by Wen Spencer
He was Coyote’s first Get. By that time, however, Hex—the sole Ontongard to reach Earth after Prime crashed the mother ship on Mars and sabotaged the scout ship—had made a small army of Gets.
Rennie never returned to his family. He dedicated himself to the war against the Ontongard, protecting his wife, son, and the rest of humanity from the alien invaders. He and Coyote’s other Gets forced Hex into hiding by 1874. Leaving Hex to the others, Rennie formed the Dog Warriors and backtracked to Oregon, hunting Hex’s scattered Gets. The country had been raw frontier, and the Dog Warriors killed Ontongard with open, reckless abandon.
Rennie returned to Oregon during the early part of the last century, called back by Degas, the leader of a pack clan named the Demon Curs. By then, the killing between Pack and Ontongard had become a secret war; it behooved neither side for the humans to know that aliens lived among them.
Rennie had stood on this same ridge overlooking Pendleton, amused by his own surprise. It’s been fifty years, you old dog. Of course it’s going to change. Hell, they’ve even changed the name from Goodwin Station.
The gold boomtown of the Old West had been a good place for hunting Ontongard, Rennie thought. It’s going to be harder to put the Ontongard down and burn them to ashes in this Pendleton than in Goodwin Station.
“They even have a sheriff now,” a voice said behind Rennie, surprising him. “Although the first one got himself killed in a jail break. One would think he was a martyred saint or something, the way they carry on.”
Rennie jerked around, pulling out his hidden pistol before the wind shifted, bringing him the stocky man’s scent, deeply drenched in woodsmoke. Rennie recognized him then. “Degas.” Last time they had hunted together, Degas had been newly made. His curly hair had been a bright carrot red with muttonchops down to his sharply pointed chin. That had been—what?—twenty years. Their alien gene drift toward black hair had muted the red to auburn. Combined with a clean shave, Rennie hadn’t recognized the solid-built leader of the Demon Curs.
“You took your time,” Rennie growled, unsettled that he hadn’t caught the other man’s approach. It had been a long time since someone took him unaware.
Degas came down the hill, wiping his hands with a white handkerchief, staining it with blood. “You can’t hide your thoughts from me, Shaw. You’re angry that I surprised you.”
“You know I am,” Rennie snarled, annoyed afresh.
Degas gave a soft smug laugh. “Oh, stop snarling and growling, and be the man you were born, not the wolf that you’ve become, or next we will be sniffing asses.”
“You asked me here just to make me wait and then insult me to my face?”
“You’re the one that’s late.” Degas lifted the bloodstained handkerchief. “The killing’s started—on both sides. We caught one of Hex’s Gets nearly drenched in Pack blood.”
“Who did it kill? Was it permanent?”
“Don’t know.” Degas let the wind take the handkerchief. It flew out over the prairie like a wounded dove. “None of the Curs are missing. Most likely it had been a new Pack Get, turned out to grow back into itself. If it wasn’t a permanent death, it’ll be back on its feet soon enough.”
In those words hid an ugly truth: The Curs were casually making Gets wholesale.
Rennie growled softly. “That’s not our way.”
“It should be! Hex infects humans daily. We should match him, Get for Get.”
“So if he takes over half the world, we take the other half?”
“How can a hundred fight a thousand?”
“By using the intelligence we were born with. Hex keeps his Gets too close, refusing to let them think. They’re like infants without his thoughts guiding them.”
“Infants with tommy guns.”
“All the more need to be clever, then.” Rennie watched the distant tumble of bloodstained white. A thought started to form, and then, with a realization that Degas would read his mind, Rennie veered away from that line of thinking.
Degas glanced hard at him, suspicious of the guarded feelings. “What?”
“We’re wasting time here.”
“That’s not what you were thinking.”
“What I was thinking isn’t up for discussion.” Rennie turned and stalked away, keeping his mind carefully void.
