Wolf Totem: A Novel (57 page)

Chen Zhen and Yang Ke quickly walked up to observe the cub in the faint starlight. The clanging of the chain sounded in the pen as he circled anxiously. When he tried to imitate the howl, he was drowned out by the barking dogs, so he started to bark like a dog, since Erlang, Yellow, and Yir were nearby. Part bark, part howl, his voice was having trouble finding its own way. Erlang led the other dogs, nervously running back and forth on the northwestern edge of the sheep flock, barking constantly, as if they’d discovered the enemy’s whereabouts. Soon wolf howls were heard from that direction, seeming much closer to Chen’s flock. Dogs from other teams gradually stopped barking, as the wolf pack seemed to be gathering in the hills behind Chen’s yurt. His lips quivering, Chen said softly, “The main force is directed here, where the cub is. Wolves truly never forget.”

Beginning to grow frightened, Yang gripped his flashlight tightly and felt for the firecrackers in his book bag to reassure himself. “If they concentrate their attack on us, I won’t hold back. I’ll throw these at the pack, and you signal with the flashlight.”

The dogs finally stopped barking. Chen whispered to Yang, “Crouch down and watch the cub. He’s going to howl.”

With no interference from the dogs, the cub listened to the howls from the wild. He stuck out his chest, pricked up his ears, and closed his eyes. He’d learned to listen carefully before trying to imitate the sound. The howls were aimed at him, and he was anxiously trying to identify the source, turning his head toward the sound. He began running around, since the howls came from three sides.

By listening carefully, Chen detected a difference in that night’s howls. The night before, they had been more unified, as if to harass the humans, but now there were variations, some high, others low, like questioning, testing, even perhaps a mother wolf calling out to her cub. Chills ran through his body as he listened.

There were many stories about the love of a mother wolf for her cubs. In order to teach them to hunt, she’d take great risks to catch a live lamb under daunting circumstances; in order to protect her cubs in the den, she’d fight hunters to the death; for the cubs’ safety, she’d carry them to a different place each night; and to feed them, she’d gorge herself to the point of bursting, and then empty the contents for them. And, in the interest of the pack, females who had lost their cubs nursed others’ cubs.

Bilgee had told them that hunters and horse herders never took every cub in a den after a kill. The remaining cubs would have plenty of wet nurses and would grow strong with all that milk, which is why Mongolian wolves were the biggest, the strongest, and the smartest of all the wolves on earth. Chen had felt like adding, “And that’s not all. A mother wolf’s love can extend to human orphans even though humans are their chief enemies.”

At that instant, he felt the urge to untie the leather collar and let the cub be reunited with his mother, along with all the other mothers. But he didn’t dare. He was worried that, once the cub left the area under the camp’s control, his own and the neighbors’ dogs would tear it to pieces. And he didn’t dare take him into the darkness to set him free, for that would place him in the midst of the frenzied mother wolves.

The cub seemed to detect the differences in the howls but did not know what to do about the sounds coming from all directions. Obviously, he did not comprehend the nuanced differences in the varying howls, nor did he know how to respond. The howls slowly died down, after failing to receive any response. They were probably puzzled by the cub’s silence.

At that moment, the cub steadied himself, faced northwest, and lowered his head as he made the first tentative noise. Then he breathed in, raised his head, and sent out the second tone. Eventually he managed a howl, though it was slightly off. The distant howls stopped abruptly. What was that sound? The wolf pack waited.

A moment later, a sound echoing the cub’s emerged from the pack, perhaps from a young wolf. Chen could tell that the cub was puzzled; he didn’t understand the question being asked. Like a deaf mute who has regained his hearing and voice, he couldn’t tell what was being said and was therefore unable to express himself.

After getting no further response, the cub lowered his head and breathed in deeply, then raised his head and released a long sound. This time he reached the heights of the night before. Obviously happy with his effort, he released one long howl after another without waiting for a response from the pack.

Led by Erlang, the dogs directed their ferocious barking to the northwest, and when they stopped, the cub began to howl again. Little by little, he learned to ignore the dogs’ interference and skillfully and accurately produce wolf howls. After five or six in a row, he stopped and ran over to the water bowl, where he drank before running back to the same spot to howl again. He stopped after a moment and pricked up his ears to listen.

