“It’s horsemeat. I brought it back from the frozen lake. First I cooked a pot of horsemeat in water, and then cooked the traps in the soup. Know why? It’s how I get rid of the rusty smell.”
“I see!” Chen grew excited. “So that’s how you get the wolves to step into your traps. I guess we’re smarter than wolves, after all.”
The old man stroked his gray beard. “Not if you think like that. They have a keener sense of smell than dogs, and if there’s so much as a trace of rust or human odor, you’ve wasted your time. Once I cleaned my traps until there wasn’t a spot of rust anywhere. No wolves. Eventually, I figured out why. After setting the traps, I coughed up a bit of phlegm, and if I’d scooped it and all the snow around it up, that would have been fine. But I stepped on it, covering it with snow, and figured that would do it. The wolves smelled it out.”
“That’s incredible!” Chen said admiringly.
“Wolves are intelligent, they’re looked after by the gods, and they get help from all sorts of demons. That makes them a formidable enemy.”
Chen was about to ask about the gods and demons when the old man rose up on his knees to take a trap out of the pot. After Chen helped him fish it out, they laid it on a greasy gunnysack and put another one into the pot. The traps were so big and so heavy that he could only cook one at a time. “I had everyone in the family clean traps yesterday,” he said. “I’ve already cooked them once; this is the second time. And this won’t be the end of it. Pretty soon I’m going to brush on intestinal oil from a horse with hairs from its mane, then repeat the process. That’s when they’ll be ready to use. I’ll wear gloves and add dry horse dung when I set the traps. Fighting the wolves is like waging war. If you’re not careful, you’re lost. You need to be more meticulous than a woman, even more meticulous than Gasmai,” he added with a chuckle.
Gasmai looked up and pointed to a bowl on the rack. “I know how much you like my butter tea,” she said. “My hands are dirty, so help yourself.” Chen, who did not like stir-fried millet, was especially fond of Gasmai’s curds. He put four or five pieces in a bowl, took down a warm teapot, and poured a bowl of butter tea. “Papa was going to take Batu with him to lay traps, but Batu can’t go outside with his face like that, so Papa’s taking his favorite Han Chinese with him.”
Chen laughed. “Whenever wolves are involved, Papa can’t help thinking about me. Right, Papa?”
“Young fellow,” Bilgee said, “I think the wolves have got you in their clutches. I’m an old man, so I’m passing what knowledge I have on to you. Learn it well, and you’ll get your wolves one day. But don’t forget what I told you, that wolves are sent by Tengger to safeguard the grassland. Without them, the grassland would vanish. And without wolves, we Mongols will never be able to enter heaven.”
“Papa, since wolves are the divine protectors of the grassland,” Chen asked, “why kill them? I understand you agreed to the hunt at the headquarters meeting.”
“If there are too many of them, they lose their divine power and turn evil. It’s all right for people to kill evil creatures. If they killed all the cows and sheep, we could not go on living, and the grassland would be lost. We Mongols were also sent by Tengger to protect the grassland. Without it, there’d be no Mongols, and without Mongols, there’d be no grassland.”
“Are you saying that wolves and the Mongols protect the grassland together?” Chen asked, moved by what the old man said.
A guarded look came into the old man’s eyes. “That’s right,” he said, “but I’m afraid it’s something you… you Chinese cannot understand.”
“Papa, you know I’m opposed to Han chauvinism and that I oppose the policy of sending people here to open up farmland.”
The old man’s furrowed brow smoothed out and, as he rubbed the wolf trap with horse’s mane, he said, “Protecting the grassland is hard on us. If we don’t kill wolves, there’ll be fewer of us. But if we kill too many of them, there’ll be even fewer.”
An almost mystical truth seemed hidden in the old man’s words, one not easily grasped. Chen swallowed the rest of his questions, feeling a sense of uncertainty.
Once the traps were ready, the old man turned to Chen. “Come with me to set these,” he said. “Watch closely how I do it.” Bilgee put on a pair of canvas gloves and handed a second pair to Chen. Then he picked up one of the traps and took it outside where a light wagon was waiting. The bed was covered with a tattered piece of felt that had been soaked in the intestinal grease of a horse. Chen and Bayar followed with more traps; as soon as they were outside, the grease froze into a thin, oily coat, making the metal invisible. Once they were all loaded, the old man went to the side of the yurt and returned with a sack of dried horse dung, which he also loaded onto the wagon. Now that everything was ready, the three of them saddled up. But before they started, Gasmai ran out and shouted, “Chenchen, be careful with those. They can easily break your arm.” He assumed she was actually saying that for the benefit of her son.
As soon as Bar and some of the other big dogs spotted the traps, their hunting instincts kicked in, and they were about to run after them when Batu grabbed Bar by the neck and Gasmai wrapped her arms around one of the other dogs. Bilgee told them to stay. Then the three men and four horses trotted off toward the lake ahead of the loaded cart.
Clouds were pressing down on the mountaintops; a light snow was falling, velvety and dry. The old man leaned back to let the snow land on his face, where it quickly melted. Taking off a glove, he caught a bit more snow and rubbed it all over his face. “I’ve been so busy these past few days,” he said, “I forgot to wash my face. Snow does a decent job, and it feels good. My face gets smoky when I sit by the stove for a long time. The snow gets rid of the smell and makes the job easier.”
Chen washed his face with snow too, and then sniffed his sleeve. He detected the faint odor of sheep dung. “Will this smoky odor make a difference?” he asked.
“Not really. It’ll be gone by the time we get to where we’re going. Just remember, don’t let your coat or leather pants touch the frozen horsemeat and you’ll be okay.”
“Fighting wolves is tiring business,” Chen said. “The dogs kept exchanging howls with the wolves last night, angry howls, and I didn’t sleep a wink.”
“At home you Chinese get a good night’s sleep every night. But this is a battlefield, and we Mongols are warriors who are born to fight. People who need peace and quiet to sleep make poor soldiers. You must learn how to fall asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow and wake up the minute you hear a dog bark. Wolves sleep with their ears pricked, and at the first sign of danger, they’re up and away. You have to be like that too if you’re going to fight them. Me, I’m an old wolf.” He laughed. “I eat, I fight, I sleep, and I know how to cat-nap. Olonbulag wolves hate everything about me, and when I die they’ll chew me up, bones and all. I’ll get to Tengger faster than anybody. Ha ha…”
Chen yawned and said, “Students out here are beginning to suffer from nervous breakdowns. One girl’s already been sent back to Beijing. At this rate it won’t take many years before the wolves have sent at least half of us back down south. I’m not going to feed the wolves when I die. I want to be cremated.”
The old man was still laughing. “You Han are wasteful, and a whole lot of trouble. A man dies and requires a coffin, wasting wood that could be used to make a wagon.”
“I won’t need a coffin,” Chen said. “Just toss me onto a fire.”
“But a fire requires wood too,” the old man said. “Wasteful, really wasteful. We Mongols are frugal revolutionaries. Lay us out on a cart when we die, head south, and where the body bounces out is where the wolves get their next meal.”