“I didn’t give it to them,” she grumbled. She just wanted to keep her fingers more than she wanted to keep the treat. Of course, watching them try to tongue the peanut butter stuck to the roofs of their mouths was pretty funny.

Jackson sighed and walked away, carrying her drawing.

She gathered up her supplies, checking the area to make sure she had all her pencils. She would sit on the porch and read for a while, or help Grace with chores. Anything that would keep her occupied so that she wouldn’t see the moment when the sky changed from a deep, clear blue to the storm clouds that were coming.

•••

After putting Hope’s drawing in a cardboard mailing tube, Jackson jogged down the road to the communications cabin. A century ago the terra indigene had little knowledge or use for the wires and poles humans used for communication. They just tended their part of the land and were aware of neighboring groups of earth natives. That was good and necessary, especially for young Wolves who needed to leave their home packs in order to find mates. And some of the more adventurous Wolves had traveled a long way simply to learn about other pieces of Thaisia and the terra indigene who lived there. Somewhere along the way, some of them began to understand what the wires and poles meant to the clever monkeys, who had encroached on a little more land every year until the Elders lashed out and refused to give up any more of the wild country to the two-legged predators.

The wires and poles made it possible for humans to talk to one another over long distances. That had been fine, even beneficial for the Others as well as humans, when the talking had been about moving food from one place to another, or selling blankets where they would be needed. But the humans had used the wires and poles to plan attacks on the terra indigene, and, right now, he was the only one who knew what the Elders intended to do because of it.

“Jackson?”

He turned away from the communications cabin and waited for the Intuit men to reach him.

“Are the prophet pups all right?” he asked.