The pup looked scared. Did she think he would drive her out of the pack for this? He could. Maybe he should. But connections weren’t always about place, and several of Hope’s past drawings made it clear that there was a link between Sweetwater and Lakeside.

He and Simon, friends since they were juveniles, were the link.

And looking at the picture of dead bison, he thought of another Wolf linked to him and Simon through friendship.

Balling up the part of the sheet that had blood on it, Jackson walked out of the bedroom and put the sheet into a metal bucket half-full of fresh water. Then he got dressed and handed Grace the summer dress she’d been wearing yesterday before they’d shifted to Wolf form and gone to sleep.

Yes, they needed more help than the human bodywalker if they were going to keep the pup alive.

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 5

Windsday, Juin 6

Joe Wolfgard narrowed his eyes against the sun and road dust. He was the newly chosen leader of the terra indigene settlement located at the southern end of the Elder Hills and an unknown commodity for the Intuits living in Prairie Gold, the human town connected to the settlement. So he tried not to growl at the Intuit who was driving the pickup. It wasn’t Tobias’s fault that some humans had gone rabid and killed many bison.

“You’ll need to post guards at the town,” Joe said. “Maybe put up a barricade across the road to stop strangers before they get too close to your mates and pups.” And he would talk to the Hawks, Eagles, and Ravens about keeping watch and reporting any human or vehicle heading for the town.

Tobias Walker, the foreman of Prairie Gold’s ranch, tightened his hands on the steering wheel. “You think we’re in danger?”

“Don’t you?”

Tobias didn’t answer.

“Just because the humans who did this started with four-legged animals doesn’t mean they won’t go after targets that look like themselves.”

“You’d have to ask my mother about that,” Tobias said. “She’s the one among us who’s most sensitive to other people.”