Outside the memory, Ukiah wondered at the timing. Had the war between the Pack and the Ontongard had anything to do with him? Rennie had no memories of Ukiah in Oregon. The Pack had no knowledge of Ukiah prior to this June. Still, Ukiah couldn’t ignore the odd coincidence of the date; Rennie arrived in Pendleton on September 23, 1933—the same year that the Kicking Deers lost a child they believed had become the Umatilla Wolf Boy.
CHAPTER TWO
Kicking Deer Farm, Umatilla Indian Reservation, Oregon Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Straight east on I-84, and Ukiah found his missing mountains. They rose like a wall running north to south before him. But where were the trees? The mountains in front of him looked as bare as the vast fields around him. He passed a sign reading ENTERING UMATILLA INDIAN RESERVATION alongside the highway, but there was no other indication he crossed a boundary. The fencing and fields on either side of the road continued unchanged.
With the GPS system, the ranch was simple to find. All the local ranches seemed linked to the main roads via long, winding driveways. Sometimes the houses were tucked unseen behind a gentle swell, up to a half mile away, but black gravel made the driveways obvious.
He followed the Kicking Deer driveway back to a sprawling ranch house with several well-kept outbuildings. He parked in plain view of the front door, and sat, listening to the engine ticking, suddenly nervous.
If this was his family—then what?
He’d given no thought to how he’d feel and what their reactions might be. Would they recognize him? 1933 was at once unimaginably long ago, and yet, via Rennie’s memories, as clear as an hour ago. He struggled to see the passage of time in normal human terms. It was difficult. His only points of reference were Rennie’s memories of his childhood, drifting banks of tattered clouds compared to the Pack’s razor-sharp, sequential, and easily searchable memory. Ukiah suspected that even Rennie’s memory wasn’t a true representation of how humans thought, since Rennie had been made a Get young, and Ukiah viewed his childhood memories after they had been recalled and stored to alien sharpness.
Ukiah couldn’t judge what his family might remember. He wished he’d been able to talk to Max freely about what to expect, but Kraynak’s presence had made that impossible.
Nor was he sure what this family were hoping to find. The newspaper clipping spoke only of “boy” and “child.” How old was that? Five? Eight? Twelve? Eighteen? Were they expecting a child to return, or an old man?
And now that he started to wonder, he wasn’t sure why they would want to find him. Mom Jo said once that if she lost Cally, she would look for her daughter until she died. Believing Ukiah’s parents would feel the same about their lost son, she hired Max in attempt to reunite Ukiah with them. He knew now that Hex killed his father, and his mother was surely dead.
So who was this Jesse Kicking Deer? Why did he want Ukiah back? How much? Enough to demand that Ukiah move back to Oregon? Even as unlikely as that might be, Ukiah was glad that he was legally an adult and able to choose for himself.
But if these people were his real family—would he desperately want to be with them?
A woman’s face appeared in one of the windows. He had been noticed.
Suddenly the house seemed like the humane cage that Mom Jo had caught him in; his life was about to totally change. He hadn’t expected this. He wasn’t sure if he truly wanted whatever the future held anymore.
Still, he couldn’t just sit out here. He’d invaded these people’s privacy. He should at least explain his presence. Reluctantly, he got out and walked up to the front door.
The door opened even as he raised a hand to knock: The rich smell of fried bacon and potatoes fl
ooded out into the summer dusk. The woman from the window stood in the doorway, without welcome in her stance. She was in her late fifties, long graying hair drawn back into a ponytail. Her dark eyes regarded him with hostility. “Yes?”
“Claire Kicking Deer?” Ukiah got a slight nod. “I’m sorry to bother you. I would have called, but your number is unlisted. I’m looking for Jesse Kicking Deer.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why don’t you people just leave him alone?”
Ukiah blinked with surprise. “Pardon?”
“Go away.” She started to shut the door.
“Wait!” He stiff-armed the door to keep it from closing in his face. “There’s some kind of confusion here. I’m not who you think I am.” Whoever that was.
“Let go of the door.” She tried pressing it shut.
Ukiah resisted, talking quickly. “Please, I just want to talk to Jesse Kicking Deer about an article in the East Oregonian. He was asking for information on a feral child.”
