More Wolves slowed down. The hunters among them were more reluctant to let the humans continue killing the meat the pack would need, but the enforcers, who had the job of protecting the pack, turned away from the humans standing in the beds of the pickup trucks and headed toward Joe.

Then they stopped, took a step back. Like them, Joe felt the thunder that meant only one thing: bison stampede.

Gunshots and shouts behind him. Behind the bison. Humans were driving the bison toward the pickup trucks, and the Wolves were caught in between.

<Run!> Joe shouted. The Wolves turned and ran toward the trucks and the bison that were already dead. Big bodies. Pressed against the belly, a Wolf might escape being shot—might escape being trampled. They had no chance in the open.

They ran toward the trucks and the men. Had to reach the dead bison before...

The men stopped shooting. Moving swiftly, a man lowered the tailgate of one of the pickup trucks while another man pulled a tarp off something that looked like a heavy rifle mounted on three legs. What...?

The hunters, who were at the head of the pack, were the first to fall as the heavy rifle spit bullets that thudded into bodies too fast for the Wolves to change direction. And behind them, the bison thundered closer and closer, driven by other humans.

Now some of the men raised their rifles toward the sky, aiming for the Ravens and Hawks.

<Get away!> Joe yelled at the Ravens and Hawks. <Warn—> He felt the thud, thud, thud. His front legs slipped and he tumbled. Had to get away from the stampeding bison. Had to...

He got his hind legs under him and tried to leap, gain some distance between him and those hooves.

More thud, thud, thud that hit a hind leg and his side.

He tumbled again, one of his hind legs now useless. Still struggling to move, he managed to crawl until he was partially hidden by one of the dead bison.

So hard to breathe. So hard to...

He didn’t really feel the hooves as bison trampled his back legs. He barely heard the triumphant shouts of the humans or the gunfire that turned the bison away from the trucks.

He didn’t notice the silence.

How had Meg, so far away in Lakeside, known this was a trap? What would she have seen?

Could barely hear. Could barely breathe.

“This one’s still alive.”

“Not for long. Throw the carcass in with the rest.”

Being dragged by his forelegs. Then lifted and tossed.

What had Meg seen? How had she known one Wolf from another?

She had seen me in Lakeside. She would remember my face.

Couldn’t shift all the way to human. He didn’t have the strength for that. But if Simon and Jackson saw him somehow, if Meg saw him now, they would know, would be... warned, could... escape other traps.