Joe Wolfgard narrowed his eyes against the sun and road dust. He was the newly chosen leader of the terra indigene settlement located at the southern end of the Elder Hills and an unknown commodity for the Intuits living in Prairie Gold, the human town connected to the settlement. So he tried not to growl at the Intuit who was driving the pickup. It wasn’t Tobias’s fault that some humans had gone rabid and killed many bison.
“You’ll need to post guards at the town,” Joe said. “Maybe put up a barricade across the road to stop strangers before they get too close to your mates and pups.” And he would talk to the Hawks, Eagles, and Ravens about keeping watch and reporting any human or vehicle heading for the town.
Tobias Walker, the foreman of Prairie Gold’s ranch, tightened his hands on the steering wheel. “You think we’re in danger?”
“Don’t you?”
Tobias didn’t answer.
“Just because the humans who did this started with four-legged animals doesn’t mean they won’t go after targets that look like themselves.”
“You’d have to ask my mother about that,” Tobias said. “She’s the one among us who’s most sensitive to other people.”
Jesse Walker, Tobias’s mother, was an older, vigorous, gray-haired female and the leader of the Intuits in Prairie Gold—at least, she seemed to be since the rest of the humans referred him to her for answers to his questions about the town. She ran the general store and knew everything about everyone—including the terra indigene who had begun to venture in to purchase human-made items instead of receiving twice-monthly boxes of supplies that were left at the edge of their settlement. She had a Crow’s curiosity, always asking questions and poking into people’s lives, but she was so friendly when she did it, no one seemed to mind, especially when the next time you came to her store, she’d have just the thing you needed but didn’t even know you wanted.
Despite the difference in the ages of the two females, Jesse’s friendly, genuine interest in other beings reminded Joe of Meg Corbyn. In fact, he’d been chosen to be Prairie Gold’s new leader because he’d met Meg during his visit to the Lakeside Courtyard and had seen how humans and Others could work together. Since his arrival a couple of weeks ago, he’d made an effort to visit the general store once or twice a week just to interact with Jesse Walker while a couple of other terra indigene who could pass for human hung back and observed. This was a first step in learning more about the Intuits who had received permission to build a community within terra indigene land three human generations ago. Along with the businesses in town, the Intuits ran a farm for produce, a dairy farm, and the ranch that raised the horses they needed as well as cattle for meat.
“Looks like we’re not the only ones who got word of this,” Tobias said.
Some of the Ravens, Hawks, and Eagles had spotted the carcasses early that morning and sounded the alarm, and Joe, in turn, had gone to the Prairie Gold ranch to fetch Tobias and his men, as well as the equipment needed to deal with the available meat. But the men who worked on the human-owned ranch adjacent to the terra indigene’s land must have been warned as well, because Joe saw three trucks and a dozen men standing near dead cattle.
“Pull up here,” Joe said. “We don’t want to be muzzle to muzzle with them.”
Tobias pulled over and stopped the pickup. Joe got out and lowered the tailgate for the three Wolves who had been riding in the back. They jumped out and immediately began checking the area for scents. So did the Coyotes who were in the back of the second pickup. Their third vehicle was the town’s hauler because it had a winch and could carry heavy loads—like big carcasses. And the last truck had a two-horse trailer attached to it, carrying the horses that would help them drag some of the meat to the hauler.
“Damn,” Tobias said when he and Joe studied the dead bison. “Has to be a hundred of them. That much meat would have fed the town and settlement for a year or more.”
“More,” Wyatt Beargard said, joining them. “Even with someone like me feeding off the available meat now.”
The Grizzly was also a newcomer to the settlement. His scent was enough to dissuade human-owned cattle from “getting lost” on the Others’ land, and his presence was now a fair warning to the human ranchers that any cattle that “escaped” through a break in the fence and were found grazing on land not leased to humans were considered edible game.
Of course, the Grizzly wasn’t the largest predator in the area who held that opinion. Despite the handful of human-controlled ranches in the area and the human-controlled town of Bennett, which was a way station for trains bringing supplies, this was the wild country, and shifters like Joe were the liaisons between anything human and the primal Elders whose size and appetite helped maintain the number of animals grazing on the grasslands. They were also the guardians of the water that flowed through the hills and provided a constant source for Prairie Gold’s residents and crops.
Sure, the human ranchers had some water on their land, but the water that supplied Prairie Gold flowed with a surety that the ranchers envied. And as the HFL movement became more strident about what humans were entitled to claim, the ranchers weren’t bothering to hide that envy anymore—an observation Jesse had shared yesterday when Joe went to the general store.
Blowing out a breath, Joe looked at the Wolves who were still sniffing around the bison carcasses nearest the road. <Anything?>
<Most of the scents are old and new, and match the humans milling around on the other side of the road,> they said. <Three scents we don’t recognize. Maybe from town, maybe strangers.>
Could three hunters have done so much killing? Why hadn’t more bison run after the first couple of shots?
Humans aren’t allowed to hunt on our land without permission, so the bison didn’t recognize them as a predator and wouldn’t have been alarmed by a two-legged animal holding a stick—at least not until some of the bison started dying.
Joe looked at the salt lick that the neighboring rancher had left for the bison—supposedly a friendly gesture. Could someone have put that drug, feel-good, on the salt lick to make the animals passive? He’d been told that the drugs gone over wolf and feel-good hadn’t caused any trouble in this part of the Midwest Region, but that didn’t mean the drugs couldn’t find their way here now. Just because the Controller, the man who had made the drugs, was dead didn’t mean the supply had dried up completely. But how many humans beyond select police officers knew the drugs had been made from the blood of the cassandra sangue? Some of those girls were still being cared for by humans. Some were still living in the compounds, more than willing to trade a cut on their skin for having someone else take care of them. So the danger the two drugs posed wasn’t gone, just covered with a bit of dirt.
<You smell anything wrong with the meat?> Joe asked. <Sickness? Or those bad drugs I told you about?>
Wolves and Coyotes all paused, then began sniffing again. <Smells like good meat.>
A Wolf tore into a smaller bison. After eating a couple of mouthfuls, he waited. They all waited.
<Just meat,> the Wolf reported. <I don’t feel weak or angry; just hungry.>
“How many of these can your meat freezers hold?” Joe asked Tobias, waving a hand at the carcasses.
“A few, but not enough,” Tobias said. “Floyd Tanner would know, since he’s the town’s butcher and has the big freezer. The ranch house is supposed to hold supplies for a month for everyone living there, but I don’t know if we’ve picked up this month’s supply of meat yet.”