Marked In Flesh

CHAPTER 11

Thaisday, Juin 7

Joe Wolfgard helped Tobias Walker lift the fifth shipping container of bison meat into the dairy farm’s small refrigerated truck, which Tobias had parked outside of Floyd Tanner’s butcher shop. He didn’t understand why the whole Prairie Gold community was proud to have such a truck, but he could appreciate its usefulness in moving food that would spoil during transport in the days when Summer ruled the land.

Besides, Vlad had already done some of the things he’d promised, and Jesse Walker and Shelley Bookman were now on Steve Ferryman’s particular information list. Shelley had also set up an e-mail account for him at the library so that Simon and Jackson—and Vlad—could send him news if they didn’t want to send a telegram, which would have to be brought out to the terra indigene settlement, or call him at Jesse Walker’s store to have a message delivered that way.

In the terra indigene settlement where he’d lived before coming here, there had been a communications cabin that had a telephone and computer, and the settlement had been close enough to a human village that they could use mobile phones at least some of the time. But Prairie Gold was a simpler place, and communication was no longer as direct. The terra indigene settlement here didn’t have a telephone or computer, didn’t have the poles and wires that made such things work. The Others hadn’t felt the need for such things. More important, the Elders didn’t want those human things touching their hills.

But having a way to communicate with other terra indigene beyond howling range was important now that humans were causing trouble in so many places. He would need to chew on his problem for a while. Maybe the Eaglegard would be willing to act as couriers if he needed to send a message quickly to another part of Thaisia or receive a message from Simon or Jackson? If not, then the Crowgard or Ravengard would certainly enjoy being the first to have news.

Did humans who worked in telegraph offices choose that work because they had the same desire as Ravens and Crows to know the news first?

“What do you think?” Tobias asked.

Joe blinked, then remembered the question Tobias had asked as they loaded the meat into the truck. “Bison fat? Do humans eat it?”

“No, Abigail wants to try making candles and soap from it. She usually purchases tallow from Floyd Tanner when a steer or sheep is butchered for meat, but there are a lot of carcasses out there, and the fat on them is going to waste, so she wondered if she could have some.”

There aren’t that many carcasses left out there now, Joe thought. A Wolf could cover a hundred miles in a day. The Elders could cover even more ground. Many of them had come down from the hills to consume the available meat instead of hunting. And, he suspected, they had become sufficiently curious and wanted a closer look at the Intuits who had settled near the southern end of their hills—humans who were working hard to be friendly with the terra indigene.

“She would give you some of the candles and soap as a kind of payment for the tallow,” Tobias added.

That was fair. Candles were sometimes useful. He would have to see about the soap. The Others had built places where they made the soap that they preferred to use when they were in human form. It wasn’t stinky with added smells and it didn’t foul the land. He would have to ask Jesse Walker if she carried that soap in her store. But if Abigail Burch could make an acceptable soap, they wouldn’t have to buy it from another part of Thaisia.

“We can pick up some fat on our way back from the train,” Joe said.

Tobias closed the truck. “Speaking of the train, we’d better get going. We need to stop for gas before we head out.”

“Hey, Tobias!”

Tobias nodded at the man striding toward them from the direction of the general store. “Tom.”

Tom Garcia wagged a thumb toward the store. “Jesse said you should stop at the store on your way out. She has a basket of food and drinks for the two of you to take with you.”

“Appreciate that. We need to stop there anyway to pick up a couple of big containers that will hold tallow for Abigail.”

Tom nodded at Joe and went inside the butcher shop, where every available adult human had been helping Floyd handle the glut of bison meat.

“Anything you need to do before we go?” Tobias asked.

“No.” The rest of the terra indigene already knew he was going to the train station with Tobias, and plenty of Hawks, Eagles, and Ravens would be watching them from the sky.

They picked up the food and drinks from Jesse, filled the gas tank on the way out of town, and started the two-hour drive to Bennett.

“You sure you’re not looking for tarot cards?”

