The dogs, smelling the wild meat all around, were in no hurry to eat, and they ignored the gazelles the wolves had eaten from. Bar charged a gazelle that was barely alive, and grabbed it by the throat. He glanced over at Bilgee; the old man nodded. “Go ahead, eat.” The dog lowered his head and bit down hard, and the gazelle was dead. He then ripped a chunk of meat off the animal’s thigh and began to eat. The sight of the bloody kill sent the hair on Erlang’s back straight up, like a wolf, and stirred his killer instinct. Seeing a live calf near a bend in the stream not far off, he jumped into the water and swam across. Bilgee stopped Chen from calling him back. “That dog has a wild streak. If you don’t let him kill wild animals,” he said, “he’ll turn on our sheep again.”
They rode up to the stream, where Bilgee took a leather rope from his saddle and tied it into a loop. Chen removed his boots, rolled up his pant legs, and waded into the water, where he looped the rope around the neck of a gazelle. Bilgee and Uljii dragged the animal up onto the bank, where they placed it on the ground and hogtied it. Then they dragged the second gazelle out of the bloody stream, laid it out on a clean patch of grass, and selected a site for their cookout. “We’ll eat one and take the other back with us,” Bilgee said. While Uljii was slaughtering one of the gazelles, Bilgee took Chen up into the mountains to the northwest to look for firewood.
They reached a ravine with a copse of wild apricot trees, only a few of which had died. But there were plenty of burned branches on the three-foot-tall trunks. The scent of apricot blossoms that had recently fallen to the now colorful ground permeated the ravine, the floor of which was buried under a layer of rotten apricots. They tied up two bundles of firewood and dragged them back to the cookout site, where Uljii had already skinned the gazelle and sliced off hunks of raw meat; he’d also picked wild onions and leeks, as thick as chopsticks, that grew by the stream.
The men removed their horses’ bits and saddles. After shaking off the effects of their burdens, the horses sought out a gentle grazing slope, then walked up to the stream, where they eagerly drank their fill. Bilgee was feeling good about everything. “There’s good water here,” he said, “very good water. That’s the first thing you look for in summer grazing land.” The horses drank until their bellies were taut, then went up the slope and began to graze, snorting happily.
The cook fire blazed, sending the fragrance of gazelle meat into the air above the swan lake for the first time ever, along with oily smoke redolent of leeks and peppers. They sat close to the lake. The meat, speared on thin branches, was so fresh it seemed to still twitch. Having set out that day before dawn, the men were famished. One after another, Chen polished off strips of meat with peppers and leeks, washing them down with gulps of liquor from the old man’s flask. “This is the second time I’ve been fed by wolves,” he said, “and I’ve never tasted anything better, especially eating it at the site of the hunt.”
Bilgee and Uljii were searing gazelle legs over the fire, slicing off layers as they got cooked, then making several cuts and adding salt they’d brought with them, onions, and a few peppers to cook some more. The old man ate heartily, finishing off layer after layer. After drinking from his flask, he said, “I’m glad we’ve got the wolf pack to watch over this new pasture. In another twenty days, when the lambs are strong enough to make the trip, we’ll move the production team out here.”
Uljii wrapped a strip of meat around a wild onion and bit into it. “Do you think the whole team will come?” he asked.
“The wolves are here,” Bilgee replied, “and so are the gazelles. Why wouldn’t they? If the grass were no good, would the gazelles be here? If there were few gazelles, would the wolves come? I’ll take that gazelle back with us and call a meeting at my place tomorrow. There will be gazelle-stuffed buns for everyone. Once they know how good the water is, they’ll fight to come. For a summer pasture, good grass isn’t enough; you need good water too. There’s nothing worse in summer than having stagnant, dirty water. It makes the animals sick.”
Uljii said, “If anyone objects, I’ll bring them out to see for themselves. ”
The old man laughed heartily. “No need for that,” he said. “I’m the alpha wolf. If I come, the other wolves will follow. You can never be hurt by following the alpha wolf.” He turned to Chen Zhen. “All the time you’ve been following me, has it ever hurt you?”
Chen laughed. “By following the wolf king, I eat good food and drink strong liquor. Yang Ke and the others would love to travel with Papa.”
“Then it’s settled,” Uljii said. “When we get back, I’ll call a meeting to announce the move. The quotas we’ve been given over the past few years have got me to where I can hardly breathe. Opening this new pasture will bring four or five years of relief.”
“And after that?” Chen asked. “Is there any more land out there somewhere?”
“No,” Uljii said, his mood darkening. “There’s the border to the north and other communes west and south. As for the northeast, the mountains are too steep and too rocky. I’ve been there twice. There’s no more available pastureland.”
“So what will you do?”
“We’ll have to control the size of the herds and improve the quality. For instance, we can raise Xinjiang improved sheep,” Uljii said. “They produce twice the amount of wool, and it’s better stuff. Our wool sells for a little over one yuan a pound, but better-quality wool goes for more than four. Wool is our greatest single source of income.” Chen had to agree that this was a good plan. But then Uljii sighed. “China has so many people that I figure our pastureland will fall behind in production in a few years. After people of my generation retire, I don’t know what you youngsters are going to do.”
Bilgee stared at Uljii. “You’re going to have to talk to the people in charge. Tell them to ease the pressure on the livestock units. If they keep it up, the sky will turn yellow, the earth will rebel, and the sand will bury us all.”
Uljii shook his head. “Who’s going to listen to us? Farming officials run the show these days. They’re more cultured than us, and they speak Chinese. Besides, officials in the pasture areas are obsessed with hunting wolves. By competing over the quantity of livestock, those who know nothing about the land actually get promoted faster.”
The horses had eaten their fill and were resting, heads down, eyes closed.
Uljii led his companions on a tour of the rest of the basin, discussing with Bilgee where to have the four companies set up camp. Chen was greedily soaking up the incredible scenery, wondering if he’d landed in a Garden of Eden in the midst of the grassland. Or a grassland in the midst of a Garden of Eden. Whatever it was, he didn’t want to leave-ever.
After returning to the site of the cookout, they slaughtered and skinned the second gazelle, and as Chen looked out at the carcasses strewn around the horseshoe bend, he felt empty and suddenly gloomy. The smell of blood had driven out the peaceful, romantic feelings he’d experienced when he first stepped foot on the grazing land. After a thoughtful moment, he reluctantly said to the old man, “When wolves kill gazelles in the winter it’s to keep them on ice for the spring. But why do they kill so many in the summer? There are probably more in some of the other bends. They’ll begin to stink in a couple of days and won’t be edible. Maybe the wolves just love killing.”
“They don’t kill all those gazelles for the fun of it,” Bilgee said, “or to display their power. They do it so that the old, sick, and wounded wolves will have something to eat. Do you know why tigers and such can’t survive out here? And why wolves dominate the grassland? It’s because of their pack mentality. Tigers make a kill for themselves, not for other tigers, not even for their mates or offspring. But wolves kill for themselves and for the rest of the pack, even those that can’t be in on the kill-the old, the crippled, the nearly blind, the young, the sick, and the nursing females. All you see now are the carcasses, but when the alpha male howls tonight, half the wolves in the Olonbulag and any others that can claim some kinship with this pack will show up, and there won’t be anything left by morning. A wolf takes care of the pack, and the pack takes care of each wolf. They stick together, which is what makes them such formidable foes. Sometimes the howl of the alpha male will draw a hundred wolves into a battle. Old-timers tell us there used to be tigers out here, but they were all driven off by wolves. Wolves are more family-oriented than people, and much more united.”