On the way over, the door opened, and Otto Smith came in. He still wore his greasy coveralls. “Vic. We have trouble. Call Hank and get him over here.”

Hank Billings worked for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and that had Echo putting down the tray and following Otto outside, her heart thumping.

Because it wasn’t only the spring thaw and the day of the Iditarod, but big-game hunters were arriving in swarms to hunt the hungry grizzlies and black bears who would soon start emerging from hibernation.

Please, Dad, don’t start a fight—

She pushed her way out of the saloon, into the gravel parking lot. A small crowd had gathered around an open bed pickup truck that contained—her breath sucked in at the sight—the carcass of a full-grown grizzly. The odor of death soured the air, the bear’s fur matted and grimy. It had been field dressed—its skull and claws removed from the rest of the meat. So much power destroyed. Skinned, declawed, beheaded, and harvested.

Echo might be ill.

A hunter stood nearby, fielding questions.

A tourist, evidenced by his fancy hunting gear—bright orange shell over a green printed down vest, waterproof pants, and tall boot sheaths. He posed as a friend took shots of him with the kill.

Echo pushed through the crowd to the animal. She didn’t see a locking tag, but as she drew near, she spotted a tracking tag on its ear, and, oh no, a tuft of white between its ears.

And worse, it was a female.

She blew out a breath. She needed to get her dad out of here before he saw this.

“You know it’s illegal to kill a sow, right?”

Too late.

The hunter turned to the voice, and Echo groaned as her father joined the crowd.

He’d been drinking. She knew him well enough to recognize the sharp, unforgiving tone. Charlie Yazzie was a gentle man, a kind man, a wise man.

A man who lived on his daily dose of pain meds. And when that mixed with some of Otto’s moonshine, or even a lonely beer—

She needed to get him home, pronto.

The fading light only added to his look of menace, highlighting the thick scar that ran up one side of his face, into his wool cap, and through his scalp. He wore a dark, gray-streaked beard—had even before the mauling, although now it served to cover up the scars on his face—and a fraying green military jacket and a pair of work boots. He stood with his hands in his pockets, without even a hint of weakness in his bearing.

Her dad might be even more Alaskan than Vic in his toughness, his ability to buck up, survive, and most of all . . . defend what he loved.

He stepped right up to the hunter. “Where are the cubs?”

“She didn’t have any cubs with her,” Trophy Hunter said.