The story that became Blacktail started in an online writing workshop guided by professional editors. Every week-ish, they’d toss out some story prompts and let the aspirants see what they could do with them. The one that caught my eye was something along the lines of “write a fantasy piece with a non-traditional protagonist.” Well. At the time I was living with, I believe, four dogs. One of those dogs had been just straight-up abandoned by a neighbor of mine when they moved house. I recognized her, vaguely, from doing exercise laps around the neighborhood.
A couple weeks after the neighbors moved out this came up to me while my then-only dog (a yellow lab) and I were doing a lap. She was about as close to starvation as any living creature I’ve ever seen. The fur of her back looked like a towel draped over her spine. I gave her a bowl of food, which pretty much made her my dog from then on. She lived to be about sixteen.
The Emotional Core of Blacktail
This has bearing on Blacktail in that I simply could not fathom the kind of mind that would consider abandoning a dog who loved and trusted you. I’d even spoken with her former owners once or twice. They seemed like decent enough people.
I had to mull that over for a while before it dawned on me just how angry I was about it. Now that I think about it I still am. To me, that starving dog is the emotional core of Blacktail.
Also at that same time my then-fiancée was living with me. She had previously lived in Colorado. In that state it was possible–if perhaps not entirely legal–to breed wolves with dogs. (‘Murica).
My fiancé had gotten one such for protection, and brought him home with her when she came back to Georgia. The Mighty Bebos was a big boy, north of 120 pounds. Once—only once—I tried to wrestle with him the way I did with my yellow lab. I still have a scar. He was a good boy though, for the most part, though not un-terrifying when strangers came to knock.
The eponymous Blacktail is himself a half-wolf. You want a non-traditional protagonist? I got one right here.
Human-on-Animal Callousness
The story was also heavily influenced by other human-on-animal callousness that I bumped into over twenty years as a dog owner and a much briefer stint working with an animal rescue organization. A lot of people think of animals in more or less the same way that they think of furniture. I disagree.
Here are a couple of for-instances:
My first job after school was teaching in a very rural town in north Georgia, USA. The apartment I was renting bordered on a good-sized patch of forest. Evidently, a lot of people thought that would be a good place to dump inconvenient dogs. Quite a few of them went feral. As a pack, they would raid trash cans left outside at night and, at least once, chase joggers (me) with what gave every impression of murderous intent. I remember one of the dogs vividly—he still had a collar on. Runaway? Maybe, but I doubt it. Eventually animal control came and rounded them up. Probably there wasn’t any real alternative, but that one with the collar still makes me flinch when I think about him.
Animal Rescue
Another memorable incident was when the animal rescue I mentioned asked me to pick up and foster a dog from the shelter in that same county. She was, if memory serves, a little Dachshund. She was scheduled to be gassed that night. When I arrived, the shelter person told me that there was another dog also scheduled to die. He was a bully breed, one of those dogs who just naturally looks like he spends three hours a day in the gym and possibly uses illegal steroids. Both of them were supposed to be fosters. The Dachshund got adopted in a couple of days. The bully looking dog, not so much. People were afraid of him because of his breed.
I was only supposed to bring one foster home, but this felt like one of those situations where it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. I remember the three of us—me, Bonnie and Clyde–walking out of the shelter. There was a fifty-foot-tall chimney behind it, presumably the other exit.
Clyde lived with us for about sixteen years and never harmed a soul. He was probably the happiest dog I’ve ever known. To this day I think that rescuing him was the best thing I’ve ever done.
I’ve got quite a few other anecdotes in that same vein, but I think you get the idea.
Blacktail: the short story
Anyway, following the workshop prompt led me to write short story of about eight thousand words. That story contained all the elements of what ultimately became the novel Blacktail. It should be noted that the word “ultimately” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
Blacktail the short story was written slightly before 09/11. It never really made it out into the world, but it stuck with me. The memory of that starving dog still makes me absolutely furious. The other less pathetic characters were a lot of fun too. Anyway, a few decades later I ran into a dry spell and decided to revisit the twenty-year-old manuscript. I still responded to the basic plot line—it felt alive in my head the way some other previous projects did not, if that makes sense. However, I wasn’t crazy about the writing. I also thought it was better suited to a novel-length piece, albeit a short one. So I rewrote it pretty much from the ground up.
That’s the Blacktail that’s out now I hope you like it.
Pet your dog for me.
(c) Scott Hawkins
About Blacktail:
A wolf embarks on a primal hunt for revenge. Blacktail is a dark work of animal fiction from Scott Hawkins, the critically acclaimed author of The Library at Mount Char.
Blacktail is a half-breed wolf, born to hunt. When he finds love beyond a garden wall, he dares to imagine a peaceful life – until men butcher his mate and unborn pups in a surgical act of cruelty. His grief ignites a rampage of torn throats and shattered bone, a slaughter so absolute it draws the gaze of an ancient feline witch. She sends him south to wake the sleeping Forest God and end the age of reason.
Fuelled by a rage that frightens Hell itself, Blacktail wages war against men and the beasts who dare defend them. From a gore-soaked wilderness to a burning confrontation with Heaven, Blacktail is a feral odyssey of vengeance.
The Forest God sleeps. But what will be the price of waking him?
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