Erlang, on the other hand, refused to lay down his catch; he walked around Chen and then ran toward the cub. Seeing it was a big, fat marmot, Chen ran up and grabbed Erlang’s bushy tail, then snatched the marmot from him. Erlang wagged his tail to show he didn’t mind. Holding one of the animal’s hind legs, Chen figured it weighed over ten pounds, a male with shiny fur that had accumulated a thick layer of meat, though it wouldn’t have any fatty flesh until the fall. Chen planned to save it for himself and his yurt mates; it was a delicacy they hadn’t enjoyed for a very long time.
Holding all three catches, Chen walked happily toward the yurt, followed by the three dogs, who were snarling playfully at each other. Chen put the big marmot inside the yurt and closed the door. The puppies sniffed at the other catches curiously; Chen decided to give the skinny female to them and the prairie dog to the cub so that he could taste wolves’ favorite food and learn to eat an animal on his own.
In the summer, marmot fur is virtually worthless; the purchasing station wouldn’t buy one, so Chen quartered the animal and gave three portions, skin and flesh, bones and entrails, to the puppies, and saved the last quarter for the cub. The puppies knew exactly what to do when they saw the bloody meat. They sprawled on the ground to eat their share, no fighting or yelping. The three big dogs were wagging their tails, showing their appreciation of how Chen divided up the food, something he’d learned from Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, a book he knew he’d never get back after lending it out, now that it was in circulation among students in two brigades.
The bellies of the big dogs bulged; they’d eaten their fill in the mountains. But their accomplishment still had to be rewarded, an established rule on the grassland. So Chen walked out of the yurt with four pieces of candy and gave two to Erlang, who held them in his mouth and looked at Chen out of the corner of his eye to see how he’d reward Yellow and Yir. When Erlang saw the other two dogs get one piece each, he happily tore open the wrappers with his paws and teeth, then made a crackling noise as he chewed the candy. Yellow and Yir did the same, not at all upset over getting less than Erlang. Chen suspected that Erlang might have caught all the prey himself, and the other two dogs had merely helped him bring it back.
The smell of blood had the cub so frenzied that he stood up on his hind legs and clawed at the air. Chen tried not to look in his direction, for that would have gotten him excited enough to pull the chain too tightly around his neck. He didn’t attend to the prairie dog until he’d finished taking care of the dogs. There is a wide range of rodents on the grassland, the most common of which are ground squirrels, prairie dogs, and field mice. Prairie dogs are everywhere, always within a fifteen- or twenty-foot radius of any given yurt, where they stand outside their holes and squeak loudly. Sometimes, when a yurt is set up right over their holes, they abandon their grass diet and switch to eating grain. They steal grain, dairy products, and meat, leave their droppings in food bags, and sometimes even gnaw on books. When people move, they often find rodents’ young in boots and shoes they haven’t worn for a while. Infant prairie dogs squirming like meaty worms is a disgusting sight. The herders and the students also hated the mice; Chen and Yang took a special dislike to them, for these rodents had destroyed two of the literary classics in their collection.
According to Bilgee, in ancient times, live prairie dogs were used as targets by Mongol children to practice archery.
Chosen for their speed and keen eyes, the prairie dogs were good targets for Mongol children, whose parents told them not to come back home until they’d shot a certain number. It was the children’s favorite game, the grassland their amusement park, and they were often so caught up in it that they forgot to go home to eat. When they grew older, they exchanged their small bows for bigger ones and practiced shooting from horseback. Jebe, Genghis Khan’s general who conquered Russia, was a famous archer who had learned to shoot like that. He could shoot a prairie dog in the head on a galloping horse from a hundred yards. Bilgee said the Mongols’ riding and shooting skills both protected the grassland and helped them conquer the world. Shooting the smallest, cleverest, and most difficult target, the prairie dog, was how they honed their archery skill.
Chen picked up the prairie dog by its tail and examined it. He’d seen large ones when he was out with the sheep, but a foot-long specimen that was thicker than a baby bottle could grow only in the fertile grassland of the mountains. He assumed that its meat would be fatty and tender, for it was a favorite food of the wolves. He imagined how the cub, once he smelled the blood, would pounce on it and nearly swallow it whole.
Chen held it upside down; blood from its wounds dripped onto the sandy ground. Standing outside the pen, he shouted, “Little Wolf, Little Wolf, time to eat.”
The cub stared until his eyes turned red; he’d never seen food like that, but the smell of blood told him it was something good. He leaped up over and over, but Chen kept raising it higher; the exasperated cub kept his eyes fixed on the fat prairie dog, not on Chen, who insisted that the cub look at him before he’d give him the food, but after seeing the dead animal, the cub had changed; he was now more like a fierce wild wolf, fangs bared, claws pawing the air. His mouth was opened wide, exposing all four canines, all the way back to the gum line. The cub’s demonic look terrified Chen. He waved the prey a few more times but was still unable to divert the cub’s gaze. Finally he gave up and tossed it over. Then he crouched by the pen, expecting the cub to tear the animal to pieces and gobble it down. So he was surprised by what the cub did after catching the prairie dog in midair; it was something he could neither explain nor forget.
As if he’d caught a piece of hot steel, the cub immediately dropped it and backed away. Then, standing a few feet back, he stretched his neck and body and stared at the dead rodent with apparent fright; that continued for three minutes, until fear no longer showed in his eyes. Then he arched his body and leaped seven or eight times before running up and pouncing on the prairie dog. He took a bite, jumped back and stared at it again for some time. Seeing that the rodent wasn’t moving, he pounced, took another bite, then stopped and glared at it. He repeated this three or four times before finally calming down.
Reverence replaced the ferocity in the cub’s eyes. He walked up to the prairie dog and stopped beside it. He respectfully bent his right front leg, then the left; he touched the prairie dog with the right side of his back before rolling over. Then he got up, shook off the sand, straightened out the chain, and ran to the other side of the rodent, where he repeated the action, but in reverse order.
Chen watched with nervous curiosity, unsure of what the cub was doing, where he had learned those movements, or why he’d touched the rodent’s side and rolled over. The cub was like a little boy who’s been given a whole roasted chicken to himself for the first time: he’s eager to eat but cannot bring himself to begin, so he turns it over and over in his hand. The cub repeated the actions three times.
Chen could hardly believe his eyes. He’d given the cub plenty of tasty meat, sometimes fresh from a kill, but the little wolf had never done anything like that before. What was so different about this prairie dog? Was it a way for the cub to congratulate himself on getting an animal? Or was it a ritual before eating? His respectful, reverent manner resembled that of a Catholic taking communion.