighed. “That’s a mistake all you farming people make. I grew up on the Olonbulag, so I understand wolves. They prefer to eat big animals, like cows, sheep, horses, and gazelles. But the first three are tended by humans, which makes them difficult prey, and the wolves have to eat to survive. Gazelles are so fleet-footed, they’re hard to catch. Ground squirrels, on the other hand, are there for the taking. In olden days, poor people survived the lean years by catching and eating the squirrels. I was a slave as a boy, and anytime I didn’t get enough to eat, I caught squirrels. They’re big, plump rodents, from a few ounces to a full pound, and three or four of them will tide you over. For the ones you don’t eat right away, you skin them and dry the meat, a tasty meal for the next time. If you don’t believe me, I’ll catch a few one day and roast them for you. You’ll find the meat quite tender. Even Genghis Khan ate squirrel.”

Zhang Jiyuan, caught up in the discussion, felt a need to add his views. “I’ve been tending horses for two years now, and I’ve watched wolves catch squirrels, sending dirt flying. They’re better at it than dogs. Ground squirrels are the favorites of female wolves and their cubs. Before the young ones are weaned, their mothers teach them how to hunt, beginning with ground squirrels. When a female’s litter is still young, they seldom join the other wolves in a hunt. Their cubs learn to fear humans when they’ve grown to about a foot in length and have just begun to run. When a hunter spots a female wolf and her cubs out in the open, if he shoots the adult, the cubs are all his. All he has to do is scoop them up as if they were baby lambs, which is why the female will take her young as far from human habitation as possible, where they’re safe. But since there’s no livestock in those places, what do they eat? Well, except for the occasional meat and bones the older wolves bring them after a successful hunt, they survive on ground squirrels and marmots.”

“And there’s more.” Uljii seemed somewhat stressed. “If there were no wolves, we and our livestock would be in big trouble during a natural disaster. When the grassland is hit by a hundred-year or two-hundred-year blizzard, the toll on our livestock is enormous. Then, when the snow melts, the ground is cluttered with the carcasses of dead cows and sheep that quickly begin to stink. If they aren’t buried, an epidemic could kill off half the people and animals of an entire banner. But wolves will dispose of the dead animals in no time. Plagues aren’t a problem as long as there are wolves around. We’ve never had one on the Olonbulag. In the old days, when wars were fought out here, the battlefields would be strewn with thousands of dead men and animals. Who disposed of them? Wolves. Old-timers tell us that if there’d been no wolves, a plague would have wiped out the human population of the grassland long ago. We can thank the wolves for keeping the Olonbulag a place with fresh water and lush grass. Without them, we wouldn’t have such flourishing herds. The communes down south have killed off their wolves, and their grazing land is dying. They’ll never raise livestock there again.”

Bao had been listening without saying a word as the three horses rode up a slope, with its fragrant green grass and the sweet fermenting smell of rotting grass from the year before. Meadowlarks singing in the air above them plunged down into the tall grass, while those on the ground soared up into the blue sky, where they hovered above the party and sang their own tunes.

Uljii sucked in his breath. “Isn’t that a gorgeous sight?” he exclaimed. “As unspoiled as it was thousands of years ago. This is the most beautiful grassland in China. Men and wolves have fought battles to seal this place off and keep it unspoiled over the centuries, and we simply must not let it come to grief in our hands.”

“You need to hold a study session for us students,” Zhang Jiyuan said, “to teach us what we need to know about the grassland and its wolves.”

Uljii’s face darkened. “I’m a deposed official. I don’t have the authority to hold anything. You need to learn from older herdsmen. They know more than I do anyway.”

After they crossed another ridge, Bao finally spoke up: “Uljii, no one will deny the depth of your feelings for the grassland or what you’ve accomplished. It’s your politics that get you into trouble. You talk about things that happened in the past, but this is a new age, an atomic age for China. Using primitive forms of thinking to deal with current needs is a big problem. I’ve thought long and hard since coming to the pasture. In terms of size, it is, as you say, the equivalent of a whole county down south, and a population of a thousand people is less than one of our villages. That’s incredibly wasteful. In order to create the greatest wealth for the party and the nation, we must bring an end to this backward, primitive nomadic way of life. I did a little exploring a few days ago. There’s quite a bit of land with black soil south of us, each section thousands of acres in size. I dug with a hoe and found that the topsoil was two feet thick. It seems a shame to devote good soil like that to graze sheep. At a league headquarters meeting, I asked an agricultural expert from an autonomous area about the land, and he said it was ideal for wheat. If we don’t attempt a large-scale reclamation project, only a few hundred acres, maybe a thousand or two, there’s no danger of desertification.”