Barb glanced over her shoulder. “Any other girls at the boardinghouse?”

“Not another human girl like you. There aren’t many females of any species here yet.”

She gulped again. Then she smiled. “Part of the adventure, right? And something I can tell my family. My brother is a police officer in Lakeside. He handed me a package of labels, already addressed to him and our folks, as well as a variety of stamps, and said, ‘Write once a week or else.’ I don’t think the ‘or else’ is much of a threat, do you, not when I’m all the way out west?”

Tolya smiled. “I believe I met your brother when I visited Lakeside. I know I met a Lieutenant Montgomery. Doesn’t your brother know him?”

“Oh, forelock! The long arm of the law is really long, isn’t it?”

He laughed because she sounded so annoyed and because her version of a swearword amused him. He hoped this human female stayed around for a while.

He led his new residents to the pickup truck, where Tobias Walker waited to take them to their designated living quarters. He watched them drive away, Barb and one of the males in the cab with Tobias while the other three males rode in the bed with the baggage.

He looked at the station, considering his duties. Then he headed toward the center of the town. Other Sanguinati, as well as a couple of Wolves and Eagles, would deal with the train’s personnel and any deliveries. He wanted to see how Jesse Walker and her gaggle of volunteers were doing with the inventories of several of Bennett’s stores, as well as collecting all the perishables from all the houses. They needed to know what they already had in order to figure out what the town’s new residents would need. Until they hired shopkeepers for the stores that would reopen, Jesse was coming up from Prairie Gold two days a week, leaving her own general store in the paws of the inquisitive Rachel Wolfgard.

As he reached the building that would become Bennett’s general store and carry everything except groceries, he saw an unfamiliar truck driving in from the north. After it parked in a space near him, a Wolf and a human male got out.

“Howdy,” the man said, brushing the brim of his hat. He looked haggard, but his voice was firm—and familiar.

“I remember you,” Tolya said. “You and your men helped Joe Wolfgard load the bison into a livestock car.”

“We did, yes. I was sorry to hear...” He shook his head. “That was a bad day. I’m Stewart Dixon.”

“Tolya Sanguinati.”

“Tolya is the leader of this town now,” the Wolf said, sniffing the air and scanning the town square for what wouldn’t be seen.