Wild Country

CHAPTER 17

Thaisday, Messis 16

Virgil shook out his fur before trotting over to the town square to take a sniff around the spring. He hadn’t seen any of the bad dogs for a couple of days, but he’d caught the scent of dogs around some of the inhabited houses where dogs weren’t living with humans. He and Kane had followed some of the scents to a house on the edge of the new town boundaries—a house that had a small swinging door for animals. How foolish was that? If a dog or cat could get through the door, so could a lot of other animals. And they had. The Wolves were too big to squeeze through the door, but one of the Coyotegard easily fit and had ventured far enough into the house to confirm that quite a few animals besides dogs had entered. Besides scat, there were torn bags of dry animal food and spoiling human food that had been in the cupboards, as well as the bones of a couple of partially eaten critters.

Tomorrow Tobias Walker would help the ranch humans select some of the still-tame dogs to go live with them on the ranches. If the dogs couldn’t herd properly, they would be left at the house to guard the human females and bark a warning if strangers—two-legged or four—approached. Tobias Walker had also promised to take some of the cats that had potential to live in the barns and eat the mice.

Not many of the new humans in Bennett wanted pets, despite Barbara Ellen’s renewed efforts to find homes for the dogs and cats and birds.

He would deal with the pets—and her—when he had to. Right now, he had to keep the bad dogs out of his territory.

Virgil lapped some water from the spring, then headed for the livery stable. Deputy Jana’s first job each day was to ride the horse for an hour so that she would learn how to do the mounted deputy tasks. He didn’t understand why she didn’t already know these things, but everyone assured him that having horse and rider get acquainted in the corral was smart.

He listened to the words but also paid attention to the way the humans held their bodies and the way their smell changed while they were explaining, and he was sure they were doing something sneaky. Then again, if riding the horse kept Deputy Jana from yapping at him for the rest of the day, he’d pretend he didn’t know the humans were being sneaky until he figured out why they were being sneaky. And then he would decide who would feel his teeth.

The horse in the corral with Jana caught his scent and charged around the corral with the female wobbling in the saddle and hanging on to whatever she could grab.

That was not the correct way to ride the horse. Even he knew that.

Losing interest in the saddled horse, and wondering about the intelligence of the humans standing around the corral since they couldn’t figure out that this particular horse wasn’t smart enough to tell the difference between predators that would eat it and predators that would not, Virgil continued on to the other corral.

Most of the horses in that corral also started running and fussing, but the horse that was not meat pricked its ears after catching his scent, then walked over to the rails to greet him.

Virgil stood on his hind legs and extended his neck over the top rail. Horse and Wolf sniffed each other, confirming recognition.

Virgil didn’t expect an answer. The horse wasn’t any form of terra indigene and couldn’t reply. Still, he felt he should acknowledge the difference between the horse that was not meat and the rest of the animals in the corral.

Dropping to all four legs, he gave the ground around the corral a thorough sniff, then expanded his search area when he caught a scent. Two of the dogs had come close, but the scent of humans must have scared them off.

Virgil sniffed at a tuft of fur that had a trace of skin and blood.

Or maybe the dogs had run away because the Owlgard had been hunting around the stable and had flown in on those silent wings and used talons to encourage the dogs to leave the horses alone.

He marked a few of the posts as another way to warn off the dogs, then did a quick turn around the town square. One of the two small buses now in operation disgorged workers in front of the hotel so that they could eat some food before starting their work.

Every resident was allowed to have a car, but gasoline was another matter. Eventually the humans would start grumbling about restrictions and rules and all the things they couldn’t do or have, and then flesh would be torn and blood would flow.

He looked forward to that day. Until then, he’d do his job as the dominant enforcer in Bennett.

“Becky!”

Virgil moved toward the sound of Hannah Gott’s voice, then veered when he spotted the skippy girl heading for the spring bubbling into the human-made pool that held some of the water before flowing down a channel that had been made to look like a creek ending at the small pond near the southern end of the square. The skippy girl liked playing in the water, but Hannah Gott didn’t want the girl to be wet during the working time.

