Life and Death are Wearing Me Out (11 page)

“What was that for? Why shoot dead wolves?”

“Is that your damned attempt to take credit for this?” Lan Lian thundered. “You didn’t kill those wolves, my donkey did.”

The leader of the hunting team took two brand-new notes and tucked one under my reins, the other under Huahua’s.

“Do you really think you can shut me up with money?” Lan Lian said, spitting mad. “That’s not going to happen!”

“Take back your money,” Han the stonemason said. “Our donkeys killed those wolves, and we’re taking them with us.”

The hunter smirked.

“Good brothers,” he said, “with one eye open and the other shut, everyone wins. You could plead your case until your lips were chapped, and no one would believe that your donkeys were capable of doing that. Especially now that one’s head has been blown open and the other’s belly has a gaping bullet hole.”

“Our donkeys were clawed and bitten bloody by those wolves,” Lan Lian shouted.

“I agree, they have wounds all over their bodies, and no one could say they weren’t caused by wolves. And so . . .” The man smirked again. “Here’s what that proves: Two attacked your donkeys, causing bloody injuries, but at the moment of greatest danger, the three members of the Number Six hunting team arrived on the scene and, with no thoughts for their own safety, engaged the wolves in a life-or-death battle. The team leader, Qiao Feipeng, stood face-to-face with the male wolf, took aim, and fired, shattering its head. A second member of the team, Liu Yong, took aim at the second wolf and pulled the trigger. The gun misfired. After he’d spent a whole night hiding amid tamarisk bushes, his powder was wet. The wolf opened her mouth, which seemed to spread all the way to her ears, bared her gleaming white fangs, let loose a hideous, spine-tingling roar, and went straight for Liu Yong, who rolled out of the way of her first charge. But his heel caught between two rocks, and he lay faceup on the sandy ground. With a leap, her tail stretched out behind her, she charged again like a yellow blur. At that desperate moment, in less time than it takes to tell, Lü Xiaopo, the youngest member of the hunting team, took aim and fired at the animal’s head. But since it was a moving target, the shot hit her in the abdomen. When she fell, she rolled on the ground, spilling her guts all over the place, a terrifying sight. Though she was a vile predator, it was too terrible to see. By this time, Liu Yong had reloaded his musket and fired at the wolf, which was still rolling in agony. But because of the distance between them, the buckshot sprayed the area and peppered the dying animal in many spots. She stretched out her legs and died.”

While Qiao was weaving his story, Liu Yong stepped backward, aimed, and fired buckshot into the wolf’s carcass, creating holes with burned edges.

“So, what do you think?” Qiao asked, smiling proudly. “Whose story do you think people will believe, yours or mine?” He put more gunpowder into the barrel of his musket and said, “You outnumber us, but don’t even think of taking the wolves back with you. We hunters have an unwritten rule: Whenever there’s a dispute over a kill, the hunter with the most buckshot in it keeps it. And there’s another rule. A hunter is within his rights to shoot anyone who walks off with his kill. It’s a matter of retaining his self-esteem.”

“You’re fucking thugs!” Lan Lian said. “You’re going to be visited by nightmares after this. You’ll pay for taking what doesn’t belong to you.”

The hunter just laughed. “Reincarnation and retribution are nonsense people use to trick old ladies. I don’t believe them for a minute. But maybe there’s something we can do together. If you’ll help us carry these carcasses to town on the backs of your donkeys, the county chief will reward you handsomely and I’ll give you each a bottle of the finest liquor.”

I couldn’t take any more of that. Opening my mouth to bare my front teeth, I took aim at that flat head of his. But he was too fast for me. He moved his head away just in time, but I got him by the shoulder. Now you’ll see what a donkey can do, you thug! You people think that only felines or canines, with their sharp claws and teeth, know how to be predators, and that we donkeys, with our hooves, only know how to eat grass and husks of grain. You are all formalists, dogmatists, book worshippers, and empiricists. Well, today, I’m going to teach you that when he’s irritated, a donkey will bite!

After gripping the hunter’s shoulder in my teeth, I raised my head and shook it back and forth. I tasted something sour, unpleasant, and very sticky. As for the crafty, smooth-talking fellow, well, he was on the ground, bleeding from his shoulder, and unconscious.

