“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 on 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.”

“Why can’t we force them? We’re the enforcers. It’s our job to discipline the pack members.”

“You can’t stop someone from doing something stupid if they aren’t also breaking the law.”

“Huh.”

That grunt of disagreement made her suspect that Virgil had already supplied some citizens with a few sharp reasons to follow his rules.

Of course, when it came to following her rules … “Why did you lock Cowboy Bob in the Me Time cell?”

“He gave the puppy an unauthorized treat.”

He said that with a straight face, so she looked him in the eyes and said, “Huh.”

* * *

* * *

Mom, some cattle were shot last night. The men responsible are dead, but there could be others around. Be careful.

Jesse ignored her aching left wrist as she watched the two strangers who had come into her shop a few minutes after the phone call from Tobias. She’d had time to empty the cash drawer of half the money, take Cory-Cutie into the back room, and tell Rachel to stay with the puppy no matter what.

“I counted the money in the drawer,” Rachel said as Jesse stuffed the bills into a drawer in her desk. “Twice.” She whined softly. “I did it wrong? Is that why I have to stay back here?”

“No, honey, you did it just fine, but you need to do what I say today. Exactly what I say.”

Rachel looked at Jesse’s wrist. “You have feelings? About me and Cutie?”

So easy for some people to think of something as expendable because it wore fur. “Yes. I think it will be better right now if you stay back here and stay quiet. And don’t answer the phone. All right?”

“But if I’m back here, who will help you protect our territory?”

It was tempting to grab the shotgun she had tucked under the counter on a shelf her grandfather had built for that purpose decades ago, but she wasn’t sensing that kind of threat from the two men. In fact, she wasn’t sensing any threat from them. They’d been polite from the moment they’d walked into her store, had been impressed by the amount of goods she still had on her shelves, and had taken two of the boxes she had indicated were available for people to use to pack up their shopping.

“Lotta work for one person, running a place like this,” one of them said as he placed boxes of ammunition on the counter. Two boxes were the caliber that fit the revolvers both men wore. The other box of ammunition held the same rounds she used for her own rifle.