Easy enough to distract her. All it usually took was for him or Kane to show up in Wolf form. Then she was more interested in giving them hugs and pats than getting wet or digging in the dirt. Not that he found anything wrong with doing either of those things, but humans had rules about when the skippy girl could play.

Getting between her and the water, Virgil play-growled and licked and nudged her until she gave him a choking hug and followed him back to where Hannah Gott waited with the other adult female in her pack and the male pup.

“I appreciate you being so kind to Becky,” Hannah Gott said when he and the girl reached the sidewalk opposite the square. “Come along now, Becky. It’s time for breakfast.”

“Bye-bye, Virgil,” the skippy girl said, moving the fingers of one hand as Hannah Gott took the other hand and led her away.

As he trotted back to the sheriff’s office to wash up and put on human clothes, Virgil thought it was interesting that the Gott pack had arrived in Bennett a week ago, but only the girl with the skippy brain could tell the difference between him and Kane when they were in Wolf form.

Jesse Walker smiled at Lila Gold and Candice Caravelli, who were waiting for her outside Bennett’s general store.

“You’re my helpers today?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lila said. “Is this like an old-fashioned store?”

Jesse paused to consider the question. “I don’t know. It looks pretty much like mine. More small town than old-fashioned since there are the refrigerated units along one wall, and the store is set up to have a little bit of a lot of things.”

She wondered when someone would ask about the empty lot next to the general store—or suggest clearing out the debris so that people didn’t mistake the plot of land for a dump. It wasn’t completely empty, and it wasn’t a place to discard anything unwanted since the only human thing left on that land was a rusting woodstove.

No, that plot of land wasn’t empty, and it wasn’t a dump. It was a daily reminder that the original residents of Bennett had ignored—a warning decades old of what can happen if you clash with the terra indigene. Why the people had been smart enough to keep the warning but not smart enough to heed it was a question that would never be answered.

“I believe this store was built when the town was first settled,” Jesse continued.

“Handy for travelers or people working in the buildings around the square,” Candice said, looking around. She stared at the wall behind the cash register. “Why do so many places around here decorate with animal skulls?”

Lila studied the skull. “Are we going to have to hang animal skulls in our apartments in order to fit in? Is that a standard frontier motif?”

Jesse couldn’t tell if Lila was hoping it was or hoping it wasn’t. “My family has lived in Prairie Gold since the town was created, and we’ve never decorated with skulls.”

“Hmm. Maybe a frontier version of a rock garden, but with skulls.”

“We live in apartments,” Candice said.

Wondering if she should warn Tolya that Lila Gold might start a fad for using bleached animal skulls as garden art or let him find out for himself, Jesse handed lists to the two women, then pointed to the heavy cardboard boxes she’d piled in front of the counter. “You have the lists for the Prairie Gold ranch, the dairy farm, and the vegetable farm. Check the expiration dates on everything I’ve listed and take what isn’t going to keep much longer. We’ll use those jars and cans of food first.”

They looked at the shelves in the general store and hesitated.

“You two settled into your own places?” Jesse asked, correctly guessing the reason for the hesitation.

Lila nodded. “First thing Candice and I did after taking two of the one-bedroom apartments was select furniture and household goods. It will take a few days before our stuff is delivered, but once we’re moved in, it sure would be nice to heat up a can of soup at home if we’re working late at the saloon and don’t finish up before the hotel dining room stops serving meals.”

Jesse nodded. Give it a few more days and the hotel wouldn’t be serving free meals to anyone who wasn’t staying at the hotel, so wanting to stock up was sensible. “Take a couple more of those boxes to fill up for yourselves.”

“Thanks, Jesse,” Candice said.

Lila Gold had the same confident bounce as Barb Debany, but Jesse had a feeling that Candice Caravelli had known some dark times and felt other people’s kindness more deeply because of it.

