by Shen Shixi
Forget it, thought Flame. It was too great a risk without much chance of success. They could go elsewhere and try for something more appropriate, something they could be more certain about catching. And yet, there was a big snow falling. The weather was so bad. It would not be all that easy to find something more appropriate. Dropping the bear was the wise choice. After all, you can’t go risking your life like that. But hunting was already a gamble with one’s life, and if you want high returns you have to take big risks! As Flame weighed it all up in her mind, and struggled to make a decision, she bared her teeth in readiness.
Meanwhile Sweetie had crept round the back of the bear. She launched a sudden attack, sinking her teeth into the bear’s buttocks. The bear roared, spun round and tried to fight back with its paws. But Sweetie was agile and deft, and dodged out of the way.
Hunger can make us take great risks, and there was no doubt that Sweetie was hungry. Too hungry to wait for Flame to take the lead. She hadn’t waited for Flame’s instructions, but had made a sudden leap at the bear. Wolves do not have the patience of jackals. The torch paper was lit; the battle had begun. It was too late for Flame to make a decision; the circumstances had changed and she had to respond. As the bear span round after Sweetie, Flame took her chance, rushed at him from behind, and bit his leg. Flustered, he span round again. Flame was not a fool; she would not fight him face to face. She leapt to the side. The bear went after her, and was just about to bite, when Sweetie leapt on his back and dragged her claws down his fur.
Flame and Sweetie were a good team. The young bear was being attacked from the front and from behind; it was as though they had silently set a trap, and he had fallen right in.
Flame was delighted. This was the best way to deal with a bear. He attacks, I retreat. He retreats, I attack. One bite at a time. One scratch at a time. But a few bites and scratches would not be enough to put his life in danger. Bears have very thick skin. If they were lucky, a vicious bite might pierce his skin; a fierce scratch might draw a little blood. But if she and Sweetie took it in turns, the psychological attack on the young bear would be substantial – life-threatening.
By attacking him from the front and back at the same time, they would exhaust him, until he was just a bear-shape without any bear-strength. As time went on, he would lose his spirit, lose all hope and, finally, he would lose the will to live. This strong young bear would crumble. They could start with a bite and a scratch, and gradually build up to hundreds of bites, thousands of scratches, wound upon wound, bloodstain upon bloodstain, until he eventually came to a sad end.
Although it was tempting to go for the quick fix, to try and deal with this bear swiftly, it was not a realistic approach. For this tug-of-war to succeed they would need patience and perseverance. Only then would victory be theirs.
Sweetie seemed to understand this too, and nimbly dodged the claws and teeth of the agitated bear, leaping to safety at the front, and then swooping in from behind. In this way, she bit him again and again. A flexible strategy and good tactics can produce astonishing results. Within half an hour, the young bear was foaming at the mouth, and panting heavily. His counter-attacks had become increasingly clumsy and awkward. He was clearly exhausted. His back and legs were covered in wounds, a damp mass of bear fur and blood. His sorry state suggested it wouldn’t be long before he dropped to the ground, and became a pile of bear meat for the jackal and wolf to tuck into.
And then there was a completely unexpected turn of events. The young bear suddenly changed tactics. The next time he was attacked from behind, he did not try to bite back as before, but turned all the same, his mouth poised ready to bite, and when Flame and Sweetie leapt back, he ran off to the side. Flame was puzzled. She watched as he headed for the hillside about a hundred metres away. Her heart skipped a beat as she realised what he was doing. On one side of the hill was a sheer rock face, and in the middle of this rock face was a hollow crack about a metre deep. It was the perfect size for a bear to slip his back into. If he managed to do this, then he could no longer be attacked from behind. He could completely turn his situation around. Flame and Sweetie could still attack from the front, but they would lose their advantage over him. And as soon as the bear stopped having to look over his shoulder all the time, he would recover his confidence, his will to survive. What’s more, he would have time to catch his breath, to wait, and time his actions. He would not have to spend so much energy defending himself against Flame and Sweetie.
