Wild Country

CHAPTER 30

Windsday, Messis 29

Tobias looked at the dead cattle and swore fiercely until he remembered that the ranch hand who was riding with him today was a girl. Not that “Ed” Tilman would appreciate the label, but what he’d learned from his mother about what was proper when around the female sex wasn’t shrugged off just because Ed wanted to be one of the boys.

“Think the Elders did this?” Ed asked in an excited whisper.

“The Elders don’t use or need guns to bring down anything that lives out here or anywhere else,” Tobias replied, then added silently, including us.

Ed frowned at the two dozen carcasses. “Why would someone shoot cattle and then leave them?”

“Meanness or just wanting to cause trouble.” Or maybe the intention had been to rustle the cattle until the thieves realized there was nowhere to go with them. All the cattle bore the Prairie Gold brand, so taking them up to Bennett to sell would be futile. A phone call to the sheriff would keep the cattle out of the stock cars connected to any outbound train. The rustlers couldn’t sell them to neighboring ranches because the people on those spreads all knew each other. Gods, the Skye Ranch was the next closest ranch, and Truman had worked for him until a couple of weeks ago.

And moving a herd through the wild country without at least one of the terra indigene in the crew? There wouldn’t be a cow, horse, or man left by the time the nearest town came in sight.

So whoever had stolen the cattle had killed the animals out of spite because stealing was unprofitable, if not downright dangerous.

Tobias looked up and spotted a hawk overhead. Not sure if he was looking at a hawk or one of the Hawkgard, he removed his hat, held it above his head, and waved it in a wide arc a couple of times. He waited a few seconds, then waved the hat again.

The hawk paid no attention. Either it was a terra indigene who had decided to ignore him, or it was just a plain old hawk.

Tobias settled the hat on his head. It had been worth a try.

The thump of something large hitting the ground behind him had the horses jumping forward, wanting to run.

Wheeling his horse around, Tobias reached for his revolver, then jerked his hand away from his weapon and stared at the Eagle, who stared back at him before shifting into a human male. The head still had feathers instead of hair, and the legs were almost human-shaped but were supported by human-size Eagle feet that had very large talons.

“Mercy,” Ed whispered, looking at her saddle instead of the naked male in front of them.

“Morning,” Tobias said, ignoring his young, blushing ranch hand.

“Yes,” the Eagle replied. “It is morning.” A pause. “That is a greeting?”

“It is.” He smiled. “But it’s also the time of day.”

Humans make everything complicated.

The words weren’t spoken, but the Eagle made his opinion plain to see. Then he pointed at the cattle. “They are dead.”

Tobias nodded. “Shot. Probably last night or very early this morning. Have the terra indigene seen any strangers around here?”

“I saw some earlier, but not live ones. They are not far from here.” The Eagle thought for a moment. “Not far for me.”

Tobias glanced at Ed, who had gone pale. It was all a grand adventure until a person made a mistake. Not wanting to sour the girl, he didn’t ask how many strangers were now being eaten or if someone needed to deal with a vehicle or horses.

He pushed his hat back. “Well, maybe you could pass the word along that there’s meat here for the taking.”

“You don’t want it for your own . . . flock?” the Eagle asked.

“Normally, I’d see about hauling some of the meat to the ranch or getting some of it to town, but I have other concerns right now.”

“Defending territory.”

“Yeah. And checking on family.” And warning the other ranches that there might be more cattle rustlers or horse thieves in the area.

“I will tell the rest of the terra indigene about the meat,” the Eagle said.

“If you notice any more strangers near the ranch or the town, I’d appreciate a warning. Or warn my mother.”

“The Jesse who teaches Rachel Wolfgard.”

“Yes.”

The Eagle raised his arms as if to pump wings and fly. Then he stopped. “All strangers are enemies?”

Careful. “No. Some are just people passing through or stopping because they have some business in Prairie Gold. But some could be a danger to another human.” Or even to some of you. Which wasn’t something he would say right now. He’d heard what happened to the man who had been called a Cyrus human and didn’t want to be responsible for someone else dying that way.

The male shifted back to his Eagle form and flew off.

Tobias waited a minute, then glanced at Ed again. “You okay?”

“I’ve never seen one of them looking like that.” She blew out a breath. “Guess you get used to it.”

“After a while, you do.” He scanned the land—and saw nothing. But he had the feeling something very large, something he just couldn’t see, was moving toward them. “Come on. There’s nothing we can do here, and I need to get back to the ranch.”