Lila and Candice were already busy filling up boxes when the four Simple Life women who were heading out to the ranches came in to select supplies for each ranch. While there was nothing wrong with any of the women—Jesse admired their courage in taking on a new life in an unfamiliar part of Thaisia—only one of them felt adaptable enough to not only embrace a different life but also be able to live comfortably with men who didn’t share her beliefs and traditions. That was the woman she’d insisted go to the ranch that would be run by Truman Skye. Truman would have enough challenges without being undermined by the person who was supposed to be the cook and housekeeper.

She didn’t get a feeling about whether the other women would succeed or fail, but she was certain she didn’t want them working for Truman.

“We’re trying to find out what companies are still in business and what kinds of foods are available,” she said. “Until we find out, we don’t want to waste what is here. When you get to the ranches, you might find a pantry full of moldy food or a pantry full of canned goods you can use. Because we don’t know, you’re each welcome to fill up four of those cardboard boxes with supplies free of charge. All we ask is that you take only what you will use. Keep in mind that each ranch will have a foreman and six to ten men who will be looking to you to provide their meals. Also, if any of you want to have a dog at the house to keep you company and warn you when something approaches the house, we have plenty of food in bags and cans, and someone will fetch those for you from the feed store.”

Two of the women looked sour, as if they anticipated working hard enough to feed whatever had to be fed and didn’t need something else depending on them. The housekeeper for the Skye Ranch, however, looked happy about the possibility of having a dog or two for company. Jesse would ask Tobias to go with the woman to look at the available dogs.

Once the Simple Life women started making their selections, Jesse stepped away from the counter, intending to fetch a few more boxes from the back room. Instead, she grabbed her suddenly throbbing wrist and turned toward the door as a group of strangers walked in.

There was nothing obvious about the two men, but Jesse felt certain that they were lovers at the very least. That shouldn’t have produced a strong feeling of impending danger. No, what confused her—and scared her—and caused that fierce ache in her wrist, were the four children who were with them, two boys and two girls, all under the age of ten.

One man was slender, had almond-shaped eyes and straight black hair cut very short. The other man was burly and dark-skinned, with curly black hair.

“Can I help you?” Jesse asked.

“Please,” the slender man said with a gentle smile. “The man at the train station said we should come here and talk to Jesse Walker.”

Nicolai had sent them to the store? “I’m Jesse.”

He looked at the wrist she still held. “You are Intuit?”

“Yes.”

The man’s smile warmed with relief, a response typical of someone who was also an Intuit—especially someone who had had reason to keep some things hidden because he’d lived among people who would not have welcomed an Intuit’s abilities. “We arrived on the train and are hoping to become citizens of your fine town.”

Then why didn’t Nicolai direct you to the mayor’s office to talk to Tolya?

She knew why. Nicolai had sent them to her for the same reason someone had relaxed the travel restrictions as soon as those men said they were coming to Bennett. Because of the children. Knowing that her Intuit ability was sensing other people, Nicolai had sent these people to the store so that she could get a feel for who they were before he contacted the terra indigene who would make a decision about whether the men lived or died.

Out of the corner of her eye, Jesse saw the tight-lipped, disapproving stiffness in two of the Simple Life women who stared at the newcomers. She also noticed Lila step up, ready to give a bouncy welcome. The men didn’t bother Jesse, but the children did, especially the girl who had a disturbingly vacant stare.

Before she could frame a question about why two men had four young children, Joshua Painter walked into the store, swung around the men, and focused on the children. His right hand was covered in that leather glove with the Panther claws, and the look in his eyes made Jesse’s skin crawl.

Eyes. Jesse looked at the girl who was Joshua’s main focus, then looked back at him. Gods above and below, they both had green eyes with an outer ring of gray.

Virgil Wolfgard and Tolya Sanguinati walked into the store, forcing the strangers to move forward, caught between them and Joshua.

Virgil sniffed the air and growled, “That little female. She’s . . .” He looked at Tolya, whose lips pulled back, revealing fangs.