Claire Kicking Deer tried to yank open the door in a way that suggested she would slam it shut in his face, arm or no arm. He caught hold of the door, reacting without thinking. “Let go of the door, or I’ll call my son to the door, and you don’t want me to do that.”
He kept hold of the door, sure if he let her close it, she wouldn’t listen to him, and he’d lose this chance to reconnect with his lost family. “I don’t understand why you’re so angry with me. I just want to talk to Mr. Kicking Deer. I’ll ask him a few questions and go away. Please, you have no idea how much this would mean to me.”
“Jared!” She called over her shoulder.
Oh, shit! Heavy footsteps heralded the arrival of the son. Instincts told Ukiah that violence was becoming a distinct possibility. He released the door and backed up. The door jerked completely open, and Jared Kicking Deer stepped out onto the porch, looking fully capable of said violence. He was a tall man, in his late twenties, broad in a way that suggested weightlifting sometime in his past, and had a bearing that spoke of being unafraid of a fight.
“My mother said to leave my grandfather alone.”
Ukiah held out a hand to ward off any blows. “Look, I’m a private investigator from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I’m out here on business with my partner.” Once sure that Jared Kicking Deer wasn’t going to swing at him, Ukiah took a business card out of his wallet, and handed it to Jared.
Jared didn’t bother to glance at the card. “PI from Pittsburgh. You here to find Alicia Kraynak?”
One surprise after another. “Yes. I’m an expert tracker; we specialize in missing persons. The thing is, when I was thirteen, I was found running feral in Umatilla National Park by my adoptive mother. She took me home to Pittsburgh. I thought, since I was in the area, I’ll try to find out who I really am.”
“Well, you’re younger than most of them, but I’ve heard this song before.”
Song? Ukiah tilted his head in puzzlement. “What do you mean? You’ve had a glut of amnesiac wolf boys coming here?”
The man gave a dry snort of laughter. “More or less.”
Ukiah considered him for a moment, finding it difficult to judge this stranger. “You’re not kidding.” A horrifying possibility suggested itself to Ukiah; Kittanning might not be the only clone made out of his blood. “Oh, please don’t tell me that they all look like me! Do they?”
Another laugh. “No. If anything, you’re the only one so far that looks like a Cayuse.”
So there wasn’t a flood of his violence-born copies like Kittanning. He relaxed slightly. “I don’t know what’s made you so hostile, but I promise you that I mean no harm. I’m only looking for my own identity.”
There was bored disbelief in the man’s eyes. “We’re sick of you people. You should be ashamed of yourself, preying on the hopes of an old man. Now, I suggest you leave before you find yourself in jail for trespassing and fraud.”
“What harm could it be just to let me talk—”
“I said go!”
Ukiah backed down. “Okay. I’ll go. If you change your mind, just call me at any of those numbers.”
Red Lion Hotel, Pendleton, Oregon
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Their hotel, the Red Lion on South Nye Avenue, sat on the ridge above Pendleton. Ukiah checked the front desk for their room numbers, dropped his bag in the empty rooms, and went in search for Max and Kraynak at the restaurant.
He found them taking up the corner booth. Maps fought dinner dishes for table space. A tall, lanky woman in her late twenties sat with Max and Kraynak. She wore black-leather hiking boots, tight blue jeans, a black-leather bomber jacket, and her blond hair cropped short. She glanced up at Ukiah in surprise with pale green eyes as he pulled up a chair to sit down.
Kraynak wearily nodded his welcome, eyes bloodshot and bruised from the vomiting. He carefully ate a bowl of chicken rice soup, several slices of white toast, and a side of rice.
Max’s dinner of steak and steak fries sat cooling, barely touched.
“How did it go?” Max asked.
Ukiah pantomimed an airplane dive-bombing the ground and exploding.
“That bad?” Max winced. He caught the woman’s look of curiosity. “This is my partner.” Max let Ukiah introduce himself. Establishing a strong presence, Max called it, and they practiced it until it was smooth.
“Ukiah Oregon.” He offered his hand.