As they rode back to the ranch house, Tobias wondered how many birds riding the thermals were keeping an eye on him.

Armed with the slim directory she’d found in Kane’s desk and the list Anya Sanguinati had provided from the hotel register, Jana spent a couple of hours calling police departments and sheriff’s offices located in towns throughout the Midwest Region, trying to find out if any of the men who had recently checked into the hotel had been known associates of Sweeney Cooke or Charlie Webb. What she discovered was how few of those towns still had any human residents. The beings who had answered the phones growled or howled or screeched at her as they tried to form human words. She couldn’t understand any of them, but she gave them all the same message: if they needed help, they could call the sheriff’s office in Bennett. She wasn’t sure what assistance she or Virgil could give, but maybe, if someone was trying to be the law in those towns, just having someone talk them through procedure would be enough—assuming they could understand her better than she could understand them.

She made notes about the towns that still had a human population and humans upholding the law. When she finished her calls, she opened the map of the Midwest Region and circled those towns in red.

So few.

The men on the other end of the line had been relieved to get a call from Bennett and have confirmation that the town was coming back—and humans were coming back with it. The men were surprised when they learned that she wasn’t a dispatcher or secretary but an actual deputy calling on behalf of the sheriff. And she was surprised when she realized those men no longer cared about the gender of a police officer as long as the person who wore the badge was human and knew how to uphold the law—and had some ability to deal with the Others.

Namid’s teeth and claws had been viciously thorough about thinning the human herds in this part of Thaisia.

Still, those lawmen recognized the names of some of the visitors who had checked into the hotel yesterday and gave her a list of others who couldn’t be considered upstanding citizens.

The names and “occupations” made her think of the frontier stories she loved to read. In fact, she was certain that some of those names had been borrowed from frontier history. Sleight-of-Hand Slim was a cardsharp; Frank and Eli Bonney robbed banks, gas stations, and just about anything else for fun and profit and often had a handful of men riding with them; Durango Jones was often a gun for hire; William and Wallace Parker were cattle rustlers and horse thieves who might be more interested in horses than cattle right now since horses could travel where cars could not. And then there was the Blackstone Clan, who were suspected of a lot of things but had never been charged with anything.

Don’t go messing with Judd McCall. He likes his work too much.

Half the men who mentioned the Blackstone Clan had told her that. Deal with the clan if you must, but steer clear of McCall.

Would Abby be able to tell her something about the man?

When the phone rang, Jana answered it, still focused on the list.

“It’s Tobias. Do you have a minute?”

“For you, I have two.” Did that sound like she was flirting? She hoped not. She wasn’t in a flirting frame of mind.

“Lost some cattle last night or early this morning,” Tobias said. “I suspect rustlers tried to make off with some of the herd and then shot the animals when they realized there wasn’t anywhere they could go.”

“You already lost some of the herd during the HFL attacks, didn’t you? What will this do to Prairie Gold?”

“We’ll be all right. We’ve got plenty of bison in the freezers from—”

Jana heard shouting, people yelling for Tobias.

“Darlin’, I have to call you back.”

She let Rusty out of the crate so the pup could wander around the office, sniffing for Virgil and Kane. When she heard Rusty barking, the sound rising to a frustrated, agitated note, she abandoned the phone for a minute to find out what was in the cell area—and wondered who had locked Cowboy Bob in the Me Time cell, leaving the stuffie propped against the wall.

“Okay, okay, I’ll spring him,” she muttered, heading back to the hook that held the keys. But the phone rang again, and she rushed to answer it just as Virgil walked into the office. “Tobias?”

“Everything is fine here,” Tobias said.

“Except for the dead cattle.”

“Except for that. But I invited the terra indigene to make use of the meat. The Elders have been neighborly about not hunting and eating the cattle, so I wanted them all to know these cattle could be taken. I guess they decided to be neighborly too, because something just dropped one of those steers outside the ranch house. You like steak?”

“Yes, I like steak.” A sound had her glancing over her shoulder. Virgil was licking his lips in a way that was so not human. “So does Virgil.”

“I’ll bring you some beef next time I come to visit.”

“Do you need someone to come down there and investigate?” She hadn’t been to Prairie Gold and was curious about what an Intuit town looked like. Then again, she’d only been in Bennett a couple of weeks and so much had happened, she hadn’t had a chance to unpack all her books yet, so visiting someplace new wasn’t high on her list at the moment.

“No need. The people who did this won’t be doing it again.”

It was the flat way he said it that told her why they wouldn’t be doing it again.

