Gao Jianzhong and Yang Ke returned at sunset, and when they spotted the wolf hole in front of their yurt, they were amazed. “After a day out there tending sheep,” Yang said, “we were baked dry and dying of thirst, and I figured the wolf cub wouldn’t make it through the summer. He’s smarter than I thought.”
“We’re going to have to be more careful around him,” Gao said, “be on our guard. We need to check out the chain, the post, and his collar every day. Who knows, he could make big trouble for us at a critical juncture. The herdsmen and the other students are just waiting to have the last laugh.”
All three men saved a portion of their oily duck-egg-filled fried flat bread for the cub, and the moment Yang announced mealtime, the cub scrambled to the surface, picked up the food, and took it back down with him. It was a space that belonged to him and only him, off-limits to everyone else.
Erlang, out on his own all day, returned home, his belly taut, his mouth coated with grease. Obviously, he’d hunted down something out there. Yellow, Yir, and all the puppies, half crazed from not having tasted meat in a long time, ran up to Erlang to lick at the grease on his snout.
The cub came out of his cave as soon as he heard that Erlang was back. When the dog walked up to him, he too licked his greasy snout. Then Erlang noticed the hole in the ground and, apparently surprised and pleased, made several turns around it. With what sounded like a laugh, he squatted down at the opening and stuck his nose inside to sniff around. The cub leaped onto his surrogate father’s back, where he jumped and rolled and somersaulted happily, the wound on his neck completely forgotten as his wild vitality burst forth.
At sunset, the hot air dissipated and cool breezes blew. Yang Ke put on a jacket and went out to see to his flock. Chen went along to help drive them home. It was not a good idea to make the sheep move too fast after they’d eaten their fill; for the men, herding the flock into a circle at camp, where there were no fences, was like a casual stroll. During the summer, the sheep spent the nights in the vicinity of the yurts, not in pens, which made the summertime night watch especially hard and dangerous. Vigilance was essential, now more than ever, for a pack of wolves might detect the presence of the cub in camp and take that opportunity to wreak vengeance.
The cub’s day began late at night. He’d run around in his pen, rattling the chain, frequently stopping to admire the fruits of his labor. Chen and Yang sat at the edge of the pen quietly enjoying the spectacle of the cub running around, his emerald eyes shining through the darkness.
Chen filled Yang in on that day’s activities. “We’ve got to get our hands on some meat,” he said. “The cub won’t grow big and strong without it. Erlang hasn’t been hanging around recently, which makes for a dangerous situation.”
Yang said, “I had a meal of roasted marmot up in the mountains today, thanks to Dorji. If he manages to trap a lot of them, we can ask for one for the cub. The problem is, the shepherds and their flocks have raised hell out there, scaring the marmots and keeping them out of the traps.”
Weighed down with anxieties, Chen said, “I’m worried that the wolf pack will come at night and create a bloodbath with our sheep. You can’t find a more vicious female anywhere than a mother wolf. And the craving for revenge after the loss of her offspring has probably driven this one nearly insane. If she brought the pack for a nighttime raid on our flock and slaughtered a bunch of them, we’d be screwed.”
Yang Ke sighed. “The herdsmen all say that the females will come sooner or later. This year on the Olonbulag we raided dozens of dens, and all those females are looking for a chance to avenge the loss of their young. The herdsmen are united in their desire to kill this cub, and the students in all the other units are against keeping it. I almost got into a fight with one of them today. They say that if anything happens, it’ll make things hard for all the students. We’re getting hammered from all sides. What do you say we quietly let it go and say it broke the chain and ran off? That would solve our problems.” Yang picked up the young wolf and rubbed his head. “But I’d hate to give him up. I’m not this close to my own kid brother.”
Chen clenched his teeth and said, “We Chinese are afraid of the wolf in front and the tiger behind. Since we went into the den and got this cub, we can’t give up halfway. If we’re going to raise him, let’s do a good job of it.”
“It’s not the responsibility that bothers me,” Yang quickly replied. “It’s just that seeing him chained up all day like a prisoner is heartbreaking. Wolves demand freedom, but we keep him shackled the whole time. Doesn’t that bother you? Me, I’m totally in the wolf totem camp, and I can see why Papa doesn’t want you to raise the cub. He considers it blasphemy.”
Chen was conflicted but could not show it, so he got in Yang’s face and said, “Do you think I’ve never thought of setting him free? But not yet-there are still lots of things I need to know. If the cub is freed, that makes for one free wolf, but if one day there are no wolves on the grassland at all, what sort of freedom is that? You’d feel more remorse than anyone.”
Yang thought about that for a moment, and decided to compromise, though with a bit of hesitation. “Okay, we’ll keep at it, and I’ll find a way to get my hands on some firecrackers. Wolves are like men on horseback: they hate firecrackers; the sound freaks them out. If we hear Erlang tangle with a wolf, I’ll light off a string of crackers and you throw them into the middle of the pack.”
“If you want to know the truth,” Chen said, softening his tone, “you’ve got more wolf in you than I do. You’re not afraid of taking a chance. Do you really plan to marry a Mongol girl? I hear they’re tougher than wolves.”
Yang Ke waved him off. “Don’t tell anybody,” he pleaded. “If you do and some Mongol girl gets the wild idea to come after me like a wolf, I won’t be able to fight her off. First I have to get my own yurt.”
23
With his back to the noisy, chaotic work site, Yang Ke gazed quietly at the swan lake. He didn’t have the heart to look at the work going on behind him. Ever since Bao Shungui had killed and eaten the swan, he’d been troubled by dreams in which only blood came out of the lake, in which the surface of the water had turned from blue to red.
The three dozen or so laborers from the farming areas of Inner Mongolia had put down roots in the new grazing site, and with lightning speed had built sturdy adobe houses. These men had spent years engaged in full-time or seasonal work in pasturelands, but their grandparents had been herders and their parents had spent half their time farming and the other half herding in areas where Mongols lived alongside Han Chinese. Most of that grassland had turned into poor, sandy farmland in their time, and it could no longer provide for them. So, like migratory birds, they came out here. Fluent in Mongolian and Chinese, they were also conversant in both husbandry and farming. Compared to the Han Chinese in agrarian areas down south, they had considerably more intimate knowledge of the grassland; they knew how to utilize local materials and possessed the unique talent of building agricultural facilities. Every time Chen Zhen and Yang Ke led their sheep to drink at the lake, they stopped by the work site to chat. There was so much to do in a very short time that Bao Shungui had ordered that the temporary warehouse and medicinal dipping pool had to be completed before the rainy season. Apparently, they hadn’t had time for the swans-not yet.