Wolf Totem: A Novel Read online

  Demon Erlang guarded the sheep and drove off would-be attackers with his vicious barking, and he never shied away from a good fight; there were often traces of wolf blood on his snout when morning came. Winter passed, and few of Chen’s or Yang’s sheep had been taken off or killed by wolves.

  There were times when Chen felt that Demon Erlang was more wolf than dog. The wolf is the ancestor of the dog. One of the earliest inhabitants of the northwest grassland—the Quanrong race—considered a pair of white dogs to be their original ancestors. The dog was their totem. Chen often wondered why the inhabitants of the grassland would venerate a domesticated animal—the dog—and he concluded that grassland dogs had been savage animals many centuries before, wild beasts whose wolfish nature had not receded, or wolves that possessed some of the characteristics of dogs. The dogs venerated by the Quanrong people might well have been a pair of white wolves. Was this ferocious animal he’d brought home one of those dogs with strong wolfish instincts? Or might it be a wolf with dog instincts?

  Intent on getting close to the dog, Chen often squatted down to rub and scratch him, but there was hardly ever a reaction. To Chen the animal was an enigma, but that did not stop him from treating him well and learning more about him as he went along. Wanting to become his friend, he stopped calling him Demon.

  As he waited for Yang and Gao to get up, Chen stayed outside to feed the dogs, play with the pups, and pat the expressionless Erlang.

  The four Beijing classmates—one horse herder, one cowherd, and two shepherds— had shared a yurt for more than a year.

  The horse herder, the perfectionist Zhang Jiyuan, tended a herd of nearly five hundred horses with Batu and Lamjav. Because their appetites were so large, the horses were taken into the mountains so that there would be no competition with the cows or sheep over grazing land. It was wolf country. The herders lived in a tiny felt yurt that slept two at a time; in their makeshift kitchens, they cooked on a small stove fueled by dried horse dung. It was a primitive, dangerous, and exhausting life with heavy responsibilities, which is why their status among the herdsmen was so high. It was the proudest occupation among people who spent so much time on horseback.

  Lassoing horses is a graceful, skilled art that lends itself superbly to the martial art of catching and killing wolves. In order to change horses, for themselves or for others, or to cut their manes or medicate them, or to geld or examine or break them in, horse herders have to lasso horses nearly every day. Since ancient times, grassland horsemen have been experts in the use of the lasso pole; they thrust the long pole out ahead of them as they race along on horseback, then loop a rope at the far end around the neck of the horse they’re chasing. An accomplished horseman will hardly ever miss. When the target is a wolf, as long as the horse is fast enough to keep up, sometimes aided by hunting dogs, the success rate is about the same. The noose is tightened around the wolf’s neck; then the rider drags the animal behind it, either choking it to death or letting the dogs kill it. Wolves are rightly terrified of the lasso pole, and if they spot a rider carrying one in the daytime, they flee or hide in the grass. Perhaps that was why the wolves only fought at night.

  The Olonbulag lasso poles were the most efficient of their kind Chen had ever seen. They were longer, more finely made, and more functional than the poles from other banners he’d seen in magazine photographs back home; the Olonbulag horsemen were justifiably proud of their poles. The northern part of the Majuzi River region is where a breed of fine warhorses, the Ujimchin, have been bred throughout Mongolian history. For Mongols, horses are not just companions, but comrades-in-arms; survival has demanded it. In this sort of existence lasso poles are essential. The Olonbulag poles are unusually long, very straight, and polished to a sheen. The poles—anywhere from ten to twenty feet—are made of two lengths of birch glued end to end. Chen had seen one that was nearly twenty-five feet long; naturally, the longer the pole, the easier it is to lasso a horse or a wolf. They are as straight as a bamboo pole with no joints. To make them that way, the horseman must plane away the knots and other natural imperfections. Then the pole is heated over burning cow dung; once the wood is pliable, it is pulled straight with a special tool. A thin rod about five feet in length is fastened to the tip of the long pole, with braided horse mane on the end. A virtually unbreakable noose is then added to the braid. Woven not of cowhide strips, but of sheep intestine, it is the only part of the lasso pole the horsemen do not make themselves, given the skill involved in its construction. They buy them at a special counter at the co-op. Once fresh sheep droppings have been rubbed into the pole with sheep’s wool until it turns from white to the color of manure, it is dried and polished with a cloth until it shines like old bronze.

