Jackal and Wolf

by Shen Shixi

  Flame watched the old moon rise in the sky. In the early hours, she felt the night breeze dampen. She saw the morning mist hover over the green grass and gradually spread out through the mountain wilderness. A new day was beginning.

  Flame was getting anxious and restless. The tiresome wolf pup had disappeared without a trace, had not bothered to come home, and yet she was worried sick about her. She had planned to get rid of the little thing, and had been trying to find an appropriate opportunity, though she found it hard emotionally to summon up the resolve to drive her out. But she had to remind herself that she was talking about a wolf here, the most dangerous competition for a jackal. They could not live together forever. Sooner or later they would have to go their separate ways. Now the little thing was lost. She’d either lost track of Flame, or been distracted and gone off to play. Flame’s plans had worked!

  There was no downside to this situation. In fact, the opposite was true. This was an excellent outcome, a godsend. She hadn’t harmed the little thing, she hadn’t arranged her disappearance, she had not been involved. It was simply the case that Sweetie had failed to come home. It had been a ridiculous idea for a jackal to raise a wolf pup by her side. She should be delighted that this ridiculous situation was now over.

  She would not wait in anticipation any longer by the mouth of the cave, where the draught and the mist made her coat damp. She stood up and headed for the back of the cave where it was warm and dry, curled up, buried her face in her fur, and tried to fall into a deep sleep. A peaceful, carefree, not-a-worry-in-the-world kind of sleep!

  But she tossed and turned, and no matter how she tried, she couldn’t get to sleep. When she lay on the stone slab, it was too hard and her bones hurt. When she lay on the dry leaves and branches, it was too soft, and her muscles ached. The pins and needles were so painful she felt she was being bitten by hundreds and thousands of ants. She was used to snuggling up with Sweetie and falling asleep together. It felt cold and lonely without her in Buddha Belly Cave. It turned out to be a long and lonely night. The joy had gone from her life. She felt such heaviness in her heart, such a sense of loss.

  Flame couldn’t help thinking about Sweetie. Although she was as big as Flame now, she was still young. She had not reached the age to leave home. She did not have the skills to live an independent life. She loved to play and to go exploring, but in all these months Flame had never let her leave her side. If Sweetie disappeared from view, she had worried and gone to look for her. Even now that she was no longer dependent on Flame for food, it was unlikely she would go off on her own. Something must have happened.

  Maybe she had lost her way in the woods? Maybe a wild animal had attacked her? The little thing was not hunting independently yet, and if she lost her way, she would die of hunger. If she’d been wounded by a wild beast, then she would die too. The same dreadful thought kept running round and round in Flame’s mind: that Sweetie had been attacked by a mountain panther, and was dripping with blood, howling in pain, wandering about in the pitch black night like a lost ghost . . .

  She couldn’t lie down any more. She rolled over, leapt to her feet, and walked out of Buddha Belly Cave. She was going to find Sweetie; it was the only way she would find peace again. She followed the hazy moonlight, followed the route she had taken the day before, and kept walking. The tops of the trees obscured the moonlight, and the path through the wilderness was dark. The black night was as thick and rich as ink. Flame stepped gingerly forwards, scratching and scrambling, as she felt her way through the mountains and forests. She kept her nose to the ground, sniffing and searching for the little pup’s scent. But the mist was too damp, and the grass was covered in pearls of dew. No matter how hard she tried she could not sniff out an accurate line. Her ears were pricked up straight as a pencil, tuned to pick up the slightest movement. Nature wasn’t helping. Just now the wind had picked up, shaking the tree branches, and rustling the leaves. She could not hear anything else.

  Venus was rising, shining brighter than any star in the sky, and from the mountain peak opposite came the sound of a pheasant. It would be a while until dawn. Flame had already followed the route of the bharal, there and back again, but there was still no sign of Sweetie. She had almost given up hope when she came to the fork in the road that leads to the foothills of the snowy mountains, and the Gamar grasslands. She heard a budum budum sound to her left, as though something was jumping. She approached cautiously. She sniffed carefully, and vaguely smelled Sweetie’s scent in the grass. She growled softly as she followed the sound. Then the budum budum stopped, and a few seconds later, the saddest howl rang out. It was a little hoarse, a little muffled, it was some distance away, but she knew at once that it was Sweetie! Growling softly to stay in touch, Flame followed Sweetie’s voice as she ran over to find her.

