Hesitation. “All right,” Jackson replied. Then his voice turned urgent. “We need to know what to do about the cutting.”

No one interrupted while Meg explained about cutting just deep enough to leave a scar but not so deep to cause serious injury; about setting the back of the razor’s blade against an old scar, then turning the hand so the razor was in the correct place to cut new skin. Simon nodded when Meg emphasized the need to have someone there before Hope made the cut, that someone needed to be there to listen—and to help if something went wrong.

“Do you have a piece of paper?” Meg asked. “I’ll give you the phone number of the Liaison’s Office. You can call me if you have other questions.”

“It’s long-distance, Meg,” Simon said. “The telephone companies charge a lot of money for long-distance. Besides, you’ll have the e-mail.”

“Hope? If it’s urgent, you call me. Otherwise, you can use e-mail.” Meg brightened. “Or we can exchange letters. Where can I send a letter?”

Grace joined the conversation, giving Meg the Sweetwater mailing designation for the terra indigene’s settlement.

“Are you feeling better?” Meg asked.

Simon wasn’t sure who was supposed to answer the question, but Hope said,“Yes.”

“Simon?” Jackson said. “We still need to talk.”

Simon looked at Meg. “Shoo.”

She blinked at him.

“Shoo,” he said again.

He was pretty sure Meg wasn’t trying to run the chair’s wheels over his foot as she pushed away from the desk.

He waited until he heard her heading downstairs. Then he picked up the receiver and disengaged the speaker. “What else?”

“Have you heard from Joe?”

“I know he was resettling. All the Wolves who helped destroy the Controller and that compound decided to resettle, and a new pack formed to watch the humans in the town. Joe said he would let me know where to find him as soon as he could.” Simon paused. “Why?”

“Dead bison. The Hawks, Eagles, and Ravens are checking the Sweetwater territory this morning. We do have a herd of bison that graze around here, but our prophet pup draws pictures that are connected to us but not always about us. I don’t think we’re going to find human-killed bison around here.”

“If there is that much meat, it might not have been humans that killed the bison.”

“Maybe.”

“I think Joe’s still in the northern half of the Midwest,” Simon said after a moment. “He might have heard something about dead bison.”

“Hope painted Wolf prints on all the bison. She painted them in her blood. And then she screamed.”

Simon shivered. What had the pup seen beyond her drawing? Not Wolves, but maybe that was as close as she could get to what she had seen in some way?