Wild Country

by Anne Bishop

  Dealt with? Jana watched the Wolf. He’d been friendly during the trip, had talked enthusiastically about being the manager of the town’s bookstore. In fact, he’d been so friendly, she’d almost forgotten he wasn’t human. But something of the predator now showed in his amber eyes—a sharp reminder of what he was.

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “The town leaders want to know why the humans are here and how long they’re staying.” John shrugged. “Some of the humans might just want to walk to the places where there is food, like we did at other stops.”

  “Is looking over the passengers standard procedure?” Was that going to be part of her duties?

  John shrugged again. “It’s standard for now.”

  Jana felt Candice tense. The other woman didn’t have to remind anyone that she didn’t have any travel papers from Lakeside.

  Not many people disembarked from the other passenger car, so it wasn’t long before John was telling them to collect their bags from the overhead racks and to have their papers in easy reach. Figuring she would have to talk to someone about Candice traveling with them, since she had initiated the other woman joining their group, Jana waited while the doctors, dentist, attorneys, vet, and other professional people left the car. Finally she and Candice walked down the steps and reached the platform, with John right behind them.

  She wasn’t sure what she’d expected from John saying the town leaders were meeting the train. Enough individuals to control a group of people coming into town? Didn’t need a group. The two men—males?—standing on the platform were sufficiently intimidating in completely different ways. The one dressed in a black suit with a gray shirt had the sleek look of a ruthless politician—or a high-priced assassin, if she went with the description of such men in the thrillers she read. The other one . . .

  Shaggy hair that was a mix of gray and black, the gray not due to age, since he looked to be in his early thirties. Amber eyes that didn’t hold a hint of tolerance let alone friendliness. Attractive in a rough-and-ready sort of way. Not someone she would choose to be around, because everything about him warned her he was dangerous. The man in the black suit might be more lethal in the balance, but the man dressed in jeans and a red-checked shirt was the one you’d find in the middle of bar fights and other physical altercations.

  He was also the one wearing a sheriff’s badge pinned to the pocket of his shirt.

  This was her boss? Crap.

  “Wait here,” John said as he walked past the two women.

  He didn’t talk to the other two men for more than a minute—surely not long enough to explain Candice’s situation—when he gestured for her and Candice to join the men. Males. She’d have to ask someone about the correct word to use.

  “Virgil, this is your new deputy, Jana Paniccia,” John said. “Deputy Jana, this is Sheriff Virgil Wolfgard.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” Jana held out her hand.

  Virgil grabbed her wrist, leaned over her hand, and sniffed it.

  Her hand closed into a fist before she had time to consciously make a choice, but she retained enough control not to bop him in the nose.

  Virgil released her wrist, then studied her. “She’s kind of small.”

  She bared her teeth. That wasn’t a conscious choice either. “I’m stronger than I look.”

  “We’ll see.” Dismissive, as if he’d already decided she wasn’t worth his time.

  Don’t punch him in the face. Don’t punch him in the face. Do not punch him in the face. And don’t even think about a knee to the groin, no matter how satisfying the action would be in the short term.

  “Ms. Paniccia, I’m Tolya Sanguinati, the town’s leader.” He held out his hand.

  Jana shook it. “I met Vlad Sanguinati when I interviewed for the deputy position.”

  “I know.” Tolya smiled, showing a hint of fang.

  Oh, definitely tall, dark, and lethal.

  “This is Candice Caravelli,” Jana said, bringing the other woman to their attention.

  “John explained that you are looking for work,” Tolya said.

  “Yes,” Candice said, then amended her reply. “Yes, sir.”

  “What kind of work do you do?”

  “I was a dance instructor. All kinds of dances. Some formal but I also taught country dances and square dances.”

  “Those are traditional frontier kinds of dances and would be useful for social events,” Jana said.

  “I also taught Quiet Mind classes,” Candice said.

  “Very useful for helping to relieve stress,” Jana added.

