Wolf Totem: A Novel (6 page)

But then he discovered the pack leader standing near the break in the line, looking untroubled, like a man opening the dam to release floodwaters. As soon as the gazelles that had maintained their running speed and kept their horns out in front had passed through the open dam, he led his troops in closing the breach. Now the encirclement contained only gazelles that could not run fast, had no weapons, and were not very smart. A ragtag pack of them, now that their leaders and more powerful males were outside the circle, terrified to face the charging wolves, ran up the slope and then down into the deep snowdrifts. Chen knew at once how the pursued animals—with their pointed hooves, thick legs, and bellies filled with grass—would end up.

Both gazelles and wolves disappeared where the mountain met the horizon. As a thousand gazelles ran for their lives, the blood-soaked encirclement area went quiet. Seven or eight carcasses lay on the grassy slope; other injured members of the herd struggled weakly. No more than ten minutes had passed from the moment the attack was launched until the battle was over. It seemed to Chen that he had held his breath the whole time; his heart was racing.

The old man stood up and stretched, then sat cross-legged in the tall grass on the edge of the snow cave, where he took a pipe with a jade mouthpiece out of his felt boot. He filled it with tobacco, lit it, and, covering the opening with a lid made of an old silver coin, inhaled a mouthful of smoke.

Chen knew that as a young man, Bilgee had given a Han Chinese trader from Zhangjiakou twenty fox pelts for this pipe; the students considered it a bad deal, but the pipe was one of the old man’s prized possessions, and he had sympathized with the trader, who’d had to travel all the way to Mongolia to do business, risking death at the hands of highwaymen along the way.

The old man kept smoking. “We can head back after this pipe,” he said.

But Chen was still on a hunting high. “Aren’t we going to take a look on the other side?” he asked anxiously. “I’d like to see how many gazelles the wolves trapped.”

“That’s too dangerous. Anyway, I know without looking. There will be hundreds of them. Outside of the young animals, plus the thin ones and the lucky ones that can somehow make it out of the snowdrift, the rest are all fated to go to Tengger. You needn’t worry. This pack of wolves won’t be able to eat all their kills, and even after our group goes out and brings back all we can, there’ll still be plenty left out there.”

“The young animals, and the thin ones, how do they manage to get away?”

The old man’s eyes crinkled in a smile as he said, “Young animals are thin, which makes their bodies light, so they don’t go deep into the snow. They can usually find a way out, and the wolves won’t go after them.” He beamed. “My boy, today you’ve witnessed the virtues of wolves. Not only do they watch and preserve the grassland, but they’ve delivered New Year’s gifts to us. Thanks to them, it’s going to be a good year. There’s a grassland rule here that the spoils of a hunt belong to whoever sees them first. Since you and I are the witnesses, we’ll make sure your yurt gets a bit extra. We Mongols place much importance on repaying debts of gratitude. In the future, don’t waste your time talking about the wolf hunt with other Chinese or outsiders.”

Chen Zhen could barely contain his excitement; he was impatient to fill a wagon with gazelle carcasses and take them back to the yurt. "In the two years I’ve been here,” he said, "the wolves have caused me nothing but trouble. I never expected that one day I’d benefit from their efforts.”

“We Mongols benefit from their efforts all the time,” the old man said. He raised his herding club and pointed to a mountain range behind them. “There’s another range of mountains behind that one. It’s not part of our pastureland, but it’s famous around here. The old people say that Genghis Khan’s great general Muqali fought a battle there. He drove several thousand mounted Jurchen warriors of the great Jin dynasty into a snowdrift, and the following spring he sent men back to collect the spoils of war. There were mountains of swords and spears and bows and arrows, plus helmets and armor, and saddles and lanterns. Where else could he have learned that but from wolves? If you add up all the major battles involving Mongols, more than half were fought with skills learned from the wolves.”

The two men walked back to the ravine behind them, and when the dark horse saw its master, it jerked its head up and down excitedly. Every time Chen saw this horse, which had once saved his life, he patted it on the head to once more show his gratitude. The horse accepted his thanks by nudging him on the shoulder. This time, however, Chen felt a powerful impulse to somehow pat a wolf on the head.

