Page 16 of Blacktail

This wasn’t cold, though. This was something else…something good. Whatever it was stirred in him an entirely new feeling—something like hunger, perhaps? That was the closest he could think of. Yes. It’s not unlike hunger….

He focused on his stomach, but that wasn’t quite right. It’s…what? A bit lower than my belly.

Just between his hind legs.

When the wind rose, he sniffed again. He couldn’t have stopped himself even if he had wanted to. He set out upwind, not quite sprinting but not wasting any time, either. As it happened, his path took him past an old scent poem of his mother’s that concerned itself with the relationship between wisdom and caution. He darted past it without so much as a sniff.

All that afternoon he trotted to and fro, casting about for the scent. By midafternoon he was farther south than he had ever been. At first he tried to deny the obvious, but by twilight he was forced to admit the truth to himself. The scent came from somewhere beyond the black path that marked the farthest edge of his forest.

It came from the land of men.

Despite the extreme urgency rising from his nether regions, the black path gave him pause. The path was known to all creatures of the forest as the hunting ground of Car, who was the most furious and insane demon of the two-legs.

Blacktail didn’t know much about Car personally. But word gets around. He had heard enough to be cautious. For one thing, the squirrels had consecrated a death cult in Car’s honor. That in itself was no great distinction—squirrels love nothing so much as a good death cult—but unlike most predators, Car would not be appeased. The squirrels seemed to take this as a challenge.

Every night was the same. When the moon came up and the cicadas buzzed, the wails of the chosen squirrel and his family rang out. Then came the blubbering terror, the roar of Car, and finally silence. The noise kept Blacktail up nights. Whether the offerings went on to the Far Hill, or the Happy Grassland, or whatever afterlife was in fashion that week was, he supposed, debatable. But from a practical standpoint, the squirrels were wasting their time. Not only was Car not appeased by the sacrifices, it didn’t even seem to notice.

Curious to see the altar of sacrifice, Blacktail sniffed his way up and down the road for a few minutes. He found the scent of rot next to a stand of tall grass and pushed through for a better look. Seeing what lay beyond, he had to stifle a gasp. It’s one thing to hear about it, but…

Flattened squirrel corpses lay all along Car’s black path, rotting and uneaten. Had they been fresh, they would have been enough to fill Blacktail’s belly for a full winter. At least.

But more than the sheer number, the pointlessness and the brutality were what stung him. These bodies had not been shown the respect of a hunter for his prey. They had only been destroyed. One in particular caught his eye. From the ribs down to about the middle of the tail, the squirrel’s body was squashed flat. Its guts had been squeezed up into its torso, bloating it. The little beast’s eyes had popped from their sockets. Now they dangled on stalks of about the length of Blacktail’s foreclaws. Why in the name of hell would it do that? Blacktail wondered. Is that supposed to be funny? Is this thing insane?

He noticed some larger parts among the mangled corpses. That’s too big for a squirrel. He sniffed the air, careful not to set foot on the path. Possum. He frowned. Possums were crazy enough in their own way—among other things, each spring they held a Festival of Dung and seemed surprised when few chose to attend—but they didn’t tend toward religious nuttery the way squirrels did. But here it was, smooshed with the rest.

This Car…must be terrible indeed.

Blacktail wasn’t afraid, exactly, but it would be fair to say that the carnage arrayed before him made him feel more cautious than usual. Bite this, he thought. I’ll stay out of Car’s way if he stays out of mine. He turned around and slipped back into his forest.

Likely that would have been the end of it, were it not for a chance breeze that carried another whiff of the smell that had originally brought him here. It was stronger this time. He was sure of it. For just a moment the rot and decay fell away. The smell woke some deep part of him that longed for…what? He had no language for it. In his mind he knew nothing of mating, of family, of the warmth a pack may share on a cold winter night. But his bone and blood knew enough that turning back was no longer a real possibility.

Blacktail closed his eyes. He made himself still, calmed his heartbeat, and listened for Car. When he was sure that he detected no hint of its roar, the thrum of road that you felt underfoot when one was close, he stood up and darted across the path.

Thus did Blacktail enter the dominion of the two-legs, also known as men.

iii

Before very many steps he was in the thick of it. Man-stink lay over everything. That was bad enough—every so often he had to stifle a gag. But the shapes he saw here were even worse. The things of men dotted the landscape, each rigid and regular in a way that correct things, proper things, things that grow cannot be. It was terrible to his eyes.

But Blacktail was young. His lust would not be denied. As the sun sank he worked his way deeper into the unnatural world. He was careful. He moved in a series of quick, silent dashes, paused, then moved again. It was slow going, but by the time the moon was up, he found himself in the shadow of yet another unfathomable thing of men.

He gaped up at it for a while. Well, he thought. That certainly is…something. It was tall and smooth, made of small red…stones? Perhaps. But the red stones were identical in size and shape, which is unusual for rocks.

The pile itself seemed to do nothing besides block his way. He sniffed it, then gave an experimental nibble. It baffled him on many levels—not just what it was or how it came to be, but what purpose it might possibly serve. It didn’t feel dangerous, exactly—at least not immediately—but it made him uneasy.

Still…whatever it was, the scent that drew him here lay behind it. She’s not a wolf, he thought. But, oh dear lord, that smell. And the hunger he felt was not to be denied.

He concealed himself in the shadow of a bush and knelt beside the red stone. “Ah. Excuse me?” he barked politely. “Is anyone there?”

The response was immediate and furious. “Here? Did you say here?” The answering bark was indeed canine. She sounded a little cranky. His tail drooped at the sound of it. “Yes. I’m here. Of course I am. But the question is, why are you? I’ve told you drooling inbred fleabags that I’m not interested in being wooed by mangy-ass trash bandits. Go…away!”

“I—”

“Oh, so you’re deaf as well as stupid? Lovely. I’m sure you’d make a fine father. If your sister’s busy, go bugger a knothole.”

Blacktail blinked, paused a moment, and tried again. “May I—”

“Are you still there? I tell you what—why don’t you save us both some time and bite off your own prick?” Then she muttered, “Prick.”