The men put their arms around the children, protective. And the children clung to the men, although one of the boys growled at Virgil before turning away and pressing his face against the man who held him.

“We don’t want any trouble,” the burly man said, sounding nervous.

“Then explain why you came here with a Wolf, a Hawk, a Coyote . . . and a sweet blood,” Tolya snarled.

Jesse swayed. The girl with the vacant stare was a cassandra sangue, a blood prophet?

Joshua lowered himself to his heels and balanced on the balls of his feet. He stared at the green-eyed girl, and his face took on an expression that wasn’t as disturbingly blank as the girl’s but was too similar for comfort, as if he had fallen into some kind of trance. “Sees too much, knows too much.”

“She’s mute,” the slender man said, looking at Jesse in a silent appeal for understanding. “We think the cause is emotional trauma.”

“Tell the truth, feel the belt,” Joshua whispered.

Virgil snarled—a sound filled with hate.

“Why did you come to Bennett?” she asked quickly.

“We are a mixed family,” the slender man said. “We had hoped that, in a town where terra indigene and humans lived together, we might be accepted. We hoped our children would find others of their kind to help them, teach them the things that we cannot.”

Jesse focused on the men. They were parents by heart if not by blood, but if the men didn’t give the right answers, they wouldn’t get out of the store alive.

Then a woman hurried into the store wearing a deputy’s star pinned to her shirt. Thank the gods, the human deputy had arrived. Jesse felt fear and hope rise in equal measure along with the certainty that this woman would be the deciding factor in what happened to these men and children. But she could do her part to help. After all, Nicolai had sent them here to talk to her.

“The children?” she asked.

The slender man brushed a hand over the brown feathers that covered the other girl’s head—a head that had been covered with neatly combed and braided brown hair when they’d walked into the store. “Orphans. Abandoned chicks who had been taken from their own kind when they were so young they couldn’t remember who they were or where they came from. How could we walk away when we were needed?”

Jesse gave him a nod of encouragement, then glanced at Virgil and Tolya. Tell them more.

“I am Evan Hua. This is my partner, Kenneth Stone.” He smiled at the feathered girl. “This is Charlee Hawk.”

“Hawkgard,” Jesse corrected. “Her correct last name would be Hawkgard.

“Charlee Hawkgard,” Evan said. “Our growling boy is Mason Wolf . . . Wolfgard.”

“Mace,” the boy muttered, turning his head to give Virgil a quick look before hiding his face again.

“Our mischief-maker is Zane Coyotegard.”

The Coyote grinned at Jesse, revealing a missing tooth.

“And this is Maddie,” Kenneth Stone said, his hand on the blood prophet’s shoulder.

“That one was a stray too?” Virgil’s amber eyes held flickers of red.

The men hesitated. Jesse sucked in a breath.

“What we did was wrong in the eyes of the law but right in terms of the heart,” Kenneth said.

“I helped her hide,” Mace said.

“We all helped,” Charlee said, reaching for Maddie’s hand.

“The young man wasn’t wrong about the belt,” Evan said. “The child was reported missing. The whole neighborhood was searching for her. When we found her hiding with our children . . . The welts and bruises told a different story from the tearful parents pleading for help in finding her.”

Kenneth took up their story. “We began to wonder when they didn’t have a single photograph of her to put on TV. The people claiming to be her parents weren’t Intuits, and she’s . . .”

“We know what she is.” Tolya gave the men a smile that bordered on terrifying. “We can tell by her scent. Unlike the rest of you humans, her kind doesn’t smell like prey.”

Kenneth swallowed hard. “We’d already been planning to leave. It was a human town, and the children couldn’t always hide their true natures. When we left, we smuggled Maddie out and took her with us.”

“I did not believe the parents’ tears,” Evan said. “I did believe the child’s desperation not to be found. I felt, and still believe, Maddie would not have survived much longer in that house.”

Silence. No one spoke. No one moved.

Finally, Tolya said, “What work can you do?”