Jesse hung on to patience. Shelley had found three Intuit companies that, among other things, printed tarot cards and fortune-telling cards, which, she’d been told, weren’t quite the same thing. This was the third company. The other two either didn’t know what she was talking about or weren’t willing to admit anything to anyone—which made her wonder how they were staying in business. But she had a feeling that trust had become a commodity more precious than gold.

“I’m sure,” she said to the woman on the phone. “I remember seeing decks of cards that were used by some women to get a sense of something coming, but that was four decades ago, and I’m trying to find out if cards like that are still being made.”

Silence. Then, “What kind of women?”

“Blood prophets. I’m looking into this for one of the cassandra sangue.” Not quite true, but close enough.

“You have one of those girls living in your community?”

“No, but we’re looking into fostering one or two of the girls.” Another gray truth since it had been a passing thought. When the other woman said nothing, Jesse continued. “The leader of the terra indigene settlement at Prairie Gold has connections to two of the girls. One of the girls had a vision about cards.”

A crackling silence. “Gods,” the other woman breathed. “You’re looking for the Trailblazer deck?”

“I—” Jesse’s left wrist throbbed. “Maybe I am.” Now it was her turn to hesitate. “There’s really a deck of cards called that?”

“Not officially. Not yet. Yesterday I pulled a few decks of fortune-telling cards from our stock. I had a feeling that a new deck was needed, but I didn’t know what was needed.”

“Maybe you’re not the one who is supposed to decide. Maybe you’re the one who is supposed to produce a special deck of cards that will be used by the Trailblazer.” Jesse thought for a moment. “You could produce a deck of cards from new art?”

“Sure, but we don’t have new art.”

Not yet. “The decks you pulled yesterday. You must have been drawn to them for a reason. Can you send me two of each of those decks?”

“Yes, I could.” The woman’s voice softened. “Yes, I could.”

Jesse gave the woman the mailing information for Prairie Gold, thanked her, and hung up. Then she threaded her fingers in her hair and pulled hard enough to relieve some of the tension in her scalp.

Need to stock up, she thought as she studied the shelves in her store and tried to ignore the increasing ache in her left wrist. Canned goods, dried goods, anything in a jar that will last until . . .

“Until what?” The sound of her own voice startled her, made her stop and consider why her thoughts had jumped from fortune-telling cards to the certainty that she needed to hoard supplies, and she needed to do it now.

As she looked around her store, her gaze rested on the shelves that held the books. Couldn’t purchase books from the publishers anymore. Couldn’t buy books from the bookstore in Bennett. Some might argue that books were a luxury, not a necessity. She didn’t agree, but as a test for depriving an isolated community of merchandise? People would be unhappy about the loss of new books to read but not angry. At least, not at first. But what if things they considered more necessary suddenly couldn’t be purchased? Things like food and clothes and, gods, even something as basic as toilet paper?

Two years ago, they’d had a rough winter, had been isolated for several weeks during a series of fierce storms. She’d had a feeling that year and had started stocking up on supplies in late autumn, ignoring the teasing from Tobias and Shelley about becoming a canned goods and paper pack rat. Then the storms hit a few weeks later. By the time they’d gotten the road cleared and could drive to Bennett for supplies, she’d had half a dozen cans of soup and two boxes of spaghetti on the shelves and had been breaking up the last packages of toilet paper and selling it by the roll so that every family would have some.

As she looked at the stock in her store, she had the same feeling, only this time it felt worse. Much worse.

Pulling out the notebook she used to keep track of items to order, she began reviewing the shelves and making a list. She’d completed the dried goods section when Shelley rushed into the store.

“Joe Wolfgard received an e-mail,” Shelley said. “From Vlad Sanguinati!”

“Joe has gone to Bennett with Tobias,” Jesse replied.

“Do you think we should read it?”

“No.”

“I can access his e-mail and—”

“No.”

“But it might be important!”

Jesse turned and eyed Shelley. “Even if it is important, there’s nothing anyone can do about it until Joe and Tobias get back.”

“But we could look—”

“Just because you set up the account for him doesn’t mean you’re entitled to read his mail or even check his account to see if he received any.” Jesse’s voice turned sharp. “The library and the post office are the only places in Prairie Gold that have computers. Anyone who wants to communicate through e-mail has to use those machines. Do you read the mail of everyone who uses the computers in the library? Do you violate the trust of your friends and neighbors?”

