Wolf Totem: A Novel

by Jiang Rong

  What worried Chen the most was the future of the wolves. Once the farmers came, the swans, ducks, and wild geese would either be eaten or fly away. But wolves aren’t birds. Would they, after generations on the grassland, be exterminated or chased out of China, their home?

  After downing two bowls of cool tea, Yang said to Chen, “Who’d have thought that the corps would be here so soon? I hated the military life during peacetime, and I barely managed to avoid being sent to the Heilongjiang Production and Construction Corps. Who’d have thought I’d one day be under the control of its Inner Mongolian counterpart? I don’t know what’s going to happen to the Olonbulag, but we have to figure out something for the wolves, and soon.”

  As they talked, a fast horse sped toward them along the oxcart path, trailing a long cloud of yellow dust. One look told them that Zhang Jiyuan was back to get some rest.

  They sat down to eat some steamed and boiled millet, mutton stewed with mushrooms, and pickled wild leek flowers.

  "You have a fast horse, and you’re up to speed on news,” Yang said to Zhang, “so tell us about the corps.”

  “Well, the brigade office is now the corps office, with the arrival of the first group of cadres, half Mongols, the other half Han. Their first task may be to exterminate the wolves. They were outraged when they learned how many young horses they killed. They said the first thing the army traditionally did when they arrived on the grassland was to wipe out the bandits. This time they’ll kill the wolves first. They’ve sent their best men. They say they’re doing it for our good, but it’s put the old Mongols in a tight spot. Trying to explain the benefits of wolves to farm boys in uniform would be like playing music to an ox. The wolves’ coats are full now, so their pelts will fetch a good price. The corps cadres aren’t well paid; even the staff officers and clerks get only about sixty or seventy yuan a month. A wolf pelt can bring in twenty yuan, plus an award. That’s why they’re so eager to get started.”

  Yang Ke sighed. “Mongolian wolves,” he said, “the end is near for you. The situation has changed; the age of heroes is over. Hurry up and flee to Outer Mongolia.”

  31

  Early one morning, two open-topped military vehicles stopped by Chen Zhen’s yurt. Seeing the giant objects and smelling gasoline for the first time, the cub shot into his hole. The dogs, on the other hand, surrounded the vehicles, barking madly. Chen and Yang ran out to stop the dogs and chase them away.

  The doors opened to reveal Bao Shungui and four soldiers, who headed straight for the cub’s hole. Not knowing what was happening, Chen, Yang, and Gao rushed over to them. Chen tried to remain calm. “Director Bao, you’ve brought someone to see the cub.”

  Bao smiled. “Let me make the introductions.” He pointed to two officers in their thirties. “These men are with the corps advance party, Staff Officer Xu and Staff Officer Batel.” Then he pointed to the two drivers, “This is Old Liu and this is Little Wang. They’re going to put down roots out here and bring their families over when the houses are finished on the corps office site. They’ve been sent to help us kill the wolves.”

  Chen shook hands, his heart beating wildly. He invited them inside for tea.

  “No need,” said Bao. “We’ll see the cub first. Bring it out; these staff officers made a special trip to see it.”

  Chen forced a smile. “So you’re interested in wolves, are you?”

  In a thick Shaanxi accent, Xu said cordially, “Wolves are bloodthirsty killers, so the division and corps leaders have sent us out to exterminate them. We’ve never seen grassland wolves, which is why Old Bao brought us here.”

  Batel, who spoke with a Shandong accent, added, “Old Bao says you and the others know a lot about wolves, that you’re good at killing them and taking their cubs, one of which you’re raising so you can study the wolf’s nature. A smart, bold move. We’ll need your help when we go after them.”

  The men were cordial and personable, and Chen felt better after learning that they hadn’t come to kill the cub. “Wolf... wolves are complex animals,” he stammered. “It would take days to tell you all about them. Let’s go see the cub. Stay back; don’t step inside the pen. He bites strangers. He almost bit a league cadre once.”

