Of course, the Grizzly wasn’t the largest predator in the area who held that opinion. Despite the handful of human-controlled ranches in the area and the human-controlled town of Bennett, which was a way station for trains bringing supplies, this was the wild country, and shifters like Joe were the liaisons between anything human and the primal Elders whose size and appetite helped maintain the number of animals grazing on the grasslands. They were also the guardians of the water that flowed through the hills and provided a constant source for Prairie Gold’s residents and crops.
Sure, the human ranchers had some water on their land, but the water that supplied Prairie Gold flowed with a surety that the ranchers envied. And as the HFL movement became more strident about what humans were entitled to claim, the ranchers weren’t bothering to hide that envy anymore—an observation Jesse had shared yesterday when Joe went to the general store.
Blowing out a breath, Joe looked at the Wolves who were still sniffing around the bison carcasses nearest the road. <Anything?>
<Most of the scents are old and new, and match the humans milling around on the other side of the road,> they said. <Three scents we don’t recognize. Maybe from town, maybe strangers.>
Could three hunters have done so much killing? Why hadn’t more bison run after the first couple of shots?
Humans aren’t allowed to hunt on our land without permission, so the bison didn’t recognize them as a predator and wouldn’t have been alarmed by a two-legged animal holding a stick—at least not until some of the bison started dying.
Joe looked at the salt lick that the neighboring rancher had left for the bison—supposedly a friendly gesture. Could someone have put that drug, feel-good, on the salt lick to make the animals passive? He’d been told that the drugs gone over wolf and feel-good hadn’t caused any trouble in this part of the Midwest Region, but that didn’t mean the drugs couldn’t find their way here now. Just because the Controller, the man who had made the drugs, was dead didn’t mean the supply had dried up completely. But how many humans beyond select police officers knew the drugs had been made from the blood of the cassandra sangue? Some of those girls were still being cared for by humans. Some were still living in the compounds, more than willing to trade a cut on their skin for having someone else take care of them. So the danger the two drugs posed wasn’t gone, just covered with a bit of dirt.
<You smell anything wrong with the meat?> Joe asked. <Sickness? Or those bad drugs I told you about?>
Wolves and Coyotes all paused, then began sniffing again. <Smells like good meat.>
A Wolf tore into a smaller bison. After eating a couple of mouthfuls, he waited. They all waited.
<Just meat,> the Wolf reported. <I don’t feel weak or angry; just hungry.>
“How many of these can your meat freezers hold?” Joe asked Tobias, waving a hand at the carcasses.
“A few, but not enough,” Tobias said. “Floyd Tanner would know, since he’s the town’s butcher and has the big freezer. The ranch house is supposed to hold supplies for a month for everyone living there, but I don’t know if we’ve picked up this month’s supply of meat yet.”
“We have a springhouse where we cache some meat. That might hold one of the smaller bison if we cut up the carcass. And Floyd Tanner can cut up another carcass and distribute the meat to all the families in the town.” And maybe he could send some of the meat to Simon, trade it for things Simon could acquire more easily in Lakeside than he could here.
Tobias looked grim. “This was a third of the Prairie Gold bison herd. Even after we take what meat we can, most of it is going to rot where the animals fell.”
Joe caught a wild, dangerous scent in the air. So did the rest of the Wolves and Coyotes.
There won’t be as much meat left to rot as you think. The Elders are gathering for a feast. Joe looked at Wyatt. Like the rest of the shifters, the Grizzly was looking at the land beyond the dead bison.
“Let’s make use of what we can and get away from the kills,” Wyatt said in a quiet rumble.
Joe nodded. There were plenty of Ravens, Hawks, and Eagles circling overhead, waiting to descend for their share of the feast. They would keep an eye on what the humans were doing across the road.
“Let’s take the half-grown bison that were killed,” he said. “Easier for us to haul since we’re trying to use as much meat as we can.” Then he looked at Tobias. “Tell Truman to hitch up the horses.”
Tobias glanced over his shoulder, then turned away from the road and said softly, “The man standing a little apart from the others? That’s Daniel Black. He owns that ranch. If he offers you any meat from the cattle, don’t take it.”
Joe cocked his head. “You have a feeling?” Intuits reacted to things around them—weather, animals, humans—and when one of them was uneasy about something, it was best to pay attention.
“Not about the meat, but about us taking some.”
Tobias walked away at the same time Daniel Black crossed the road.
“Bad business,” Black said. “You have any thoughts about who did this?”
“Humans with guns,” Joe replied, although it should have been obvious to everyone that nothing with teeth and claws had killed the bison—or would want to waste so much food.
A change in the human’s scent. A lack of something that had been there a moment before. Fear. A lack of fear now. Which meant the rancher was glad the terra indigene didn’t know who had shot the bison.
“Look, we’ve both got the same problem—too much meat that’s going to rot. There’s no profit in that.” Black removed his hat, scratched his head, then resettled the hat. “You want any of those cattle?”
Something wrong with the man’s eyes. The words sounded friendly enough, but the eyes were hard and watchful. They reminded Joe of a rattlesnake—except a rattler had the courtesy of warning you of its intentions before it tried to bite you.
“Thank you for the offer, but we have plenty of meat.” He gestured to the bison. “I’ve read in your newspaper that some human places don’t have enough food. Maybe you could send the meat to them?”
The hardness sharpened in Black’s eyes. “They don’t have grains or flour. They need bread, not meat.”
“When you’re hungry, food is food.” Apparently that wasn’t as true for humans as it was for the Others, since his reply made Black angry, even if the man tried to hide the desire to bite.
“Suit yourself.” Black walked back to his men. After a few snarled words, he got into one of the trucks. So did the rest of the men.
They drove away, leaving the cattle where they had fallen.
Tobias returned. “We found a few calves that had been killed.”
“Take them; it’s tasty meat,” Joe replied, watching the men drive away.
“Mr. Wolfgard?”
Joe turned to the foreman, who suddenly smelled odd. “You can call me Joe.”
Tobias nodded. “Why is Wyatt . . . ?” He pointed discreetly.
Joe followed the finger to where the Grizzly, who had shifted his hands to accommodate the useful claws, was moving among the carcasses, tearing open the bellies of a few bison. “That’s the second reason why other animals wait for their share of a bison kill. Wolves and Grizzlies can open up the body and get to the meat. Makes it easier for everyone else to grab a bit for themselves and their young.”
They filled the hauler’s bed with as much as the vehicle could carry, then sent the vehicle back to Prairie Gold, where it would be unloaded in order to return as quickly as possible.
The Wolves and Coyotes wandered among the downed bison, searching for the younger meat. Some carcasses were roped for the horses to haul to the road. The smallest meat was hauled by men pulling together—or Wyatt pulling alone.
Then, while they waited for the hauler to return and the men were watering the horses, Truman Skye, one of the ranch hands, blanched and whispered, “Gods above and below, what is that?”
A half-grown bison seemed to float above the grass, its back hooves brushing the ground as it moved away from them. The air shimmered like heat rising, but the shimmer also had the vague shape of something very large.
“You didn’t see that,” Joe said, his voice dangerously quiet.
Tobias swallowed hard. “What could lift several hundred pounds like it was nothing more than a deer fawn?”