Jackal and Wolf

by Shen Shixi

  Yes, the fancy-tailed rooster was still there, she had not lost it on the way. All around her was snow, shining so bright it hurt her eyes. She knew she was buried in deep. But the strange thing was, she did not feel cold, or uncomfortable. In fact, it was the opposite; she was actually quite warm and very comfortable. Everything was quiet and peaceful. Her breathing was all over the place. Her eyes were stuck with snow. Her body felt weary and tired, and she longed to have a good sleep. But a voice in her head was telling her: ‘Don’t fall asleep, you must not fall asleep. If you fall asleep now, you will never get up again, and this pile of snow will be your grave!’

  She woke with a start and scrambled her way out of the snow, scraping with her paws and pushing with her head. After a while, she managed to break a hole through the snow above her head. She caught her breath and looked around, the desire for sleep vanishing. She really was in the valley, a mere twenty to thirty metres from the forest of fir trees. She climbed out of the snow, pulled the fancy-tailed rooster out too, and tried to take a few steps. Her body was tired and sore, and her front left paw seemed to be strained. She staggered a bit as she walked, but no bones seemed to be broken, and although she was unsteady on her paws, Flame was able to trot along in the snow. She had been so lucky. She had missed the rocks halfway down the mountain, and hadn’t caused an avalanche. She had survived!

  Woof-woof, woof-woof-woof, woof-woof-woof-woof, came the sound of the livid dogs up above. Flame looked up, and saw the dogs all lined up neatly on the edge of the precipice, leering down at her. Of course they were livid: they had been in hot pursuit, and that chicken-thief had leapt into the void.

  The big-eared dog was standing right at the edge – any closer and he would have fallen – jumping up and down as though he was going to follow her. But Flame was not a bit concerned, she knew that the dog did not have the courage to jump from such a height. What’s more, would it really risk smashing every bone in its body just to catch a chicken-thief? This time, Flame’s judgement had been good. The big-eared dog made a huge fuss for a while, but it would never dare to jump off.

  Amid the din coming from the dogs, Flame held the chicken in her mouth and staggered off into the fir trees. When she could no longer see the brutes, she stopped and let the rooster fall from her mouth. She tore it apart and ate it. She was so hungry that she devoured it in no time at all, and looked around for something else to eat, to give her the strength to walk back to Buddha Belly Cave. The chicken was not enough.

  By the time she reached Buddha Belly Cave the sky was already bright. Sweetie had just woken up and, yawning, made as though to suckle.

  Go on, after that fresh chicken the milk is flowing, my teats are throbbing, there’s plenty there for you.

  As Sweetie suckled, Flame inspected her wounds. Her neck was scorched from the bullet, as though a plough had dug a muddy furrow through grass.

  That was close, thought Flame.

  Half an inch to the left and her neck would have been broken. She’d lost a lot of blood when the big-eared dog had torn at her udder, and there were blood-streaked scabs on her back and sides from being scratched in the thorny bushes. She’d also lost quite a lot of hair and sprained a leg on the rocks. Although that wasn’t too serious, it would still take almost a week to recover. It is not an exaggeration to say that she had been beaten black and blue.

  What a price she had paid! And for what? Just so she would not have to eat the little wolf-pup? It came over her all of a sudden, how stupid she was, the stupidest jackal that ever lived on this earth, leaving her food to one side. Risking life and death to go into a human village to look for food, going to such lengths and such trouble when she had food at home ready to eat. Risking life over death. Could there be a stupider jackal on this earth?

  Why had she put herself through all this? Sweetie was a little wolf-pup, the offspring of her enemy, the enemy who had killed her own pups. Had she really been ready to sacrifice her own life for this? She couldn’t believe what she had done. Perhaps she was mad?

  A few weeks later, in early March, thunder crashed through the mountains, bringing the spatter of spring rain. Green shoots pushed through the earth, trees burst into leaf, and the sunlight grew warmer with every day that passed. The snow line gradually retreated up the mountainside and, as Sweetie stopped suckling, Flame’s udder no longer swelled with milk. She no longer needed Sweetie, and could treat her just like any other piece of food. But the little thing was by her side all day long, and Flame couldn’t bear to get rid of her. She certainly couldn’t bear to kill her, not after she had suckled her with her own milk, and had fed her on half-digested meat that she had chewed, swallowed and regurgitated just for her.

