Wolf Totem: A Novel (22 page)

The dogs fixed their gaze on a spot in the reeds, and Chen hastily swung his telescope to it. His heart lurched as a large wolf poked its head and upper body out from the reeds and looked around. The dogs immediately lowered their heads, until their chins were buried in the snow. The men flattened out on the ground, keeping as low as humanly possible. After scouring the mountainside, the wolf emerged from the reeds and ran toward a ravine. Chen followed her progress with his telescope; she resembled the wolf he’d seen the last time. She loped along with effort, probably having taken a sheep that night and eaten her fill. If this was the only wolf around, Chen saw no reason to be afraid. Two men and a pair of dogs, especially when Erlang was one of them, were easily a match for one female wolf.

The wolf climbed up the slope. All I need to see is which direction she takes, Chen was thinking, and I’ll have a pretty good idea where her den is. But at that moment, she stopped abruptly, turned, and looked first to one side, then the other, and finally toward the spot where the men and their dogs lay unmoving on a hilltop. The men didn’t dare breathe; she was now higher up than when she’d emerged from the reeds, and things she couldn’t have seen then she could easily see now. Chen regretted his lack of experience; a moment earlier, when she was running toward the ravine, he and his companions should have backed off a few yards down the hill. The wolf’s suspicions had taken him by surprise. She stretched her body taut, adding height to her stance, and checked again to see if there were dangers in the area. She made two complete circles, hesitated a moment, then spun around and darted onto a gentle slope to the east, where she headed for a cavelike hole and disappeared inside it.

“Great! There’s the door! Now we’ve got them, the mother and her litter,” Yang blurted out with a clap of his hands.

Chen stood up, bursting with excitement. “Come on, let’s go get the horses.”

The dogs were jumping around, panting excitedly and waiting for a command from their masters, which Chen had forgotten in his excitement. “Go!” he said, and the dogs tore down the hill, heading straight for the den entrance. The men ran to the rear of the hill, removed their horses’ fetters, mounted up, and galloped off toward the den, where the dogs were waiting for them, barking loudly at the entrance. Erlang, fangs bared, was going crazy, storming the entrance, then backing out, not venturing in too far. Yellow remained at the entrance, adding his voice to the vocal assault and pawing the ground, sending snow and dirt flying. The riders jumped down off their horses and quickly sized up the situation. What they saw stopped them in their tracks: Just inside an oval opening some two or three feet across, the wolf was guarding her den and its contents with her life, sending Erlang back outside with her fangs after each feint, then emerging halfway to snap and snarl at both dogs.

Chen threw down his lasso pole, picked up his spade, and swung it at the wolf’s head. She was too quick, and the spade hit nothing but air. Then she burst out of the entrance a second time, fangs bared; Yang swung with his club, and he too missed. Again she retreated, and again she attacked, round after round, until Chen was finally able to connect with her head, and Yang also made contact. That only made her angrier, more crazed than ever. This time, she retreated a yard or so, followed by Erlang. He was immediately bitten on the chest and scurried back outside, blood oozing from the wound, his eyes rage red. With an angry roar, he exploded back inside, until only his tail, swishing back and forth, was visible.

At that moment, Chen was reminded of his lasso pole, which he picked up off the ground. One look, and Yang knew what Chen had in mind. “That’s it,” he said. “We’ll get a rope around her.” Chen loosened the noose at the end of the pole so that he could hang it in the entrance to the den. When she poked her head out the next time, he’d jerk the pole up and tighten the noose around her neck, then drag her out. Once that was done, Yang Ke’s club and the two dogs would finish her off in short order. Chen was so nervous he could hardly breathe. But he’d no sooner set his trap than Erlang was driven out of the den again, his rear legs knocking the noose askew. Seconds later, the wolf, her head bloodied from fighting the dog, emerged again, but she stepped down on the noose, and when she saw the lasso pole, she fled back inside as if hit by a jolt of electricity.

Chen stuck his head in the hole, seeing a steep downslope, thirty-five degrees or so, for the first couple of yards, then a turn, making the remainder of the den a mystery. Yang screamed at the entrance in anger, the sound quickly swallowed up by the tunnel, while Chen sat down, disheartened. “I’m an idiot,” he said. “If I’d thought of the lasso pole first, that wolf would be dead by now. You have to be on your toes when you’re fighting a wolf,” he added. “And make no mistakes.”