They removed the cowhide fetters from the horses’ hooves, mounted up, and rode off at an easy canter toward home.

The old man looked up at the sky, “Tengger is protecting us,” he said. “The weather will hold tomorrow. If a blizzard came tonight, we wouldn’t wind up with a single gazelle.”

3

Fine weather greeted them the following morning. Kitchen smoke rose from the yurts like slim white birches, the tips of their high-Fest branches boring into the heavens, into Tengger. The cows and sheep were ruminating leisurely; the sun had driven off the cold night air, and frost on the animals’ hides was just then turning to dew, to eventually rise from their bodies as mist.

Chen Zhen asked his neighbor Gombu to tend his sheep that day. As a onetime herd owner, Gombu was kept under surveillance, and his right to tend sheep had been taken from him; but the four Beijing students asked him to watch their animals whenever they could, for which Gasmai would let him earn the appropriate work points. Chen and one of the other herders, Yang Ke, yoked up a light cart and headed to Bilgee’s yurt.

Yang, a classmate who lived in Chen Zhen’s yurt, was the son of a famous professor at one of Beijing’s most prestigious universities. They had as many books at home as a small library. In high school, Chen and he had often traded books. They’d exchange views when they finished, and were best friends. In Beijing, Yang had been a shy, mild-mannered boy who blushed whenever he met a stranger. No one could have predicted that after two years of eating lamb and beefsteaks and cheese, after baking in the strong rays of the Mongolian sun season after season, he would be transformed into a brawny son of the grassland, with a face as sunburned as the native herdsmen and none of the bookish manners he’d brought with him.

Yang was more excited than Chen, and as he whipped the back of the ox he said, “I didn’t sleep at all last night. The next time Bilgee takes you hunting, be sure to let me go along, even if I have to lie there for two whole days. This is the first time I’ve heard of wolves performing good deeds for people, and I won’t believe it until I personally drag one of the gazelle carcasses out of the snow. Can we really take a cartload of them back with us?”

“Would I lie to you?” Chen smiled. “Papa said that no matter how hard it is to dig them out, we’re guaranteed a cartful, which we can swap for other things, like New Year’s items and some large pieces of felt for our yurt.”

Yang was so pleased he whipped the back of the ox until it glared angrily. “It looks like your two-year fascination with wolves is beginning to pay off,” he said. “I’ll have to start studying their hunting techniques myself. Who knows, it might come in handy in a real fight one day . . . What you said could be a pattern. Living on the grassland over the long haul as a nomad, it makes no difference which ethnic group you belong to, since sooner or later you’ll start worshipping wolves and treating them as mentors. That’s what happened with the Huns, the Wusun, the Turks, the Mongols, and other nationalities. Or so it says in books. But the Chinese are an exception. I guarantee you, we Chinese could live out here for generations without worshipping a wolf totem.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Chen said as he reined in his horse. “Take me, for instance. The wolves have won me over in a little more than two years.”

“But the vast majority of Chinese are peasants,” Yang countered, “or were born to peasants. The Han have a peasant mentality that’s impossible to break down, and if they were transported out here, I’d be surprised if they didn’t skin every last wolf on the grassland. We’re a farming race, and a fear and hatred of wolves is in our bones. How could we venerate a wolf totem? We Han worship the Dragon King, the one in charge of our agrarian lifeline—our dragon totem, the one we pay homage to, the one to whom we meekly submit. How can you expect people like that to learn from wolves, to protect them, to worship and yet kill them, like the Mongols? Only a people’s totem can truly rouse their ethnic spirit and character, whether it’s a dragon or a wolf. The differences between farming and nomadic peoples are simply too great. In the past, when we were immersed in the vast Han Chinese ocean, we had no sense of those differences, but coming out here has made the inherent weaknesses of our farming background obvious. Sure, my father is a renowned professor, but his grandfather and my mother’s grandmother were peasants.”

