Chapter 7 The Fire of God #5
Blacktail waited a moment. He could plainly see that Chester did not understand, but he did not ask why, or any other question.
He trusts in me absolutely, Blacktail realized, more, even, than he trusts himself.
The thought settled onto him like a physical weight.
I must be careful that they do not trust in vain.
He blinked. They? Who is “they”? Then a notion so small it was barely there rose to him from somewhere deep.
Joy-Hop
What? What was that? He strained, but whatever it was—a thought? a memory?—was gone. He shook this away and turned back to Chester. “I know it all sounds strange. I thought so, too, the first time I heard it. But it’s not madness. It’s craft.”
Chester furrowed his brow. “I, ah…don’t follow?”
“Men claim all lands as their own, no? Even these forsaken rocks?”
“Yes…”
“So. Perhaps the ones we ate were on a mission? Perhaps they have mates? They might be missed. If they are simply gone…well, that’s one thing.
But if their remains are found, maybe carried back to some pack lord, that’s another thing altogether.
The two-legs have an appetite for vengeance,” Blacktail said.
“If we anger them, they will swarm these lands like wasps. More of them than you can count. If it comes to that, they’ll kill everything in their path. ”
“They will?”
“Yes. I’ve seen it.”
“I would never have thought such.”
“Me neither. Not until I saw it done.”
“They hunted you?”
“Yes. Many-many of them.”
“But you…how? How did you survive it?”
“I had help,” Blacktail said, a tad bit curtly this time.
“Without it, I would not have survived. Come along, before the vultures notice the bodies. Once that’s done, we might spend the day sunning ourselves on that fine rock and give your wound a chance to heal.
No pleasure like a full belly, is there? ”
“Please believe me when I say that you have no idea.”
They sunned themselves on the rocks not for one day, but two.
Chester made frequent journeys to Pooping Gorge, as they came to call it, to groan and emit bad smells.
Blacktail poked fun at him, asking whether he had come too late to save Chester’s heart, or perhaps it was his lungs?
Surely something inside him was dead, to make such a stink.
Chester laughed and waved his ass in Blacktail’s face as he walked by.
Sometimes they wrestled, though Blacktail was careful not to wound him accidentally.
Chester was still very thin, and the wound in his side worried them both. But all in all, it was a pleasant time.
On the third morning they began to grow hungry again.
v
Does it mourn? Chester wondered.
They lay on the bluff overlooking the flat, gravel-covered clearing that Chester had come to think of as Car’s den.
It was midmorning, with a few more clouds than usual, and smelled a bit like rain.
The Car of the first two-legs had not moved since they died.
Chester thought it looked rather sad, sitting there alone.
His ears perked up. He listened for a moment, then spoke. “I believe I hear another one,” he said softly. “Perhaps our dinner has arrived?”
“Yes,” Blacktail said. “I heard it not long ago. It carries five, I think. Do you have the strength to take one of them down on your own? Take care to answer true. It is important that none escape.”
“I think so. Yes.”
“Good enough, good enough. Come, hunter. Lead me to the bluff above the trailhead. We’ll pick up the scent there. Mind you take care not to be seen.”
He called me “hunter,” Chester thought dazedly.
They let the two-legs pass, then fell in behind them.
This time, Chester knew without being told to follow Blacktail and do as he did.
There were five of them, right enough. Chester was nervous, but also excited.
He was growing attuned to the hunt. He felt sure he could bring down one of them on his own, perhaps even two.
At the same time, there was little doubt in his mind that Blacktail could kill all five and more besides if it came to that.
Each time he closed his eyes, he saw those burning red eyes and heard the terrible roar.
Blacktail still had his terrors at least once each night. Worse, the stink of his illness was in his every breath, every piss. It oozed from the fur of his neck. But Chester said nothing about any of this. He understood little of what was happening. He was coming to think that was for the best.
The small pack of two-legs moved swiftly. They broke away from the trail and struck out through the open desert. Chester was surprised by this, for all those that came before had stayed close on the trail. “Do you think they’re moving toward something, or do they simply wander?”
“They’re moving toward the large mesa, over yonder. At this pace they’ll make it before sunset.”
