“It’s not just the man who gets branded,” Louis said quietly. “And it’s not just people who interact with the Others on a daily basis. My wife and a neighbor—a woman she’s been friends with for years—went shopping the other day. Carpooled to save gas. They parked in the general area of the shops. Two butcher shops, two blocks apart. One was showing an HFL sign in the window; the other shop doesn’t support the movement. My wife’s friend went to the shop with the HFL sign—a place where you have to show your HFL membership in order to be served. My wife went to the other shop because we’ve agreed that we aren’t going to be a part of the HFL in any way.”

“What happened?” Monty asked.

“The friend didn’t say anything, but the car was gone when my wife finished her shopping and returned to where they’d parked. The woman, friend and neighbor, just left without her and hasn’t spoken to her since. Gods, they used to watch each other’s kids, used to have a night out once in a while—dinner and a movie that the husbands and kids didn’t want to see. And now...”

“The lines are being drawn.”

“Yes. I just hope there are enough of us standing on this side when the time comes to hold that line.”

Monty looked out the window and didn’t reply.

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3

Windsday, Juin 6

Just before daybreak, they drove south on the dirt road that led to Prairie Gold, silent men filling the cabs and beds of three pickup trucks. They knew this road well, and driving it today filled them with fear and elation. Finally they, and dozens of men like them from towns throughout the Midwest and Northwest, would strike the first blow that would free humans from the furred and fanged tyrants that were keeping them away from everything that this land had to offer.

When they reached the crossroads, they reduced speed, moving slowly toward the herds that had settled down on both sides of the road. On one side were thirty head of cattle from a human-controlled ranch. On the other side were three hundred bison that grazed on land that belonged to the terra indigene. The bison had been drawn to a salt lick the ranch hands had put out a couple of days ago. The cattle had been cut from the main herd and brought to this part of the ranch’s fenced range—the necessary sacrifice in this dangerous, secret warfare.

The men had put out the salt openly, a neighborly gesture, they’d told the terra indigene Wolves who had trotted up to see what they were doing on land that wasn’t leased to humans.

Now those same men climbed out of the trucks and checked their rifles. Once things got started there wouldn’t be time or room for mistakes.