  Chen took two pieces of meat out of a bag and picked up an old chopping board before walking quietly toward the cave opening. He laid the board down on the ground and shouted, “Little Wolf, Little Wolf, time to eat.” The cub flew out the cave and pounced on the meat. Chen quickly pushed the board over to block the entrance before jumping out of the pen. The cub was usually fed in the morning and afternoon. This was the first time he’d been fed so soon after noon, which made him very happy; he tore at the meat. Bao and the others backed away.

  The observers crouched in a semicircle. With the arrival of these men and their unfamiliar scents, the cub behaved strangely. Instead of charging them threateningly, as he normally did, he tucked his tail between his legs and made himself small as he carried a piece of meat to the far end of the pen, where he laid it down and then went back to get the second piece. With his hackles standing up, he went ahead and ate, but he was unhappy about being surrounded by so many people. After a couple of bites, he changed his demeanor, wrinkling his nose and baring his fangs as he rushed the soldiers. His savage look and his speed caught them by surprise, and all five frightened men fell backward. Even with the chain, the cub came within three feet.

  Staff Officer Batel sat up and dusted off his hands. “That’s some wild animal, a lot meaner than our wolfhounds. That chain saved us.”

  “Not even a year old, and it’s already as big as a full-grown dog,” Xu said. “Thanks for bringing us here, Old Bao. Now I really feel like I’m on a battlefield.” He turned to Batel. “Wolves are faster and a lot sneakier than dogs. And their attacks are lightning quick.”

  Batel nodded as the cub turned and leaped at the meat, gobbling it down while making hoarse, threatening growls.

  The two men measured the cub’s size with their eyes and took a good look at his fur and skin. They concluded it would be best to aim at the head or the chest from the side. That would kill a wolf without damaging the pelt.

  “These youngsters know their business,” Bao said, his face glowing, “All the herdsmen and most of the students were against raising this cub, but I told them to go ahead. If you know your enemy as well as you know yourself, you can’t lose. I’ve brought lots of people over to see the cub. The Chinese, who are afraid of wolves, are the most eager to see them. They all say it’s a better animal than the ones they see in the zoo. It’s a rare opportunity to see a live wolf at close range. This is the only one out here. When the corps leadership comes to inspect, I’ll make this their first stop.”

  “I’m sure they’ll come when they hear about the famous Mongolian wolf cub.” Then Xu turned to Chen. “Make sure the chain and post are secure.”

  Bao looked at his watch. “Now back to business. We’re here not only to see the cub but also to get one of you to come with us. These marksmen were sent to help us eliminate the wolf scourge. Staff Officer Xu shot a high-flying hawk yesterday. From the ground it looked like a pea. One shot was all it took. So which one of you will it be?”

  Chen’s heart sank. The Olonbulag wolf’s mortal enemy had arrived. Following the rapid growth of the farming population, military vehicles and cavalry troops had finally pushed all the way to the border. “The horse herders know where to find the wolves,” he said glumly. “Get one of them to be your guide.”

  “The old ones won’t come,” Bao said, “and the young ones are useless. All the experienced ones have gone into the mountains to tend the horses. Since these two officers have taken the trouble to come all this way, one of you has to go, just this one time.”

  “Why not ask Dorji, the brigade’s most famous wolf killer?”

  “The deputy commander already took him. Commander Li loves to hunt, especially from a moving vehicle.” He took another look at his watch. “Stop wasting time.”
>
  Seeing they had no choice, Chen said to Yang, “Why don’t you go?”

  “I don’t know the wolves as well you. It’s... it’s better that you go.”

  “I’ll decide,” Bao said impatiently. “Chen, you come with us. But if you’re like Bilgee, always letting the wolves go, and we come back empty-handed, I’ll kill your cub. No more nonsense. Now let’s go.”

  Chen’s face paled; he instinctively took a step to block the cub. "Okay, I’ll go. I’m ready.”

  The two vehicles sped west, trailed by a pair of yellow dust dragons.

  Chen had not ridden in a motor vehicle for more than two years. The rare opportunity to hunt this way would have made him feel privileged if he hadn’t become so fascinated by wolves, if he’d just arrived at the grassland, if he hadn’t been learning from the wolves. How exciting, how pleasurable to speed across the grassland like the wind in pursuit of wolves! It should have been more satisfying than fox hunting with British aristocrats, or hunting bears in a snowy forest with Russian tsars, or joining encirclement hunts with thousands of horses, like the Manchu imperial family.