She stared at her desk, trying to think of something to say, and noticed two names on the list she’d compiled of less-than-upstanding men who practiced dubious professions. “Those people might not have been the whole gang, and there might be other . . . professionals . . . passing through your town.”

“That’s not good news. I left a message for my mother about the rustlers. She’ll spread the word around Prairie Gold. And I’ve been calling the other ranches that have been resettled. I’ll call them again with an update.”

“If anyone sees anything, let us know.”

“Will do. Have to go, darlin’. Have to do something with that beef before Ellen tries to do it on her own. I’ll try to call tonight.”

“Okay.” She wanted to talk to him, wanted to see him. Wanted him to be safe.

“What?” Virgil growled as soon as she hung up.

She relayed Tobias’s message, as well as the information she’d received from the towns with human lawmen.

“Freddie Kaye is a gambler.” He eyed the list she’d made.

Jana wondered what he would do if she had some business cards made for him as a joke that said “Have Teeth, Will Bite.”

Nah. She didn’t have to wonder what he’d do.

“Being a gambler doesn’t equal being a bad person,” she replied. “Freddie helps create the ambiance of a frontier saloon, and his running the games keeps them within the boundaries of entertainment instead of the real lose-your-paycheck kind of gambling.”

“Blackstone wants the real kind of gambling.”

“There will always be humans who want to gamble for high stakes. I guess we can’t force the people here to be prudent if Blackstone opens one of the other saloons and offers high-stakes games.”

“Why can’t we force them? We’re the enforcers. It’s our job to discipline the pack members.”

“You can’t stop someone from doing something stupid if they aren’t also breaking the law.”

“Huh.”

That grunt of disagreement made her suspect that Virgil had already supplied some citizens with a few sharp reasons to follow his rules.

Of course, when it came to following her rules . . . “Why did you lock Cowboy Bob in the Me Time cell?”

“He gave the puppy an unauthorized treat.”

He said that with a straight face, so she looked him in the eyes and said, “Huh.”

Mom, some cattle were shot last night. The men responsible are dead, but there could be others around. Be careful.

Jesse ignored her aching left wrist as she watched the two strangers who had come into her shop a few minutes after the phone call from Tobias. She’d had time to empty the cash drawer of half the money, take Cory-Cutie into the back room, and tell Rachel to stay with the puppy no matter what.

“I counted the money in the drawer,” Rachel said as Jesse stuffed the bills into a drawer in her desk. “Twice.” She whined softly. “I did it wrong? Is that why I have to stay back here?”

“No, honey, you did it just fine, but you need to do what I say today. Exactly what I say.”

Rachel looked at Jesse’s wrist. “You have feelings? About me and Cutie?”

So easy for some people to think of something as expendable because it wore fur. “Yes. I think it will be better right now if you stay back here and stay quiet. And don’t answer the phone. All right?”

“But if I’m back here, who will help you protect our territory?”

It was tempting to grab the shotgun she had tucked under the counter on a shelf her grandfather had built for that purpose decades ago, but she wasn’t sensing that kind of threat from the two men. In fact, she wasn’t sensing any threat from them. They’d been polite from the moment they’d walked into her store, had been impressed by the amount of goods she still had on her shelves, and had taken two of the boxes she had indicated were available for people to use to pack up their shopping.

“Lotta work for one person, running a place like this,” one of them said as he placed boxes of ammunition on the counter. Two boxes were the caliber that fit the revolvers both men wore. The other box of ammunition held the same rounds she used for her own rifle.

“I have part-time help, and friends help out with some of the heavy lifting,” Jesse replied.

“That’s everything,” the second man said, bringing a box to the counter. He looked sheepish when the first man stared at the two bags of chocolates and the bag of caramels resting on top of the box. “Got a sweet tooth,” he told Jesse. “Haven’t seen bags like this in a while. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Better to have someone buy them and enjoy them than have them go stale,” Jesse replied. She rang up the purchases and hoped Rachel would stay quiet in the back room a little while longer.

“Noticed you have a bank, but it wasn’t open,” the first man said.

“It opens late on Windsdays,” Jesse replied. In truth, she had no idea why the bank wasn’t open.

He removed a money clip from the front pocket of his jeans and handed her a hundred-dollar bill. “Keep the change.”

“Then my cash drawer won’t balance.”

He shrugged. “Then put it in a charity jar as thanks for satisfying my cousin’s sweet tooth.”

Jesse hesitated, then nodded. “All right. I’ll do that. Appreciate it.”

The phone rang.

He looked at her, waiting. The cousin with the sweet tooth also waited.