Although the bear was covered in scratches and bites, the wounds were small and shallow. It was a case of quantity rather than quality. The wounds themselves were not life-threatening; this bear was not going to slip to the ground any time soon. Rather the opposite. By the time he got himself to the rock face, the bleeding would have stopped, and those small shallow wounds would be starting to heal over. When the bear felt his strength returning, Flame and Sweetie would have no hope of killing him in the rock crevice.
The bear had another advantage too. Young bears eat as much as they can in autumn, and put on a thick layer of fat, a store of food ready for when winter comes and food is in short supply. This layer of fat will last about ten or maybe fourteen days when there is nothing to eat, and prevents the bear from starving to death. Flame and Sweetie hadn’t eaten for two days, and if they didn’t eat in the next day or so, they would be corpses in the snow, and it would be the young bear eating them. If they let the bear escape to the foot of the cliff, the situation would be reversed, and all their efforts would come to nothing. The priority now – the most important thing of all – was to stop that bear!
Flame chased after the bear. She changed her technique, no longer biting like a dragonfly skimming the water, but with the determination of a hornet in a honeypot. She clung to the bear’s buttock, as if to say, ‘If you won’t turn round and fight back, then I’m not budging. We’ll see if you can still get close to that rock!’
The bear was forced to turn round. It roared hoarsely, and tried to bite. Flame jumped back, controlling the rhythm of her movements like a boxer in the ring, and keeping the bear at a distance, about two or three steps out of reach. When she grew tired from leaping about, she let Sweetie take over. Sweetie used the same tactics, clinging to the bear’s rear, forcing him to turn round and fight back, then springing away and baiting him to bite back. Jackal and wolf took to the ring in turn, one after the other.
Sure enough, the bear fell for it. It was as though they had him on a lead, dancing about, snarling and snapping after them. Over here, no over there! Over there, no over here! Come on, dance till your head spins, till there are stars in your eyes, till you are dizzy and confused, till the world spins and you do not know where you are, till there is no space in your head to think about escaping to the rock!
After about ten minutes of this, the bear’s head was in a spin and it was tripping over its feet, as though it was drunk. It was spitting and spewing, and was clearly out of sorts. Its legs had gone to jelly. It sat on the ground, staring with dazed eyes, panting and wheezing, like a pair of old bellows.
‘Hey, don’t stop! I’m here, come and get me! Strongman of the forest, come and finish me off!’ Flame ran round to his side, and bit into his leg. The bear didn’t react; he seemed to have gone numb. Sweetie ran round to his side too, bit hold of his short tail and yanked. This time he stumbled to his feet, and tried to fight back. Flame and Sweetie leapt to the side, ready to get back in the ring.
Then, all of a sudden, the bear seemed to recover his composure; he was not going to spin round and fight back. Those two hornets at his buttocks could bite all they liked, but he was out of there. He rolled over, threw off the jackal and wolf, and lolloped off to the rock.
The young bear had been trapped in a corner, but had got wise to their tricks. He had worked out their trap, the way they were circling him, snaring him. The more he tried, the deeper he would fall into their trap. The longer he tried, the greater his chances of ending up as their dinner. It was a da
ngerous situation. The most sensible choice was to stop fighting back, and to run as quickly as possible to the crevice in the cliff face. It was his only hope of survival.
Although bears are not as smart as jackals and wolves, they are not as stupid as people think. They do learn from experience, and they can size up a situation. In the blink of an eye, the young bear was less than ten metres from the rock face. Flame roared in frustration, as she prepared to abandon this hunt. The bear had seen through their plan. She didn’t have a backup. He had set his mind on running to the rock face; there was no holding him back, or getting in his way.
They had been so close, just a jackal slash away, just a wolf bite away. Perhaps they should they have bitten harder or faster? But there was no way they could go over to the bear in the crevice and bite harder and faster now. Unless a miracle happened, their defeat was certain.