“When shall we strike?” Chester asked. “Car can’t save them anymore. They’ve come too far out.”
Blacktail didn’t answer at first. After a long moment he spoke softly, almost to himself. “We may not strike at all. I don’t like this.”
“What?”
“They know we’re here. They pretend not to, but they know.”
Chester looked down at the two-legs. Nothing stood out. They bore bundles on their back. Some of them walked with sticks in hand, but not the kind that brought gunshots. All of them were draped in those ridiculous second skins. “How do you know?”
“I’m not sure. There’s…it’s something in the way they glance about but try to hide it. Or perhaps it is in their scent. It doesn’t matter. They know.”
Chester sniffed. “Do they have the gunshots thing? I can’t tell.”
“No. I thought at first they were hunting us, but no.” He paused. “Not in that way, at any rate.”
“What do you mean?”
“These are holy men. Perhaps holy men hunt in another way.”
“Holy men?” Chester asked, bewildered. “Is it something in their scent, or…?”
“No, not their scent, nor their gait, nor their appearance. It’s the things that they don’t do,” Blacktail said.
“You recall those last ones, the ones we ate? When they moved, they looked at things. Rocks, bushes, the horizon. Physical things. They reacted to them, made noises. Their glances would linger on what they found interesting. Their scent would change when they saw something that caught their fancy.”
Chester wagged his understanding. He had seen that as well. He thought nothing of it at the time.
“Those ones down there, though…they aren’t here for the scenery.”
“What, then?”
“Us, I think,” Blacktail said. “Me. You see the one in the middle? The one in the black flowing—What did you call it?”
“Cloth?”
“Yes, cloth. The old one in the black cloth. With the little white collar around his neck. That one in particular bears watching. He is as focused as any hunter I have ever known. But not on this world.” Blacktail paused. “I do not like it. Not at all.”
“Should we turn around?”
Blacktail thought on this for a time. Finally he answered, “No. Not yet.”
The two-legs had indeed been making for the mesa Blacktail pointed out.
They reached it well before sunset. One of them began to build things in the area, little dens shaped like turtle shells but of strange colors.
Three of them set about gathering wood, going out into the raw land, returning every so often with an armful of twigs and thick scrub.
They tossed the wood onto a pile in the center of the camp.
Soon the pile had grown to the size of a small hill.
The elder male with the meditative air about him sat still and silent, ignoring all that went on.
“Do you have any idea what that one is doing?” Blacktail asked. “You know them better than I do.”
Chester flushed with pleasure. “Maybe,” he said, after giving it some thought. “You see that pile of leaf-things it holds in its lap?”
“What, the one with the little marks on it, like bird tracks?”
Chester squinted. His eyes weren’t good enough to pick out the little tracks, but he had seen similar leaf-things and already suspected that they were there.
“Yes, those. Okay, I think I do know. My two-legs used to have some marked leaves like those, all bound together in little bundles. I’ve no idea what they’re for, but she would sit and stare at them for many breaths, sometimes all day.
” Chester paused. “Perhaps it is meat-drunk?”
“No,” Blacktail said. “I think he is praying.”
They were quiet for a time, watching. Chester spoke next. “The little one there, the den-builder—she’s making a fire. Have you seen fire?”
“Oh yes,” Blacktail said. “Twice the lightning struck my hill and it came. It’s a natural thing. I’ve seen it a few times when I traveled at night. I think the two-legs use it to drive the darkness away.”
“The one they’re making looks to be very large.”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve no idea—”
Blacktail nipped him gently, and Chester fell silent. “A hunter speaks only when he has something worth saying,” Blacktail said.
“Yes, lo—Yes.”
vi
They waited in silence while the sun traced its long arc across the sky, watched it sink behind the mountains.
By the time it was full dark, the two-legs’ fire had grown enormous.
One of them found thick wood from somewhere, a fallen tree perhaps, or several of them.
When the fire was large enough, they fed those in as well.
The fire ate it greedily. Its yellow-orange glow swelled until it was twice as wide as Blacktail was long.
The heat of it was enormous. Little by little it drove the men back until they stood many paces away.
Blacktail and Chester felt it even where they lay.