“You take care, ma’am,” the first one said. He lifted the second box, and the men walked out.

Jesse grabbed the phone. “Walker’s General Store, Jesse speaking.”

“Mom? You okay?”

Tobias. “Had a couple of visitors just now.”

“Are you okay? Is Rachel?”

“We’re fine. Well, I told Rachel to stay in the back and be quiet, and she and the puppy are a little too quiet—”

A low growl told her Rachel’s opinion of that.

“But they’re fine.” She looked back at the young Wolf, who was standing to one side of the doorway, peering at her with one eye. Jesse pictured Rachel peering from behind a rock or tree in much the same way as she watched her prey.

As she listened to her son relay the information he’d received from Jana, she tucked the phone against her shoulder and watched, as if it were connected to someone else, her right hand close over her left wrist.

You take care, ma’am.

It had sounded like something anyone would say when leaving, but it had been a warning—and Jesse suddenly knew why the bank wasn’t open. Stanley Weeks, who ran Prairie Gold’s tiny bank, must have had a feeling that the bank needed to be closed today.

And she had a sudden feeling that . . .

“Tobias, we have to go.”

“Mom?”

“Rachel and I have to leave the store. Right now. I’ll call as soon as I can.”

She hung up, grabbed the shotgun, and put out the Back in 10 Minutes sign on the counter. Small town like this, it wouldn’t look strange for the store to be empty when the lone person running it needed to take a break.

“Rachel, honey, we have to go. Put Cory on her leash. We’ll go out the back.” Jesse went into the back room, grabbed her daypack, then hesitated, inexplicably resistant to leaving when she knew they needed to go.

She opened her gun safe and swapped the shotgun for her rifle—and felt the resistance vanish. Closing the gun safe, she headed out the back door, grabbing the red flag out of the umbrella stand as she left.

Rachel followed at her heels, carrying the puppy.

She walked swiftly, holding up the red flag—the signal to the terra indigene that there was trouble in Prairie Gold.

“Should I howl for Morgan and Chase?” Rachel whispered.

Wolves. Men with guns.

Jesse shook her head and wished Tolya was there. She didn’t know if the Sanguinati were impervious to bullets, but she thought there wasn’t much that could hurt one in his smoke form.

She dropped the red flag, chambered a round in the rifle, and looked at Rachel. “I’m going to take a look around. If the street is clear, we’re going to cross to the other side and run into the library.” She doubted whoever was producing this feeling would be interested in walking off with a bag of books.

She heard the car before she reached the front of the building. She heard it slow down and swore at herself for not paying attention. She’d crept up along the side of the damn bank! But after that moment’s hesitation, the car continued a few more yards and stopped in front of her store.

Made sense. Money was all well and good, but even bank robbers needed to eat, and supplies were now a different kind of wealth.

Jesse risked a look around the corner. Car still running for a quick getaway. She was about to retreat and tell Rachel to stay put when she spotted Phil Mailer—and he spotted her. Before he could raise a hand or shout a greeting, she shook her head and put a finger to her lips.

Phil looked at her, then looked at her store. He retreated inside the post office. She hoped he was calling other businesses to tell folks to stay inside and not trying to gather a posse.

Maybe it was because Rachel sensed something. More likely, it was because the memory of what had happened the last time human enemies had come to Prairie Gold was still too sharp, too raw. Whatever the reason, the young Wolf howled. Jesse didn’t know if it was a warning or a cry for help. Either way, whoever was inside her store and waiting in the car had to have heard it. They might ignore a single howl, might not react with alarm—or something worse.

Then they all heard a howl that couldn’t have come from anything as small as a terra indigene Wolf—a deep, savage sound that was much too close for comfort. That howl raised the hair on her arms and the back of her neck—and taught her what the word “bloodcurdling” meant.

Peering around the corner again, she watched a man run out of her store and race around the hood of the car to the passenger side. He yanked the door open, threw a sack on the floor—and looked up. Smiling fiercely, he drew his revolver, aimed skyward, and shot twice. Then he jumped into the car and the driver burned rubber as the car raced down the street, heading out of town.

The Eagle fell out of the sky and hit the street right in front of her.

“No!” Jesse shouted as she rushed over to help. Falling to her knees, she dropped her rifle in order to reach for the bird, knowing it was too late.

“Jesse?” Phil Mailer crouched beside her. “Is it . . . ?”

“Dead? Yes. Fetch one of the flat bedsheets from the store.”

As soon as Phil hurried to the store, Rachel, in Wolf form, rushed to her side and licked her face. Jesse thought the gesture was as much to receive reassurance as to offer it.