Even the strongest hunter cannot guarantee success every time. The tiger, the king of the mountain forest, has only a seventy per cent success rate. Jackals and wolves are medium-sized animals with a fifty per cent success rate – and this is already pretty good. Of course, when you have put in so much time and effort, and you have your eyes on your prey, and it has fallen into your trap and you are just about to grasp it, then all of a sudden, some misfortune happens, and the delicious dinner you were about to pop into your mouth vanishes into thin air, you know there is not much you can do about it. It’s like flogging a dead horse, like carrying water in a basket. So frustrating. But the wilderness is a dangerous place, and there will always be setbacks.
Flame was just about to call it a day, when Sweetie shot past her, heading straight for the bear. She growled in his face – vicious growls right before his eyes. She was still young, and young-bloods often make the mistake of acting on impulse. Not even the most intrepid mountain leopard would dare to growl in the face of an angry bear! Sweetie was no doubt thinking she could finish this bear off. After all, with his buttocks half bitten to shreds, and his body half covered in blood, and swaying and reeling as he moved, there didn’t seem to be much life in him. Perhaps one last vicious assault would break him, push him over the edge, and see him off for good. She had barely seen much of the world, and was swept up in the heat of the moment.
The bear didn’t stop because there was a wolf in his face. No, he stopped because he didn’t have a choice. She ran straight at him, leapt at him with a massive howl, her claws on his shoulders, her teeth in his neck. Flame wanted to stop her, but it was too late. Sweetie attacked with such speed, that before she could blink, wolf and bear were locked together. Sweetie certainly had courage. But there is such a thing as too much courage – it’s called being rash, being reckless. Just think of the moth that flies too close to the flame.
In fact, Sweetie’s attack was so beautiful, so perfectly aimed, so magnificent that when her claws landed on the bear’s shoulders, her teeth landed in exactly the right place on his neck. If he had been a snow rabbit or a mountain goat instead of a bear, this bite would have ended his life. He would have struggled for a moment, choked and died. But a bear’s neck is short and thick, and the thickest layer of fat on a bear’s body is on its neck. Its neck is so solid and strong: on young bears the neck is as broad as the head; on adults the neck is broader than the head. Not even a tiger could kill a young bear with one bite. So, although Sweetie bit so accurately into the bear’s neck, it was not enough to finish him off. It did not affect his breathing, and he had little problem fighting back.
In the chaos that followed, he grabbed her between the legs and opened his mouth ready to bite into her belly. The way wolves are built, they have heads of bronze, legs of steel, and bellies as soft as cotton. The head is the strongest part of a wolf. If a shepherd happens to whack it on the head with his crook when it is stealing sheep, he won’t be able to knock it unconscious or smash its head open; and if he whacks it on those powerful legs, he’s unlikely to break them. The wolf will still be able to run off. The only weak place on a wolf is its belly. It is thin and lean, and the backbone here is weak and easily broken. If the shepherd whacks his crook on a wolf’s belly, it will collapse. The bear knew this. His grin stretched across his face. He opened his mouth, and prepared to sink his teeth into the soft belly of the wolf. He moved his head forward. If the angle was right and the bite was on target, the wolf would snap, and Sweetie would never stand upright again.
But the moment Sweetie had gone for the bear, Flame had sprung into action. Without a moment’s hesitation she leapt on to his back, ripping and biting, trying to take the pressure off Sweetie. The bear seemed to realise it could not fight them both at the same time. He ignored Flame, and opened his mouth wide, ready to bite Sweetie’s belly. Flame’s eyes were red with fury. There was no time to think. The bear’s ears were tickling her mouth. Quick as a flash she bit into his ear, and thrust her claws into his back as fast and furiously as she could. She was not going to let him deliver that bite. It was an effective move. The ears are the thinnest parts of a bear’s body, and have lots of blood vessels and nerves running through; they are small and round, and the cartilage is thin and crisp. A hole through a bear’s ear is like a ring through a cow’s nose: you can put a rope through it and lead it away. As the bear cried out in pain, he twisted his face and pulled his head to one side. It could not bite the wolf’s belly now.