There was a long silence, and then a deep, somber howl arose on the western slope. Short and with distinct intonation, it was a sound with authority, probably an alpha male. From it, Chen could envision the animal’s powerful body, broad chest, wide back, and full throat.

Surprised at first, the cub then leaped joyfully into the air. After lowering his head to breathe in, he stopped, not knowing how to respond. So he tried imitating the howl he’d just heard. His voice was obviously young, but it was a good imitation. He repeated it several times but drew no response.

Chen Zhen racked his brain to guess the meaning of this dialogue and its effect. Maybe the alpha male was asking the cub, “Who are you? Whose child are you? Answer me!” But the cub simply repeated the questions, even attempting to imitate the alpha male’s commanding tone, which must have angered the adult and increased his suspicions.

By daring to imitate the alpha male’s questions, the cub was revealing his ignorance of the hierarchy and protocol within a wolf pack. The other wolves must have been thinking that the cub was brazenly ignoring authority and was disrespectful of his elders, for a short noise then erupted from the pack, maybe indignation or maybe a heated discussion.

The pack soon quieted down again. The cub, on the other hand, was just getting started. Though he didn’t understand the alpha male’s questions or the pack’s anger, he sensed that the shadows in the darkness had noticed his existence and wanted to communicate with him. He was eager to continue the dialogue but didn’t know how to express himself, so he kept repeating what he’d just learned, howling at the darkness. “Whose child are you? Answer me! Answer me! Answer me!”

The wolves must have been growing anxious, not knowing what was happening, for they were probably the first pack in thousands of years to encounter such a cub, one living with humans, dogs, and sheep, a careless youngster who was full of nonsense. Was he really a wolf? If so, then what was his relationship to a wolf’s natural enemies—humans and dogs? He sounded eager to communicate with the pack, but also seemed to get along well with dogs and humans. His voice was full, which meant he must eat well. Since people and dogs were good to him, what was he up to?

Chen tried to imagine what the wolves were thinking as they stared into each other’s green eyes, increasingly suspicious of the cub.

The cub stopped howling, perhaps wanting to hear responses from the dark shadows; restless, he pawed the ground and waited anxiously.

Chen was disappointed and worried about how this was turning out. The alpha male could be the cub’s father, but the cub did not know how to communicate with him. Chen was worried that the cub might lose the opportunity to gain his father’s love, and if he did, would the lonely cub truly belong to humans now, to him and Yang Ke?

Suddenly, a long howl cut through the darkness. It was a gentle, tender, and mournful sound filled with the pain, sorrow, and longing of a mother wolf. The end note quivered for a long time, apparently a howl invested with deep meaning and emotion. Chen guessed it might mean: “Little Cub, do you still remember me? I’m your mother. I miss you; I’ve been looking all over for you, and now I finally hear your voice. My dear child, hurry and return to your mother. We all miss you-u-u.”

A mother’s song to her child, echoing through the ancient, desolate grassland. Chen was unable to hold back his tears; Yang Ke’s eyes were also glistening.

The cub was apparently deeply touched by the intermittent sad sound. Instinct told him that it was a call from his own family, and that sent him into a frenzied struggle against the chain. Nearly strangled by the collar, he stuck out his tongue and panted loudly. The mother wolf began to howl again, and was soon joined by more mother wolves with the same sad voices, plunging the grassland into deep sorrow.

Their dirgelike howls rose and fell repeatedly on the grassland that night. It was as if the mother wolves wanted to vent their accumulated bitterness of losing cubs year after year over the millennia, submerging the vast, dark grassland into thousands of years of sadness.

Chen stood up silently, feeling the bone-chilling cold, while teary-eyed Yang walked slowly up to the cub, where he held the collar around the cub’s neck and patted him on the head and back to comfort him.

As the mournful howls from the mother wolves gradually faded, the cub broke free of Yang and jumped away, as if afraid the sound would disappear altogether. He leaped toward the northwest and steadfastly raised his head to send out long howls from his limited memory.

