Wild Country

by Anne Bishop

  “I’ll pass the word.”

  Parlan waited, sensing that the other man had more to say.

  “They found the damn body too fast,” Judd said. “Don’t know what those crews were doing so far out from the main town, but they found the body too fast.”

  “I know. The mayor showed me a photo from the crime scene.”

  “Bastard.”

  “Showed me another photo of a problem solved.”

  Judd understood. “What took him out?”

  “Nothing human.” Parlan thought for a moment. If the sheriff knew he was the Gambler, then . . . “I have a feeling the sheriff knows you’re called the Knife. Be careful.”

  “There are eyes everywhere. I can feel them. But there are a few squatters living in empty houses. They’re sufficient camouflage. Easy enough for me to slip out at night and raid nearby houses for supplies, same as they’re doing. They don’t stay more than a few nights in any one area. Then they move a couple of blocks away and set up again. Just have to watch out for those crews coming in to strip the places.”

  “I’ll call when the rest of the clan, and any associates, reach town.”

  “Looking forward to it.”

  Yes, Judd McCall would look forward to it. And so would he.

  * * *

  * * *

  Later that night, when the town was quiet, Tolya went to Yuri’s house.

  “Did Lila Gold have any information?” he asked.

  “I told her you were interested in reading about dominance fights in frontier towns.” Yuri hesitated.

  “And?” Tolya prompted.

  “She said she had a feeling that you should talk to Jana, that what you were looking for had to do with perception rather than historical truth.”

  An interesting distinction. Did Parlan Blackstone make the same distinction?

  Tolya went to the front door and looked across the street. Lights were still on at Jana and Barbara Ellen’s house, so someone was still awake.

  “I’d better pay our deputy a visit,” Tolya said.

  “Are you staying here tonight?” Yuri asked.

  “Yes.” Unlike the humans in the town, he didn’t need to worry about crossing paths with one of the Elders, but he wanted to look at any information he could gather as soon as possible.

  He strolled across the street. He’d seen Virgil at the end of block, and Virgil had seen him. The Wolf made no comment about him visiting the two females, and he offered no explanation.

  Then Virgil howled, alerting the entire street and probably waking up half the humans who lived there. And then Rusty howled, responding to her pack leader and ignoring Jana’s command to hush.

  And then something in the Elder Hills howled—and that sound made Tolya shiver.

  Up and down the street, he heard doors that had been open to let in the cooler night air quietly close.

  “Mr. Sanguinati?”

  Jana stood at the door, looking at him through the screen.

  Tolya smiled. “I apologize for showing up at your home, but Lila Gold suggested I talk to you about frontier stories.”

  “Oh.” Grabbing Rusty’s collar, she opened the door. “I’m not a scholar like Lila, but I have some novels set during the frontier days.”

  Entering the house, Tolya allowed the puppy to sniff him while he greeted Barbara Ellen, who blushed—a reaction he decided had more to do with her sparse amount of clothing than with him.

  “You were preparing for sleep?” he asked when Jana led him to another room and turned on the overhead light.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Barbara Ellen’s clothing.” And yours.

  Jana nodded. “We weren’t expecting company.” She waved a hand at the bookcase. “What were you looking for?”

  So they were going to pretend she was wearing her deputy clothes. He could do that. “A fight for dominance in a frontier town.”

  “A fight that’s in a ‘this town ain’t big enough for the both of us’ kind of story or something else?”

  “A fight between two packs.” Tolya watched the rapid beating of her pulse. Knew exactly where to place his mouth on her neck to drink deep.

  Outside the window, he heard a soft growl. Virgil would never consider taking a human for a mate, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t protect a member of his pack even if she wasn’t terra indigene.

  Jana hesitated, then selected a book and handed it to him. The cover was dominated by a badge and what humans called a six-gun. The background was land dominated by hills.

  “This is the one.” She sounded unnerved for reasons he didn’t understand.

  “Why?”

  “The elements on the cover were part of a cryptic message that led me to Lakeside and the job fair. My foster father read this particular story a lot. It’s about a fight for control of a town. It wasn’t his favorite frontier story, but he thought it held an important lesson, especially for a girl who wanted to be a police officer.”

  Tolya thought he knew what a father would tell a girl child. He smiled. “Justice prevails? The good guys win?”

  Jana didn’t return the smile. “No. The lesson was that sometimes the good guys don’t win—or survive.”

  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 o
n 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.”