Gombu wasn’t one to go around boasting, but he knew the grassland like the back of his hand.
15
Warm, moist spring winds caressed the Olonbulag; massive, blindingly white clouds hung low in the sky. The somnolent grassland sprang to life, transformed into an alternating bright and dark, yellow and white slide show. When the clouds blotted out the sun, Zhang Jiyuan felt as if a cold wind had penetrated his deel. But when the clouds moved on, powerful sunbeams made him feel as if he were baking, sweat oozing from the pores in his face and on his hands, until even his deel felt sun-baked. But then, as soon as he started unbuttoning it to let in some air, another cloud would move in and transport him back to a cold spring day.
The ice was softening, the snow melting, revealing vast stretches of yellowed grass. Early buds that had appeared before the latest snowfall had turned yellow, with a tinge of green. The air was suffused with the heavy odor of rotting vegetation; spring runoff once again flowed in the streams, down from the mountains to saturate the marshes and create pools in which white clouds were reflected. The Olonbulag seemed to dance in the air.
Zhang and Batu had been hidden in the tall circle grass for more than an hour, waiting for wolves. The horse massacre, followed by the “false report” in the reedy valley, had made it impossible for Batu to hold his head up among the herdsmen, and the anger building inside him was directed at the wolves. As for Zhang, since he’d had no success in the encirclement hunt, only a wolf kill would reestablish his reputation. So following several days of rest, they returned to the hillside near the big lake with their semiautomatic rifles. Batu was sure that surviving wolves hated the thought of letting all the remaining horse carcasses sink into the lake. The snow was melting and the water was rising, but there was still some meat on the lake’s edge, where the wolves could get to it, though not for long.
The pools of water on the mountain, bright one moment and dark the next, made the men’s eyes tear up as they searched the hillside with their telescopes, noting every suspicious spot-black, gray, or yellow. Batu suddenly lowered his head and whispered, “Take a look to the left.” Zhang gently shifted his telescope, holding his breath but unable to keep his heart from racing as he watched a pair of wolves emerge slowly from behind the hill, first their heads, then their necks and chests.
The hunters’ eyes were glued on their prey. The wolves stopped when the front half of their bodies were out in the open and cautiously surveyed their surroundings. Instead of moving farther out of the tall circle grass, they lay down and kept out of sight, as if they were the hunters, not the hunted. Two men and two wolves lay hidden in the grass, waiting for their chance. The wolves were in no hurry. They were content to see what tricks the humans had up their sleeves, and patient enough to wait till dark.
Circle grass was the name the Beijing students had given this variety of meadow grass. Commonly seen on the Mongolian grassland, it was prettier but stranger than most grasses. Level stretches of grass on the pastureland or hillsides were notable for occasional patches of waist-high grass, straight and even, like densely packed rice plants or clumps of squat reeds.
Circle grass wasn’t just attractive; it was also a strange plant that grew in discrete patches. Circle grass, circle grass, a circle of grass, from the outside densely packed, like a curtain of reeds, but empty on the inside, as if nothing grew there. It grew in a true circle, as if laid out carefully with a compass. The size varied, from a couple of hand-spreads to a radius of a few feet. Herdsmen out with their sheep or horses rested on its springy stalks. It didn’t take the students long to appreciate the circle grass, which some of them called sofa grass or armchair grass.
With its unique shape and construction, it was a natural hiding spot for humans and for wolves, a place either to rest or to set an ambush. Wolves had ruled the grassland much earlier than humans and were the first to discover and utilize circle grass. Batu said they preferred to hide behind patches of the grass, from which they could surprise passing herds of gazelle or flocks of sheep. Zhang Jiyuan had found wolf droppings in the center of patches, proving to him how much they liked such places, and Bilgee said they were hiding places Tengger had given to the wolves.
Now both humans and wolves were well hidden; the wolves could not see the men, who had no clear shot at the wolves, though they had seen them briefly. Batu was hesitant and Zhang was getting worried. Might the wolves have seen the men earlier, when they’d first moved into the circle grass? One military notion they had taught the Mongol fighters was that on the grassland anything is possible.
Batu considered the situation and decided against any action. With his eyes on the hill across the way, he told Zhang to commit the features of the other hillside to memory as they quietly backtracked to where they’d left the horses, removed the fetters, and led them down the slope, then turned and headed southwest on foot. Not until they were downwind and far enough from the wolves did they mount up and circle around toward the wolves’ hiding spot. Their horses made no sound on the damp ground, aided by the soughing of the wind.
Batu carefully charted the hills as they went, and within half an hour they were on the far side of the slope nearest to the wolves. Batu slowly led his horse up the slope. Just before they reached the top, he stopped, but instead of fettering his horse, he wrapped the reins around its front legs and tied a slipknot. Zhang did the same.
After releasing the safeties on their rifles, they walked ahead, bent at the waist. Once they’d reached the peak, they crawled on their bellies until they spotted the tails and hindquarters of the wolves in the circle grass, no more than a hundred yards away. Their vital spots-heads, chests, bellies-were hidden by the grass.
Apparently, they were still focused on the spot where Batu and Zhang had come from, since they were looking that way through gaps in the grass, their ears pricked up and turned in the same direction. They were attentive to the rest of their surroundings as well, sniffing the air from time to time to detect signs of danger.
Batu signaled Zhang to aim at the closest wolf, the one to the left. He’d take the other one. The wind continued to blow, bending the circle grass in a low arch, brushing the stalks against one another, and keeping the wolves well hidden. Zhang closed one eye, and could no longer see the wolf.
They waited for the wind to let up. Batu told Zhang that when he heard Batu’s gun fire, he was to pull the trigger. Zhang knew that even if he missed, Batu could easily get off another shot. He was, after all, one of the brigade’s finest marksmen; within a range of two hundred yards, his aim was deadly. Many of the hunters said that wolves aren’t worried about a hunter with a rifle at five hundred yards, or even four hundred. But when the distance closes to three hundred or less, they run off. This behavior, they said, came about because of Batu. Less than two hundred yards separated them from the two wolves in the grass, so Zhang calmly took aim on his unmoving target.
The stalks straightened up in a sudden lull in the wind, but just as the animals’ bodies were exposed, a slender wolf burst out of a patch of circle grass off to the right and ran downhill, in front of the two hidden wolves, which leaped up as if snakebit, pulled in their necks, lowered their heads, and followed the third wolf down the slope. The slender wolf had obviously been standing guard for the other two and spotted the hunters at the moment they had the wolves in their sights. The largest of the three animals, the one being guarded, was no ordinary member of the pack, but one of its leaders. All three ran for the steepest hillside in the area.