  With the passing of time, any thought of Sweetie as food disappeared.

  Chapter 6

  Flame found a vole’s nest by the roots of a tree. The parents had fled in a panic, leaving their eight newborn babies behind. She put in her paw and scooped them out. They were so young that they hadn’t got their soft fur yet: their skin was pink and translucent, and they still hadn’t opened their eyes. One by one Flame took them in her mouth, crunched, and gulped them down. They were so fresh and tender they made her mouth water.

  Spring is a very good month for food. Snow rabbits dart about on the grassland, wild pigs amble by the lakeside, black goats frolic on the mountainside. All Flame needed to do was step out of Buddha Belly Cave and take a look at the interesting prey all around. She could fill her belly without much effort.

  Having finished the baby voles, Flame went for a lazy stroll through the woods in the valley. The sky was clear, and the spring sun shone warmly over the earth. The temperature was perfect – not too hot, not too cold – and, having just enjoyed such exquisite food, Flame should have been feeling very comfortable and pleased with herself. But she could not be happy; the feeling that something was missing followed her everywhere. The pressure of finding food had gone, but a kind of sad melancholy had sneaked in to take its place.

  Flame came to a pile of rocks. She was about to rub her back against the rough surface when she suddenly noticed a smell that was both familiar and strange. Familiar because it was similar to the scent of her own body; it was the scent of a jackal. Strange because jackals have their own individual scents.

  A thousand jackals will have a thousand unique scents. This was the scent of a jackal that she had never met. The scent boosted her energy, and brought a sense of calmness, happiness and excitement. From the jackal fur she had found on the pile of stones, and the smell of jackal urine in the grass, she knew that this was a healthy young jackal and that he was full of life.

  Mammals think with their noses, and smell plays an important role in their emotional lives. Jackals have a sharp and developed sense of smell, much more effective than in humans. For humans, smell is the least developed of all the five senses, and when they talk about noses they tend to discuss how they look rather than how they function: the beautiful nose, long and straight with smooth sides; the ugly nose, flat and wide, with bulges like a garlic bulb. They judge a nose on its appearance, its aesthetics, and seldom on its olfactory powers: its sense of smell. A human nose can only differentiate between basic smells such as fragrant, stinking, sour and chilli, and it’s not sophisticated enough to explore more complex smells to any depth. Just as some people are short-sighted, and see only a blur until they put their glasses on, so it is with the vague, general smells that humans can perceive.

  Jackals are quite different in this respect: their vision, hearing and sense of smell combine to create a three-dimensional world. In some cases, the sense of smell is more powerful than that of sight or hearing. For jackals, it is more subtle than whether something smells good or bad, it is about a more complex world, in which the jackal’s nose has access to a catalogue of smells, and when a particular smell reaches the nose, it will naturally produce a correct identification.

  For example, if it picks up the smell of a bear on wet ground, it might pro
duce an image of a fierce heavy bear, and upon further consideration, it will determine whether the bear is male or female, how long it has been there, whether it is hungry or has just eaten, whether it is angry or calm, and so on. It can find all these answers in the smell. You could say that, for a jackal, a smell is like a living image.

  Flame concentrated on the smell that the unfamiliar jackal had left on the rocks, and gradually put together an image of him in her mind. He had golden fur, like the orange sun at about eight or nine o’clock in the morning, snowy-white teeth that sparkled like ice, bright eyes that shone like fire. He was obviously well nourished; she could tell that he’d recently eaten fresh mutton. She built up an image of a golden hurricane sweeping across jade-green plains, chasing a herd of distracted antelopes, like the autumn wind sweeping up fallen leaves, and hurling itself on a small one that had yet to grow horns. The poetry in these smells is a delight to jackals.

  Spring is a season full of emotions: swallows murmur, wild cats cry, and rams lock horns to gain the attention of ewes. All living creatures are busy multiplying, creating the next generation. Uncontrollable stirrings for love were surging through Flame’s body. It was Nature’s way. Jackals are on heat during certain seasons: spring and autumn are their mating seasons, and at these times their sense of smell is particularly acute.