Yang Ke, even more disheartened, jammed the end of his club into the ground and said, “Shit, the wolf won because we didn’t have a rifle. If I’d brought one along, I’d have blown off the top of her head.”

“Headquarters says we’re in a heightened state of battle preparedness, and no one is permitted to fire a weapon. A rifle wouldn’t have done us any good.”

“At this rate,” Yang said, “we’re going nowhere. What do you say we light off some double-kick firecrackers?”

“What’s the difference between that and a rifle?” By this time Chen had calmed down. “If we frighten off the wolves up north, the hunt plans will be ruined, and you and I will be in hot water. Besides, you can’t kill a wolf with firecrackers.”

“So?” Yang said, apparently disgruntled. “We can scare the hell out of her, smoke her out. We’re a good ten miles from the frontier, so the wolf pack won’t hear a thing. But if you’re still worried, how’s this? I’ll take off my deel, and after I throw some crackers inside, I’ll hold the deel over the entrance to muffle the sound. You won’t hear a thing.”

“What if the wolf doesn’t come out?”

“She will, trust me,” Yang said as he untied his belt. “A herdsman told me that wolves are terrified of gunfire and the smell of gunpowder. I’ll throw in three double-kicks, six explosions, and the sound reverberating in that enclosed space will be much louder than outside. It’ll scare the hell out of her. And since the entrance is so narrow, she’ll choke on the thick smoke. I’m betting that three is all it will take to drive her right into your arms. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole litter of cubs followed her out. A windfall.”

“Okay,” Chen said, “go ahead. But let’s be prepared for anything. I’ll look around for more holes in the area. Even rabbits make three escape routes, so she must have more than one entrance. Wolves are crafty, and no matter how clever we are, we could still come up short.”

Chen climbed into the saddle and circled the area several times with the dogs, assuming that dark holes would be easy to spot in the snow. They found nothing within a hundred-yard radius, so he dismounted, led the horses off a ways, and fettered them. Then he walked back to the entrance and laid out the lasso pole, the spade, and the club. Erlang was trying to stanch the flow of blood from his chest with his tongue; the wolf had torn off a chunk of flesh the size of two fingers, and the flesh was still twitching. In obvious pain, he didn’t make a sound. The men had not brought along any ointment or gauze, so all they could do was watch Erlang employ the dog’s traditional healing method of sterilizing the wound, stopping the bleeding, and lessening the pain with his own saliva. They’d take care of it when they were back at camp. The other scars on Erlang’s body looked to have been caused by wolf bites, which was why his eyes turned fiery red at the mere sight of a wolf.

Yang was ready. His deel draped over his shoulders, he held three double-kick firecrackers as thick as tubular hand grenades; a lit cigarette dangled from his lips, a sight that drew laughter from Chen. “You look more like a Japanese tunnel rat than a hunter,” he said.

“Just going local,” Yang replied, “dressed like a barbarian. I’m betting this wolf is ill-prepared for a gas attack.”

“Okay,” Chen said. “Throw them in. We’ll see what happens.”

Yang lit one of the fuses, watched it sizzle for a moment, and then flung it as far inside the tunnel as he could. He did the same with the second cracker. After throwing in the third one, he watched briefly as all three rolled down the steep slope of the tunnel before covering the entrance with his deel, just in time to hear a series of six muffled explosions that made the ground shake. Inside the tunnel, the sound must have been earsplitting, the concussion powerful, the smoke suffocating. No grassland wolf den had likely ever witnessed explosions of that magnitude. Unfortunately, the men did not hear agonizing howls from the wolf deep down in her tunnel, and that was not good news.

Yang hugged himself to keep from freezing. “So, when do we open it up?”

“Let’s give it some time. We’ll open a little hole and wait till some smoke comes out, then we can open it all the way.”

Chen peeled back a corner of Yang’s deel but replaced it when he saw only a wisp of smoke. Seeing how cold Yang was, he offered to wrap his deel around them both. But Yang waved him off. “Stay focused. The wolf will be coming out any minute! Loosening your belt will restrict your movements. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be okay.”