Had the Eagle been flying over the town for a reason, or had this been plain old bad luck? Would the man have taken those shots if the howl of something that was so much more—and worse—than a Wolf hadn’t given him a reason to flee at just that moment?

“Rachel, honey, I’d like you to call for Morgan and Chase so they can tell me what needs to be done now.”

Rachel howled again. Jesse didn’t know if a Wolf howling in Prairie Gold could be heard in the terra indigene settlement, or how far the Others could communicate using their special form of communication. She just hoped that Morgan and Chase would respond so that other forms of terra indigene wouldn’t.

When Phil returned, she wrapped the Eagle in the bedsheet, took it back to the store, and set it in a laundry basket. Phil picked up her rifle and followed her, sucking in a breath when he saw the store. It wasn’t the open register and empty cash drawer that had him swearing. It wasn’t seeing how many boxes of ammunition were missing that had her own temper simmering. It was the gratuitous destruction of supplies. The thief had taken what he’d wanted; then he’d thrown bags of flour and rice and noodles on the floor, breaking the packages open by stomping on them, leaving a mess for her to clean up. Leaving the people of the town with a little less to eat.

She had plenty stored in the back room. She’d bought supplies because she’d had a feeling the town would need them—and Tolya had bankrolled those expenditures because he’d agreed with her. But that meant . . .

Jesse hurried behind the counter, jerking to a stop when she saw the box of kitchen matches on top of a wad of paper towels from the roll she kept near the counter to wipe up spills of all kinds. She stared at three spent matches and the partially burned towels.

“The paper towels and the rest of the matches didn’t burn,” she said softly. They should have. A burning building would have distracted everyone on the street from paying any attention to the strangers who had robbed the store.

“Did you want it to burn?”

Phil cried out and staggered into a shelf, knocking over a jar of dill pickles.

Jesse stared at the male whose red hair was tipped with yellow and blue. She knew about the Elementals. She had seen Air. So she understood that the creature standing on the other side of the counter was far more dangerous than a man with a gun.

“Did you . . . quiet . . . the fire?” she asked.

“Yes. Should I have let it burn?”

“No. Saving the store was a kindness to all of us, and I thank you for doing that.”

Fire looked around the store. “You have many things that can burn.”

“That is true.” What else could she say? There wasn’t much in the store that wouldn’t burn. “I should call Sheriff Wolfgard and tell him about this.”

“Why?”

“Because those men are probably on their way to Bennett.”

Fire smiled—and Jesse’s bowels turned to water. It took every drop of courage to stay on her feet and not mess herself. She’d faced down an Elder when she’d taken the young humans and terra indigene into the hills to hide them from the men who belonged to the Humans First and Last movement, but she hadn’t been as terrified of that unseen threat as she was right now.

“We know what the car looks like.” Fire turned away from the counter. Just before he vanished, he said, “Cars can burn too.”

Jana deleted an e-mail advertising a product that promised to increase the size of her penis and wondered how whoever had sent that out had survived when so many legitimate businesses hadn’t. Then she deleted an e-mail for a special cream that would plump up and firm your breasts to your partner’s delight.

Gods, it was tempting to print that one out and give it to Virgil.

Nothing urgent in the rest of the e-mails. Some of the sheriffs in other towns had sent her additional information about the men they considered outlaws even if the law had no proof of wrongdoing that would hold up in court. She, in turn, promised to keep them updated when those men left town—and what direction they were heading.

As she closed the e-mail program, her phone rang. “Sheriff’s office.”

“We need help. Please, we need help.”

“Who is this? Where are you?”

“Truman Skye. Skye Ranch. We saw the fire and went to investigate. Found the woman. She’s in a bad way.”

“Burned?”

“No.” Truman hesitated before whispering, “I think the Elders killed her husband. Please come.”

“We’ll be there as soon as we can.” Jana hung up and rushed to the office door. If she was going to have to holler every time she needed Virgil, she was going to find a megaphone. Then she spotted something better—a Hawk perched on the hitching post across the street from the office.

She ran across the street and said, “There’s trouble at the Skye Ranch. I need Virgil right now.” She stared at the Hawk. She had no idea where Virgil was patrolling since he was trying to cover the whole town on his own. Kane was still watching Maddie, partly to keep the blood prophet safe from questionable humans and also because he was still healing and didn’t have the speed or stamina yet to be out patrolling. And she was in the office and patrolling the town square so that one of them would be near the hotel and bank and the other businesses that might be vulnerable to this swarm of strangers who had been arriving over the past couple of days.