  “Are you one of those high-strung females?” Virgil asked.

  “Compared to what?” Reminding herself that she shouldn’t start challenging her boss before she’d had a chance to see the town, Jana gave Virgil a tight-lipped smile. “I find exercise and Quiet Mind stretches keep me from feeling overly stressed.” And if she’d had the occasional crying jag during her time at the police academy to relieve the pressure of dealing with classmates who had made a daily effort to remind her of why she wasn’t suited to be a serving police officer, that was her business.

  “Let’s proceed to the Bird Cage Saloon, where newcomers receive their information about housing and the town’s rules,” Tolya said. “Newcomers will be housed in the hotel temporarily. Ms. Paniccia, you will be housemate to Barbara Ellen Debany, who will meet you at the saloon. Are your possessions marked with your name?” He gestured to the boxes and luggage being offloaded from the baggage car.

  “Yes,” Jana replied.

  “Then Nicolai will have everything delivered to the house except the items you have with you now. The possessions for the rest of the new residents will be dropped off at the hotel or the designated storage area.”

  After four days on the train, she didn’t have a clean set of clothes left in the carryall, but she said nothing since she figured that caring about clothes, even for practical reasons, would give Sheriff Virgil Wolfgard another reason to claim that a female wasn’t suited for the job.

  Not that he’d actually said a female wasn’t suitable, but the look he’d given her had said plenty.

  “This way,” Tolya said. He and Virgil turned and walked away, leaving Jana, Candice, and John to follow.

  “It looks empty,” Candice whispered as they left the train station and walked down the street past a feed store and tack store.

  “Most likely everyone is working,” Jana replied. She hoped that was the reason she hadn’t seen any humans. There were some cars parked on the street, but she couldn’t tell if they’d been parked there for an hour, for a day, or since the terra indigene had wiped out the humans who had originally lived in Bennett.

  Couldn’t think about that—and couldn’t afford to forget it happened.

  Then she stopped thinking about cars and people and looked at the buildings that ran along one side of the street. It was like stepping back in time to a real frontier town. Wide wooden sidewalks. Buildings that were cheek by jowl, with a feel of age both in their design and in the way they seemed to lean on each other for support. And every one of the buildings had some kind of supported covering over the sidewalk to protect residents from the sun and weather. It was like entering one of the stories she and Pops had loved to read. And there were even . . .

  Jana stopped and stared at the two ponies grazing across the street. Chubby-legged, barrel-shaped ponies. One was black. Nothing unusual about that. The other was brown, with black legs and a mane and tail that were a stormy gray.

  Despite her enthusiasm for being a mounted deputy—a desire based on girlhood fantasies—she didn’t know much about horses beyond the things she remembered from books she’d read when she was a girl. But she was pretty sure it wasn’t natural for a brown pony to have that color mane and tail. So if those critters weren’t ponies set loose to graze, what were
they?

  “Umm . . . ,” Candice said.

  “Yeah.” Wouldn’t do to keep everyone waiting. Especially her boss.

  She and Candice passed the hotel, crossed a side street, and walked into the Bird Cage Saloon.

  “Wow,” Candice said.

  “Wow is right,” Jana agreed. Outside, the stores looked like a real frontier town, a little tired and worn. This looked like a freshly painted movie set. There was a bartender with sharp eyes and a friendly smile and two women dressed as saloon girls. And the woman who came around to the front of the bar . . .

  Oh gods.

  “Look at that hair,” Candice whispered.

  Jana was looking at the hair. Mostly gold, with wide blue streaks, narrower red streaks, and a few threads of black that made Jana shiver. Not the same colors, but the manager of the coffee shop in the Lakeside Courtyard had hair like that.

  Tolya gestured for them to come forward. “Ms. Paniccia, Ms. Caravelli, this is Madam Scythe, the proprietor of the Bird Cage Saloon.”

  Scythe eyed Candice. “Tolya says you know dances that would have been danced in a saloon.”