“I am a priest,” Evan said. “I have worked in several Universal Temples. Kenneth is a teacher.”

A sound of disgust came from one of the Simple Life women.

Virgil bared his teeth at the woman, effectively discouraging her from making another sound. Then he studied Mace. “You know how to shift, pup?”

Mace nodded.

“You remember living with a pack?”

Mace gave Virgil a defiant look. “This is my pack.”

Throughout the whole exchange, Joshua’s focus never left Maddie. “A place with no memories, no stain of darkness. In a clean place, birds return to sing.”

Strange boy, Jesse thought. She wasn’t sure Joshua could speak prophecy the way the girls who were blood prophets could, but she had a feeling he was more than an Intuit if he was seeing images rather than having feelings about his surroundings.

“Can you recognize this stain of darkness?” Tolya asked.

Joshua stood, then blinked as if coming out of a light nap. “Yes.”

Tolya looked at Virgil, then turned to the two men. “We don’t have a priest yet or a teacher.”

Jesse saw Kenneth hesitate and knew the reason. “You don’t have to open the whole school building for the handful of children currently living in Bennett. There is a community center next door to the Universal Temple. One of the rooms in that building could be turned into a classroom for now. In fact, it would be good to open the center so that everyone could use it for a number of activities like a quilting circle and . . . and . . .” She fumbled. What did she know about such activities? She preferred target practice and reading to handcrafts.

“Candice taught Quiet Mind classes,” Lila said. “She’s interested in doing that here too. And she can teach frontier dancing.”

“I . . . uh . . .” Candice glanced around, then nodded. “I could do that.”

Lila beamed. Virgil grunted.

“Did you bring luggage?” Tolya asked the men.

“We left everything at the train station,” Evan said.

Tolya nodded. “Nicolai will look after it. Sheriff Wolfgard and Deputy Paniccia will escort you to the hotel. Afterward, you’ll come to my office and review what is required to be a resident of Bennett. If you want to stay after knowing our rules, we’ll take a look at houses tomorrow and see what can be done about moving you into one quickly.”

The men looked hopeful and stunned at the acceptance. Jesse felt stunned too because she had a very bad feeling that Tolya had just lied. Whatever the terra indigene were feeling about these men, acceptance had no part of it.

Jana would have been all right with Virgil putting the men in one hotel room and the children in another if there had been a connecting door between the rooms. But there wasn’t, and she didn’t have to be an Intuit or a blood prophet or anything else to know what that meant.

She kept a chokehold on her temper and her heart until Virgil closed the door to the children’s room.

“You can’t separate those children from their parents. They’re a family.” She kept her voice low to avoid being overheard, but her anger came through loud and clear.

“They’re not family,” Virgil growled. “They’re human males who have taken—”

“They didn’t take those children in the way you mean. They gave those children a home, gave them love, protection. Taught them. That’s what parents do.” She looked at the anger on his face, in his eyes. “What? A Panther can raise a human boy and that’s all right, but a human can’t love a child who is terra indigene?”

“There were reasons Joshua ended up with the Panthergard.”

“And there are reasons those children ended up with Evan and Kenneth. Who are you to judge?”

Virgil leaned toward her. She leaned toward him, balancing her weight and balling her hands into fists.

“You know nothing about it,” Virgil snarled.

“I know you don’t have to give birth to a child to love it,” Jana snarled back. “I was raised by foster parents. I loved them and they loved me, and we were family. Those men love those children, and the children love them. I can see it, even if you don’t. Or won’t.”

Virgil stepped back and studied her.

She hoped by all the gods that she could find the right words to get through to him. “Kenneth and Evan brought those children here because they knew there would be terra indigene here. Wolves and Coyotes and Hawks and so many more. They brought those children here to learn to be who they are, where they could be who they are. This is Bennett. Who will care if a boy can shift into a Wolf? Here they don’t need to be a secret in order to be protected.”

We learned from you.

