Jack Comes Back

Chapter 1 Bites Back

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.