  When a horseman rides with his lasso pole out in front, the weight of the noose causes the end to sag slightly; it sways with the motion of the pole, rising and falling gracefully, snakelike, with the movement of the rider. Wolves have all seen their brethren throttled by one of those lasso poles, which they likely assume to be some sort of magical and fearful snake. During daylight hours, a lone rider out in the wilds or up in the mountains—man, woman, old, or young—can travel undisturbed if he holds a lasso pole, almost as if it were a safe-passage tally given by Tengger.

  Experienced horse herders were allocated eight or nine fast horses apiece, not counting the wild animals that belonged to no one in particular, all of which they were free to ride. They rarely rode one horse more than a day and often changed mounts more than once a day. The last thing they worried about was tiring their horses; they proudly galloped everywhere. Whenever one of them visited a yurt, out came the requests for favors: to swap horses, to deliver letters or bring things back, to send for a doctor, or to pass on the latest gossip. They always received the most smiles from the girls, which drove other men, those with only four or five horses, mad with envy. For all that, herding horses was the hardest and most dangerous work on the grassland, and the production team chose only the hardiest, bravest, smartest, most resourceful and alert individuals to be horse herders, men who were not afraid to go hungry or thirsty, men who could withstand extreme cold and heat, men who had the constitution of a wolf or a warrior. Only one out of four had the good fortune of being chosen as a horse herder; the grazing land they patrolled was the front line of the war with wolf packs. Many of the wolf tales Chen Zhen collected had come from Zhang Jiyuan. Whenever Zhang returned from the grazing land, Chen brought him food and drink and treated him like a favored guest; then they would sit up talking about wolves half the night, occasionally arguing heatedly. Before heading back to his herd, Zhang usually borrowed some books.

  Gao Jianzhong was a cowherd in charge of 140 animals. It was the least taxing of all the jobs on the grassland, and people were fond of saying that a cowherd would not trade jobs even with a county chief. The cows, which went out early and came back late, knew where the grazing land was and how to get home. The calves were tied by braided horse mane in front of the yurts, waiting for their mothers to return and feed them. Bulls, on the other hand, were a handful. They headed straight for the best grazing spots and were never eager to return home. The hardest job the cowherds had was rounding up stray animals. Stubborn creatures, if they didn’t feel like moving, the cowherd could beat as much as he wanted, and they would just straighten their necks, flutter their eyelids, and remain standing where they were. But the cowherds enjoyed more leisure time, so whenever one of the shepherds needed help, that was who they turned to. No yurt could get by without cows. They pulled wagons and moved belongings; the people drank and cooked with their milk, burned their dung, skinned them for their hides, and ate their flesh. All domestic matters were tied to cows. People who spent so much of their lives on horseback needed cows for the family. Cowherds, shepherds, horse herders, they all had their duties and were all linked together, each indispensable to the others.

  Chen Zhen and Yang Ke tended a herd of more than seventeen hundred sheep, nearly all of them the Olonbula
g bushy-tailed variety, famous throughout China. Their tails were as big as a small basin, the tail fat nearly transparent, plump and crisp but not greasy, the meat fresh and aromatic without having a strong muttony smell. According to Uljii, Olonbulag grass was the finest anywhere in the league, which made their sheep the best. In ancient days, they were given as tribute to the emperor, a favorite of Kublai Khan after he entered Beijing. Even now it is on the menu when national leaders hold banquets for Arab Muslim dignitaries at the Great Hall of the People, and, it is said, the leaders of these countries are more interested in the origin of the lamb than in national affairs. Chen Zhen wondered if the reason the Olonbulag wolves had such large heads and so easily outsmarted humans was that they often dined on Olonbulag mutton. A second variety in the flock was an improved sheep from Xinjiang, a hybrid created from breeding local sheep with the fine-haired sheep of Xinjiang. They produced great quantities of excellent wool, which commanded a price three or four times higher than wool from local sheep. The meat, however, was loose and gamey, and the herdsmen would not eat it.