Realizing they both couldn’t leave, she said, “Never mind. I’ll call in when I can.”

She ran inside, closed Rusty in the crate, and called one of the doctors. “Someone at the Skye Ranch needs immediate attention. I’m heading there now. You might need the ambulance for this one.”

She grabbed her gear, jumped in her vehicle—and almost screamed when she saw the Hawk settled in the cargo area.

“By all the gods, what are you doing back there?” And how had he gotten inside when the windows were closed?

Being in Hawk form, he didn’t bother to reply. He also made no effort to leave.

“I don’t have time to argue.” She headed south, pushing for as much speed as she could get as soon as she was away from the town square—and almost drove off the road when smoke suddenly flowed up from beneath the passenger seat and shifted into Yuri Sanguinati.

“Gods!” Jana screamed. “Are you trying to scare me into heart failure?”

“You didn’t wait for Virgil,” Yuri replied. “I—” He looked back at the Hawk. “We were available to assist you.” He paused before adding, “You are not the kind of hunter who should go out alone.”

Because she was human? Because she was female? Because cops in human cities usually had a partner when they responded to a call?

She slowed to a sensibly fast speed while she fumbled to get the mobile phone out of its holder on her belt. She handed it to Yuri. “I didn’t lock the office. Someone should be there. We still have a storeroom full of uncataloged weapons, and we have some newcomers in town who would love to help themselves to that kind of loot, if we believe everything I was told about them.”

She drove while Yuri made the call. Based on his side of the conversation, she guessed he was talking to Tolya.

“I’ll tell her,” Yuri said just before he ended the call.

“Tell me what?”

“Virgil is . . . upset . . . with you for running off without him.”

“Virgil can kiss my furless ass,” Jana snapped. “The information I was given indicated we needed to respond ASAP. He wasn’t available, so I used my initiative.”

When Yuri said nothing, she took her eyes off the road for just a second. “What?”

“I don’t think kissing is what he has in mind. And I don’t think you want his teeth anywhere near your furless ass.”

“Are you laughing at me?”

“Yes.” Yuri nodded. “Yes, we are.”

Darn it! She’d forgotten about the Hawk riding in the back, listening to everything.

Silence filled the vehicle for the rest of the trip, giving her time to gather herself for whatever she would find at the Skye Ranch.

When she and Yuri walked into the ranch house’s kitchen, leaving the Hawk to find the location of the fire, Jana knew something more—and worse—had happened since Truman Skye made the call asking for help.

“The doctor and ambulance will be along soon,” she said.

“Don’t need them anymore,” Truman replied. “Not for her.” He stood up and swayed as if drunk. Then he found his balance. “This way. She left a note.”

Oh gods.

“I never thought.” The Simple Life woman Jana figured to be the cook and housekeeper looked devastated. “She was grieving, yes, and what happened was terrible, but I never thought . . .”

“We’ll get to that.” Jana focused on Truman. “Show me.”

Two open bottles of pills on the bedside table. Apparently more than enough to do the job.

“We brought her in here to rest until you arrived,” Truman said. “She . . .”

Jana picked up the note that was on the floor beside the bed. Simple. Cryptic. Chilling.

I saw what killed my husband. It’s out there, watching us. Always watching us.

She looked at Truman. “Did she say anything to you? Anything about what happened?”

“Can we . . . ?” He walked out of the room. Jana and Yuri followed him back to the kitchen.

The Simple Life woman wasn’t there, but there was a plate of biscuits on the table, along with butter and a berry jam, all under mesh covers to keep away the flies. Jana wasn’t interested in food, but she recognized the custom of providing sustenance so that survivors could continue.

“She and her husband were trying to find a way to reach their daughter, who lives in a small town in the Southwest Region,” Truman began. “I don’t know how long they’d been traveling or where they started from, but they were at a crossroads—the one that would head up to Bennett or down to Prairie Gold—when they were forced to stop by a car blocking the road. Two men with guns. They stole the couple’s car and left them with the other car. The car had gasoline and it started, so they decided to head north to Bennett to report the incident and turn the car over to the police.

“The attack was so sudden, the woman didn’t know what was happening. One moment they were driving along, with nothing of their own except her big purse, which the gunmen had tossed out of her car, and the next thing they knew, something knocked them off the road and they were pulled from the car. Her husband tried to tell the Others that it wasn’t their car, that they hadn’t been involved in whatever had happened, but . . .” Truman swallowed hard. “They ripped her husband apart right in front of her. Then a red-haired man riding a brown horse appeared out of nowhere. The moment he touched the car it started to burn. Once the car started burning, they let the woman go and just . . . disappeared.