He could always tell the county chief that one of the wolves had bitten him on the shoulder during the fight. Or he could say that when the wolf buried its fangs in his shoulder, he reacted by biting the animal on the back of its head. As to how he’d managed to finish off the wolf, well, he could say what he wanted.

Our people, meanwhile, saw that things had turned ugly, so they quickly got us on the road home, leaving the wolf carcasses and the wolf hunters on the sandbar.

January 24, 1955, was the first day of the first month of the Yiwei Lunar Year. Mo Yan settled on that day as his birthday. During the 1980s, officials who hoped to hold positions for several more years or who wanted to climb the bureaucratic ladder even higher would change their age down and their schooling up, but who would have thought that Mo Yan, certainly no official, would join the fad? It was a fine morning, with flocks of pigeons circling in the early morning sky, their melodic cooing coming first from one direction, then the other. My master stopped working to look up into the sky, the blue half of his face making for a pretty sight.

Over the previous year, the eight acres of Lan family land had produced 2,800 catties of grain, an average of 350 per acre. In addition, they had brought in twenty-eight pumpkins planted on the ridges between crops and twenty catties of high-quality hemp. He refused to believe the co-op’s announced harvest of 400 catties per acre, and I heard him say to Yingchun more than once, “Do you think they could grow 400 catties the way they go about it? Who do they think they’re fooling?” Her smile could not hide the worries she felt deep down. “You’re the man of the house, but why must you always sing a different tune than the others? They’ve got numbers, we’re all by ourselves. Remember, a powerful tiger is no match for a pack of wolves.” Lan Lian glared at her. “What are you afraid of? We have the support of District Chief Chen.”

My master, wearing a brown felt cap and a brand-new padded coat cinched at the waist by a green cloth sash, was brushing my coat, which was very comforting physically; his praise did the same for my spirit.

“Old Blackie,” he said, “my friend, you worked hard last year. Half the credit for the good harvest goes to you. Let’s do even better this year. It’ll be like kicking that damned co-op in the nuts!”

I warmed up as the sunlight kept getting brighter. The pigeons were still up in the sky, the ground was covered by shredded red-and-white paper, firecracker debris. The night before, the sky had lit up and explosions had rocked the earth, creating clouds of gunpowder smoke; the compound looked and smelled like a war zone, to which was added the lingering odor of meaty dumplings, year-end cakes of sticky rice, and all kinds of sweets. The master’s wife had placed a bowl of dumplings in water to cool them off, then dumped them into my food trough with my regular feed, patted me on the head, and said:

“Little Blackie, it’s New Year’s, have some dumplings.”

I’m the first to admit that dumplings at New Year’s is an exceptional courtesy to extend to a donkey. They were nearly treating me as one of their own, a human just like them. I’d earned the respect of my master after killing those two wolves and now had the finest reputation of any donkey in the eighteen villages and hamlets within a radius of a hundred
li.
So what if those three damned hunters got away with the carcasses? The people here knew what really happened. No one denied that the Han family donkey had played a role in that battle, but they knew I’d pretty much carried the day and she’d been a bit player, one whose life I’d saved, by the way. I’d already reached the gelding age, and my master had put the fear of the knife in me. But he didn’t mention it again after my battlefield heroics. The previous fall I’d gone out to work in the fields with my master, followed by Xu Bao, the local veterinarian, pack over his back and a brass bell in his hand, a man who specialized in castrating so-called beasts of burden. His shifty eyes kept returning to a spot between my rear legs. His body reeked of cruelty, and I knew what he had in mind. He was one of those bastards who enjoyed swallowing a donkey or bull gonad with a cup of strong liquor. He was definitely not fated to die in bed. Well, anyway, I watched him carefully and never let my guard down. The minute he walked up behind me, I’d greet him with a pair of flying hooves right in his crotch. I wanted that cruel son of a bitch to know what it felt like to leave the field without his family jewels. And if he approached me from the front, I’d bite him in the head. That’s what I did best. He was real sneaky, turning up suddenly here and there, but always staying a safe distance away and not giving me a chance to go into action. When people on the road saw stubborn Lan Lian walking ahead of his now famous donkey, followed by that castrating son of a bitch, they asked questions like:

“Say, Lan Lian, time to turn your donkey into a eunuch?”

or:

“Xu Bao, did you find something to go with your liquor again?”

