Wolf Totem: A Novel (52 page)

The bow was so stiff he had to strain to pull the string halfway. After fitting the arrow on the string, he took aim at a grassy knoll thirty or forty feet away and let go. The tip of the arrow was buried in the knoll. Yang ran over and carefully extracted it from the dirt, then cleaned it off and saw that the tip was sharp as ever. At that moment he fantasized that he had been transported back in time to when the Mongol hordes were armed with bows and arrows.

Yang walked back to Old Wang. “How far away were you when you shot the swan?”

“No more than seven or eight paces.”

“And the swan never saw you?”

Old Wang knocked the ashes out of his pipe and said, “Yesterday I went into the reeds and found the nest. This morning we got up very early, camouflaged ourselves with reeds, and rowed our way in. Fortunately, it was so misty the swan couldn’t see us. The nest was as tall as us. The swan was inside sitting on her eggs, while the male was swimming around nearby for protection.”

“Which one did you shoot, the male or the female?”

“We had to stay low in the raft, so we couldn’t get a shot at the female inside the nest. We waited for the male, and when it glided up near us, I fired. Got it right in the heart. It flapped around weakly and died. When the female heard the racket outside the nest, she flew off, and that’s when we got the eggs.”

The ability of these migrants to survive and to wreak havoc is considerable, Yang was thinking. They have no guns, so they make a bow and arrow; they have no boat, so they make a raft. To top it off, they’re good at concealing themselves; they hit their target on the first try. Supply them with guns and ammunition and a tractor, and there’s no telling what they’d turn the grassland into. Their ancestors were herders, but after they were conquered and assimilated, they became enemies of the Mongolian grassland. For over a thousand years the Chinese have taken pride in their ability to assimilate other races. But they’ve only been able to assimilate people with a lower level of civilization, and they’ve never been willing to discuss the often catastrophic consequences of the assimilation. As Yang Ke was now witnessing those consequences, his heart bled.

After Ershun had cleaned off the raft, he sat down to rest. Yang couldn’t get those two swan eggs out of his mind. Since the female was still alive, he felt compelled to take the eggs back to her nest, hoping that once the young birds were born, they’d fly off with their mother, all the way to Siberia.

With a broad if not natural smile, Yang said to Old Wang, “You’re good at that. I hope someday you’ll teach me some of your skills.”

Old Wang smiled proudly. “I’m not good at much, but you won’t find many better than me at hunting birds and marmots and wolves, or at setting traps, finding herbs, and digging up mushrooms. We used to have all those back home, but too many Chinese moved into the area. You students from Beijing have been given local household registration. How about speaking up for us outsiders when you get a chance? That way the local Mongols won’t drive us away. They’ll listen to you. If you’ll do that, I’ll teach you a thing or two. I guarantee you can earn a thousand a year with what I teach you.”

“Well, then, I’ll just call you my teacher from now on.”

Old Wang edged close to Yang and said, “I hear that you and the herdsmen have lots of sheep oil. Think you could get some for us? There are forty or fifty of us involved in backbreaking labor, and we have to pay black-market prices for the grain to go along with the wild vegetables we pick, all without a drop of oil. But you use it in your lanterns. What a waste! How about selling us some at a good price.”

Yang laughed. “No problem,” he said. “We’ve got two vats of the stuff. Tell you what. I like the looks of those two swan eggs, so how about trading them for half a vat of oil?”

“They’re yours!” Old Wang replied. “I’d just take them home and fry them, which is the same as eating five or six duck eggs. Go ahead, take them.”

Yang quickly took off his coat and wrapped the eggs in it. “I’ll bring the oil over tomorrow.”

“I trust you,” Old Wang said. “You Beijing students are as good as your word.”

Yang exhaled loudly and said, “It’s still early. Can I borrow your raft? I’d like to go see that nest. I find it hard to believe it could be as tall as you.”

Old Wang glanced over at Yang’s horse. “How’s this?” he said. “I’ll trade you my raft for your horse. I have to get this swan over to the kitchen, and it’s almost as heavy as a sheep.”

Yang stood up. “It’s a deal... But hold on—tell me where you found the nest.”