“We saw the smoke. When we drove out to investigate, we found her staggering down the middle of the road. We brought her back here, and I called you.”

“Did she have the pills on her?” Jana asked.

“Don’t know. She wasn’t carrying anything when we found her, so she might have found the pills in the drawer. We’re still getting everything sorted and settled. We didn’t check the drawers, didn’t think she’d . . .” Truman rubbed his face with his hands. “That woman. Her husband. They didn’t hurt anyone.”

“You think her mate was killed by mistake,” Yuri said.

Truman gave Jana and Yuri a bleak look and nodded. “Do you think that will be a comfort to their daughter if you can find her?”

“It is regrettable, but mistakes happen,” Tolya said. Who had called Jesse to tell her about these humans, and why?

“Mistakes happen?” Jesse’s voice held cold condemnation. “Two innocent people died, and that’s all you can say?”

“Isn’t that what humans say when they do something similar?” Tolya snapped. “Namid’s teeth and claws have had little exposure to humans except when killing is required. The vehicle that was spotted was the same vehicle being driven by the humans who you sensed were a danger, who you hid from, who tried to burn down your store.”

“The vehicle was the same; the people were not. They were victims, Tolya, more so than me. The Elders killed that man right in front of his wife.”

“And humans have never done such a thing.”

He was angry—with her, with the Elders, and especially with the men who had caused this sudden schism between human allies and the terra indigene.

“You’re not going to see anyone’s side but your own, are you?” Jesse said.

“I could say the same about you.” He hung up on her, partly because her naïveté annoyed him. Having lived in an isolated town her whole life, she should have a better understanding of what lived just out of sight—except for those last moments when it appeared right in front of you. But the other reason for ending the call was Jana and Virgil walking into his office, both looking grim.

“They were innocent people,” Jana said. “Victims.”

“An ally had been threatened,” Tolya countered. “The Elders and Elementals responded to eliminate the threat.”

“Nobody was threatened by that man and his wife! They didn’t do anything wrong, and now they’re dead.”

“Look around you, Deputy,” Tolya said coldly. “You live in a town that was full of people who ‘didn’t do anything wrong’ and still ended up dead.” Having used up his patience talking to Jesse, he turned on Jana. “What should the terra indigene have done? Decline to track the vehicle that held humans who posed a threat? Should Fire have stood back and watched Jesse’s store burn?”

“No, but they didn’t have to kill those people! They could have apprehended them and waited for us to arrive.”

“They killed an Eagle,” Virgil snarled. “They had guns.”

“They, they, they!” Jana snarled back. “The they who killed the Eagle and tried to burn Jesse’s store were armed robbers, not two middle-aged people who were trying to find their daughter. I would think even the Elders could tell the difference.”

“Be careful, human,” Virgil said.

“Yes! I’m human. Sorry I don’t have fangs and fur.”

“Not half as sorry as we are.”

She took a step back and looked at the Wolf as if he’d just delivered a wound that would prove fatal.

And Tolya, too angry at her species to deny his predatory instinct, went in for the verbal kill. “Do you know why the Sanguinati don’t mind living around humans? Because you’re our preferred prey. But the Elders look at you and see a blight, a disease that spoils the world. They consider proximity to humans as a contamination, but some of them have to be contaminated now because too many of the shifters that used to watch your kind were killed by the Humans First and Last movement, so the choice, as the Elders see it, is to be close enough for some forced interaction or to eliminate all of you.”

“The only good human is a dead human,” Virgil growled.

“The Elders did what they understood to be right. But perhaps you have a point, Deputy Paniccia, and only humans should deal with human-against-human conflicts in whatever way you see fit, and the terra indigene will deal with anything that is a threat to us.”

“But . . . ,” Jana began.

“Works for me,” Virgil said.

“And me.” Tolya stared at Jana. “That will be all, Deputy.”

He watched her stagger out of his office. Then he looked at Virgil.

“What about the prophet pup?” Virgil asked. “She can be used against us. If we don’t protect her, we have to destroy her.”

“She’s Namid’s creation, both wondrous and terrible. We’ll protect her.”

“She’s still a human.”

“She’s not like the rest of them.” He heard the relief in Virgil’s sigh. “What are you going to do about Jana?”

“She is still a deputy working for the town, but she and the pup will have to be their own pack. As you said, she has to deal with human troubles and we will deal with the rest.”

