Page 11 of Blacktail

Love

i

Blacktail fell in love on a late summer day two years after his mother’s murder. The grass on his hill was long, lush. The trees were in bloom. The breeze smelled clean, if perhaps a tad more pollen-y than he would have liked. Sometimes he could hear the burble of a stream down the hill, fat with snowmelt.

Blacktail woke—not atypically—to the sound of someone coming to murder him.

“Hi there!”

The voice was small, squeaky, but it jolted him out of sleep. That’s close. Too close. His first urge was to charge out, barking and snapping. He resisted. He didn’t so much as stiffen his mane. After a moment he risked a little sniff. His mind raced. He strained his ears to identify the source of the sound. Last night he slept in the den that his mother had dug. He didn’t always—bad memories—but it was a good spot, safe and isolated. There were only two ways to approach it.

They’re coming from the south.

The speaker’s voice was familiar, but not immediately recognizable. After a moment it came to him. That’s Apple. Apple was a fattish chipmunk from a burrow a goodish ways downhill. Chipmunks rarely ventured far from their bolt-holes. What’s he doing here?

But—another sniff—Apple was not alone. This other one smelled deep and musty, with hints of old moss, of rot. A small twig snapped under the weight of an enormous foot.

Blacktail’s heart sank. That, he thought, is a bear.

“Quiet,” the bear hissed. “You’ll wake him.”

“Him?” Apple said. “Whoever might you mean? I’m so confused.”

Apple was many things—slovenly, obnoxious, a glutton and thief—but he wasn’t dumb. What’s he playing at? Blacktail risked cracking an eyelid, just enough to see through the jutting branches of the deadfall where he slept. The two of them stood about a hundred yards away in a rocky clearing surrounded by long summer grass. The bear—who was very big indeed—cocked his head at the den.

“Oh! Right!” Apple made a show of putting his forepaws over his mouth. “Wouldn’t want to wake him. He’s a terror, that one.”

The bear took a step closer. He’s quiet, for one so large. And he was approaching from downwind. He’ll come from the right, through that little gap in the brush. With the next step, Blacktail saw that the bear was favoring his left front paw a little. If I can—

“So, what do you want with the wolf?” Apple said.

The bear froze, one paw hovering a few inches above the grass. He swiveled his head back to Apple, glaring.

“If you’ve come for a chat, you’ll have better luck around noon,” Apple said. “He likes to sleep in sometimes. And he’s grumpy when he wakes up. In case you didn’t know.”

“I’m not here for a chat.” The bear’s voice was a cross between a hiss and a roar.

“What, the—Oh.” Apple’s eyes went wide. “Wow. I understand. You’re going to eat…him?”

The bear didn’t answer. He turned back to the den, resumed his methodical plod. He’s about three times my size, Blacktail thought.

“You came in from the south, right?” Apple said. “That valley, down yonder? With all the caribou and whatnot?”

The bear was either an idiot or exasperated enough with Apple to interrupt his stalk. He stopped, then reared back on his hind legs. “What does it matter? Hmm?”

“It’s only that, if you’d come from the west…”

“What?”

“Well, you’d have…seen.”

The bear had grown irritated enough to abandon any attempt at silence. Apple had that effect. “Seen what? Exactly?”

He has to know I’m listening, Blacktail thought. He has to. He considered. Well…maybe. A creature that size could sometimes get away with being deeply stupid.

“The Forest of Bones,” Apple said.

“I’m sorry. What?”