Wolf Totem: A Novel (68 page)

Zhang sighed. “Obviously, raising a wolf under nomadic conditions is just about impossible.”

Chen moved the cart tethered with the puppy and the cub to the rear of the caravan. Then he tied the rope from the last ox to the shaft of the cart ahead of them. “Let’s go,” he shouted.

Since Zhang couldn’t bring himself to sit on the cart, he walked along holding the rope tied to the first ox. One after another, the carts started moving. The puppy followed as the last cart began moving, but the cub stayed put even when the three-yard-long chain was stretched taut. Gao Jianzhong had picked the best and fastest six oxen for the move. They had followed grassland customs by feeding the oxen nothing but water for three days. When their stomachs were empty was the best time to put them to work. So when they got under way, the cub was no match; he was jerked forward and fell head over heels before managing to dig his paws into the ground.

Startled and angry, he struggled, clawing wildly as he rolled around and got to his feet time and again. He’d run a few steps, then stop and dig in. But then, once they were on the path, the carts picked up speed. The cub stumbled and bounced around for a dozen yards or so before he was dragged backward, pulled along like a dead dog, the hard grass stubble scraping off a layer of his fur.

The puppy cocked her head to look at the cub sympathetically; she whimpered and raised her paws as if telling him to walk like her or he’d be dragged to his death. But, too haughty to act like a dog, the cub ignored her and continued to resist...

Chen could see that the cub would rather endure the pain and struggle against the chain than be led along like a dog. His resistance marked the fundamental distinction between wolves and dogs; between wolves and lions, tigers, bears, and elephants; and between wolves and most humans. No grassland wolf would surrender to humans. Refusing to follow or to be led was a core belief for a Mongolian wolf, and that was true even for a cub who had never been taught by members of a pack.

As the cub struggled, the road grit rubbed his paws bloody, a sight that stabbed at Chen’s heart. The wolf, a totem for the stubborn grassland people over the millennia, possessed spiritual power that would shame and inspire awe in humans. Few people could live according to that code without bending and compromising; fewer still would pit their lives against a nearly invincible external force.

These thoughts made Chen aware that his understanding of wolves was still incredibly shallow. For a long time he had thought that food, and hence killing, was the most important thing for wolves; obviously, that was not the case. He had based that assumption on his understanding of human behavior. Neither food nor killing was the purpose of the wolves’ existence; rather, it was their sacred, inviolable freedom, their independence, and their dignity. It was this principle that made it possible for all true believers among the herdsmen to willingly be delivered to the mystical sky-burial ground, in hopes that their souls would soar freely along with those of the wolves.

After four or five
li,
the stubborn cub had lost about half of the fur around his neck, which was now bleeding. The thick pads on his paws were rubbed raw, exposing the flesh underneath. Finally the exhausted cub could no longer roll over; now, like a dying wolf dragged along by a fast horse and a lasso pole, he no longer struggled. When drops of blood began to fall from his throat, Chen realized that the collar had opened a wound there. He shouted for the carts to stop and jumped off his horse, picked up the quaking cub, and walked with him in his arms for a yard or so to loosen the chain. His arms were quickly smeared by blood from the cub’s neck. Seemingly close to death, the cub continued to bleed; he scratched Chen’s hands with paws whose claws had been blunted from his ordeal and were now a bloody mess. Chen’s tears merged with the wolf’s blood.

Zhang Jiyuan was shocked to see the state the cub was in. Walking around and around, but not knowing what to do, he said, “How could he be so stubborn? Doesn’t he want to live? What do we do now?”

Chen had no idea what to do except hold the cub; the tremors nearly broke his heart.

“He won’t let us pull him along now, and he’s not yet fully grown,” Zhang said, wiping off the sweat on his forehead. “Even if we manage to get him to the autumn pastureland, we’ll have to move every month. How will we take him with us? I think . . . I think we ought to . . . set him free, here... and let him live on his own.”

Chen’s face was steely gray. “You didn’t raise him!” he shouted. “You don’t understand. Live on his own? That’s the same as killing him. I’m going to see that he grows to adulthood. I’m going to let him live.”

