Chapter 1
Bites Back
67,000 BCE (one year after the eruption of the Lake Toba supervolcano), somewhere in central Asia
Before the great light dimmed, before the grey death leaves fell for so long, the family was as big as many families. Bites Back was young, jumping on the backs of his littermates, hunting flowers and grass. His mother, Stone Eyes, was strong. Old Fast Paw was the father of the family then. Meat was everywhere and the family sometimes ran just to eat the air and feel their legs stretch.
That was before the grey death leaves fell, before so many of the family were gone.
Last light, Stone Eyes did not rise. They sang long over the dead mother of their family. Now they had no mother.
The running of the tall meat roused Bites Back. He woke the family and they pursued it. As the father, Broken Tail ran first, but Bites Back was close behind. The family had been running now for most of light. The meat they chased was tired. Flower Nose ran at Bites Back’s side. She alone could be mother now. Her scent mixed with the warm smell of the meat that ran from them as he breathed the best air, the air of running. His legs scissored in, overlapping and then stretching out.
Ahead, Broken Tail must see the meat slowing, for he moved to close-and-kill pace. The grey death leaves were all over the ground. They piled around the dead trees where water from the sky did not wash them away, but mounded them in mush piles. The family stayed away from these, even though they could hear little crunchy meat living in them.
The little crunchy meat was all that lived well now.
The trees ended before the hill. Broken Tail slipped on the rise above. No, he hadn’t slipped; he had stopped. Strange when meat was so close. The family could not afford to lose a whole light’s run after meat.
Bites Back ran to the father’s side, risking a snarl. Below them—a long rush away—their meat lay on its side, hooves twitching in the air. There also, tall and thin with a long stick on its front paw, a two-legs stood next to their meat. Another crouched at its neck, eating their kill.
Next to him, Bites Back felt the heat from Broken Tail, heard his heart and his panting as his own. He smelled the same breath and felt the same heart from Flower Nose and the others who stood behind. This kill might be the last they could make. The family had to have this meat.
Bites Back lowered his muzzle, turned toward Broken Tail, and whined. Broken Tail stood stiff and still, watching the two-legs. He growled low.
Sometimes, when the family made a new kill and the long tooths appeared, the family left the kill. The long tooths liked the meat of dogs, too, and none could fight the long tooths and win.
But these were two-legs. Slow, soft-pawed, flat-tooth two-legs. Even now there were more dogs in the family than there were two-legs here, and if they did not take this meat they would all die like Stone Eyes. Better to lose a family member fighting a two-legs than to lose all the family not fighting.
A low growl crept up from deep in his belly. This was their kill, their meat. Bites Back looked quickly at the father again. The growl warmed him. It made him feel larger than Broken Tail, as big as a long tooth.
He looked down at the two-legs. The two-legs with the stick bared its teeth at the family, at Bites Back. It raised its leg and shook the stick in its paw.
Bites Back’s growl changed to the sound of attack as he charged down the slope at the two-legs. It moved forward, lowering the stick and pointing it at him. Bites Back turned sharply and jumped instead on the two-legs that crouched by the family’s meat. Jaws wide, he came down on the thief. Aiming for its neck, he missed and bit into its shoulder. It made a loud noise and and shook violently. His bite was not a kill, so Bites Back released. He fell on the other side of the dead meat.
The family had followed him down the hill and were attacking the two legs.
The two-legs he had bitten was trying to run away. Mud Paw and Little Eyes were biting its legs, but couldn’t take it down. The other two-legs was backing away, waving its stick. Jumps High, Grey Head, and Crooked Leg were circling, trying to find weakness.
Bites Back looked up at the hill. Broken Tail and Flower Nose stood there, watching the two-legs and the rest of the family. The two-legs had taken the family’s kill. The father was not fighting. He raised his voice in a sharp song of anger.
Flower Nose ran down to join the family. Broken Tail still stood above, watching.
There were sounds of pain close by. Mud Paw and Little Eyes were back from their chase; they had killed their two-legs or it had gotten away. Now the two-legs with the stick faced the family. It stopped moving its stick and turned to run away. Slipping in from behind, Crooked Leg grabbed its paw, the top paw that didn’t hold the stick. The smell of the blood from the two-legs mixed with the scent from their kill and with the blood on Crooked Leg’s back. His belly shrank in crazy hunger.
Turning more quickly than Bites Back had ever seen a two-legs move, it struck Crooked Leg with the end of its stick.
The stick went through Crooked Leg’s neck. Crooked Leg made the sounds of death and fell before the two legs.
The family stopped their attacks. They knew death. Death was what they brought to others. Too often it was brought to them. But the family had never seen a death like this. What kind of stick could do this?
Flower Nose, who was Crooked Leg’s littermate, began the song first, then the rest of the family joined. They sang of Crooked Leg’s heart; they sang of how he danced when the little crunchy meat flew up from the water, trying but never catching them in his mouth. They sang of him as a hunter—he had never been a good hunter because his leg left him always at the back, but he had powerful jaws and sometimes broke bones for the little ones. They sang of him as a warm body in the cold of the nights after the grey death leaves fell from the sky. And Flower Nose sang of him as her littermate. Her song was loudest and strongest.
Before Flower Nose finished her song, the father walked over to the kill and dipped his muzzle into it. He would be looking for the heart, always his favorite portion.
Bites Back’s legs stiffened, a growl began again, a growl he did not know he had started. It filled him. Made him larger. Made him powerful.
With no other warning, he jumped on Broken Tail.
But Broken Tail was no two-legs. He had been father of the family since Bites Back ran in his first kill. Not long after that, Bites Back had challenged him—half in play, but half not. The fight had not taken long. Broken Tail had not bothered to bring blood as he stood over the young and foolish Bites Back. Since that time, Bites Back smelled his old defeat whenever he smelled Broken Tail.
He did not smell his defeat now. He only felt his anger. Anger at the two-legs, at Broken Tail. And he smelled fear all around him. Fear of finding no meat…of the family dying. The anger in his belly grew stronger. Broken Tail had failed the family.
Broken Tail jumped aside as Bites Back came down on him. He had been expecting the attack. He bent low and grabbed Bites Back’s front leg in his mouth, crushing down to cripple and shatter the small bones.
This would end the fight. And Bites Back would die if he could no longer follow the hunt. But the growl in his belly was so large that Bites Back hardly felt Broken Tail’s attack. While the older dog bore down on his leg, Bites Back took all of Broken Tail’s neck in his own mouth and closed his jaws, jaws powered by the growl that shook his belly and his world and made him as strong as any dog had ever been.
Broken Tail released Bites Back’s leg before the bones broke. The father’s body tensed. All four of his legs extended straight and hard, and a sound came from him. This sound was not the song of death; it was a whimper. Not the whimper of a pup, or of an old dog, or of one in season asking another to mate, but a whimper that no dog ever wanted to make or that any of the family ever wanted to hear. Broken Tail would never run for the kill again.
He lay on his side, legs stiff and trembling. His sounds of pain continued, but grew softer.
Broken Tail could not turn his head, but his eyes moved enough to look into Bites Back’s. His eyes, always dark like the earth, looked lighter now, like the grey death that had come from the sky and covered everything. Bites Back did not see anger in those eyes, the anger that he had felt toward Broken Tail. All he could see was himself looking back, as when he looked in the still water.
Bites Back leaned his head down and licked under Broken Tail’s jaw.
Mud Paw, Broken Tail’s youngest pup, began the song of death. One by one, the family joined. Except for Bites Back. He was father of the family now. He must keep the family safe.