The horses'' hooves break through a crust of snow as they move
closerto the snow "lake".
The horsemen, dismounting, break through the crust and sink
intodeep snow.
A half-eaten gazelle lies at an angle in the crushed snow
besideChen Zhen''s foot.
BILIG
Clever
eh? The wolves store their kills
here to
keep from starving the followingyear.
Eight or nine little gazelles stand trembling on the lake a
hundredyards from Chen Zhen, surrounded by holes in the snow. They are too
frightened to move, but the tiny spots of hard snow on whichthey stand may crumble
at any moment.
BILIG
CONT''D
There
are places like this all over the
grassland.
Great spring food for thenewborns.
CHEN
ZHEN
Not
so great for the gazelles.
There are other young gazelles whose thin legs are buried in
the snow, still alive but unable to move. A few have only their headspoking out,
their bodies completely submerged.
Chen Zhen and Yang Ke unload from their cart two large pieces of
feltand carry the two rectangles to the edge of the snowy lake.
With Bilig supervising in dialect, Chen Zhen and Yang Ke
spreadone of the rolls of felt over the crusty snow.
It is like a gigantic snow-shoe. The three men embark. They
dragup the second roll of felt and lay it out in front of the one theyare
standing on.
They do it over and over, as if piloting a pair of felt rafts,
movingsteadily towards a living gazelle.
……
PASSAGE OF TIME
Fished out by the dozen, gazelles are delivered to the edge
andthen piled in the carts.
Felt boats are chasing one another across the snowy lake
raisingclouds of powdery snow and sprays of ice. Dogs bark, people shout.
Chen feels as if he were riding on a magic carpet, gliding
acrossthe snowy whiteness, floating like an immortal.
Their felt sledge is getting closer to one of the
survivinggazelles.
There''s a look of terror in her eyes.
She is standing on a hard patch no bigger than a small table,
which could give way at any moment.
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