A chill went through her as she remembered the sign and gave a fleeting thought to how those children had ended up with two human men in the first place. Orphans, Evan had called the children. But not because of the recent killings. Lost or abandoned by their original family—or stolen from their families—they had been taken in by Evan and Kenneth a few years ago. Except Maddie.

“Maybe you should talk to the children before you make any decisions about their futures,” Jana said.

Virgil released a gusty exhale that sufficiently expressed his annoyance. “Fine. We’ll talk to them.” He went to the hotel door, wrapped his hand around the knob, and then looked at her. “Come on. It’s your idea.”

The moment they walked into the room, Mace and Zane leaped toward them, growling.

“What did you do with our dads?” Mace demanded.

“Give ’em back,” Zane said.

“They’re in the next room,” Virgil said, giving no indication if he was annoyed or pleased by the youngsters’ challenge. “They have to talk to the mayor about work and finding a house for all of you.”

Mace cocked his head. Since he hadn’t seen Virgil do that, Jana figured it was something Wolves did.

“All of us?” Mace sounded like he didn’t quite trust the sheriff.

Virgil gave the boy a curt nod. “All of you.” He looked at the girls, who were on the floor near one of the beds.

The girl Tolya Sanguinati had said didn’t smell like prey stared at nothing. Vacant eyes that Jana found unnerving.

If the Others refer to a girl as a sweet blood or say she doesn’t smell like prey, they’re talking about a blood prophet. That was one of the things Michael Debany had hurriedly told her about blood prophets before she got on the train.

Gods. What were they supposed to do with a blood prophet in their midst?

The other girl, the Hawk . . . Well the other girl was a young Hawk who had her wings caught in the armholes of a sleeveless shirt and the rest of her clothes bunched under her taloned feet.

Zane looked back at the girls and sighed. “Charlee does that when she’s scared. That’s how Dad Evan found her. The humans thought a girl had gone missing at the orphan place, and Dad Evan was there that day and was helping them search. When he saw the Hawk beating at a window, trying to escape, he knew she was the missing girl and couldn’t stay in that place, so he opened the window, thinking she would fly away. Then he realized she was too young to be alone, so he went outside and found her and took her home.”

Jana wondered if Zane’s and Mace’s stories would be similar. They’d already been told that the blood prophet had been taken from the people claiming to be her parents. Had run away, with Mace’s help, and was hidden by Evan and Kenneth.

“Deputy Jana will ask Anya Sanguinati to bring up food for you,” Virgil said.

“Meat?” Mace asked hopefully.

“Meat.”

Mace looked at the girls. “Charlee likes meat too, but maybe you have fruit for Maddie?”

“She doesn’t eat meat?”

“She does, but she likes fruit better.”

Virgil walked out of the room, leaving Jana to follow. He rapped on the next door, which was immediately opened by Evan Hua, who looked frightened—and resigned.

“I’ll take you to the mayor’s office now to talk to Tolya.”

“The children?” Evan asked as Kenneth joined him at the door.

“Deputy Jana will arrange to have food brought to their room. They will be safe there.”

“We’ll just be a moment.” Evan closed the door.

Jana felt relieved. She’d prevailed. Virgil had listened. She . . .

Looking at her, Virgil bared his teeth and said quietly, “Those youngsters better be safe with those humans.”

“They will be.”

“If they’re not, I will tear out the throats of those two humans—and then I’ll tear out yours.”

Moments later, Evan and Kenneth left their room and followed Virgil for their meeting with the mayor.

Jana stood in the corridor, waiting for her heart to stop pounding, for her body to stop shaking. When she finally regained control, she went downstairs to find Anya Sanguinati and arrange for some meat and fruit to be sent up to the children.

Jesse looked at the Simple Life women and wondered how two of them had been able to hide their lack of tolerance from the leaders of the Lakeside Courtyard. They might be excellent housekeepers and cooks, but they would be hard neighbors. Something she needed to point out to Tolya, but that could wait. The women were already committed to going to the ranches tomorrow, and she had another concern right now. “Mr. Sanguinati? If I could have a minute?”