  “Some,” Candice replied, sounding wary.

  “You know how to work in a saloon?”

  “I could learn.”

  Wondering if “work in a saloon” was a euphemism for a kind of work Candice wouldn’t want, Jana debated the wisdom of saying something about Candice’s situation. Better not. The woman needed a job and could speak for herself. And if she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—Jana would be in a better position to help her once she was herself gainfully employed as a deputy.

  Madam Scythe raised a hand. “Garnet, take the human girl to that table over there and explain the rules.”

  The black feathers in Garnet’s hair told Jana she was one of the Others. “Crow?”

  “Raven.” Garnet gave Candice a smile that was sharp but not unfriendly. “This way.”

  Scythe focused on Jana. “Is this the one who’s going to work with Virgil?”

  “Maybe,” Virgil growled. Now he focused on Jana. “You got your papers?”

  She pulled them out of her daypack, and he pulled them out of her hand.

  “Sheriff’s office is on the other side of the square,” he said, still growling. “Show up at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.” Virgil walked out of the saloon.

  “I’m confused,” Jana said. “Am I hired or not?”

  “Talk to Virgil in the morning,” Tolya said. “In the meantime, here is Barbara Ellen Debany, your housemate.”

  Blond hair, blue eyes, some freckles across the nose and cheeks. Early to mid-twenties, so they were close to the same age.

  “I’m so glad to meet you,” Barbara Ellen said with more enthusiasm than seemed warranted. “My friends call me Barb.” She glanced at Tolya. “My human friends call me Barb.”

  “I’m glad to meet you too.”

  “There are papers you need to fill out,” Tolya said. “Then you should go to the hotel and get the key for your room.”

  “But you just said . . .” Jana looked at Barb.

  “You’ll be more comfortable in the hotel until you have a chance to pick out furniture for your bedroom,” Barb said.

  That made sense. Jana filled out the paperwork and had barely written in the final answer before Barb handed the papers to someone named Yuri and hustled her over to the hotel.

  “What’s the hurry?” Jana asked.

  “Our house was one of the few that was cleared out, so we have to replace everything we want, right down to the kind of hangers you prefer.”

  That sounded daunting.

  “The thing is, we all get to pick from whatever is available, but it’s first come, first served, and even though things are jumbled, it’s easier to select things from a place that looks like a warehouse yard sale than going into houses that . . .” Barb blew out a breath. “That look like someone still lives there. Depending on where they choose to live within the new town boundaries, some of the folks coming in today will have to clear out the houses by themselves. Everyone is expected to put in at least a couple of hours of sorting a day, but I think it’s harder when other people’s clothes are still in the closet, and there are photographs on the walls. You know?”

  Jana didn’t know but could imagine it quite well. “I’d like to swap out some clothes so I have what I need for a couple of days.”

  “We’ll go to the house next so you can do that and also choose your bedroom and take a look at what I’ve already selected for the living room, dining room, and kitchen,” Barb said. “And you might want to choose a bicycle. There’s a ‘bike corral’ next to the hotel and guests can borrow a bicycle to get around or just for fun. But it’s also the place where bicycles retrieved from emptied houses are being stored and can be claimed.”

  “Oh.” Jana tried to hide her disappointment. “I thought I would be getting a horse.”

  “Not enough room in the yard to keep two horses—or even one horse, for that matter, which is why my horse, Rowan, is at the livery stable. I have a bicycle as an alternate way to travel from home to stable. Or just to get around for shopping if I don’t want to take Rowan out. You can choose a car—people are mostly keeping whatever was parked in their driveway, but almost every parking lot around the square is stuffed with unclaimed vehicles. The catch is that residents are limited to one tank of gas each month to make sure the government vehicles, medical vehicles, and public transportation have enough fuel. That’s why most people use the buses or walk or ride a bicycle.”

  A different way of life. An active way of life.