“Of course not! But this is different!”

“No, it’s not. The fact that Joe Wolfgard is sharing anything with us is more communication than we’ve ever had with the terra indigene, and, Shelley, we can’t afford to lose that trust. Not now.” Jesse wrapped her right hand around her left wrist. “Not now.”

“You’re right,” Shelley said, sounding chastened as she stared at Jesse’s wrist. “You’re right. But don’t you wonder what they talk about?”

“I think it’s better for all of us if we don’t know.”

“We filled out the paperwork, the containers are clearly labeled, and we paid the haulage for two hundred pounds that requires refrigeration,” Tobias said hotly.

“Like we said.” One of the handlers gave Tobias and Joe an oily smile. “Refrigeration car is full up this trip.”

Stay in control, Joe thought. Don’t shift. And don’t bite the baggage handlers. It won’t help.

Tobias pointed at the railroad car that was puffing clouds of cold air out the open door. “There’s plenty of room in there for our five boxes.”

The handler closed the door. “We’re full up.”

The female voice—and the offer—surprised him. He’d never dealt with any of the Elementals directly until the night they’d all gathered to attack the Controller’s compound. How many of them lived in Thaisia, let alone the rest of the world? Were there a thousand of them called Air? Ten thousand? More? Being a form of terra indigene, there were males as well as females. Was there someplace in the wild country where they gathered to mate and raise their young? Was there some lush valley where their steeds bore foals that played and grew until their natures were revealed? Was a wisp of a tornado a colt just learning what it was, while a lethal funnel was a stallion in its prime?

The Elementals called themselves by what they commanded and offered no other name—at least, not to anyone beyond their own kind. So while this female called herself Air, he didn’t think she had been at the Controller’s compound, and he was fairly certain she wasn’t the Elemental who lived in Lakeside.

Joe considered her question.

A wind lightly whipped around the platform. The door of the next car opened. Air said.

“We’ll put our shipment in this baggage car,” Joe told Tobias. “Come on, let’s get these boxes inside.”

“But that’s not—”

“Do it,” Joe growled.

They hauled the five boxes of meat into the empty baggage car, setting them to one side of the door.

The baggage handlers smirked—until the female who looked like she was wearing a long dress made out of clouds walked across the platform with a barrel-bodied, chubby-legged white pony.

“Gods,” Tobias whispered.

“Ssh,” Joe warned.

She smiled at him. Then she looked at the baggage handlers, and her smile changed to something sharp and feral. She and the pony entered the baggage car. She closed the door.

“What the fuck was that?” one of the baggage handlers said.

Joe didn’t answer. His sharp Wolf hearing picked up sounds in the baggage car that the humans didn’t hear or were choosing to ignore—sounds of a storm in the making.

“All aboard!” the conductor called.

“Wait!” A man ran onto the platform with a cart full of boxes. “These need to be loaded.”

“If you put them in that baggage car, they’ll get wet,” Joe said, making a token effort to be helpful.

“You and the Wolf lover can go fuck yourselves,” a handler snapped.

“Why?” Joe asked, not seeing the connection between baggage and mating.

No one answered the question, because the handler pulled the baggage car door open—and wind-driven snow slapped him in the face so hard it knocked him back a step.

“Gods,” Tobias said again.

“No, that’s Air and Blizzard,” Joe said. “They’ll keep the meat cold. Come on. It’s time to go.” He walked away but had to wait for Tobias to stop staring at the baggage car and catch up.

On the way back to Prairie Gold, he wondered if he should call Simon and tell him the Elementals were going to be interested in knowing if Meg Corbyn liked bison meat.

Their footsteps filled the land around Bennett with a terrible silence.

For hours they circled the town, sniffed around the railway station, listened to the chatter of the little two-legged predators. They didn’t understand much of the chatter. Unlike the sounds made by the ones who helped the shifters, this chatter was of little interest to Namid’s teeth and claws. But they still listened. And they watched. And they learned.