“Don’t do it, Lan Lian,” someone shouted. “That donkey had the balls to take on those wolves. Each nut supplies some of an animal’s courage, so he must have as many as a sack of potatoes.”

Some boys on their way to school fell in behind Xu Bao to sing a ditty about him:

Xu Bao stopped and glared at the little brats, reached into his pack, pulled out a gleaming little knife, and shouted threateningly:

“You’d better shut up, you little bastards! Master Xu here will cut the balls off the next one of you who makes up something like that!”

The boys huddled together and responded with goofy laughs. So Xu Bao took several steps forward, and the boys matched him, going backward. Then Xu Bao charged, and the boys scattered in all directions. Xu Bao turned back to me, gelding on his mind. The boys came back, formed up, and followed him, repeating their ditty:

This time, Xu Bao had no time for those little pests. Taking a wide berth, he ran up in front of Lan Lian and started walking backward.

“Lan Lian,” he said, “I know this donkey’s bitten people. Every time he does that, you have to come up with medical expenses and lots of apologies. I say geld him. He’ll be back in three days, completely recovered, the most obedient donkey you could ask for, guaranteed.”

Lan Lian ignored him; my heart was pounding. My temper was something Lan Lian knew all too well. So he grabbed hold of the bit in my mouth and kept me from going after the man.

Xu Bao scuffled along, raising dust as he walked backward, the bastard, probably something he did a lot. He had a shriveled little face adorned with baggy triangular eyes and front teeth with a big space between them, from which spittle sprayed whenever he talked.

“Take my advice, Lan Lian,” he said, “you need to geld him; gelding is good, it’ll save you trouble. I usually charge five yuan, but for you I’ll do it for nothing.”

Lan Lian stopped, smirked, and said:

“Xu Bao, why don’t you go home and geld your old man?”

“What kind of talk is that?” Xu Bao squeaked.

“If that bothers you, then let’s see what my donkey has to say.” He let go of my reins and said, “Sic him, Blackie!”

With a loud bray, I reared up, the way I’d mounted Huahua, aiming to come down on Xu Bao’s scrawny head. People out on the street screeched in horror; the little brats swallowed their shouts. Now I’m going to feel and hear my hooves landing on Xu Bao’s cranium, I was thinking. But that didn’t happen. I didn’t see the contorted look of shock I’d expected and didn’t hear the howls of fright I’d hoped for; what I did see, out of the corner of my eye, was a slippery figure darting under my exposed belly, and I had a premonition of bad things to come. Unfortunately, my reactions were too slow; a sudden chill struck my genitals, followed by a sharp, intense pain. I felt an immediate sense of loss and knew I’d been tricked. Twisting my body to look behind me, the first thing I saw was blood on my rear legs. The next things I saw was Xu Bao, standing by the roadside, a bloody gray gonad in the palm of his hand; he was grinning from ear to ear and showing off his prize to a bunch of gawkers, who shouted their approval.

“Xu Bao, you bastard, you’ve ruined my donkey,” my master cried out in agony. But before he could leave my side and tear into the evil veterinarian, Xu Bao dropped the gonad into his bag and flashed his knife in a threatening manner. My master fell back weakly.

“I did nothing wrong, Lan Lian,” Xu Bao said as he pointed to the gawkers. “It was obvious to everyone, including our young friends here, that you let your donkey attack people, and it was my right to protect myself. It’s a good thing I was on my toes, or my head would be a squashed gourd by now. So I’m the good guy here, Lan Lian.”

“But you’ve ruined my donkey. . . .”

“That was my plan, and I’m the one who could have done just that. But I felt sorry for a fellow villager and held back. That donkey has three gonads, and I only took one. That’ll calm him down a bit, but he’ll still be a spirited animal. You should damn well be thanking me. It’s not too late, you know.”

Lan Lian bent over to examine my privates, where he discovered that Xu Bao was telling the truth. That helped, but not enough to thank the man. No matter how you looked at it, the sneaky bastard had taken one of my gonads without prior consent.