  “Oh, and go easy the first couple of days,” Barb added. “A few people felt a bit sick because of the difference in altitude and drier air. Don’t push too hard and drink lots of water.”

  The water she could do. Pushing too hard? That would depend on her boss.

  For the rest of the day, Jana viewed her new home and made a sketch of her bedroom, as well as the third bedroom she and Barb wanted to turn into a shared office. They went to one of the buildings that was stuffed with furniture and selected everything they wanted for her bedroom and the office. From there, they went to household storage and packed a box with linens, hangers, curtains, and everything else they could think of needing to set up their house.

  “Do you like dogs?” Barb asked suddenly when she turned a corner made by a wall of boxes and stopped.

  “Sure, I like dogs,” Jana replied. “Haven’t had one since I was a kid, but I like them.”

  “Want one?”

  Jana blinked. “They have dogs back there?”

  Barb laughed. “No, pet supplies. Dog beds and leashes and other stuff.”

  “Not much point adding that stuff to what we already have until there’s a dog.”

  “Oh, there are plenty of dogs. Being the almost-vet, I’ve been taking care of all of them until I can find homes for them.”

  Jana heard an undercurrent of emotion and wondered if Barb had been given a time limit on finding homes for the pets that had been left behind.

  “Horse first, since being a mounted deputy is part of my work.” And part of the reason she wanted this job. “Then we can look at the dogs and go from there.”

  Barb smiled. “Horse first.”

  They finished up all the “moving to a new place” insanity with a quick look at the free books.

  Barb handed her a paper shopping bag. “Each new resident is allowed to take a bag full of books.”

  Jana eyed the piles of books and hoped she didn’t look greedy. “Are you kidding?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why didn’t we come here first?”

  “I know. I’m one of the book sorters. I already have my bag of freebies, so it’s probably good that there is always more than one person here. Otherwise, I’d be too tempted to walk of
f with a paperback a day.”

  “Are we sharing books?”

  “We can, unless there’s one we both really want as a keeper.”

  “Then let’s fill my bag with things you don’t have yet—unless I really want a copy for myself.”

  “Deal. And you can take a couple with you to the hotel and I’ll take the rest of them with me and put them in your bedroom.”

  “We need to pick up more bookcases,” Jana said, eyeing the books.

  “Definitely.”

  They finished up and Barb headed for the house they would soon share, saying it was still recommended that the humans reach their homes before full dark. Jana walked to the hotel and went into the gift shop. She had a couple of note cards in her daypack from her stash of stationary, but she bought a few postcards that were photos of the surrounding land and the native wildlife.

  The last thing she did before going to bed that night was write a quick note to Jenni Crowgard in Lakeside, using a postcard with a picture of a bison on the front.

  CHAPTER 16

  Windsday, Messis 15

  At seven o’clock, Jana found the breakfast buffet in the hotel’s dining room and filled a plate with a balance of carefully selected food. Claiming a seat at a table, she went back for juice and coffee. Then she sat down and tucked in, despite her stomach having first-day-of-work jitters. Those would settle—she hoped. Even if they didn’t, she would not throw up on her boss and give him the satisfaction of firing her before he officially hired her. And if he did fire her, all bets were off about the condition of his shoes after that discussion.

  Finding the visual perversely amusing, Jana also found her appetite.

  No one had talked about pay, but Anya Sanguinati, who was the hotel’s manager, had told the new residents that while they were guests at the hotel their meals were free as a way of using up food that would spoil. People staying at the boardinghouse were also given their meals. She would have thought the Others would want the humans to prepare food in their own homes, but Barb had explained that the people who had initially come to Bennett had been considered a transitory work force. With the arrival of the people hired at the Lakeside job fair, the transitory work force was evolving into permanent residents. Eventually, new food supplies would be needed and people would have to pay for groceries or for a dinner out, but for now, everyone could focus on settling into their new homes and new places of work and not give a thought about cooking dinner.