The old man got off his horse and poked at the grass with his herding club, looking for something. Before long, he found something green and yellow. He pinched it, then smelled it. “This is gazelle dung,” he said. “They passed through here not long ago.”
Uljii and Chen also got down off their horses and examined the gazelle dung the old man was holding. Gazelle dung is wet in the summer, tightly packed, not pellets. Uljii and Chen were surprised by the find. They walked a few steps and spotted patches of grass that looked as if they had been attacked with scythes, but unevenly.
“I thought I saw gazelles out by the birthing pens this spring. So this is where they came to graze. They cut through the grass more savagely than mowers.”
Uljii loaded his rifle and flicked off the safety. “Every spring they migrate to the birthing pens, where they compete for grazing land with ewes that have just given birth. But not this year, and that’s because this is better grass. They think like me.”
Bilgee’s eyes turned into slits as he laughed. “They’re experts at finding good grazing land,” he said to Uljii. “It’d be a shame if they chose the best land and we and our livestock stayed away. You were certainly right this time.”
“Not so fast,” Uljii counseled. “Wait till you see the source of water.”
“But the lambs are still too young,” Chen said. “They can’t walk all the way out here. It’ll be at least another month before they’ll be able to walk long distances, and by then this grass will all be in the bellies of gazelles.”
“Don’t worry,” Bilgee said. “Wolves are smarter than people. Sooner or later they’ll be here too. The birthing season for gazelles hasn’t ended yet, and neither the adults nor the young can run fast. This is the time of the year when the wolves can feast on gazelle. It won’t take many days for them to drive the entire herd out of here.”
“No wonder the survival rate among newborn sheep was so high this year,” Uljii said. “With the growth of this grass, the gazelles and the wolves all came out here. There was no fighting over grazing land.”
Hearing that there might be wolves around, Chen anxiously urged the two men to get back onto their horses. As they crossed another ridge, Uljii reminded them to be alert, since just beyond the next ridge lay a vast grazing land, and that, he guessed, was where they’d find both gazelles and wolves.
They dismounted when they reached the top of the ridge; bending low and stepping quietly, they led the horses with one hand and held the dogs with the other as they made their way to a spot among several large boulders. The two big dogs could smell a hunt and crawled along, sticking close to their masters. Just before they reached the rocks, the men wrapped their reins around their horses’ front legs. Then they sprawled on the ground behind the boulders to survey the area through telescopes.
At last Chen laid eyes on virgin grassland, possibly the last of its kind in all of China, and breathtakingly beautiful. Spread out before him was a dark green basin, dozens of square miles, with layers of mountain peaks to the east, all the way north to the Great Xing’an range. Mountains of many colors-dark and light green, brown, deep red, purple-rose in waves as far as one could see, to merge with an ocean of pink clouds. The basin was surrounded by gentle sloping hills on three sides. The basin itself looked like a green carpet manicured by Tengger; patterns of blue, white, yellow, and pink mountain flowers formed a seamless patchwork of color.
A stream flowed down from a mountain valley to the southeast, twisting and turning as soon as it entered the basin, each horseshoe twist like a silver band, the many bands lengthening and curving until the stream drained into a blue lake in the center of the basin. Puffy white clouds floated atop the clear water.
That centerpiece was a swan lake, which Chen Zhen never dreamed of seeing. Through the lens of his telescope he saw a dozen white swans floating gracefully on water ringed by dense green reeds. The swans were surrounded by hundreds, perhaps thousands of wild geese, wild ducks, and other nameless waterbirds. Five or six large swans flew up into the air, accompanied by a flurry of waterbirds. They circled the lake and the stream, crying out like a welcoming orchestra. The lake was quiet, white feathers dancing on its surface, an otherworldly haven of peace.
A natural outlet opened to the northwest, diverting the lake’s water to thousands of acres of marshland.
This was likely the last spot in the northern grassland that still retained its primitive beauty. Chen Zhen was mesmerized by the sight. But even as he marveled, anxiety entered his heart. Once men and horses come, he was thinking, the primitive beauty of the place will quickly be lost, and no Chinese will lay his eyes on such natural, pristine beauty ever again.
Uljii and Bilgee kept their telescopes trained on spots below. The old man nudged Chen’s leg with the tip of his boot and directed his attention to the third bend in the stream, off to the right. There on the bank at one of the horseshoe bends he saw a pair of gazelles in the water, straining to climb onto dry land, their upper bodies safely aground, their rear legs apparently stuck in the mud. They lacked the strength to pull themselves out. Not far away, in the grass, lay the bodies of a dozen more, their abdomens torn open… Chen swung his telescope slowly toward the tall lakeshore grass. His heart lurched. Several large wolves were sprawled near their kills, fast asleep. The grass was too tall for him to get an accurate count.
Uljii and Bilgee continued scanning the area, stopping on a slope off to the southeast, where the dispersed members of the gazelle herd were grazing in small clusters, the newborns staying close to their mothers. Chen watched as one of the gazelles cleaned her newborn calf with her tongue, looking up anxiously every few seconds. The calf was struggling to get to its feet; once a gazelle calf is standing, it can run so fast not even a dog can catch it. The minutes during which it tries to stand will determine whether it lives or dies. Chen didn’t know what to do. At this distance, they had to make a decision: Go for the wolves or for the gazelles?
Bilgee said, “Look at those wolves, sleeping out in the open. They know there’s nothing anyone can do to them. We’re too far for our rifles to be of any use, and if we show ourselves, they and the gazelles will be gone before we know it.”
“But those stuck in the lake are ours,” Uljii pointed out. “Lunch.”
They mounted up and rode off toward the lake; the minute they, their horses, and their dogs were out in the open, the wolves fled toward the mountains, spread out, and headed south. They were immediately swallowed up by patches of reeds. The gazelles reacted the same way, and just as quickly, leaving behind the ones stuck in the mud and the mothers licking their calves.
The riders approached a bend in the stream that surrounded an acre of land. A dozen or more gazelles, adult and young, lay in the grass, their innards gone, their legs chewed down to the bone. One was stuck in the mud, unable to move an inch; the others were still making feeble attempts to pull themselves out, the wounds in their necks still bleeding.
By now Chen was familiar with the wolves’ tactics, but this was the first time he’d seen how they could use the bend in a stream to do the work. He rode around examining the tactics of the attack.
“See what geniuses they are?” Uljii said. “They hid in the grass the night before and waited until the gazelles came to drink. Then they quickly sealed off all avenues of escape, and trapped the gazelles with the help of the stream. As easy as that. The stream was their sack, and all they had to do was tighten the drawstring around the meat they needed.”