Now that his anger had faded, Tolya considered the strangers who had arrived recently. Too many of them were coming into town since Parlan Blackstone showed up, and none of them seemed interested in finding work. Which meant they were here for another reason. “If she’s killed by a human? What then?”

Virgil stared at him with those amber eyes. “Then we go back to killing all the problems without anyone whining about us making mistakes. Truth, Tolya? It’s never a mistake to bring down an enemy—or bring down prey. If we had killed more of the humans when they were talking about causing trouble instead of waiting until they did cause trouble, there would have been a lot less humans in this part of Thaisia and more of the shifters would have survived.”

Tolya studied the Wolf. “You don’t believe the story. That’s why you’re angry with Jana. You don’t believe those humans were innocent.”

“They weren’t the ones who stole from Jesse Walker or tried to burn her store, but the Elders wouldn’t have killed the human male the way we were told they did unless they had smelled something on him or heard something that wasn’t right.”

“And the female?”

“You know what form of Elder she saw.”

“Yes, I know.” He’d seen it the night the Elders had set the final boundaries for the town. It was a very old form—a nightmare that walked on two legs.

“Did she choose to kill herself just because she saw that form of terra indigene? Or did she choose a human way to die because she knew the Elders would have a reason to come hunting for her and now had her scent?”

“Are you going to say that to Jana?”

Virgil smiled grimly. “What for? Until she accepts what it means to live in this part of Thaisia, she won’t listen.”

“Darlin’, I don’t want to argue with you,” Tobias said.

Jana held the phone so hard her hand hurt. “You’re agreeing with Virgil and Tolya?”

Silence.

“Tobias?”

“I’ve already done this dance with my mother, who was shaken up enough that she isn’t thinking straight. And neither are you.”

“So it’s all right for the Elders to kill someone because that person was in the wrong car?”

“Jana, the Elders kill humans all the time.” Tobias’s voice was ripe with impatience. “They went to war against the humans and eliminated the population of entire towns. They and the Elementals have flung passenger trains off the tracks and killed anyone who survived the crash. People get in a car and head out for another town and are never heard from again. Maybe it’s different in towns back East where you don’t have to look the truth in the eyes every day, or maybe I learned a lot from Joe Wolfgard in the short time I knew him. Bottom line? They killed those people, and maybe that’s a sorrow.”

“Maybe? How can it be anything but a tragedy?”

“You find any identification?”

“The woman’s purse was still in the car when it burned. But she and her husband were forced to change cars with the robbers!”

“That’s the story she told.” Tobias huffed out a breath. “You’re a cop, darlin’. I know this hit you hard, but you need to start thinking like a cop who works out here.”

“Meaning what?”

“Truman told you the story as it was told to him before that woman took her own life. Right?”

“Right,” Jana snapped.

“Who was with you when you went to the ranch?”

“Yuri Sanguinati and one of the Hawks. I can’t tell them apart.” She could almost feel Tobias wince. Obviously an Intuit with a feel for animals knew the feathered Others all by name, along with the names of their mates and the chicks still in the shell.

And I’m being a bitch because I’m tired and scared and feeling very alone right now.

“Did you ask any of the terra indigene if any of them saw the exchange of cars? They might not have understood everything they were seeing, but they would know the difference between an aggressive act and cooperation.”

Exchange of cars. The words made her think of a handoff.

“You think it could have been a staged meeting?” she asked.

“They were in the wild country, Jana. Believe me when I tell you that when you’re out there, there is nothing a human does that isn’t observed by someone. Not anymore. My guess? The Elders watched whatever happened between the two men who robbed my mother’s store and the middle-aged couple who died and concluded they were a single pack. And having decided that, they attacked the stationary target.”

“They were driving to Bennett,” Jana argued, but there was no longer any conviction in her words.

“Did you go out to look at the car?”

“Yes. It was . . . at the crossroads.” She’d heard the words when Truman told the story but hadn’t absorbed the meaning at the time. “If they’d been stopped at the crossroads by the robbers and were driving to Bennett when the Elders attacked, why were they still at the crossroads?” And what had been said when they thought no one was around to listen?

Exhausted, Jana sank into a chair. “They weren’t innocent.”

“If there really are outlaws gathering in Bennett, I think it’s more important to make amends with Virgil than to argue the guilt or innocence of people who are already gone.”

Later that evening, as Jana heard the Wolves howling, she wondered how a female Wolf apologized to a pack leader and how much groveling a human female would have to do to be accepted back into the police pack.