Page 52 of Blacktail

“I do anything. You are my duty to God.”

“Very well,” Blacktail said. “I would be…Very well. Do it.”

“Good,” said the Hider, smiling his sad smile once again. “I go now, I think. My Lord Hunter need magic. Need it soon. But to work the—the—” He stammered for words, waving his forepaw at Car. “I must fall out of the true language. I must return to reason. I not can speak then.”

“I understand,” Blacktail said. His eyes were drooping. “When will you return?”

“Next night, maybe the one after. You have enough to eat, yes?”

Blacktail wagged in agreement.

“Good. Sleep. Eat. Heal. I come back soon.”

iv

All the next day Blacktail slept in the shadow of a boulder beside the stream. Around midday he woke and filled his belly again on the prey that the Hider had left. Other than that he barely moved. He felt better for having water and food, but the agony in his leg had returned. He thought that his sickness had grown worse.

About midnight he woke to the roar of Car. It was hard to be certain, especially in the dark, but he thought this one sounded the same as the one from before. And sure enough, when it was close, he caught a whiff of the Hider underneath Car’s foul breath. Sniffing deeper, he realized that there was another two-legs as well.

Blacktail considered rising to greet his host, but thought better of it. If he is not yet in the hunt, he may not even remember me. Perhaps it would be best to wait until I hear him speak. He did not take pains to hide himself, but lay in silence next to the boulder. He thought it would be enough. The eyes of men are weak at night. Many things watch them but are not seen.

Car came to rest near where it had been before. Its bright, staring eyes closed. Its breathing fell still. Not long after, it burped up the Hider. Now his scent was mixed with fresh blood. He is wounded.

The Hider padded around aimlessly for a little while, scratching himself and looking up at the sky.

What was it that he said? When the hunt is not high in him, the true language is like a dream? Something like that. I was right to lay low. If I showed myself now, he would piss himself and run away screaming, I think.

Then there came a muffled moan from the ass of Car, followed by a great pounding. The Hider blinked a few times, as if coming back to himself. He walked slowly to Car’s hind end. It opened for him.

The Hider reached in and wrapped his forepaw in the hair of another man, bigger than him. This one had long hair like many female two-legs, but a broad back and legs thick with muscle. The Hider lifted him, ignoring the prey’s squeals, and dropped it to the desert floor. Blacktail thought it might run then, but no. After a moment he realized that its fore- and hind paws were bound up in some kind of vine. It was helpless.

The Hider rummaged around in Car and retrieved a long metal tooth. It flashed wicked in the moonlight. The prey seemed unable to look away from it. The Hider knelt in front of his prey, holding the tooth. The prey tried to squirm away, but the Hider was stronger than he appeared. Even with his wound he tossed the prey about as if it were a pup.

The Hider struck the prey about the head and shoulders, subjugating it. When it offered no further struggle, he dipped his head and bit the prey’s shoulder. The prey screamed and bucked wildly, but the Hider only laughed.

At first Blacktail wondered: What is the point? The Hider’s teeth weren’t strong enough to tear flesh. It crossed his mind to intervene, to stop…whatever this was. But something about the Hider reminded him of the night Renren had died, the way he himself had savaged the bodies long past the point of hunting. Too, he remembered how he’d felt when he stopped.

Empty. Ashamed.

Lost.

Then, for no reason he could name, he thought of that ancient scent poem by his home—how did it go?

As with the sunset, so, the coming of men.

Hate has its own language, Blacktail thought. And some poems insist upon themselves.

The Hider lay panting beside his prey for a moment, then rose. He shed his outer skins and his body steamed in the cool night air. “Lord Hunter?” he called out tentatively. “Come out, Lord Hunter. I have a fine gift for you.”

“I am here,” Blacktail said, emerging from the brush.

At the sight of him, the Hider smiled. “Well met!” he said brightly. “To see you is good. I feared you a night-vision. A dream.”

“No, I’m real enough,” Blacktail said, limping up to the Hider. As he drew close, he saw that the blood smell came from a wound in his shoulder. Many of the Hider’s scents were strange to him, but he knew the smell of wounds. This one was deep. “What is this?”

“Is only a little thing,” the Hider said, flicking away a trickle of blood. “When I took this prey, the magic one, I was seen. Two pack lords came for me. I killed them, but one threw a gunshot.”

“Hmm,” Blacktail said. “Bend down a bit, will you?” The Hider squatted down, and they sniffed each other for a moment. Despite what he had said about being deaf-in-his-nose, the Hider seemed to take pleasure in Blacktail’s scent. He brought his face close to the thick fur of Blacktail’s neck and drew in a deep breath.