  She ran through a shrubby patch. She could hear Sweetie’s howl loud and clear, but she could see no sign of her. She looked around with her big jackal eyes, and spotted a hole in the grass about a metre and a half wide. The howls were coming from inside the hole. Flame ran over, lay down carefully by the hole, and looked inside. It was almost dawn, and in the faint glow of morning, she could just about see what was down there. It was a round hole about two metres deep, a simple well like those abandoned by gold-diggers, with dirty water at the bottom. The water came up to Sweetie’s middle, only her back, neck and head were above the waterline. The sides of the well were slippery and shiny, and there was nothing to hold on to, no way to climb out. The little thing was covered in mud, looking rather embarrassed.

  She cried out when she saw Flame, and tried to scramble out of the hole. But she couldn’t climb very far, and when she reached as high as a metre, she hit the wall and fell back to the bottom with a muddy splash. It was not that Sweetie was weak. A bigger, stronger, grown-up wolf would have found it just as difficult.

  Sweetie tried a couple more times to jump out, and as before, managed to jump halfway only to fall back down again. Eventually, she gave up. She was tired. She could just about raise herself on her front legs, but her hind legs would no longer take her weight. She sat in the dirty water, and gave a hoarse howl of defeat.

  Flame could see that time was running out. Sweetie must have fallen into the well at least five hours earlier. She could picture how it had happened: the little thing had been following behind her, on the trail of the bharal, running to keep up. She was tired and had fallen behind. She had soon lost her way, run around in a panic, and picked the wrong path through the bushes. In the dim light of dusk, the grass around the well had looked lush and green, and the opening was obscured. Sweetie had been running fast and had put her foot right into it. Fortunately it was not too deep, and there was not much water at the bottom. The fall had not hurt her, but had knocked the spirit out of her.

  She must have howled until she was hoarse, calling for Flame to come as quickly as she could. But Flame hadn’t come. She was all alone with no one to help her, trapped in a water dungeon as the day turned to night. Thank goodness it was summer, or she might have frozen to death down there.

  The sky had gradually darkened. The little thing had not wanted to die in the well. She had tried to jump out of this abyss of misery. She had jumped with all the determination she had shown when demanding milk from Flame. But no matter how hard she tried, her front paws barely left the ground. The little thing was not deterred. She jumped again and again, until she could jump no more. The wolf pup tried so many times that she tired herself out. She was stuck at the bottom of the well, exhausted, defeated, terrified and starving. Her confidence had plummeted. Her energy was spent. She was so weak that every minute felt precious. Flame needed to think of a way to rescue her, to get her out of the well. Or the well would become a burial chamber.

  Flame lay by the mouth of the well, looking down into its depths, leaning as far forward as she dared. She wanted to get as close to Sweetie as possible so the pup would not feel isolated and lonely. She made soft intimate noises to say she wou
ld not abandon her; she would find a way of getting her out of the well. She wanted to comfort Sweetie. At the same time, she told her to stop that silly jumping, it was a complete waste of energy, no use whatsoever.

  ‘If you can keep calm, hold your nerve, and preserve your strength, then there’s a hope of getting you out of here.’

  Although one was a jackal and one was a wolf, they had lived together for a long time and communicated well through sound and body language. Sweetie gradually steadied herself, lay down in the dirty water, with just her head above the water level, and took long deep breaths as she waited to be rescued.

  Flame walked round the well, first in a clockwise direction, then anti-clockwise, anxiously trying to think of a way to get the pup out. The old well wasn’t very deep. It wasn’t an inescapable hellhole. If she could give the little thing a pair of wings, she’d be able to fly out with a couple of flaps. But this was her imagination talking. She needed a practical solution rather than wishful fantasy.