Fired by his determination, Chen jumped to his feet and ran over to the cart carrying cow dung and other odds and ends, where, puffing with anger, he untied the rope and moved the cart to the end of the caravan. Then he picked up a willow basket and dumped out half a load of the dry cow dung. He’d decided to convert the basket into a prisoner transport, a temporary jail cell in which to move the cub.

“Are you crazy? This load of fuel is how we’ll eat and drink tea on the journey. If it rains, we won’t be able to eat. And we’ll need dry dung for days after we get there. How dare you dump that just so you can transport the wolf! The herders won’t forgive you, nor will Gao Jianzhong.”

Chen quickly reloaded the cart. “I’ll borrow some from Gasmai when we get to camp tonight. Then when we get to the new pasture, I’ll go collect cow dung. Rest assured, you’ll have your meals and your tea.”

Having barely escaped death, the cub stood stubbornly on the ground despite the pain in his paws; his legs were still shaking, and blood continued to drip from his mouth, but he stiffened his neck and dug in his heels in case the cart started off again. He stared at it with a defiance that said he was prepared to fight to the death, even if his paws were rubbed raw, down to the bones. Chen crouched and laid the cub on the ground with his paws up in the air. Then he went for some medicated powder to treat his paws and neck. Seeing the blood dripping from his mouth, Chen took out two pieces of meat, spread the powder over them, and held them out to the cub, who swallowed them whole. Chen hoped the medicine would help stop the bleeding. He then retied the basket and rearranged the odds and ends to clear a space on the cart. After laying down a piece of untanned sheepskin, he tore off half of a felt blanket to use as a cover; the space was barely big enough to contain the wolf. But how was he going to get him into it?

Undoing the chain, Chen rolled up his sleeves and picked up the cub. But as soon as he took a step toward the cart, the cub began to growl and struggle. So Chen ran, hoping to toss the cub into the basket. Before he got there, however, the cub chomped down on his arm and wouldn’t let go. Chen screamed in pain and fear. He broke out into a cold sweat.

The cub did not let go until he was back on the ground. Chen shook his arm to relieve the pain. He looked down and saw that, while he wasn’t bleeding, there were four purple welts on the skin.

Zhang’s face was a ghostly white. “You’re lucky you snipped off the tips of his fangs, or he’d have bitten through your arm. I don’t think we can keep him anymore. When he grows up, even blunted fangs could break your arm.”

“Don’t talk about his teeth, okay? If not for that, I might have been able to return him to the grassland. Now he’s handicapped. How could he survive with fangs that can’t even break the skin? I maimed him, so I’ll have to feed him. Now that the corps is here, and they’re talking about settling down, I’ll build a stone pen for him after we settle, and there’ll be no need for the chain.”

“All right,” Zhang said, “I won’t try to stop you. But we have to find a way to put him on the cart and get on the road. Let me try, since you’re hurt.”

“I’ll carry him,” Chen said. “He doesn’t know you, and he could bite your nose off. Tell you what. You stand there with the felt blanket and cover the basket as soon as I toss him in.”

“Are you crazy? He’ll bite you, and hard, if you pick him up again. Wolves are ruthless when they’re that angry. He’ll go for your throat if you’re not careful.”

Chen paused for a moment. “I’m going to have to pick him up, even if he bites me. I guess I’ll have to sacrifice a raincoat.” He ran over to one of the carts and took out his army raincoat, with green canvas on one side and black rubber on the other. Then he took out two more pieces of meat to keep the cub busy while he forced himself to stop shaking, opened up the raincoat, and flung it over the young wolf. He quickly tightened his grip and carried the frantically struggling cub, disoriented and unable to see where to bite, over to the cart, where he tossed him in, raincoat and all. Zhang ran up and dropped the felt blanket over the basket. By the time the cub struggled out of an opening he’d made in the raincoat, he’d become a prisoner. After the two men secured the felt cover with a horse-mane rope, Chen collapsed on the ground, gasping for breath and drenched in sweat. The cub made a turn in his new prison, prompting Chen to jump up to be ready if the cub tore at the felt blanket or rammed his head against the basket.