  But at the moment, Chen’s only wish was that the vehicle would break down. He felt like a traitor, leading an army to arrest friends. Bao knew how he felt toward wolves, and he wondered how he’d manage to protect his cub and spare the other wolves.

  The corps’ wolf-extermination campaign had already begun throughout the grassland. This time, the wolves would be chased out of China and off the stage of history, condemned with a terrible reputation, while their invaluable influence and achievements would be obliterated. No one but Bilgee, the grassland devotees of the wolf totem, and his two friends back in the yurt would understand how sad he was. Chen’s sorrow was that he was simultaneously too advanced and too ancient.

  On the Olonbulag, one encountered a different wind every five miles and another rain every ten. Now Chen was riding down on a wet, sandy road. The howling autumn wind helped clear his head. He concluded that they had to go to a place where they could find wolves, but one from which the wolves could easily escape.

  He turned to Bao in the backseat. “I know where there are wolves, but the vehicle will be useless. It’s too hilly and too reedy.”

  Bao glared at him. “Don’t play games with me. Mosquitoes are concentrated in reedy areas at this time of year, and you won’t find wolves there. Don’t you think I’d know that after hunting wolves these past six months?”

  Chen corrected himself. “What I meant was, we can’t enter the mountains or the reedy area, so we’ll have to go to the sandy hills and big gentle slopes where there aren’t so many mosquitoes.”

  Bao wouldn’t let him off the hook that easily. “The horse herders chased the wolves away after that incident with the young horses on the sandy hills. We didn’t see any wolves yesterday when we drove around there. I can tell we won’t be able to use your talents today. So listen carefully. I don’t go back on my word. We didn’t kill any wolves yesterday, and that has made us very unhappy.” Bao took a drag from his cigarette and blew the smoke into the back of Chen’s head.

  Chen realized how difficult it would be to put anything over on someone shrewd enough to climb all the way up from the bottom of the bureaucracy. “I know another patch of sandy land,” he said, “northwest of the Chaganuul Mountains. It’s a sandy area with little grass because of the wind, but there are lots of mice and prairie dogs, quite a few marmots too. Now that the wolves have no horses to eat, they have to move to places with lots of small animals.”

  Chen decided he’d take them to the northwesternmost corner of the pasture, where there was poor sandy soil and little grass. It was also a good place to avoid the mosquitoes and graze the horses, but it was near the border and the herders never took their horses there. Chen hoped that the soldiers would be able to see wolves that could then easily cross the border and escape.

  Bao considered the suggestion. He smiled and said, “You may be right. Why didn’t I think of that? Old Liu, head north. That’s where we’ll go today, so step on it.”

  Chen added, “It’ll be better to walk if we want to kill wolves. These vehicles make too much noise, and the wolves will run into the grass when they hear us. We’ve had lots of rain this year, and the grass is tall, which makes it easy for them to hide.”

  Staff Officer Xu said, “You just find the wolves, and leave the rest to me.”

  Chen felt he’d made a serious mistake.

  They sped northwest, following an ancient dirt path created by herders making seasonable moves from pasture to pasture. Autumn grass had grown back on the lamb-birthing pasture, which had been grazed barren by livestock in the spring; the dense grass, roiling like waves, was dotted with swaying daisies. A strong fragrance typical of fine grass filled their noses. A few purple swallows followed to eat moths and other insects stirred up by the vehicles, but they quickly fell behind, only to be replaced by new ones, creating one purple arc after another.

  Chen breathed in the intoxicating aroma of autumn grass and flowers. This was where they would come back for lamb birthing. Seventy percent of the pasture’s income came from the sale of wool and sheep, so the birthing pasture was a precious place, the source of life. He paid close attention along the way and saw there was excellent grass, almost like a carefully tended wheat field. Not a single yurt had been put down here since the production team moved to the summer pasture. He felt a sense of gratitude toward the wolves and the horse herders. An enticing, fragrant pasture would have been ruined by gazelles, wild rabbits, and mice but for the wolves.