  There was no point in her leaping into the well, because she’d never be able to get the pup out, and she’d probably end up dying down there too. No, throwing herself in the well would be a stupid idea. Canines aren’t like primates. They can’t simply put out a hand, and pull a pup out of a well. They can’t use a rope or similar tools. What was she going to do? How was she going to rescue the pup? Humans think jackals are cunning, but humans have much more knowledge they can draw on. Flame’s head hurt so much she felt it would explode. She had been thinking so hard, but she still hadn’t come up with a solution. Then something clicked in her mind as she remembered watching a fox eating a black carp.

  It had been several months earlier. Flame had set out in the morning to look for food by the Guna River. As it passes through the Gamar grasslands, the river bed is very wide, and its banks are full of golden sand and green-brown rocks of all shapes and sizes. When the water recedes, fish, crabs and turtles get stranded on the sandbanks. They are a fine feast there for the taking. But Flame had been too late. She searched for ages on the sandbanks, but did not have much luck. She was disheartened to find only two crabs the size of a rhododendron petal. There was less meat on them than something stuck between your teeth! She had been just about to try her luck in the grasslands, when she had suddenly heard a great hullabaloo. There was water splashing about all over the rocks. She was curious and ran over to take a look. Well, well, there among the strange-shaped rocks had been a hole about eighty centimetres across, full of water from the river, with a large fish swimming about at the bottom. It was a black carp, roughly fifty centimetres long. When the river was high and covered the sandbanks, the carp must have followed the current and come looking for food in the sand. It had got distracted, missed the receding water, and ended up stranded in this hole. Flame’s belly had been an empty hollow by now. She longed to scoop up the fish and eat it.

  She had tested the water. It was almost a metre deep. A jackal’s paw cannot reach that far. When the black carp realised there was a predator eager to catch it, it had gone as deep as it could, hiding itself by the rock at the bottom of the hole, and refusing to swim out. It was so annoying! Flame had looked at the shape of the hole. Its wide mouth descended to a small base, like a cone narrowing as it deepened. If she were to leap in recklessly, it was quite likely she would get stuck in the rock and be forced to join the ghosts of the river. She would not get to eat the fish, but the fish would eat her.

  She had waited a while. The water in the hole did not go down, and there was nowhere for the water to leak out. The water had already receded, so there was no point in waiting for the water to go down naturally and expose the fish. The river water had ebbed and flowed, ebbed and flowed quite naturally. It had begun to swell; within the hour the river would cover the rocks all over again, and when the water came the black carp would simply swim up and rejoin the river.

  Flame had bitterly wanted this fish – her mind was focused, her eyes keen, her mouth drooling. She had growled at the black carp deep in the water, determined to get it.

  Flame had clambered up the bank of the river, and saw a pair of red foxes emerging from the bushes. Against the sandy riverbank, the dazzling red fur on their backs was stunning. The male had soft, loose fur on his cheeks, and looked very dignified. The vixen had a snowy white face with those expressive eyes that give the fox its obsequious reputation – that peering up from the corner of the eye – that sickly sweet smile with the eyes, alluring yet not to be trusted. The foxes had gone to the river to take a drink, then wandered around on the rose-coloured sand. They had kept their snouts close to the ground, sniffing about, their ears alert, trembling at every sound. They were looking for food, hoping to find a stranded creature from the river.

  In the food chain, jackals and foxes don’t have a predator-and-prey relationship. Although jackals are slightly stronger than foxes, and tend to be fiercer by nature, they don’t have an overwhelming advantage over foxes, and especially not in the case of one jackal facing a pair of foxes. It was out of the question. After watching them for a while, Flame had been ready to go her own way.

  Then the alluring vixen had started to shriek, and dashed over to the strange-shaped rocks, the male close behind her. They had come to the hole with the black carp trapped inside, and leapt and whooped with delight. Flame knew why they were cheering. They had found the carp, a tasty meal. This was going to be fun, Flame had thought. She had sat on her haunches behind a hillock to watch. The foxes would probably have the same experience as she had – delight, followed by frustration, disappointment, and bitterness – and then walk away. She had wanted to see the foxes getting mad because they couldn’t work out how to catch the black carp. A bit of amusement, some food for the soul, to lighten her mood.