Wang stood up and pointed to the reeds. “Go east,” he said, “and when you reach the end, head north. You’ll find a path through the reeds where the raft went. Just keep going, and you’re bound to find it.

“When you get back,” Old Wang instructed him, “be sure to tie the raft the way you found it.” He picked up the dead swan and laid it across the saddle. Then he climbed on, sat behind the bird, and headed slowly toward the work site, Ershun following behind, lugging the heavy basin.

Yang waited until the men were far enough away for him to go back to the shore, pick up the coat with the eggs inside, and put it in the raft. Then he rowed as fast as he could, heading east.

Yang was breathing fast and his hands were shaking as he rowed unsteadily toward the nest, pushing floating reeds out of his way with the spade, wanting to approach it as slowly as possible.

Yang stood before the nest almost in a state of shock. It was the biggest, the tallest, and the most unusual bird’s nest he’d ever seen. After assuring himself that the female was away, he began examining the nest closely. He pushed against it with both hands; like a three-foot-thick tree trunk, it didn’t budge. Though it was built on the water, its roots were as deep as a banyan tree’s.

As the wind over the lake cooled, the green color of the reeds deepened. Yang held the two eggs close to his chest, trying to give them a bit of warmth from his body. He carefully climbed up and held on to the edge with one hand, while gently putting one of the eggs back into the nest. He took the second egg out from under his coat and put it back with equal care. Then, as he stepped back onto the raft, he breathed a sigh of relief, believing that the eggs, resting on the totem pole of a nest post, would, like two giant gemstones, shine brightly among the reeds and send their brilliance into the sky to call back the swan queen soaring through the air.

Finally a white dot appeared and circled in the sky. Yang quickly untied the rope and quietly rowed the raft into the waterway. He straightened the reeds flattened by the raft and pushed away the floating stalks and leaves with his spade, hoping that new reeds would grow in the area to shield the exposed nest.

He saw a swan’s hurried descent before he left the reedy path; when he came ashore, the swan was no longer in the sky.

Yang Ke walked back to the construction site kitchen, where Ershun told him that his uncle had ridden over to Section Three to buy sick oxen. Outside the kitchen was a makeshift stove, on which sat a giant pot. On the ground was a pile of wet feathers. Steam rose from the pot, where pieces of swan meat the size of a fist were cooking. He saw the bird’s head bobbing in the boiling water. A young woman dressed like a Han was sprinkling a handful of Sichuan peppers, cut green onions, and chopped ginger into the pot. She poured half a bottle of cheap soy sauce over the swan’s head. Overcome by dizziness, Yang Ke collapsed against an oxcart.

“Quick,” the woman said to Ershun, “take him inside. We’ll give him a bowl of the broth to bring him around.”

With a wave of his hand, Yang pushed Ershun away; he was so angry he felt like knocking over the pot. He couldn’t stand the smell coming from it, but he didn’t dare kick it over or otherwise let them see how angry he was. Ershun, after all, was a peasant, while he was one of the “mongrel bastards” sent “up to the mountains and down to the countryside” for reeducation.

When he returned to camp, Yang Ke told Chen Zhen and Gao Jianzhong what he’d seen and felt that day.

Chen was too upset to say anything. It took him a while to calm down. “What you’ve told us is a microcosm of what has happened between nomads and farmers in East Asia over thousands of years. The nomads become farmers, then turn around and destroy the grassland, inflicting damage on both nomads and farmers in the process.”

“Why does it have to be like that?” Yang asked. “They’re born of the same roots, so why are they so quick to fight? Why can’t both the nomads and the farmers stick to their own lifestyle?”

Chen said coldly, “It’s a small world, and everyone wants the good life. Human history is essentially a chronicle of fighting over and safeguarding living space. The small farmers of China have devoted their lives to taking care of the tiny piece of land they farm, making them narrow-minded individuals with tunnel vision. If we hadn’t come here, wouldn’t we be looking at the world through the beady eyes of a mouse, believing we’re always right?”

Early the next morning, Yang, Chen, and Gao were awakened by gunfire at the lake. They stamped their feet in anger and regret. As if crazed, Yang leaped onto his horse and stormed toward the lake. Chen asked Gombo to watch his sheep before following with Gao on horseback.