Tolya had sent Joshua Painter on his way but had remained in the general store. Jesse wasn’t sure why he had stayed, but her left wrist had quieted to a dull ache, which should be a good sign that the crisis was over, but she needed to be sure.

“We’ll just get these boxes filled.” Candice grabbed a box, her list . . . and Lila.

Jesse led Tolya to the stock area of the store, where they were out of sight and hearing of the other people.

“Are you okay with them living here? The men, I mean?”

He looked puzzled. “Should I object?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I . . . wasn’t sure if you’d encountered same-gender mates before.”

“Among the terra indigene, mating is about having offspring and requires male and female. That doesn’t mean we don’t form bonds with those of our own gender, but it is not the same as mating.” He looked polite but uninterested. “Is there anything else?”

“Those men are Intuits. They wouldn’t have brought those children here if they’d done anything wrong.”

“Deputy Jana seems to be of the same opinion.”

Jesse wondered what Deputy Jana had said, but apparently it had been enough to sway the decision to let the family stay in Bennett. “I’d better get back out there. Those women are heading to the ranches in the morning. I want to make sure they have everything they need. Being from the Northeast, they might overlook something that would be real useful.”

“If you need anything, I will be at my office. Virgil is bringing the men over to discuss work and houses.”

She should have been relieved. Instead, she felt there was still reason to worry.

Tolya was barely out the door when Jesse’s mobile phone rang. “Jesse Walker.”

“It’s Rachel. I smelled mouse in the back room of the store. Can I chase it?”

Damn it, mice were the last thing she needed in her store when she had packed it with all the foodstuffs she could buy before things had gone so wrong. She didn’t need Rachel, in human or Wolf form, knocking into shelves and smashing glass jars.

“Just take a look around and make sure the mice haven’t gotten into any of the food,” Jesse said. “I’ll be home tomorrow.”

She spent a couple more minutes talking with Rachel, then made sure the women heading out in the morning truly had everything they needed.

Tolya looked out the window of his office. People walked or rode bicycles on the main street. A few got on the bus to go home or go to wherever they were doing sorting that day.

Apparently Deputy Jana had been vehement in her belief that the youngsters should live with the men they saw as their parents. And Jesse Walker had recognized the men as Intuits. Would that kind of human come to a town full of terra indigene if the youngsters had not been orphaned as they had claimed? He didn’t think so. Adults would gather; questions would be asked—especially about the Wolf pup since so many Wolves had been killed by the humans who had belonged to the Humans First and Last movement.

Bennett was not the place for humans to bring stolen terra indigene young. But if the men wanted those youngsters to learn about their own kind and still have that family made up of many different forms, a town like this was the place to bring them, the place to try for acceptance.

As for the blood prophet . . .

The euphoria that filled the girls when they began to speak prophecy after their skin was cut provided a veil against the visions, protecting them from the things they had seen. But when a girl was prevented from speaking—or chose not to speak in order to see the visions—there was no protection, no euphoria. There was only agony and the possibility of seeing something so terrible the girl’s mind would break.

The Maddie girl was young and so small—and mute. But Meg Corbyn and Hope Wolfsong were showing the rest of the blood prophets that there were other ways to “speak” without cutting or words. Meg was exploring the use of fortune cards being converted into prophecy cards, and Hope slipped into a trance and drew her visions. Perhaps there were other ways to speak that hadn’t been explored yet.

He wished he still had direct contact with the Lakeside Courtyard and Meg Corbyn. Even if he had contact, it wouldn’t be fair to ask for more help after all the work they had done to run the job fair and find suitable humans to resettle the town. But he did have direct access to Jackson Wolfgard and Hope Wolfsong. Hope had already drawn one warning that concerned Bennett. Maybe, if he provided some information, she might show him some possibilities of what to do with the sweet blood girl.

Turning away from the window, Tolya placed a call to Sweetwater and left a message at the communications cabin, asking that Jackson call him as soon as possible.