  At first, it had been as she expected. After the initial thirty seconds of delight, the pleasure began to subside. The vixen had stretched out her paw to scoop the fish out of the hole, but she would have just as much luck trying to scoop out the moon. Then she had put her mouth to the water, as though she was planning to suck it all up, empty the hole and pluck the black carp out of the mud. She must be dreaming! There was so much water in that hole that her belly would burst long before she could drink it dry! The foxes had begun to scratch their cheeks and twiddle their ears, as they wondered how they were going to do this.

  Go on, feel the frustration, and the disappointment, Flame had thought. It gives a jackal the greatest pleasure to see a fox caught in a dilemma.

  Just as Flame was silently laughing at the foxes, the male had suddenly leapt down from the rock, and gone over to where the sandy riverbank is covered in stones. He had picked up a pebble the size of a goose egg, carried it in his mouth back to the rocks, and dropped it into the hole. Water splashed out. The vixen copied what she had seen, and leapt down to fetch a pebble.

  At first, Flame hadn’t been able to work out what the foxes were doing. Why were they dropping pebbles in the hole? Were they playing some game? Trying to hit the fish on the head and knock it unconscious, so it would die and float to the surface? What a stupid idea! If there was no water in the hole, and a rabbit was hiding there, then there might be some point in throwing pebbles at the rabbit. At least it would be possible to knock the rabbit out, or to make it run out in a panic. But this was a different situation entirely. There was water in the hole. Any pebbles would sink to the bottom. They wouldn’t even touch the fish, let alone knock it out. So much for foxes being intelligent, thought Flame.

  But after a while, she had realised she’d got it completely wrong. Every time a pebble dropped into the hole, a little more water splashed out. It dawned on her that the foxes had another motive. They weren’t trying to hit the fish at all, they were trying to fill the hole with pebbles. They were making the hole smaller and the water shallower, and gradually forcing the fish closer to the top. Ingenious! Just as humans can move mountains and fill lakes, these foxes were filling a hole.

  The hole wasn’t huge, and it did
n’t take too long, or too many pebbles, before the fish had risen to the surface. As for foxes being intelligent, Flame had thought, their reputation was spot on. As for her for own intelligence . . . well, she had needed to work on it.

  The river had become quite swollen again, and the broad sandy banks were half underwater now. Flame had wished that the water would come faster, and submerge the strange-shaped rocks before the foxes had filled up the hole. If Flame couldn’t eat the fish, she certainly didn’t want them to get it.

  The annoying thing was that the foxes had known this. They had moved the pebbles as quickly as they could, working as a team, running between the sandy bank and the rocks. When the river had finally come washing over the rocks, the male had jumped into the shallow hole. It had been a big fish in a little hole, and there isn’t an easier way to catch a fish!

  Fresh black carp is exquisite. It’s not a coincidence that the Chinese character for ‘fresh’ is made by putting the characters for ‘fish’ and ‘lamb’ side by side. The foxes had savoured every mouthful and filled their bellies. Flame had watched from behind the hillock, rage burning within, like a host of tiny red ants crawling all over her. She couldn’t bear it. She had not just been ravenously hungry; she had felt that fate was laughing in her face. Still hankering after the fish, she had walked away from the Guna River, hoping the fish bones would stick in their throats.

  This incident had made a very deep impression on Flame. Perhaps she could borrow the foxes’ method of moving stones to fill the hole, and gradually raise the bottom of the well? She put her thoughts into action, and immediately started to fetch stones to throw in the well. But she soon discovered that it was not the right method for this time and this place. First, this place was not like the sandy shore of the Guna River, which was full of pebbles the size of goose eggs. There were hardly any stones of a suitable size. They were either too big or too small. The small ones barely made any difference. The large ones were impossible to move, and in any case she daren’t throw a large stone into the hole, in case she got the angle wrong, and hit Sweetie on the head.