“I don’t think exactly the same way when I’m wolf as I do when I’m man, but I don’t think like a wild wolf, either. I’ll understand you just fine. I’ll know who you are, that you’re the sheriff, and what that means—law, the courts, the whole complex system. But that kind of complexity isn’t interesting to a wolf. I have to make an effort to call up some things. Do you know how to find the circumference of a circle?”
“Ah—something to do with pi. Pi r squared . . . no, just Pi r. Pi times the radius.”
“You had to stop and think about it. That’s what it’s like when I’m wolf. I know the same things, but some of them aren’t at the top of my mind.”
“Huh. Will the need to keep your teeth to yourself be at the top of your mind?”
Benedict chuckled. “Good way to put it. Yes, it will. Some things are . . . if not instinctive, then automatic. Ingrained.”
“It’s like asking an engineer or math teacher about pi,” Arjenie put in. “It would be right there at the top for them, because they work with it a lot and it is interesting to them. The clans train their youngsters really well so that—” No, wait, she couldn’t finish that sentence the way she’d intended. “So that they don’t eat anyone” would not create the right impression.
“So that we understand the difference between people and prey,” Benedict finished for her. “I will no more overlook that difference as a wolf than I would as a man. Nor will I mistake normal human actions for a threat, the way a wild wolf would, or become excited by certain scents.”
Fear, he meant. Wolves could get excited by that smell, but to Benedict it would be information, nothing more.
Benedict paused, then added, “You will find it works better to ask me to do things rather than telling me what to do.”
This time it was Porter who chuckled. “You’re no different from most men, then. People generally prefer being asked. I’ll try to keep in mind that you’re not one of my deputies.”
That made Arjenie grin. Benedict would certainly not look like a deputy.
“That will help. You want me to track someone or something.”
“Something,” Porter said. “Or that’s what we think right now. Some boys—teenagers—found a body down by Moss Creek this afternoon. A man.”
“Oh, no,” Arjenie said. “Do you know who?”
“Assuming the ID in his wallet is accurate, it was Orson Peters. Robin here didn’t think you’d know him.”
She thought a moment, shook her head, then realized he couldn’t see her. “I don’t think so.”
“He’s an ex-con, so I’ve kept an eye on him. Did odd jobs mostly but he kept his nose clean, aside from some trapping I tried not to notice. He lived alone in a little shack not far from where the body was found.”
Benedict spoke. “If you’ve kept an eye on Peters but couldn’t ID him without his wallet, I’m guessing the body was in bad shape.”
Porter nodded. “Looks like he was mauled by something with claws and teeth, then partly eaten.”
“Which parts?” Benedict asked.
“Why the hell does that—”
“Humor me.”
The sheriff shrugged. “The guts, from what I could tell. Things were pretty much of a mess, though, so don’t hold me to that.”
Yuck. Arjenie looked at her aunt in disbelief. She and Uncle Clay wanted the twins to be part of a circle investigating that kind of ugly? Even if the body had been removed by now—and she was hoping hard it had been—Arjenie would not have brought Sammy and Seri into this. They’d turned twenty a month ago. In some ways they were wise beyond their years, but in others they were naive, even immature. “Uh . . . has the body been removed?”
Porter gave her a look that said he knew some of what she’d been thinking. “Yes.”
“You’ve got an animal attack,” Benedict said, “but you haven’t asked me where I’ve been today.”
“Unless Arjenie wants to contradict what her aunt and uncle told me, you’ve been with her this morning, and with the whole family since you arrived around two. But Peters wasn’t killed today. It’s yesterday and the day before I’m interested in.”
But not worried about, Arjenie thought, or he would have made sure Benedict was sitting back here, safely locked up, when he asked that question. Why wasn’t he worried?
“I was in D.C. We flew in on the nineteenth, arrived at eight forty that night. Stayed at her apartment, which we packed up. Arjenie and my men can speak for my whereabouts the whole time.”
Porter’s eyebrows lifted. “Your men?”
“Josh Krugman and Adam Thorne. Bodyguards.”
“Interesting life you lead if you need bodyguards. I’ll want to talk to them, but later. Your story matches what Robin told me.”
“And that’s enough for you?”
“She also said that you make a very big wolf. A big black wolf.”
Benedict nodded.
“We found a tuft of fur near the body, got caught on some branches. That fur’s kind of an orangey brown, which doesn’t prove anything . . . but we also have some tracks.”
“Not wolf tracks, I take it.”
“Not anything like a wolf’s tracks. One of my deputies hunts. I’ve done some hunting myself, but not like Matt. Lots of experience with all kinds of game. He was pretty sure about those tracks, but I had his uncle come have a look, too. K. J.’s a pro—he’s hunted pretty much everything you can hunt in North America, including bear. Made a couple trips to Alaska for that.”
“K. J. Miller?” Aunt Robin sounded dismayed.
“I guess you don’t much care for him,” Porter said, “but he knows his tracks and scat.”
“K. J. Miller is a misogynist,” Arjenie explained to Benedict. “He thinks the world came to an end when women got the vote, and the rest of us just haven’t noticed. He and Aunt Robin have butted heads a few times.”
“The tracks,” Benedict said. He was a tad impatient. “What about them?”
“Bear. One honking huge bear. Has to be a grizzly—black bears don’t get that big.”
Arjenie frowned. “There aren’t any grizzlies here. Nowhere near here. We must be . . .” She thought a moment. “Yellowstone and Grand Teton. Those would be the closest places where grizzlies have been seen, and they’re at least two thousand miles away.”
“That’s a problem, isn’t it?”
Chapter Seven
A grizzly could be a problem, all right, regardless of how it got here. Benedict considered what he knew about them. Not enough, he concluded, but enough to be sure he’d rather not tackle one without a half-dozen clanmates in wolf form to help . . . or the .30-06 he had back home. Or, hell, if he was wishing, might as well wish for his M16. That one would stop small to midsize demons, so it ought to work against a grizzly.
Didn’t do him much good now. “Arjenie. What can you tell me about grizzlies that might be pertinent?”
“The grizzly is a subspecies of brown bear—Ursus arctos horribilis. Adult males usually weigh between four hundred and eight hundred pounds. They’re mostly solitary, though they tolerate each other in some circumstances, such as when they’re fishing for salmon. They’re called grizzlies because of the grizzled look of their coats, which is the reason for their other name—silvertip bear. I’m thinking that orangey brown fur doesn’t sound like a grizzly. Other brown bears have more varied coats.”
Arjenie’s vacuum-cleaner memory came in handy at times. “What other types of brown bear are there?”
“On this continent, the other subspecies would be the coastal brown bear, which includes the Kodiak bear. They get even bigger than grizzlies, topping out at over a thousand pounds. I don’t remember exactly how much over a thousand.” She sounded apologetic for this failing. “But coastal brown bears live along the Alaskan coast and on some of the islands up there. They don’t go walkabout and end up in Virginia.”