  If her two little ones hadn’t been killed by the wolf, she would have been busy raising a son and daughter. They would have only recently stopped suckling. The scent of the unfamiliar jackal would not have had such an impact on her, and she would not have had such a strong reaction to it.

  Normally, when a jackal has pups, she doesn’t come on heat again for about two years. She is pregnant for about ninety-five days, suckles the pups for about a hundred days, then feeds them regurgitated food for a while before training them to hunt – preparing them for independent life. During this time the mother devotes her attention to her pups, to training and feeding them; she thinks of nothing else. When the pups are almost two, and they are more or less adult-size and can hunt by themselves, their childhood comes to an end, and the mother’s thoughts turn towards raising the next litter.

  Flame had been on heat only six months previously, but fate had snatched away her pups, and this was Nature’s way of getting her back on track. It was urging her to be a mother again.

  Flame could tell that the jackal had caught his fur on the rock quite recently, and his urine was fresh enough to sting her nostrils. It was not long since he had been here, and he was probably not far away. Flame howled, and was disappointed that it went unanswered. But she wasn’t worried: his scent was still strong around here, and he couldn’t have gone far. She was bound to catch sight of him at some time.

  Flame made her way back to Buddha Belly Cave, optimistically leaving her smell in conspicuous places. She rubbed her back against the rough bark of a solitary tree, leaving a few hairs behind. She cocked her leg at the square rock at the mouth of the valley which was effectively the gateway to Buddha Belly Cave. And then, in the forest beside the valley, where she loved to wander and roam, she licked the underside of the tree roots and spotted the grass with urine. She used her body smells to weave a web of passion. Humans may post lonely hearts ads, write love letters and seduce with words, but jackals convey their message, their feelings, through smell.

  That night, a jackal howling from the hill opposite Buddha Belly Cave crooned from moonrise to moonset, like a lovelorn suitor singing at his beloved’s window. Flame’s web of smells and passion had worked well and fast. He was smitten.

  That night, Flame drifted off to the sweet sound of love songs. She did not arrange to meet the jackal immediately, because the selection of a mate is a very serious matter. A she-jackal will want to make sure that her future pups will be the offspring of good stock. She will take the utmost care to scrutinise the suitor both for his outward appearance and his personal qualities. Only when she is sure that he meets her requirements will she accept him as a mate.

  The following morning, Flame stepped out of Buddha Belly Cave and, as usual, headed over to the Gamar grasslands to hunt for food. She was passing through the mountain valley when she realised that a jackal was following her. He seemed to be playing a kind of hide-and-seek with her, crouching in the grass or the bushes, yet calling to her with a low howl now and again.

  He seemed a bit hesitant about appearing in front of the opposite sex, as though not wishing to appear too forward. This pleased Flame. She walked on to a rocky hill bereft of any grass or bushes – as bare as bare can be – where there was nowhere for him to hide. He would have to show himself in the sunlight.

  Sure enough, out he came. Flame’s sense of smell had not betrayed her, and the image she had created in her mind stood there before her: a handsome young jackal, a half-shoulder taller than herself, his hair glistening in the sun as though he’d oiled it specially. His nose was as shiny as jade, there were no wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and he had a very distinctive black tail. So distinctive in fact that he could have been a new breed: a black-tailed jackal. She was intrigued that he kept his eyes closed as she looked him up and down, as though he was embarrassed to be looked at in this way. But when she stopped looking at him, he raised his head and looked at her, his eyes burning like fire.

  She felt she would melt in his gaze. She loved the subtlety of their exchange. She called out to him, then ran off towards the grasslands. He followed her at a comfortable distance. Flame appreciated this too. She couldn’t bear those crude and vulgar jackals that were so keen in their courting, yet so brutal afterwards. That type only had to set eye on a half-decent looking female, and he’d be after her like a fly. But this black-tailed jackal was different. Flame liked a jackal with manners; it gave her a sense of security.