“In ancient times,” Chen said, picking up the thread, “the impact of Mongols on the world was far greater than that of the Han, who outnumbered them a hundred to one. Even now, people in the West call us members of a Mongol race, and we accept that. But back when the Qin and Han dynasties unified China, the word
Mongol
didn’t exist. I tell you, I feel sorry for the Han Chinese. We built the Great Wall and crowed about what an achievement it was, considering ourselves to be the center of the world, the central kingdom. But in the eyes of early Western people, China was only a ‘silk country,’ a ‘ceramic country,’ a ‘tea country.’ The Russians even thought that the little Khitan tribe was China, and to this day, they still call China, Khidai.”

“It looks like your fascination with wolves was worth it,” Yang said. “It’s contagious. Now when I read history, I keep looking to the barbarian tribes of the four corners and am tempted to look for their connections to wolves.”

“Look at you,” Chen said. “You’re damned near a Mongol yourself. All you need is an infusion of wolf blood. Hybrids are always superior creatures.”

“I can’t tell you how happy I am that you urged me to come to the grassland. Do you know what it was you said that touched that special spot in me? You’ve forgotten, haven’t you? This is it: you said, ‘The grassland contains the most extensive primitivism and freedom anywhere.’ ”

Chen loosened his horse’s bit and said, “I think you’re putting words in my mouth.”

They laughed happily. Snow flew from the wheels of the cart as it sped along.

Humans, dogs, and carts formed a scene on the snow like a Gypsy carnival. Every member of Gasmai’s group—four
hots
(two adjacent yurts comprised a
hot
), altogether eight yurts—sent men and carts. The eight carts were loaded with felt, ropes, hoes, kindling, and wooden-handled hooks. Everyone was wearing grimy old clothing for the dirty, tiring work ahead—so grimy it shone, so old it was black, and dotted with sheepskin patches. But the people and the dogs were as cheerful as the tribes that had followed the ancient Mongol hordes in sweeping up battlefields to claim the spoils of war. A large felt-wrapped flask of liquor was passed from the head of the procession all the way to the rear, and from the hands of women to the mouths of men. Music filled the air: Mongol folk songs, songs of praise, war chants, drinking songs, and love songs—the dam had broken. The forty or fifty furry Mongol dogs were acting like children, giddily showing off on this rare and happy occasion, running around the carts, rolling in the dirt, play-fighting, and flirting.

Chen Zhen and two horse herders, Batu and Lamjav, plus five or six cowherds and shepherds, clustered around Bilgee, like bodyguards for a tribal chief. Lamjav, a man with a broad face, straight nose, and Turkish eyes, said to Bilgee, “I could be the best marksman anywhere and I still wouldn’t be your equal. Without firing a shot, you’ve made it possible for every family in the team to enjoy a bountiful New Year’s holiday. Even with an apprentice like our Han friend Chen Zhen, you haven’t forgotten your old Mongol apprentices. I’d never have predicted that the wolves would launch their attack out here yesterday.”

The old man glared at him. “In the future, when you have a successful hunt, don’t you forget the old folks and the Beijing students in the team. I’ve never seen you deliver meat to anybody. You only gave Chen Zhen a gazelle leg because he visited your yurt. Is that how we treat our guests? When we were young, the first gazelle or snow otter of the year always went to the old folks and to guests. Young people today have forgotten customs handed down from the great khans. Let me ask you, how many wolves do you have to kill to catch up with Buhe, the great hunter of the Bayan Gobi Commune? You want to see your name in the newspaper, hear it on the radio, win a prize, don’t you? If you hunt the wolves to extinction, where do you think your soul will go after you die? Don’t tell me you want to be like the Han, buried in a hole in the ground, where you can feed the worms and other insects! If you do, your soul will never make it to Tengger.”

“Batu is your son,” Lamjav said as he touched the back flap of his fox-fur cap. “You may not believe me, but you ought to believe him. Ask him if I have any interest in becoming a great hunter. A journalist from the Mongol League came to the horse unit to see me the other day. Batu was there; you can ask him if I didn’t cut the number in half.”

“Is that true?” the old man turned and asked his son.

“Yes,” Batu replied, “but the man didn’t believe him. He asked people at the purchasing station how many wolf pelts Lamjav had sold them. You know that after they check the quality of the pelts to determine the price, they give the seller twenty bullets. And they keep records. After the journalist returned to the league, he said over the air that Lamjav had nearly caught up with Buhe, which so frightened Lamjav that he asked others to sell his pelts for him.”