Simon looked at Henry. “The Hope pup couldn’t have seen any of them.”

“Who?” Blair asked. “Are you saying there are giant Wolves in the Midwest or Northwest?” He looked at Simon, then at Henry. “Not Wolves.”

“No,” Henry said. “Not Wolves. The primal terra indigene in their true form. The Elders are very large—even when they take a form close enough to what shifters like us have taken.”

“Even then, none of us are actually seen when we’re in our true form.” Simon looked at Henry, who was large in human form and massive as a Grizzly. But when Henry walked in his true form as spirit bear, he was even bigger.

Compared to the Elders, even Henry as spirit bear was small.

“Could they do that?” Tess asked, pointing at Hope’s drawing.

Simon hesitated, then nodded. “Some of them are big enough, and strong enough, to drag a full-grown bison and haul it onto a pile of carcasses. But they don’t hunt that way.” But like the rest of the terra indigene, the Elders studied other predators—and learned from them.

“Simon, you have to show this to Meg,” Vlad said.

The computer pinged, the signal that the second picture from Jackson had finished downloading. Simon put two more pieces of glossy paper into the printer and hit the Print key. “I’ll talk to Meg, but not just...” He looked at the printer. Stared at the picture printing on the paper.

“Simon?” When he said nothing, Vlad pulled the sheet from the printer the moment the first copy was done. “What is this?”

An old woman wearing a straw hat, her bare arms browned by the sun so the thin scars showed white. She sat behind a little table, pointing to the cards that were spread out over the top. Her other hand held two cards. One was the image of a young Wolf—Simon recognized it as a picture of himself when he was a juvenile. The other card was a picture of Meg. But not Meg as he knew her. Younger. Lost. Eyes that held little hope. And yet just a touch of defiance in those eyes.

“Simon?” The sharpness in Vlad’s voice made Simon focus on the other terra indigene in the room.

“Part of a memory,” he replied. “And part something else.” The old woman hadn’t known about Meg specifically, so why would the Hope pup draw the picture like that? “Which females are working in the Courtyard today?”

“Merri Lee and Ruthie are downstairs, pulling stock to send to Jesse Walker in Prairie Gold,” Vlad said.

Simon reached for the picture Vlad held. “I want to show them this picture. I’d like you to e-mail it to Jesse Walker and Steve Ferryman. Maybe the Intuits will have a feeling for what it means.”

“Just this picture or both of them?”

“Would the Intuits on Great Island care about bison?” Henry asked.

Vlad shrugged.