“Yes, sir.”

Kane lifted a leg and peed on one of the tires. Since he went around to the other side, she figured he was peeing on one of the tires over there too.

Either he was letting other predators know that this was a Wolf-approved vehicle, or he was providing the Wolves with an easy way to track the human deputy.

“Are we going to have a dispatcher?” she asked.

“Dispatcher?” Virgil frowned. “What for?”

“So that someone can call in if they need help, or for one of us to call in if we need backup.”

Kane raised his head and howled. Jana felt a shiver run down her spine.

Suddenly there were Crows—Ravens?—flying toward them. When Virgil looked up, Jana noticed a large brown bird now circling overhead.

Then he looked at her and said, “If any terra indigene spots trouble, we’ll know. But you should talk to Tolya Sanguinati and Jesse Walker about a phone you can carry with you since you can’t howl loud enough to be heard. Then humans who need help can call you.”

Because you won’t help them.

She was getting the message loud and clear. Had the town leaders known about the animosity Wolfgard felt toward humans, or didn’t they care? Was she not just fighting to earn some respect for herself as a police officer but also fighting to maintain some kind of balance between humans and Others?

She had wanted this job. Still wanted this job. But she was starting to appreciate how daunting being a cop in this town was going to be when she had the double strike against her of being female and human.

“You should go to the livery stable and find your horse now,” Virgil said. “Then you will eat the midday meal humans need to avoid becoming weak. Then you will come back to the office and I will walk with you around the square so that many humans will see that you are a deputy. Then you can return and do office things until it is time for you to go home.”

“And when, exactly, is that?” Jana asked.

A growly silence. “Ask Tolya. He will explain about human work hours.”

Virgil and Kane looked at her.

“I guess I’ll go find a horse.” Jana felt them watching her all the way up the street.

It wasn’t easy admitting to the two Simple Life men who were at the stable that she’d never actually ridden a horse since the pony rides of her childhood, despite having been hired to be a mounted deputy. And since sitting on a pony’s back and being led around a ring wasn’t the same as knowing how to ride …

They admitted that they’d arrived in town a few days ago and weren’t familiar enough with the available horses to know which one might suit her the best, but they recognized a few that would not suit a beginner.

After some discussion, the men presented her with a bay gelding that they deemed was docile enough for her. They saddled the bay, led her to the empty corral, and gave her a basic riding lesson. For an hour she circled the corral with one of the men keeping watch and offering advice. She and the bay walked in one direction, then the other. They circled the corral a couple of times at a trot, and Jana was sure her pelvis would never be the same. But when the bay lifted into a canter, she felt invincible and free and able to take on the world—including a boss with big teeth.

Riding the bay gelding was the high point of her first day of work. Being walked around the town square like she was Virgil’s pet was demeaning. The Crowgard and Ravengard rushed out of each shop as they passed by, wanting to know who she was and then staring at her with those bright dark eyes. Same with the Eagles and Hawks. But when they encountered the big golden cat that Virgil introduced as Saul Panthergard, she was glad the Wolf was with her—until they continued the walk and he made snarky comments about her not yipping at Saul for sniffing her.

Something that size with those teeth and claws? He could sniff anything he darn well wanted to sniff!

After talking to Tolya Sanguinati about mobile phones and the terra indigene’s idea of a workday and workweek, she finally headed home to help Barb with whatever furniture and supplies had arrived before they hurried back to the hotel for dinner. If the bed she’d selected arrived, she could move out of the hotel tomorrow.

Barb had a bright smile when Jana walked into the house. The smile quickly faded.

“How was your first day on the job?” Barb asked.

“I didn’t shoot my boss,” Jana growled. “I thought about it, but I didn’t do it.”

Barb nodded. “Virgil can be difficult.” Then she brightened again. “Did you find a horse?”

Jana grinned. “I did.”

“If you’ve got a horse, you can put up with a lot of things.” Barb paused. “Your bed didn’t arrive, but the bookcases did.”

Now Jana laughed. “Well, there are priorities.”

“Let’s skip the sorting and unpacking tonight and go eat dinner. I’m starving, and we’ve both worked hard enough today.”

“You know something, Barb Debany? I like the way you think.”

CHAPTER 17

Thaisday, Messis 16

Virgil shook out his fur before trotting over to the town square to take a sniff around the spring. He hadn’t seen any of the bad dogs for a couple of days, but he’d caught the scent of dogs around some of the inhabited houses where dogs weren’t living with humans. He and Kane had followed some of the scents to a house on the edge of the new town boundaries—a house that had a small swinging door for animals. How foolish was that? If a dog or cat could get through the door, so could a lot of other animals. And they had. The Wolves were too big to squeeze through the door, but one of the Coyotegard easily fit and had ventured far enough into the house to confirm that quite a few animals besides dogs had entered. Besides scat, there were torn bags of dry animal food and spoiling human food that had been in the cupboards, as well as the bones of a couple of partially eaten critters.

