Page 29 of Blacktail

A twig cracked close behind him.

Blacktail snapped around, ready to kill…but it was only a fox. Blacktail took a moment to size him up. The little fellow was probably on the downside of middle age, mostly red with a white patch under the jaw and breastbone. There were scars here and there, a missing notch in his left ear, but mostly he seemed healthy and well-fed.

“Whoa, whoa.” The fox offered a small wry grin, twitched his tail. “I’m not the one you need to worry about. And stay low. There’s a two-legs in the tree back there.” He lifted his hinder and gave the rock a brief squirt.

“What?” Blacktail poked his muzzle out from behind the rock. “Which one? The oak?”

“No, the pine.”

Blacktail squinted for a moment. “Ah,” he said. “There. I see him.” He pulled back, scowling.

“You shouldn’t worry too much. From the smell of that one, he’s been drinking. Wait a bit and he’ll probably fall out of the tree or give himself a gunshot or something. Problem solved.”

“Drinking?”

“They’ve got, like, a magic water. It—Well, never mind. You must be from up north? Fewer people around? You’ll know the stuff when you smell it.”

“Hmm,” Blacktail said. “Well, I’ll be cautious, nonetheless. I appreciate the warning.”

“No bother. Say, do you have any idea what all this is about? They usually don’t start blasting away until a bit later in the year.”

“Um…it’s my fault, I’m afraid. Sorry about the trouble.”

“What? Is this commotion all for you?”

“Yes.”

The fox waited, but Blacktail did not elaborate. After a long moment the fox sighed. “You don’t have many friends, do you?”

“Beg pardon?”

“Would you mind telling me what it is that you did to stir up the biggest hunt in three generations? I’d like to pass the word around after you’re dead and the fuss dies down. People will be curious.”

“Hmm? Oh. No, I don’t mind. A pack of two-legs angered me,” Blacktail said, “so I killed them.”

The fox blinked. “I’m sorry, what? You say you killed a two-legs?”

“Not just one. I killed the whole clan—male, female, and pup.”

The fox’s jaw hung open a little. “Well, I suppose that would explain it.”

“What do you mean?”

The fox blinked. “You don’t just kill a two-legs and hope to get away with it,” he said. “Not in this day and age.”

“The reverence shown those monsters makes my stomach churn,” Blacktail rumbled. The sound came from low, the depths of his chest.

The fox blinked. “Nice growl you’ve got there. I felt that in my little feets.”

Blacktail bent low so the fox could sniff what he had rolled in at the house. “Smell that? Two-legs bleed wet and red, just like everyone else.”

The fox gave a quick sniff, then a longer one. He pulled back, considered for a moment. “Well…perhaps. I wouldn’t know. But you and I can’t call light into the darkness. You and I can’t bring down gunshots. You and I cannot bind Car to our will. Because we have no wings, you and I cannot fly, a limitation that they do not seem to—”

“Oh, bite that!” Blacktail snarled. “All you say may be true, but if you or I were masters of this land, we would not kill those subjects that loved us and were loyal. We would not murder the prey beasts simply to hear them die! We would not—”

“Easy, easy,” the fox said quietly. “There’s no need to convince me. I’ve hated them longer than you’ve been alive. But what’s to be done? This world is theirs. The subjugation is complete and none may stand against them. You die today, I think.”

“You may be subjugated, but I am not,” Blacktail said. “And I’ll not die in these hills, not today.”