  Then there were the goats, not more than 4 or 5 percent of the entire flock. They did most of the damage to the grassland, the way they grazed, but the cashmere they produced brought a high price. On top of that, castrated animals were fearless. With them in the herd, lone foxes and wolves usually steered clear, not wanting to taste the sharp horns of the goats. For that reason, the role of lead animals went to the eighty or ninety goats in Chen’s herd. They knew where the grazing lands were, knew how to return home at night, and were choosy. When led out to lush grounds, they planted their feet and began grazing; if the grass was scarce, they quickly moved off. The goats were superior to the sheep in one additional respect: at the first sign of a wolf attack, they bleated, raising the alarm for the shepherds. The sheep, cowardly and stupid, would not make a sound even when the wolves were ripping open their bellies, and would passively accept the slaughter. Chen Zhen concluded that the herdsmen were experts at striking a balance, weighing the pros and cons of each animal, and accommodating them in the calibration so that the least harm and greatest benefits were achieved. The herders were superb at utilizing the strong points of every animal in the grassland.

  Both shepherds worked together: one grazed the flock; the other kept watch at night. Ten work points were given for grazing the flock, eight for night watch. They alternated shifts and schedules. If one of them needed to be away, the other one could take both the day and night shifts, sometimes two days in a row. If the pen was in good shape, with good dogs guarding it, it was all right to sleep during the night shift, at least in the spring. But during the other three seasons, when they were on the move, away from the walled pens used for birthing, the sheep were kept within a semicircle constructed of wagons and large pieces of felt as a windbreak, but useless for keeping predators away. When wolves were on the prowl, the night shift made for hard, exhausting work, with no sleep, and constant rounds with a flashlight and a pack of dogs, shouting the whole time. The main goal of the night watch was to protect against wolves, Uljii said. Work points for night watchmen totaled roughly a third of all the points given out during the year. A major expense, thanks to the wolves.

  Night watches were an important job for women on the Mongolian grassland. They stayed up all night watching the flock, then took care of their domestic chores during the day, which meant they seldom enjoyed a good night’s sleep. The people worked during the day; the wolves came out at night. The people were tired and sleepy, the wolves energetic and well rested. The wolves turned the people’s days upside down, beating down the women in one family after another, generation after generation. That was why the women in many yurts were often sick and died young, although the system also produced strong women who were not easily beaten down. Wolves multiplied quickly, while the number of grasslanders increased only slightly, which was why throughout history there had never been a large-scale land reclamation for the purpose of feeding the people. The wolves controlled the gradual development of the human population.

  Sheep were the foundation of livestock farming in the grassland. They supplied meat for food, hides for clothing, dung for cook fires, and two sets of work points. They ensured a continuation of the nomadic lifestyle. But tending sheep was boring, wearisome work that tied people down. From morning to night, out on the green or snow-blanketed wilds, a man had only a flock of sheep to keep him company. If he climbed to a high spot and looked around, he would not see another person for miles in any direction. The weedy land attached itself to the lonely man like a disease. Chen Zhen felt old, very, very old. The grassland had not changed from time immemorial, nor had the nomadic lifestyle of its inhabitants; they continued to compete with the wolves for food, a merciless fight with no clear winner. The Olonbulag existed in a frozen time where the grassland had taken on an eternal ancient patina. Could the wolves have caused it?

  For Chen Zhen there was one distinct advantage in tending sheep. Being alone gave him time to let his thoughts roam. The two cartons of books he’d brought from Beijing, plus the histories Yang Ke had brought, were just what he needed to mull over, like sheep chewing their cud, slowing digesting their contents. Every night he consumed the classics, old and new, under lamplight; in the daytime, he chewed on some of the finest examples of writing, domestic and foreign, as he watched over his flock. The aging paper of the book he was reading became as fresh and wholesome as the green grass. There were times when he would quickly read a few pages, but only after assuring himself there were no wolves in the area. People are out in the light; wolves stay back in the dark. The baying of wolves can usually only be heard from a distance. An idea that was never far from Chen’s thoughts had grown stronger in recent days: he was determined to find a wolf cub and raise it in his yurt, watching it day and night as it matured, hoping that familiarity would lead to greater understanding.