The carts were now ready to set out, but Chen was worried that the flimsy willow basket would not be strong enough to hold an angry, powerful animal. He coaxed and cajoled, and even tossed several pieces of meat into the cage. After bringing the dogs back to the rear of the caravan to keep the cub company, he signaled to get Zhang moving. On one of the carts, Chen found a club, which he was prepared to bang against the basket to stop the cub from struggling if necessary, while he rode alongside to keep an eye on him. He fully expected that the cub would try to chew a hole in the basket to get loose from a prison far worse than any chain.

He needn’t have worried, for when they began moving, the cub stopped struggling; rather, fear showed in his eyes, something Chen had never witnessed before. Not daring to lie down, he lowered his head, arched his back, and, with his tail between his legs, stood staring at Chen, who watched as he grew increasingly frightened, to the point where he shrank into a ball. He wouldn’t eat, drink, growl, or bite; like a seasick prisoner, he’d lost the capacity to resist.

Shocked by this turn of events, Chen stuck close to the cart as they crossed a mountain ridge. The cub’s eyes seemed to show that his head remained clear, though he was clearly exhausted, his paws were injured, and his mouth was still bleeding. But he didn’t dare lie down to rest, as if out of an instinctual fear of the cart’s motion and of being lifted off the ground. After six months with the cub, Chen was still flabbergasted by his repeated, unfathomable behavior.

The caravan traveled fast but at a smooth pace. As Chen rode along, he was quickly lost in thought. How had the often violent cub suddenly become so fearful and weak? That was so unlike a grassland wolf. Do all heroic figures have a fatal flaw? Was it possible that the grassland wolf, which Chen believed to have evolved to the point of perfection, had a character defect? He turned his attention to the difficulties facing him in the frequent moves they would be making throughout the winter. The cub would be fully grown by then, and there simply wouldn’t be enough resources to transport him from place to place. No solution presented itself.

The oxen smelled the cows after they crossed over the hill and picked up the pace in order to catch up with earlier caravans some distance away.

As they were moving through a mountain pass on the edge of the summer pastureland, a light truck came from the opposite direction, trailing clouds of dust; instead of waiting for the carts to yield, it drove off the road and continued past them.

Chen saw two rifle-toting soldiers, some laborers from the brigade, and a herdsman in a thin deel. The herdsman waved; it was Dorji. Chen’s heart was in his throat again at the sight of the skilled wolf killer in a truck that had become infamous for killing wolves. He rode up to the front. “Is Dorji taking people to hunt wolves again?” Chen asked.

“There’s nothing around here but mountains, lakes, and streams,” Zhang said. “The truck would be useless in places like that, so how could they be going to hunt wolves? They must be going back to help move the storage shed.”

When they reached the grassland, a horse came galloping toward them from the caravan up front. They saw it was Bilgee, looking grim. “Was Dorji on that truck?” he asked breathlessly.

They confirmed that he was. “Come with me to the old campsite,” Bilgee said to Chen. Then he turned to Zhang Jiyuan. “You go on ahead with the carts; we’ll be right back.”

“Check on the cub when you can,” Chen whispered to Zhang. “If he gives you any trouble, don’t do anything till I get back.” He then galloped off with the old man.

“Dorji must be taking those people to hunt wolves,” Bilgee said. “These days, his skills have been in great demand. Since he speaks Mandarin, he’s becomes the wolf-killing adviser to the corps, leaving the cows to his younger brother. He takes people out hunting every day. He’s on great terms with the officials. A few days ago, he even helped one of the division big shots shoot several wolves. He’s their hero now.”

“How do they hunt when there’s nothing but mountains and rivers? I don’t get it.”

“When a horse herder told me he was taking them back to the old campsite, I knew what he was up to.”

“What?”

“He’s putting out poisoned bait and setting traps on the old campsite. The old, sick, and injured wolves are in such bad shape that they have to survive on leftover bones from the pack, or food left behind by people and their dogs. They go hungry half the time. So whenever the herders move to a new place, they look for food in the ashes and garbage at the old sites. They’ll eat anything, rotting sheep pelts, stinking bones, sheep skulls, leftover food, and stuff like that. They even dig up dead dogs, sheep, and cows. All the old herdsmen know this. Sometimes, when they’ve left something behind during a move, they go back to get it and see traces of wolves. As good-hearted believers in Lamaism, they know those wolves are in bad shape, so they’d never set traps or leave poisoned bait behind. Some even leave food for the old wolves when they move.”