Chen’s heart sank. “It’s all over,” he whispered to Yang. “They can tell that his howl is different from the mother wolf’s.” He seemed to have focused on imitating the sad, plaintive voice. But his voice lacked power, and since he couldn’t sustain a long howl, the pack went silent.

Staring at the slope that had suddenly gone quiet, Chen speculated on the anger in the hearts of the mother wolves that were anxiously looking for their cubs. How dare he make fun of their suffering? Experts in setting traps to lure their prey, the alpha male and lead wolves, who had often seen their kind snared by humans, must have concluded that the cub was bait, a seductive and lethal wolf in disguise.

Possibly the pack concluded that it was a dog, not a wolf. On the Olonbulag, the wolves often spotted men in green carrying rifles on the road up north. They were always accompanied by five or six big dogs whose ears stood straight up, just like the ears of wolves; some of them could howl like a wolf as well. They were far more menacing than any local dogs, and every year there were wolves who fell victim to them. More than likely, this little bastard would grow up to be one of those wolf-eared dogs.

Then again, maybe the pack believed it was a real wolf, Chen speculated, because the cub urinated on the slope when Chen took him out on his evening walks. Maybe some of the mothers could detect the smell of their cubs. In any case, while the grassland wolves were certainly clever, they could not easily overcome the cub’s ineptitude with their language.

Silence still reigned in the wolf pack.

On the quiet grassland, there was only the howl of a chained cub whose throat was swollen and hoarse. But the long howls he made were so confusing, so unintelligible, that the wolves stopped their probing, ignoring the young wolf’s pleas for help. The poor cub had now missed his chance to learn how to howl from the wolves.

Chen sensed that the pack was withdrawing.

The dark, gloomy slope was deadly quiet, like the sky-burial ground on Chaganuul Mountain.

Feeling no desire to sleep, Chen and Yang engaged in a whispered discussion; neither could explain to the other why things had turned out as they had.

At dawn the cub finally stopped howling; sad and despairing, he slumped to the ground and stared wide-eyed at the misty slope in an attempt to see the dark shadows. The morning mist slowly dissipated, revealing a familiar grassy slope devoid of shadows. The cub closed his eyes as if falling into a deathlike despair. Chen rubbed him gently, his guilt mounting as he thought of the cub’s missed opportunity to rejoin his family.

The production teams and the rest of the brigade had made it through another scary night; no camp was attacked and the livestock had gone unharmed. The surprised herders were talking about it, unable to understand why the mother wolves, who would protect their cubs with their own lives, had retreated without a fight. Even the old men shook their heads. It would be the most mystifying incident Chen witnessed in his years on the grassland.

Bao Shungui and some of the herders who had expected to lure and kill the wolves were disappointed. But Bao came to Chen and Yang’s yurt at dawn to praise them for their innovation and courage, helping to pull off an unprecedented victory of defeating the enemy without a fight. He said that they could keep the flashlight as a reward and that he’d publicize their experience. Chen and Yang breathed a sigh of relief, knowing they at least could continue to raise the cub.

Around the time for morning tea, Uljii and Bilgee came over for some tea and horsemeat buns.

Uljii seemed to be in good spirits for someone who hadn’t slept well the night before. “That was a scary night,” he said. “I really worried when the pack began to howl, since dozens of them had surrounded you on three sides and at times were only a hundred yards or so away. We were afraid they’d tear down your yurt. That was close.”

“If I hadn’t known you had all those ‘crackling cannons,’ I’d have ordered everyone and all the dogs to come to your rescue,” Bilgee said.

“Why didn’t they attack the sheep or try to snatch the cub away?” Chen asked.

The old man took a drink of tea and puffed on his pipe. “I think it could be that your little cub wasn’t speaking real wolf language, and the dogs were barking, which confused the wolves.”

“You’re always telling me that wolves have a spiritual connection. So why didn’t Tengger tell them the truth?”

“Of course the three of you and a few dogs would have been no match for them,” the old man said. “But all the people and dogs here were geared up for a real battle, and if the wolves had decided to mount a frontal attack, they’d have been in serious trouble. Director Bao may be able to trick others, but not Tengger. Tengger didn’t want the wolves to be trapped, so he ordered them to withdraw.”