They waited anxiously for the raft to come ashore, and what they saw made them feel as if a member of the family had died. On the raft lay another swan, along with several wild geese and ducks, plus two blood-splattered eggs. Obviously, it was the female swan who, to protect her precious eggs, had not flown away from the lake of terror in time and had ended up like her mate. Her head shattered by bullets, she was a worse sight than the male. She had died on top of her unborn cygnets, giving them the last bit of warmth from her own blood.

Yang’s face was bathed in tears. If he hadn’t returned the eggs to the nest, the female swan might have been spared.

As he was thinking, Little Peng, the barefoot doctor, jumped breathlessly off his horse, snatched up the two bloody eggs, put them in a bag stuffed with lamb’s wool, remounted, and galloped off.

In a holiday mood, the workers carried their loot back to the kitchen, under the bewildered and angry glare of the herders, who could not understand why these Mongols, who dressed like Chinese, could be so cruel to sacred grassland birds. How did they have the nerve to kill and eat creatures that could fly up to Tengger? Bilgee, who had never witnessed anything like this before, was so angry his goatee quivered. He cursed Wang for the slaughter, for being disrespectful to a shaman, the sacred bird, and for forgetting his Mongolian roots.

Yang later heard that Peng, who had swapped oil for the swan eggs, turned out to be a collector of rare and precious objects, someone who knew a technique for keeping the eggshells intact. After punching a little hole in the bottom of the egg with a syringe, he sucked out the contents and then sealed the hole to prevent the shell from rotting or exploding. The two beautiful eggs, though the lives inside were lost, could now be preserved forever. He also went to the pastureland carpenter shop, where he made two cases out of wood and glass. He then added yellow silk padding to cradle the eggs, creating rare and exotic works of art. He stashed his two precious cases in his trunk, never showing them to anyone. Years later, he gave them to an official who had come to recruit students for the Workers, Peasants, and Soldiers College. And that was how Little Peng, on wings borrowed from the swans, was able to fly back to the city and enter college.

24

Summer nights on the Mongolian grassland can be as cold as late autumn. Hordes of fearsome mosquitoes will soon be on the offensive, leaving but a few peaceful days.

The sheep, newly sheared, lay huddled together as they chewed their cud; a low grinding sound hovered above the flock. Erlang and Yellow looked up from time to time, sniffing the air alertly as they made their rounds with Yir and the three puppies. Chen Zhen, carrying a flashlight and dragging a piece of felt about the size of a blanket, walked over to where the dogs were patrolling, picked a good spot, and spread the felt on the ground. He sat cross-legged, a tattered, thin coat over his shoulders, not daring to lie down. After coming to the new grazing land, a good night’s sleep had become a rarity, the long days given over to tending the sheep, shearing wool, and caring for the wolf cub, while the short nights were a time for reading, writing in his journal, and of course keeping watch. All he had to do was lie down to almost immediately fall asleep so deeply that not even a barking dog could rouse him. He wanted to catch up on his sleep before the mosquito onslaught, but he knew the grassland wolves would take advantage of his slackness.

Having attacked a sick cow at the work site, the wolves showed that their appetites had shifted to domestic livestock. The young gazelles could already run, the marmots were jittery, and field mice could not sate the appetite of the hungry wolves; only livestock could do that, and since the herds were not completely settled in the new grazing land, Bilgee called a series of meetings to caution the herdsmen and students to be like the wolves themselves, sleeping with their eyes shut but their ears alert to all sounds. The Olonbulag was poised for another man-wolf war.

Chen cleaned the cub’s area every day, covering the ground with a layer of fresh sand after removing the waste not only for hygienic reasons but also to conceal the cub’s presence and location. He had been reliving the days since finding the cub in the temporary den, fearing the wolf pack would initiate a murderous attack to reclaim it. He had taken every precaution to prevent the cub from leaving its scent on the way to the new grazing land so that even if the mother ran down the cub’s scent in the former camp, she would have no way of knowing where the cub had been moved to.

It did not seem to Chen as if the smell of wolves was in the air. The three half-grown puppies ran up to him. He petted each one. Yellow and Yir followed the pups over to get their share of attention. Erlang alone, loyal as ever, kept watch on the flock. He, more than other dogs, understood wolves and was always as alert as any wolf could be.