  Everything Chen saw in the lush panorama contributed to the hardships endured by the horse herders, who, in spite of the heat and mosquitoes, had worked day and night to check the appetites of their gluttonous charges by taking them to a hilly pasture to graze on second-rate, goatee-like grass, or grass left behind by the cattle and sheep. They’d never let their horses near the birthing pasture. While they loved their horses as much as their own lives, when it came to grazing, they treated them like thieves or locusts. If not for them, this pasture, the source of life, would have been left with nothing but horse droppings from poorly digested grass and clumps of dead grass burned by animal urine. How could soldiers from agricultural areas understand all that?

  These thoughts made it impossible for Chen to hold back. “See how well protected the pasture is?” he said to Staff Officer Xu. “When the brigade came here for the spring birthing of lambs, tens of thousands of gazelles had stormed over from Outer Mongolia. We couldn’t chase them away, even with rifles. If they ran off during the day, they returned at night to fight over grass with the birthing ewes. Luckily the wolves came and, in a matter of days, the gazelles were gone. If not for the wolves, there’d have been no grass for the ewes and no milk for the newborn lambs; we’d have lost tens of thousands of lambs. Husbandry is different from agriculture. When there’s a disaster, the most a farmer will suffer is a year’s crops, but a disaster out here can mean the loss of eight or ten years, even as much as a herder’s lifetime income.”

  Xu nodded, though his hawklike eyes continued searching the grassland. After a while, he said, “How could you have relied on wolves to kill the gazelles? That’s so backward. The herdsmen have inferior rifles and marksmanship, and no trucks. Watch us next spring. We’ll use motor vehicles, assault rifles, and machine guns. No gazelles will be our match, no matter how many there are. I’ve hunted them out west. The best way is to turn on the headlights at night; they’re afraid of the dark, so they crowd around the light. Then keep driving and fire as you go. You can kill hundreds of them in a single night. So you have gazelle here. That’s great. The more the better. The people at division headquarters and the agricultural corps will have meat now.”

  “Look!” Bao Shungui called out softly, pointing to his left.

  Chen looked through his telescope and said, “A fox. Let’s get it.”

  Bao observed it carefully. “Yes,” he said, disappointed. “It’s on
ly a fox. Forget it.” Then he turned to Xu, who had his rifle up. “Don’t shoot. Wolves have keen ears. We’ll go home empty-handed if you startle them.”

  “This is our lucky day,” Xu said happily. “Where there are foxes, there are wolves.”

  The closer they got to the sandy pasture, the more wildlife they saw: sand swallows, sand grouses, desert foxes, and sand mice. Rusty red sand grouses were the most common; they flew in large flocks, their feathers making the sound of pigeon whistles. Pointing at the gentle ridge in the distance, Chen said, “The sandy area is just over that ridge. The older herders say there used to be a big pasture with a spring here. But many years ago, the Olonbulag suffered a terrible drought, which dried up the lakes, the rivers, and the wells, all but that spring. So the livestock was driven here for water. From dawn to dusk, large numbers of animals were lined up, stomping and grazing the grass. It took less than two years for the pasture to turn to sand. Luckily, the spring didn’t dry up, and the grass slowly returned. But we’ll have to wait decades before it returns to its original condition. The grassland is so fragile that it turns to desert whenever it exceeds its capacity.”

  Squeaking mice scampered away from the wheels. “The capacity includes those mice,” Chen said. “The destruction they cause is worse than livestock. Wolves are the main reason the grassland isn’t overburdened. If you kill a wolf, I’ll open its belly and show you its contents. During this season, you’ll find mainly mice and field mice.”

  “I didn’t know that wolves eat mice,” Xu said.

  “The cub I’m raising loves them. He swallows them tails and all. The grassland never experiences a scourge of mice because the herdsmen don’t kill all the wolves. If you do that now, the mice will run wild, and that will spell disaster for the grassland—”

  Bao cut him off. “Pay attention and keep your eye out for wolves.”

  As they neared the ridge, Staff Officer Xu tensed. He checked the lay of the land and told the driver to head west. “If there are wolves here, we can’t go right in. We’ll have to take the sentry wolves first.”