“We’re not sure the herdsmen can change their nomadic lifestyle after all these years,” Yang Ke said. “I personally don’t think so. The shallow grass here can’t stand trampling, so the people and their livestock have to move to a different site after a month or two. If we settled in one place, it wouldn’t take a year for the surrounding area to turn to sandy land, and the place would be nothing but a desert. Besides, how and where is each family supposed to choose a place to settle down?”
The old man nodded. “It’s crazy to promote settlements on the grassland. People from farming areas know nothing about it. They like to settle down, and that’s fine. Why force others to do the same? Everyone knows that life would be easier if we didn’t keep moving. But we’ve been doing that for generations. It’s what Tengger wants us to do.
“Take the pastureland, for example. Every seasonal pasture has its separate function. The spring birthing pasture has good grass, but it’s short. The livestock would die if a winter snowstorm covered the grass. We can’t settle there. There’s tall grass on the winter pastureland, but it wouldn’t last long if the livestock grazed there through the first three seasons. The summer pasture has to be close to water, or the animals would die of thirst. But those are all in the mountains and the animals would freeze to death in the winter. We move to an autumn pasture for the grass seeds, but would there still be seeds left if the livestock stayed to graze in the spring and summer? Every pasture has many downsides and one advantage. The whole point of nomadic herding is to avoid the downsides and make good use of the advantage. If we settle in one spot, we’ll face all the downsides, with no more advantage. Then how do we keep herding?”
The three Chinese students nodded in agreement. Chen, of course, could find one advantage in settling down-it would make raising his cub easier-but he kept silent.
The old man drank a lot and ate four big cakes stuffed with green onions and mutton, but his mood seemed to worsen.
Chen exchanged shifts with Yang Ke the following morning so that he could go hunting with Bilgee. A gunnysack with dozens of traps was tied behind the old man’s saddle. Marmot traps are very simple: a two-foot wooden pole and a steel noose made of eight thin wires twisted together. A hunter sets the trap by planting the wooden pole near a marmot’s den and places the noose about two inches above the ground at the entrance. When a marmot leaves the den, it is caught by the neck or hind leg.
“The last time I used your traps,” Chen said, “I didn’t catch any big ones. Why’s that?”
Bilgee chuckled. “I didn’t teach you the secret of trapping marmots, that’s why. Olonbulag hunters never reveal their secrets to outsiders, afraid they’ll kill off all the animals. But I’m getting old, so I’ll teach you my secret. The outsiders use fixed traps, but the marmots are smart-they scrunch up their bodies to slip out of the noose. My traps are flexible and will tighten at the slightest touch. Once a marmot is caught, by either the neck or the hind leg, it’ll never get away. So before you set a trap, you need to make the noose smaller, then enlarge it. When you let go, watch the noose spring back.”
“How do you make it stay open?”
“You have to make a tiny hook with the wire, then loop the opening of the noose through the hook and bend the hook gently, but not too gently. If the hook isn’t bent enough, the wind will blow the noose close. But if the hook is bent too much, the noose won’t close by itself and you won’t catch a marmot. It has to be just right, and flexible. When a marmot goes through the trap, it touches the wire at some point and the noose snaps shut. Do it that way, and you’ll get seven big marmots with ten traps.”
Chen slapped his forehead. “Ingenious!” he said. “No wonder my traps never worked. The marmots could come and go as they wished.”
“I’ll show you later. It isn’t easy, because you also have to take into consideration the size of the den and the animal’s tracks. There’s one additional trick. You can watch me; then you’ll know how to do it. But don’t reveal this to anyone else.”
“I won’t,” Chen promised.
“One more thing. You hunt only males, or females with no young. If you catch a mother and her babies, you have to let them go. No grassland Mongol would break the rules of our ancestors, which is why, after hunting marmots for hundreds of years, we still have marmot meat to eat, marmot skin to sell, and marmot oil to use. The marmots damage the grassland, but they benefit us. In the past, poor herdsmen survived the cruel winters by hunting marmots. You Chinese will never know how many poor Mongols the marmots have saved.”
The horses sped through the dense autumn grass, their hooves kicking up moths in various colors: pinks, oranges, whites, blues. There were also green, yellow, and multicolored grasshoppers and other autumn insects. A few purple swallows circled overhead, singing in their shrill voices; sometimes they darted right past the horses, and sometimes they shot up into the sky, enjoying the insect feast provided by the horses and humans. When they’d gorged themselves, a new batch appeared to eat its fill. The old man pointed at the hills ahead with his club and said, “That’s the Olonbulag marmot mountain. The animals there are fat and furry; to us it’s a treasure mountain. You’ll also find plenty of them on a small marmot hill on the south and another to the north. In a few days, the herdsmen’s families will come, since marmots will be easy to catch this year.”
“Why is that?”
The old man’s eyes darkened as he heaved a long sigh. “With fewer wolves, the marmots are easily trapped. The wolves fatten themselves up with marmots in the fall; without the fat, they wouldn’t survive the winter. They only kill the big ones, so they’ll have marmots to eat every year. Out here, only the herdsmen and the wolves understand the rules set by Tengger.”
As they neared the marmot mountain, they spotted some tents in one of the gulleys. Cooking smoke was rising by the tents, where a large cart and a water wagon gave the impression of a temporary work site.
“Oh, no! They’re one step ahead of us again.” The old man’s face darkened as he rushed toward the tents, his eyes burning bright with anger.
They could detect the aroma of marmot meat and marmot oil even before they reached the tents. They quickly dismounted to see a giant pot on the stove. It was half filled with boiling marmot oil in which the carcasses of large marmots were stewing after having been fried and their fat removed. The meat was golden brown and crispy. After scooping out a fried marmot, a young worker was adding another skinned and gutted animal to the pot. Old Wang and another worker were sitting on a rickety wooden box, beside which lay a bowl of yellow sauce, a dish of salt and pepper, and a plate of green onions. They were happily drinking from a bottle and chewing on meat.
A large wash basin nearby was filled with skinned marmots, mostly young foot-long animals. Set up on the grass were several door planks and a dozen willow baskets. Marmot skins of various sizes, as many as two hundred of them, had been laid out to dry. Chen walked into one of the tents with the old man and saw more than a hundred dried skins piled waist-high. In the middle of the tent was a three-foot gas can half filled with marmot oil; there were also a couple of smaller cans.
The old man ran out of the tent and walked up to the basin, where he brushed aside the smaller marmots on top with his club. Below them were a few thin female marmots with little fat, the sight of which so angered the old man that he banged on the basin with his club and shouted at Old Wang, “Who said you could kill the females and their babies? This is brigade property; these marmots have survived thanks to the efforts of generations of herdsmen. How dare you! Look how many you’ve killed without permission!”