Flame thought about biting the ear off; it would be like eating a freshly caught local delicacy. She had won two short precious moments for Sweetie. Sweetie made the most of them: she kicked and struggled as hard as she could, and somehow managed to extricate herself from the bear’s claws. Biting off a bear’s ear would incur massive risk. It was on a par with pulling a tooth from the mouth of a tiger, or swatting a fly on the tiger’s head. It was bare-faced audacity, not least because his mouth was just inches from his ear. What if he moved his head to the side and bit back?
Flame watched as Sweetie removed herself from this dangerous situation. Should she bite his ear off or give up the fight? She didn’t want to fight. Forget about the ear, she wanted to loosen her bite and jump down from his back. But it was too late. He had swung his head round and taken a bite out of her leg. A thousand arrows of agony shot through her. She almost fainted at the pain. She heard her bones crack in the bear’s jaws. They were like a pair of iron pliers. The more he bit, the tighter the grip. Just in time, Sweetie charged over, and bit as hard as she could on his short stub of a tail. Flame raised her claws to gouge out the bear’s eyes. Scared of losing both his tail and his sight at the same time, the bear had no choice but to let go of her leg.
Flame leapt down from his back. Back on firm ground, the situation had changed. She tried to stand up, but kept rolling over, unable to find her balance. Her front leg was injured and would not do as it was told. She had no control over it. Although the exterior damage did not look too bad, the bones at the top of her leg were broken. It was swinging awkwardly at an angle. The pain seared through her. She knew that the leg was shattered, and that while it would not kill her, there was every chance she would not be able to use it in future. She would be a jackal that limped on three legs. She looked up at the sky and let out a desolate roar.
The young bear seized his chance. He ran off to the rock face and backed himself into the crevice, ready for stubborn resistance. He was covered in wounds, but they were minor. There would be no lasting damage, and his life was no longer in danger. Flame could not get him now. Landing in manure while stealing a chicken was one thing; getting an injury while hunting was something else. Could her luck get any worse?
The wind was getting icy now. Flame was shivering. There was no point in hanging around here any longer, better to go back to Buddha Belly Cave. At least it would be warm there, out of the biting wind and the endless snow. Flame clenched her jaws and headed up the mountain. She was not used to walking on three legs – a snail moves faster – and she staggered at every step. It was worse on the slopes: unless she trod carefully, she couldn’t help fa
lling over. She roared with pain every time she knocked her injured leg. And when she roared, Sweetie howled too. A howl of distress. It was the middle of the night by the time they reached Buddha Belly Cave, their heads drooping, their hearts aching.
Chapter 13
The next morning, the snow finally stopped falling. But a dark cloud still hung low over the land, as though Nature was not quite ready to let the sun through the overcast sky. Animals can sense the weather, and Flame knew this was just a pause between two massive snowfalls, a brief clearing of the sky, perhaps until midday at the latest, and then Nature would do her worst, and send down snowflakes as large as goose-feathers again.
Of course it was easier to catch prey when the sky was clear, but Flame and Sweetie hadn’t eaten for two days. They should be taking this opportunity to go out hunting, and find something to assuage their hunger. Otherwise, when the next snowfall came, it would be even harder to find food.
But Flame’s leg was broken and she could not go out looking for food. Sweetie came over and gently licked her injured leg. Flame wasn’t sure whether she was showing pity or sympathy. Then she ran out of the cave, her tail held high, to find food.
At midday, there was no sign of Sweetie. And still no sign of her in the afternoon either. It had started snowing again, with snowflakes dancing about all over the sky. Looking out from Buddha Belly Cave, there was a silveriness to everything. It was a world of ice and snow.