Chapter 1 Love #5
In the midafternoon Car returned. It puked out the two-legs, and a moment later Renren as well.
Blacktail breathed a huge sigh of relief, then rolled over and showed his belly to the warm sun, scratching himself against the twigs and grass in celebration.
He did not see how slowly Renren moved, nor hear her soft whines as her mistress led her from the darkness of house and attached her to her chains.
He bolted off to find food and water, confident that the worst was over.
Just after darkness fell, he leapt over the wall and into the back garden. “Hello, beautiful!” he shouted. “Are you ready—” He broke off. Inside the wall, the scent of her pain was clear. Renren did not stir as he approached.
Blacktail trotted over silently. “Renren?” he asked, and then again, “Renren?” Still she did not wake.
He sniffed her belly. There was a long wound there. Enough to die of, he thought. The terror of it set a cold stream flowing through his veins. There was no blood, and he could not see her guts, but still…
And there was something else. He could no longer smell the litter within her belly. My puppies, he thought, burrowing his nose in gently, so gently, trying to catch the scent of them, but it was no use. Whatever else might have happened to her, his children were gone.
“Blacktail?” Renren asked, stirring finally at the touch of his cold nose.
“I’m here.”
“I’m sorry, Blacktail.”
“Was it the two-legs? Did they do this to you?”
“Yes…no…I don’t know. The female took me to another den, the den of pokes-with-metal-sticks. I’ve been there before. It stings a bit, but I never thought it was dangerous…but this time, I got so sleepy, as if I’d run all day. Then when I woke up they—they were, my puppies were…”
“There’s nothing you could have done. Men are powerful and—and I think they may be quite mad. Can you move?”
“I’ll try.” And indeed, she was able to stand, but she grunted with the effort. Her legs shook like a newborn deer’s.
“Lay back down.”
“But—”
“Lay back down. You’re in no condition to walk, much less jump the wall. You need food. Rest.”
“No. I will go with you, to your—”
“Yes, and I will take you. But there’s plenty of time for that when you’re well. Sleep now. I’ll watch over you until the sun comes.”
“Very well.” Blacktail licked her wound until she slept, then lay with her for a time in the garden.
“It’s all right,” he murmured to himself. “We’re both young. If we like, we can have another litter. Everything will be fine.” Renren made no answer. The smell of blood was thick on her belly.
Blacktail lay beside her all that night, studying the House of men with his hunter’s eyes.
v
When the morning light was high and he could hear the two-legs stirring in their den, Blacktail leapt out of the garden.
Renren’s weakness terrified him, but he could think of no good thing that might come of staying beside her.
He felt sure that if her mistress caught them together, she would be punished.
He hunted all morning, capturing two fat squirrels and a mouse, that she might regain her strength.
That afternoon he returned to the ditch and laid waiting for sunset.
From there he saw the female come to Renren in the afternoon, bringing her food and water. Renren begged for help, saying, “Please, two-legs. Your magic was flawed. I am hurt inside, where my litter was. I think…I think I may yet bleed.” The two-legs patted her head and did nothing.
Blacktail leapt the fence as soon as the sun was down. He knew as soon as his feet touched the earth that something was wrong.
Renren lay silent and still, shackled to her post. Blacktail trotted over to sniff her, whining and averting his eyes.
He needed to be certain, but his terror was nearly the equal of his courage.
“No,” he said to himself with each step.
“No. No. No.” In his deepest mind he heard the thunderous crack of the two-legs’ magic echoing over his hill, smelled the blood drying on his mother’s body. “No, no, oh please, no, no.”
When at last he was able to scent Renren, he found her cold and dead with her belly full of blood.
vi
Blacktail waited until the still hours of the night, when House had been dark for a long time.
He slipped into it through a window. Inside, he found himself next to the child, the one who had once brought Renren a pork chop.
It was sleeping. He killed it quickly and silently, snapping its neck as it slept.
When after a few breaths he heard no stirring, Blacktail lifted the body in his jaws.
He padded down a long tunnel to the cave where the mother and father slept.
He stood in the threshold for a time, their child hanging limp in his jaws.
The scent of the man-den was alien. It whispered to him of soft times, warm sleep with a full belly and no fear of what might hunt in the night.
In one swift leap, Blacktail was up on their bed. As the mother stirred, Blacktail dropped the boy on her chest. The full moon shone in through another window in the wall of the den. In its light the blood of her child dripped thick and black from Blacktail’s fangs.
“This is what it is to see your puppies die,” he said. He drew back far enough to give her a good look. He paused a moment, breathing rough in the dark, giving her time to take it in.
He let her scream once, then tore out her throat.
Her mate woke slower. At first that one was confused, by the scream, the weight on the bed, the scents of blood and wolf.
But he collected himself quickly enough—self-preservation, perhaps.
While Blacktail murdered the woman, the male rummaged around in a wooden box next to their bed, pulled something out.
Blacktail recognized the thing immediately.
This one was not so large as the one that had killed Blacktail’s mother…
but they all smelled the same. Gun. In the darkness Blacktail bared his teeth.
He made the killing sound deep in his throat.
The male did nothing to aid his dying mate or even his child.
He only scrambled to escape. The smell of hot urine filled the room, mingling with the blood.
The man’s terror was such that he tripped over himself, fell.
Blacktail watched him flail in the dark, thinking of Renren, savoring the moment. A moment later the man made a gunshot.
The sound of it was like thunder. It illuminated the room. Blacktail reached out to feel what the prey would. He did this instinctively, just as he had done since he was a pup. Sometimes he wondered if it was more than simple imagination.
In that flash the prey would see my muzzle, curled back over sharp white teeth, ears forward, fur up. The prey would see its dying mate. It would see its dead child.
Blacktail thought it tried to cry out, but his scream was soundless. Gunshots rang out over and over again, like lightning in a terrible storm.
Blacktail felt the wind as something passed by his head in the dark.
The flash dazzled his eyes. The thunderclaps made his ears ring.
The stinking cloud masked the scents of the room.
He froze, disoriented and uncertain. There was another flash.
This time the strike grazed his fur. Blacktail twisted wildly.
It crossed his mind to escape, slip back into the night, go to his hill—and why not?
He had seen the man’s face, the silent scream.
He was dead now in every way that mattered, or would be, once the terrible sights of this night sank in.
My work here is done, I think.
But then—perhaps through one of the fresh holes in the wall—he caught a whiff of Renren. She’s alone, he thought. She’s dead and alone outside in the dark.
At the thought, a killing rage rose up in his mind, huge and terrible as never before.
It eclipsed everything—fear and grief and even love, hiding them all behind a boiling red moon.
In that moment he had no need for imagination, or sight, or scent; he reached out with his spirit and knew the two-legs, knew it in his mind as it called on whatever foul god it worshipped for shelter, knew its essence, its soul, tasted it, arrogant and callous and callow, yes, all of that, but now, finally, finally, terrified.
It had forgotten, he thought. A lifetime of warmth, of full belly and fearless nights made it forget. But now it remembers.
This, weak one. This is your place in the hunt.
Welcome home.