  Of course, when a jackal is choosing her mate, good looks and good manners are not enough, because for wild animals, survival is always top of the list. A good heart and kind eyes are all very well, but the most important criteria for a she-jackal are that her mate be tall, strong and loyal, that his hunting skills are good, that he finds food in good time, that he runs fast and that he has a killer’s bite. She needs to be sure that when she has pups in her belly, he will not transfer his affection to another female jackal and when the pups are in their infancy, his love for her will last. In other words, ‘loyal’ describes a jackal that will dutifully accept his responsibilities.

  Flame was looking for a tall, strong mate because when a jackal is tall and strong he is usually good at hunting too. This meant their offspring would have a good start in life. If they are well fed, young jackals that cannot yet hunt for themselves are able to thrive in the forest. Flame was looking for a loyal mate because jackals are medium-sized animals with enemies on land and in the sky, and their path of life is packed with danger. When a jackal has to raise her pups on her own, their rate of survival is very poor. But with a loyal mate by her side, they can take care of the pups together. That way they would have a much better chance of survival. The essence was to try to create the best chances for the next generation.

  Flame’s first consideration was whether this male really was tall and strong. She would do a simple test. She would lead him to the wild boars’ hunting ground, and let him show off his hunting technique.

  Looks can be deceptive. Sometimes a jackal can look good – his fur shines, his legs are strong and healthy, his teeth are sharp – but he is as useless as a delicately embroidered pillowcase filled with straw; as useless as the shiny pebbles that turn out to be horse poo. When he gets to the hunting ground, you can see his true colours: he has a muddled brain and four left feet. Jackals like that can’t even catch a rabbit. Flame wouldn’t be seduced by a beautiful exterior. She would check whether he had any genuine hunting skills before she made up her mind.

  After a while, Flame reached the grasslands. In the springtime they are filled with beautiful wild flowers, fluttering butterflies and warbling orioles. There are racing hares and leap
ing foxes, and the occasional eagle patrolling the sky. A herd of wild camels were strolling on the riverbank, full of life and vigour. Flame climbed a gentle slope, then casually sat on her haunches, licked her lips, and scratched at her skin. She turned her head meaningfully to look the black-tailed jackal in the eye. Her body language was telling him, ‘I’m hungry. Won’t you be a knight in shining armour and rescue this beautiful maiden? Won’t you go to the trouble of fetching me a sweet morsel to eat?’

  Blacktail stood facing the wind. He flared his nostrils and sniffed the air, his ears twitching as he listened. Suddenly his eyes lit up at the wild olive grove about sixty metres in front of him. He sprang like an arrow from a bowstring. With the hair on his neck so beautiful and his tail as straight as the horizon, this was the light, swift movement of a graceful warrior. His powerful legs, rippling with muscle, took him almost two metres in a single leap. He reached the olive grove in the blink of an eye and dived with a whoosh into the verdant undergrowth.

  All Flame could see were the leaves and branches thrashing about. Was that the squeak of a startled rabbit she could hear? Seconds later, Blacktail came running out of the tangled undergrowth with a plump snow rabbit in his mouth. He dropped it at Flame’s feet. The rabbit’s neck was broken, but it was not completely dead. It lay on the ground, twitching in pain. Only a jackal possessed with the finest sense of smell, hearing and vision was able to find prey hidden in the wild tangle of the undergrowth at this speed. Only a jackal with expert coordination was able to catch a quick-witted, agile snow rabbit in such a short time. Blacktail was indeed a tall, strong jackal with a fine physique and superb hunting skills.

  The only mark on the snow rabbit was the single line left by Blacktail’s teeth. It demonstrated his accuracy and efficiency; this jackal could kill with one bite. Although Flame hadn’t seen with her own eyes how he had caught the snow rabbit, she could imagine the spectacular scene from its wound. The rabbit had no doubt thought it was safely out of sight in the dense olive grove, and relaxed its guard. Blacktail had slipped quietly as the breeze up to the wild olive grove, then darted in like a flash of lightning. The rabbit had heard something move and was just about to run off. But it was too late, the jackal’s claw was on its back, and the jackal’s teeth were in its neck. One bite and the rabbit was lying on the ground. Blacktail’s hunting moves were quick and sharp; there were no mistakes.