  Chen Zhen was thinking about the female wolf that had taken one of his lambs a few days before and of the cubs that must be hidden in a den somewhere nearby.

  He had just returned from checking the flock, and everything seemed normal. He lay down in the grass and stared fixedly at soaring vultures in the blue sky. Suddenly, he heard a disturbance among the sheep and jumped to his feet, just in time to see a large wolf holding a lamb by the neck. With a flick of her head, she flung her prey onto her back, held it there in her mouth, and ran along a stream up into Black Rock Mountain, where she disappeared. Normally, lambs will bleat in a crisp, shrill voice, and the bleats of one will get an immediate reaction from hundreds of others and their mothers, filling the sky with noise. But by sinking her fangs into the lamb’s neck, the wolf stifled the cry and was able to get away without disturbing the tranquillity of the flock. Hardly any of the sheep knew what had just happened, and maybe even the lamb’s own mother was unaware of what she had just lost. If not for Chen’s keen hearing and his alertness, he wouldn’t have known one was missing until he counted them that evening. As it was, he was as shocked as if he’d been the victim of a master pickpocket.

  Once his breathing was back to normal, he rode over to where the lamb had been taken. There he discovered a depression in the ground. The flattened grass was all he needed to see to know that the wolf had not just come down out of the mountains; if she had, he might have spotted her earlier. No, she had lain in the depression, waiting for the flock to draw near before making her move. Chen looked up to see where the sun was in the sky. He calculated that the wolf had lain hidden for more than three hours. During that season, only female wolves would take a lamb in broad daylight, as a hunting lesson for her young cubs. Lamb was also the most tender, most easily digested meat for cubs that had not yet opened their eyes and were still suckling.

  Seething with anger, Chen also felt lucky. In recent days, he and Yang Ke had lost a lamb every few days, and they wondered if eagles or vultures had carried them away. Thieves from the sky struck quickly, often catching the herders off guard long enough for them to f
ly off with one of the lambs. But an eagle swooping down out of the sky sent fright waves through the flock, which reacted with bleats that would not escape the shepherd’s attention. It was a mystery he and Yang had not been able to solve. Now that he had seen the wolf run off with a lamb and had discovered the depression in the ground, the mystery was solved. No more lambs would be lost to that trick.

  No matter how guarded he was, Chen could not guarantee there would be no incidents. The wolves used tactics to fit a situation. While they lacked the wings of vultures, they were the true flying burglars on the grassland. Time after time they found ways to surprise people, always resulting in increased vigilance and the wisdom of hindsight.

  Chen scratched Erlang lightly behind the ear, for which he received no sign of gratitude.

  Snowflakes were swirling in the air when he stepped into the yurt and, together with Yang Ke and Gao Jianzhong, warmed himself by the stove, where dried dung burned. They drank tea and ate fatty meat and some curds that Gasmai had brought over. Since they had idle hours ahead, Chen tried to get them to go looking for a wolf cub. His reasoning, he believed, was convincing: Fights with wolves are inevitable, so by raising one of our own, we can get a better understanding of what makes them tick. Then we’ll know the enemy the way we know ourselves.

  Gao Jianzhong, who was cooking meat, had a pained look. “Stealing a wolf cub isn’t child’s play,” he said. “The other day, Lamjav and some of the others smoked a female wolf out of a den when they were trying to steal a cub, and she nearly tore his arm off before three horse herders, one cowherd, and seven or eight dogs managed to kill her. The den was so deep it took them two days, working as teams, to get at the cubs. Even a sheep will defend her young. With a wolf, it’s a fight to the death. We don’t have a rifle. Do you expect us to take on a wolf with spades and herding clubs? Besides, digging up a wolf’s den is exhausting work. The last time I went out with Sanjai, we dug for two whole days and still didn’t reach the end. Finally we lit a fire and sealed the opening, figuring we’d suffocate the cubs inside. Sanjai said the mother wolf would know how to block off the smoke, and that there’d be a secret exit somewhere. By now you should know how wolves can trick us. The herdsmen say, ‘Wolf den, wolf den, empty nine times out of ten.’ The wolves move their dens all the time. If it’s that hard for the locals, what makes you think we’re up to it?”