“If we get the wolves far enough away from Redstone, they won’t come back.”

“How do you know that?” asked Fatias Boyage. “These wolves shouldn’t be anywhere near Redstone to begin with, but here they are, not just on the outskirts of town, but right in town. So how can you guarantee us that there won’t be any more blood spilled?”

Garrett wondered how he could know for sure what was in the mind of the werewolf behind his home and the other wolves in its pack. They were wild animals after all, and in the end, wild animals did whatever they wanted. But the werewolf leading this pack wasn’t just a wild animal anymore, it was part human and had some of a human’s ability to reason. It had brought the injured wolf to his home asking for help. It had sat silently behind his house, trusting the humans inside it to not harm the wolf. It had waited patiently for the wolf to heal. And the wave that Phyllis had called to tell him about had convinced Garrett that once the wolf had healed, they wouldn’t be seeing the werewolf or its pack again.

He would have to tell these bloodthirsty, gun-toting barbarians just a bit of the truth and hope it would be enough.

“I just know,” he said, at last.

Everyone began shouting at once.

“What?”

“You just know?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Garrett put up his hands. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

“You’re crazy!” Ernie said. “Wolves are dangerous killers. They travel in packs. I shot one, and that means there are more out there. You can take this one wolf to the ends of the earth, but that’s no guarantee that the others will follow it.”

“But they will,” Garrett said. “That pack have learned that Redstone is a dangerous place and they aren’t going to come around here if they don’t have to…” But Garrett’s voice was slowly drowned out by the shouts and cries of the other men in the room. They weren’t interested in hearing about rehabilitation and conservation. They all wanted blood.

At last the sergeant stood up and called everyone to order. “That’s enough!” he shouted, slamming a hand hard onto the table.

Moments later, everyone was silent.

“Now,” the sergeant said, “I know that most of you have valid gun licenses and hunting permits, so I can’t tell you to put your guns away and go about your business.”

“Hell, yeah.”

“That’s right.”