Tomorrow Tobias Walker would help the ranch humans select some of the still-tame dogs to go live with them on the ranches. If the dogs couldn’t herd properly, they would be left at the house to guard the human females and bark a warning if strangers—two-legged or four—approached. Tobias Walker had also promised to take some of the cats that had potential to live in the barns and eat the mice.

Not many of the new humans in Bennett wanted pets, despite Barbara Ellen’s renewed efforts to find homes for the dogs and cats and birds.

He would deal with the pets—and her—when he had to. Right now, he had to keep the bad dogs out of his territory.

Virgil lapped some water from the spring, then headed for the livery stable. Deputy Jana’s first job each day was to ride the horse for an hour so that she would learn how to do the mounted deputy tasks. He didn’t understand why she didn’t already know these things, but everyone assured him that having horse and rider get acquainted in the corral was smart.

He listened to the words but also paid attention to the way the humans held their bodies and the way their smell changed while they were explaining, and he was sure they were doing something sneaky. Then again, if riding the horse kept Deputy Jana from yapping at him for the rest of the day, he’d pretend he didn’t know the humans were being sneaky until he figured out why they were being sneaky. And then he would decide who would feel his teeth.

The horse in the corral with Jana caught his scent and charged around the corral with the female wobbling in the saddle and hanging on to whatever she could grab.

That was not the correct way to ride the horse. Even he knew that.

Losing interest in the saddled horse, and wondering about the intelligence of the humans standing around the corral since they couldn’t figure out that this particular horse wasn’t smart enough to tell the difference between predators that would eat it and predators that would not, Virgil continued on to the other corral.

Most of the horses in that corral also started running and fussing, but the horse that was not meat pricked its ears after catching his scent, then walked over to the rails to greet him.

Virgil stood on his hind legs and extended his neck over the top rail. Horse and Wolf sniffed each other, confirming recognition.

<Have you seen the bad dogs?> Virgil didn’t expect an answer. The horse wasn’t any form of terra indigene and couldn’t reply. Still, he felt he should acknowledge the difference between the horse that was not meat and the rest of the animals in the corral.

Dropping to all four legs, he gave the ground around the corral a thorough sniff, then expanded his search area when he caught a scent. Two of the dogs had come close, but the scent of humans must have scared them off.

Virgil sniffed at a tuft of fur that had a trace of skin and blood.

Or maybe the dogs had run away because the Owlgard had been hunting around the stable and had flown in on those silent wings and used talons to encourage the dogs to leave the horses alone.

He marked a few of the posts as another way to warn off the dogs, then did a quick turn around the town square. One of the two small buses now in operation disgorged workers in front of the hotel so that they could eat some food before starting their work.

Every resident was allowed to have a car, but gasoline was another matter. Eventually the humans would start grumbling about restrictions and rules and all the things they couldn’t do or have, and then flesh would be torn and blood would flow.

He looked forward to that day. Until then, he’d do his job as the dominant enforcer in Bennett.

“Becky!”

Virgil moved toward the sound of Hannah Gott’s voice, then veered when he spotted the skippy girl heading for the spring bubbling into the human-made pool that held some of the water before flowing down a channel that had been made to look like a creek ending at the small pond near the southern end of the square. The skippy girl liked playing in the water, but Hannah Gott didn’t want the girl to be wet during the working time.

Easy enough to distract her. All it usually took was for him or Kane to show up in Wolf form. Then she was more interested in giving them hugs and pats than getting wet or digging in the dirt. Not that he found anything wrong with doing either of those things, but humans had rules about when the skippy girl could play.

Getting between her and the water, Virgil play-growled and licked and nudged her until she gave him a choking hug and followed him back to where Hannah Gott waited with the other adult female in her pack and the male pup.

“I appreciate you being so kind to Becky,” Hannah Gott said when he and the girl reached the sidewalk opposite the square. “Come along now, Becky. It’s time for breakfast.”

“Bye-bye, Virgil,” the skippy girl said, moving the fingers of one hand as Hannah Gott took the other hand and led her away.

As he trotted back to the sheriff’s office to wash up and put on human clothes, Virgil thought it was interesting that the Gott pack had arrived in Bennett a week ago, but only the girl with the skippy brain could tell the difference between him and Kane when they were in Wolf form.