They were still talking when Yellow and Erlang jumped to their feet and looked off to the northwest. Soft whines marked their tension. Chen and Yang quickly turned to see pale blue smoke emerge from the ground some twenty yards away. “Uh-oh,” Chen blurted out. “There’s another hole over there. Stay here; I’ll go take a look.” He picked up his spade and ran over, followed by the dogs. Smoke burst from the hole; so did a very big wolf, like a guided missile, bounding off toward the reedy area at the foot of the mountain. She was out of sight before Chen could react. Erlang followed her into the reeds, the rustling moving northward. Stunned, Chen shouted, “Come back here!” Erlang ignored the command. Yellow ran over to the edge of the reeds but lacked the nerve to go in. After a symbolic bark or two, back he came.

Wrapping his deel around himself, Yang walked up to the second hole, where Chen was standing. It was, they were surprised to see, newly dug, a hidden emergency exit.

Yang was so enraged that the tendons in his neck stood out. “That damned wolf has made a fool of us!”

Chen sighed. “No matter how many escape routes a rabbit has, they’re fairly easy to find. But there’s no way to tell how many escape tunnels this crafty wolf has. This one’s perfectly planned. See, there’s a steep falloff beyond the opening, and from there straight to the reeds. The wolf can reach them in no time. This one hole is more useful than eight or ten rabbit escapes. Bao Shungui says that wolves are skilled in close fighting, night fighting, long-range raids, guerrilla fighting, mobile fighting, all sorts of things. The next time I see him, I’m going to have to tell him they’re not bad at tunnel warfare and camouflage either, and can even combine the two. Soldiering is the art of deception, and wolves are the world’s finest soldiers.”

But Yang’s anger lingered. “Movies go on and on about tunnel warfare and camouflage in North China, like that’s where they were invented. Well, here’s some news: wolves were the inventors, about ten thousand years ago.”

They walked back to the opening, where emerging wisps of smoke were thick with the smell of gunpowder.

Yang stuck his head in and looked around. “The cubs ought to be crawling out after an explosion like that. Do you think the smoke killed them?”

“I’ve been wondering that myself. If the cubs are dead, where does that leave us?”

Yang could only sigh. “If Bayar were here, he could crawl in.”

Chen echoed the sigh. “I couldn’t take the chance of bringing him along. Can anyone guarantee there aren’t more adult wolves in there? These things are never easy for the Mongols. Gasmai only has the one son, and still she didn’t stop him from grabbing a wolf’s tail or crawling into a den. The old Chinese saying ‘Don’t fight wolves if you’re unwilling to sacrifice your son’ must have come from the grassland. Don’t forget, the Mongols ruled China for nearly a century. I used to think it meant using your son as wolf bait, believe it or not. Now I realize it means letting your son risk crawling into a wolf’s den to get the cubs. Only a youngster could handle a tunnel this deep and this narrow. If Mongol women doted on their children the way Han women do, their race probably would have died out long ago. But they don’t, so Mongol youngsters grow up strong and fearless.”

Chen went to his horse, took down the canvas bag, and brought it back to the opening. Yellow spotted the bag and ran over, wagging his tail and panting greedily. It was the bag in which Chen had put food for the dogs. He opened it, took out the smaller of two pieces of meat, and gave it to Yellow. The other piece was for Erlang. But he hadn’t returned, and Chen was worried. In the winter and spring, reeds are the wolves’ domain, and if this wolf had enticed Erlang into the middle of the pack, that probably spelled trouble. He was the mainstay where keeping the sheep safe was concerned. Things had not gone well on this outing, and losing their canine general would be the worse thing he could imagine.

Yellow’s tail wagged feverishly as he ate. He was a clever animal, bold and fearless around rabbits, foxes, and gazelles. But with wolves he took care to size up the situation. If there were more dogs than wolves, he attacked. But without strong backup, he had no interest in showing off his fighting skills. Moments earlier, he’d stopped short of coming to Erlang’s aid when the fight was at hand, afraid of running into the pack in the reeds. He was good at protecting number one, which was how he survived. Chen was fond of Yellow, who seemed quite human, and didn’t blame him for his lack of loyalty. But since the onset of spring, he’d grown increasingly fond of Erlang, whose brutish nature was intense and who didn’t seem human at all. He stood up and trained his telescope on the reeds in the northwest, hoping to get a glimpse of the dog.