After several rough nights, Chen was as tired as he’d ever been. Two nights earlier, Yang had invited a few herdsmen friends to come along for some cub hunting, though he didn’t believe there could be any active dens on Black Rock Mountain and no one was willing to get out of bed so early. The herdsmen tried to talk Chen and Yang out of going. Instead, feeling rebuffed, the two friends decided to go on their own, which is why their only companions on the mountain were the two loyal dogs.
Yang held Yellow tightly in his arms and whispered to Chen, “Look, even Yellow’s kind of spooked out here. He can’t stop trembling. I wonder if he smells a wolf nearby…”
Chen patted the dog on the head. “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. “There’s nothing to be scared of. The sun will be up soon, and wolves are afraid of people in the daytime. Besides, we brought a lasso pole along.” Chen felt his hand tremble slightly as it rested on Yellow’s body. “You and I are like secret agents,” he said, in part to calm himself, “late at night behind enemy lines, yanking a wolf’s fangs. You know, I’m not sleepy.”
Yang Ke also puffed himself up. “Fighting wolves is like fighting a war: strength against strength, spirit against spirit, wisdom and courage against wisdom and courage. All the thirty-six stratagems, except for using the wiles of a beautiful woman, are in play.”
“Let’s not get complacent. I’m not sure thirty-six stratagems will be enough when wolves are the enemy.”
“Good point,” Yang said. “So which one do we use? Follow the mother wolf when she goes back to feed her young and find the entrance that way? That’s not one of the thirty-six. Papa’s the sly one. This is actually pretty cruel.”
“Who told the wolves to kill all those horses?” Chen said. “They forced his hand. When we were laying traps, he said he hasn’t done that for years. He’s never been in favor of the wholesale killing of wolves.”
As the sky lightened up in the east, Black Rock Mountain shed its sculptural image and became a mountain again. The first rays of sunlight filtered through the thin cloud cover, expanding the men’s field of vision as they and their dogs lay sprawled on the snowy ground. Chen Zhen swept the mountainside with his telescope; there was nothing but scenery in his lens, since fog hugged the ground. He was worried that the wolf might have made it back to her den under the cover of fog, which would mean that he and Yang and the dogs had frozen up there half the night for nothing. But then, happily, the fog lifted and turned into a thin, transparent mist hovering above the ground, and any animal passing by would penetrate the mist and reveal itself.
All of a sudden, Yellow turned his head to the west, his hackles standing up, his body tense. Erlang turned his head in the same direction, and Chen, sensing that something was up, turned his telescope to see what had caught the dogs’ attention. A stretch of dry yellow reeds in a marshy spot that followed the curve of the mountain was a favorite place for the wolves, with its hiding places and the wind at their backs; as the spot where they preferred to launch their guerrilla attacks on humans, it had gained the nickname Green Curtain. Bilgee was fond of saying that in winter and in spring this was where the wolves moved around, hid themselves, and slept; it was also a battlefield for wolf-hunting humans. Yellow and Erlang may have heard a wolf’s footsteps crushing the dry reeds. It was the right time of day and the right direction, and Chen knew it had to be the female returning to her den. He scanned the area, waiting for her to appear. The old man had said there was shallow water in the reedy patch, runoff from melting snow, so the wolves would never make their den there. Mostly they chose higher ground, above spots where water would accumulate, and Chen was sure that if she appeared, her den was somewhere nearby.
The dogs fixed their gaze on a spot in the reeds, and Chen hastily swung his telescope to it. His heart lurched as a large wolf poked its head and upper body out from the reeds and looked around. The dogs immediately lowered their heads, until their chins were buried in the snow. The men flattened out on the ground, keeping as low as humanly possible. After scouring the mountainside, the wolf emerged from the reeds and ran toward a ravine. Chen followed her progress with his telescope; she resembled the wolf he’d seen the last time. She loped along with effort, probably having taken a sheep that night and eaten her fill. If this was the only wolf around, Chen saw no reason to be afraid. Two men and a pair of dogs, especially when Erlang was one of them, were easily a match for one female wolf.
The wolf climbed up the slope. All I need to see is which direction she takes, Chen was thinking, and I’ll have a pretty good idea where her den is. But at that moment, she stopped abruptly, turned, and looked first to one side, then the other, and finally toward the spot where the men and their dogs lay unmoving on a hilltop. The men didn’t dare breathe; she was now higher up than when she’d emerged from the reeds, and things she couldn’t have seen then she could easily see now. Chen regretted his lack of experience; a moment earlier, when she was running toward the ravine, he and his companions should have backed off a few yards down the hill. The wolf’s suspicions had taken him by surprise. She stretched her body taut, adding height to her stance, and checked again to see if there were dangers in the area. She made two complete circles, hesitated a moment, then spun around and darted onto a gentle slope to the east, where she headed for a cavelike hole and disappeared inside it.
“Great! There’s the door! Now we’ve got them, the mother and her litter,” Yang blurted out with a clap of his hands.
Chen stood up, bursting with excitement. “Come on, let’s go get the horses.”
The dogs were jumping around, panting excitedly and waiting for a command from their masters, which Chen had forgotten in his excitement. “Go!” he said, and the dogs tore down the hill, heading straight for the den entrance. The men ran to the rear of the hill, removed their horses’ fetters, mounted up, and galloped off toward the den, where the dogs were waiting for them, barking loudly at the entrance. Erlang, fangs bared, was going crazy, storming the entrance, then backing out, not venturing in too far. Yellow remained at the entrance, adding his voice to the vocal assault and pawing the ground, sending snow and dirt flying. The riders jumped down off their horses and quickly sized up the situation. What they saw stopped them in their tracks: Just inside an oval opening some two or three feet across, the wolf was guarding her den and its contents with her life, sending Erlang back outside with her fangs after each feint, then emerging halfway to snap and snarl at both dogs.
Chen threw down his lasso pole, picked up his spade, and swung it at the wolf’s head. She was too quick, and the spade hit nothing but air. Then she burst out of the entrance a second time, fangs bared; Yang swung with his club, and he too missed. Again she retreated, and again she attacked, round after round, until Chen was finally able to connect with her head, and Yang also made contact. That only made her angrier, more crazed than ever. This time, she retreated a yard or so, followed by Erlang. He was immediately bitten on the chest and scurried back outside, blood oozing from the wound, his eyes rage red. With an angry roar, he exploded back inside, until only his tail, swishing back and forth, was visible.