Page 50 of Blacktail

The man looked at him cautiously. “I can tell, but is long tale….” he said without much hope.

“No, it’s fine. Please go on. I’m not going anywhere tonight. Anyway, I’m curious.”

“I will! I will tell.”

Blacktail could tell that this pleased the man greatly. He thought he knew why. He is crazy-from-being-alone, he thought. He thinks I am his friend. Blacktail paused for a moment, reflecting on his full belly, his slaked thirst, and the diminished pain in his hip. Stranger still, he may not be entirely wrong. If someone had told me yesterday that I’d end up being pack mates with a two-legs, even for a single meal, I wouldn’t have believed them. He shifted so the weight was off his broken leg. Likely I’d have given them a good biting, as well.

The Hider looked at him, concerned. “Is you well?”

“Hmm? Well enough, I suppose. I was just thinking. This is all…strange.”

The Hider furrowed his brow, confused. “This place? Here is where I live.”

I don’t doubt it, Blacktail thought wryly. “I only meant that I never expected to—Well. Never mind. Do, please go on.” He sighed. “I’m actually quite curious.”

Hearing this, the man fairly shuddered with joy. “Yes! Yes, I tell! Much time ago when I was very little, my father, he hunt himself—”

“What? To eat?” Blacktail asked. That seemed depraved, even for men.

“No. Not to eat. Only to die, I think. My father always very sad.”

“Oh.”

“Him cut his own neck, much times. Him die, but I not know it. My mother is gone before this, so now I am alone. Many nights I sit with him in the blood, sometimes playing, sometimes trying to wake him, sometimes watching the moon….” He trailed off for a moment, then shook himself and continued.

“Father not wake, no matter how I try. Later, someone comes. Them take him away, then take me away. I go to a place of many little ones, the ones who have no one to feed them. Is bad place. In the night, ones that are bigger, they prey on the little ones. Prey on me. Every night is same. Much pain, much screaming, but no one will help. This is my first lesson in the hunt. All of us little ones are prey. But before he die, my father, he tell me to call out to God. ‘If you are hurt, cry out to God and he will help.’ But there is no god in this bad place. I call and call, but no one comes.”

“Then one night, my god does come,” the man continued. “I see His face under my bed. He tells to me things. First I think is strange, for God to be under my bed. Then I remember that my father say, ‘He is everywhere.’ I think, Why not?”

“We talk many nights. Him tell me of the old age. Him tell me of the Forest God and of the hunt. Then one day, when I learned enough, God tells to me, ‘Rise up and be prey no more.’ I ask what this mean, but God is silent now. Him testing me, I think.”

Blacktail wagged his agreement. “Yes, gods will do that,” he said. “It is their nature.”

“I think on it for much. Then one day I steal a…how you say…a tooth-of-metal? From the eating place. When the big one is sleeping, this cruel one that makes me prey, I bury my metal tooth deep in him. I cut out his heart. Some I am offer to God-under-the-bed. Some I am eat. Some I am save for later.”

“Did you?” Blacktail said. He kept his tone neutral, but he was a little impressed. More than a little. “That is the way of the hunt, right enough…or so I’m told.”

The Hider seemed confused. “Are you not of Him?”

“Beg pardon?”

“Are you…not of Him? The Forest God? A believer?”

“Well…let’s just say I keep an open mind. My mother believed.” He sniffed the wind, thinking of Renren. “Sometimes I wonder, though. If the Forest God is out there, he’s been awfully quiet.”

The Hider looked at Blacktail with the species of pity the devout reserve for those infidels who perhaps should know better.

“What happened next?”

“The next day, much fury from the other big ones. The little ones like me, the prey, know me is a hunter now. They tell that I save us all. But no one care. Soon, me is taken away to a place of cages. No one listen about the pain in the night.

“I think, Maybe they kill me now. I go, be with Father again. Not so bad. But after much talk, they say not kill. They tell, ‘You too little.’ They tell, ‘We not kill. Instead you go in cage, forever in a cage.’ ”

“Kinder to kill you, I think,” Blacktail said.

“Yes. I think, too. But in cage is surprise. God has found me! Even there, God has found. After some nights, he talk again under my bed. Now He happy with me. Now He whisper secrets in the night.”

“What sort of secrets?” Blacktail asked.