The woman startled slightly. “Ukiah? Like the town?” It was weird to get the reaction. In Pittsburgh, no one realized he was named after an actual place. Pennsylvanians thought it was an odd family name, often confused with Uriah, Uriel, and once, by an old Jewish man, Uzziah. (The man went on to tsk over his supposed Jewish parent for marrying outside the religion.)
Max coughed instead of laughing and said, “His mom named him after the town.”
She accepted this explanation and Ukiah’s hand.
Ukiah shook her hand just as he was taught—meet the eyes, give a serious half smile, firm grip but not too hard, and finish with, “Glad to meet you.”
“Sam Killington.” Her grip was strong, her skin warm and dry, the touch telling Ukiah a host of disturbing information. Gunpowder from a handgun cuffed the back of her hand under his thumb. Ash from burnt carpet, mattresses, and painted wood was lodged in various creases of her palmprint. With the motion of shaking hands, the cuff of her jacket brushed him, reporting the presence of charred human flesh.
Ukiah jerked his hand back, and wiped it clean on his pants.
Max caught the exchange, flared an eyebrow at him, but leaned back slightly, away from Sam. “She’s a reporter. She’s offered to help however she can.”
“Not really a reporter. I write occasional fluff pieces. I thought I could pick up food and supplies, that kind of thing,” Sam elaborated calmly, though obviously noticing Max cooling toward her. “If you’re here to find Alicia Kraynak, you don’t have time to waste trying to find the grocery store.”
Ukiah gazed at her. Who was she? What did she want? Under Obsession perfume, female sweat, leather jacket, woodsmoke, and gun oil, he caught the engine smell from a motorcycle. There had been a Harley-Davidson in the hotel’s parking lot. Stepping back through the day, he found it again at the parking lot of the airport. He flipped through memories of the airport and found her, hidden behind a newspaper and the loudly playing children.
She met his eyes levelly for several minutes and then looked away. “So, Max tells me you’re a tracker. It seems slightly stereotypical that the Indian is the tracker.”
“Ukiah is the best tracker in the country,” Kraynak stated, waving a piece of toast.
She dragged her gaze back to Ukiah. “You’re real good at that evil eye.”
“You were waiting for us at the airport,” Ukiah stated.
She shrugged. “I heard the rumor that you were coming and was curious. It’s not a crime.”
“You’re currently carrying a pistol, either on a shoulder holster or kidney holster. You fired that w
eapon this morning. You’ve been in a burned building, a house I think, and you’ve been exposed to human ash.”
There was silence at the table, and then Kraynak stated, “I said he was the best.”
“I’m impressed.” Sam pulled a business card from her jacket pocket and slipped it gracefully onto the table. “I’m a private detective. I’m investigating the death of a local family. They were killed in a house fire last Thursday. I was at the site this morning, after some target shooting.”
Kraynak claimed the card first, glanced at it, and handed it to Max. “What does that have to do with Alicia?”
“I’m playing a hunch,” Sam admitted, spreading her hands. “A family of six dies in a house fire on Thursday. Four days later, a hiker from Pennsylvania disappears. I thought there might be a connection.”
Max took the card, showed it to Ukiah long enough for Ukiah to memorize it, and then studied it himself. SAMUEL ANNE KILLINGTON, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR, it read, followed by a Pendleton address and telephone number. “Samuel Anne?”
“My parents were twisted,” Sam said. “My sister is Kendall Jane.”
“So what’s the connection?” Kraynak asked.
Sam gave a weak laugh. “Well, it struck me as odd that the hiker’s uncle was flying in two private detectives. Professional pride aside, a local investigator would know the area better and be a hell of lot cheaper. And two men instead of just one seemed like overkill, so maybe they were hired muscle. The father of the family worked at the casino. Dead casino worker. Two hired goons.” She rolled her wrist as she listed the last two points and ended with her hand cocked upward in speculation. “Organized crime?”
“You’ve got to keep that rampant paranoia in check,” Max said, and grinned. “Ukiah and I specialize in lost and found. We’re damn good at it.”
“So, the kid’s a tracking wonder,” she conceded, then looked questioningly at Max. “What do you bring to the partnership?”
