“I know, I know, but he’s the first one of them to initiate contact with us since some of our ancestors pitched a few tents here and bargained for some land. He came into the library last week.”
“Did he take out any books?”
“No, he shied away as soon as he saw me, but he came in.”
Jesse looked at her list. “I’ve put in calls to the dairy farm, the produce farm, and the ranch. A couple of women from the farms are on their way to help, and Tom and Ellen Garcia are heading in from the ranch. For now, that’s all we can do.”
She watched the younger woman go to the door and look out. Like Tobias, Shelley was thirty years old and a child of Prairie Gold, having lived in this small community all her life except for the years she’d gone to school for her degree to become a librarian. The outside world wasn’t an easy place for Intuits, and while Shelley never talked about her years away, Jesse had the feeling that the woman’s heart had been betrayed and broken. Whatever had happened, Shelley liked men just fine as long as they wanted to be friends, but she wouldn’t consider being more.
A shame, really, because, in Jesse’s experience, a lot of enjoyment could be had with the right man.
Shelley hurried back to the counter. “Tobias is driving up, and Joe Wolfgard is with him.”
“Don’t crowd him.” Jesse opened the small glass cooler behind her and pulled out the pitcher of lemonade she’d made that morning. She took out four plastic tumblers from her personal cupboard, put them on the counter, and poured the lemonade just as the door opened and Tobias walked in with the new leader of the terra indigene who kept watch over Prairie Gold and the handful of human-owned ranches whose fences bordered the rest of the land, which was claimed by the Others.
“Figured you could use something to drink,” Jesse said, giving the males a smile. “You’ve been out there awhile.” She handed glasses to Tobias and Joe, then to Shelley, before she picked up the last one.
“My mother makes great lemonade,” Tobias said, taking a couple of long swallows.
Joe sniffed the liquid in the glass before taking a cautious sip. Looking surprised, he took another sip. “This is lemonade?”
Jesse nodded, watching the Wolf.
“I had something called lemonade once. It tasted like this but not like this.” Joe sipped again. “This lemonade is better.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Yes.” Joe drained his glass and carefully set it on the counter.
“Would you like more?” Jesse asked.
“No. Thank you.”
Doesn’t trust us. Not sure how to deal with us. But knowledgeable about human ways, at least to some degree.
“I need to use a telephone,” Joe said, eyeing the phone that sat on the end of the counter near the cash register. “To call the Lakeside Courtyard. In the Northeast.”
“All right.” Jesse tried not to wince at the cost of a long-distance call. “Could we put the phone on speaker so we can all hear?”
Joe met her eyes, and she could feel the weight of the Wolf’s stare as he considered her request. She wasn’t being nosy—not too much, anyway. She just had a feeling that this conversation would change a lot of things in Prairie Gold, for good or ill, and she wanted to know what was said.
“All right,” Joe said. “It is your phone, so that is fair.”
Tobias gave her a “Mother” warning look, which she ignored as she turned the phone to make it easier for Joe to dial.
“It’s still pretty early in the Northeast,” Tobias said.
Jesse looked at the little clock on the wall behind her counter. “It’s within the start of business hours.”
Joe just shrugged and carefully pushed the numbers on the phone.
It rang. And rang. And . . .
“Howling Good Reads.”
A voice with a slight accent. A voice that, while sounding polite and businesslike, made Jesse shiver—and made fur sprout on the back of Joe Wolfgard’s hands.
“Vladimir?” Joe said. “This is Joe Wolfgard.”
“Joe.” The voice warmed enough that Joe leaned toward the phone.
“I need to speak to Simon.”
“Simon and Meg are on another call with Jackson. There was an . . . incident . . . with Hope this morning.”
“Jackson’s prophet pup?”
Jesse made an effort not to react. Prophet pup. Was Joe talking about one of the cassandra sangue that she’d read about in the newspaper? Girls who could speak prophecy? News about them had been a blip, there and gone, leaving her wondering what had actually happened.
We need to be part of this, she thought. I don’t know how or why, but we need to have a connection to these girls.
Silence. Then Vlad said, “Why does your voice sound distant?”
“I am using Jesse Walker’s phone. It is on speaker so we can all hear.”
“Who, exactly, is we?” No longer any warmth in Vlad’s voice.
Jesse watched Joe’s ears change from human-shaped to Wolf ears, caught a glimpse of a fang she was sure didn’t belong in a human mouth. Vladimir, whoever he was, made their new Wolf leader wary.
“I’m Jesse Walker,” she said. “With me are Shelley Bookman, the town’s librarian, and my son, Tobias. We’ve had an incident here too, which is why we asked Mr. Wolfgard if we could participate in this conversation.”
“I am Vladimir Sanguinati, comanager of Howling Good Reads, a bookstore in the Lakeside Courtyard.”
Shelley turned deathly pale upon hearing Vlad’s last name. She hadn’t reacted to his voice or his first name, which meant she didn’t know him personally. And that meant the Sanguinati as a group were something to be feared. Jesse would find out why later.
“Joe?” Vlad said. “Does your incident have anything to do with dead bison?”
Joe growled. “Yes. A hundred bison were shot this morning.”
“What did they look like?”
Joe stared at the phone. “They looked dead. They dropped where they were killed.”
“So you wouldn’t describe them as a mound of bison?”
“Mound? Bison are big. You don’t drag them into a mound. Although full-grown bulls are big enough that you might think one was a mound.” Joe continued to stare at the phone. “You know something about our bison? How? I’m just calling now to tell Simon.”
“That’s why Jackson is on the phone. Hope drew a picture of dead bison, and something about the picture upset her so much, she cut herself. It’s the first time she’s made a cut since Jackson and Grace brought her to the Sweetwater settlement to live with the pack. They’re understandably upset, which is why they, and Hope, are on the phone with Simon and Meg.”
“The pup will be all right?”
“If Jackson doesn’t bite her out of frustration—a feeling Simon sympathizes with.”
“Meg and the exploding fluffballs won’t sympathize.”
Jesse blinked. What were exploding fluffballs? Rabbits that blew up when attacked? No, that was silly. They had to be connected with the blood prophets somehow.
Vlad chuckled. “Fortunately, our human female employees haven’t reported for work yet. At least, I haven’t seen any of them in the bookstore.” A pause. “Do you want Simon to call you back, or should I relay the message about the bison being killed?”
“A hundred bison is a lot of meat,” Joe replied. “I wondered if Simon and Henry would like some. It is not a meat you have in the Lakeside Courtyard.”
“I think they’d be pleased to have some. Do you have a way to ship it?”
“We can package up the meat and get it on the evening train,” Jesse said, inserting herself into the conversation. “Or on the first train tomorrow. There’s always one refrigerator car to transport foods that need to be kept cool.”
“No food coming to the terra indigene travels without an escort,” Vlad said.
“Someone will have to go to Lakeside?” Tobias sounded interested.
“You would need fur to travel in a cold car,” Joe said. “A Wolf, Bear, or Panther would need to travel with the meat.”
“The escort doesn’t have to travel the whole way with the packages,” Vlad said. “The terra indigene have set up a relay of guards from our various settlements so that no one has to travel that far from home right now, but the provisions are still guarded.”