Wild Country (The World of the Others #2)- Anne Bishop Page 0,136

you’re all free to disembark and find another way to where you’re going, but stations have been designated safe ground as long as no one starts any trouble, so you won’t find any man who works for the railroad, from engineer to porter, who is going to leave a station until we get a message that the trouble is past.”

The conductor took a step toward the next car, then looked at the two men who had been making all the ruckus. “Don’t usually tell passengers this because it would scare them too much, but there are terra indigene out there that like to chase the trains for the fun of it. And some of them can outrun a train, they’re that fast and that big. Not that you actually see anything. It’s more an impression that you’re being chased. And sometimes the fun turns into a hunt. Everyone who works on the lines has seen what happens to a train when the Others attack—and what happens to the people inside the cars. We’re not going to die today so that you can make a profit.”

The conductor walked to the next car to inform the passengers of the delay.

Parlan shuffled the cards. He could try to call Judd and Lawry and find out if they’d heard anything—and if they hadn’t, he needed to warn them that the Others were hunting a human enemy. Unless Sweeney Cooke and Charlie Webb had somehow gotten far enough ahead of Judd to have reached Bennett already, they weren’t the cause of this lockdown of the trains.

If he went to his private car, he’d have the solitude he wanted but he wouldn’t hear the news as it drifted through the public cars, wouldn’t have a sense of what the Blackstone Clan’s next move should be.

“If you ladies will excuse me for a minute,” Parlan said. “I need to stretch my legs.”

Gentlemen stretched their legs. Ladies powdered their noses. Human euphemisms for needing the toilet—and not using those phrases was one of the small ways a terra indigene who could otherwise pass for human revealed what it was.

“When I return, perhaps you’d like to play another game to pass the time?” The women fluttered like schoolgirls, their sagging middle-aged bosoms encased in garments that didn’t invite a man’s fingers to touch, didn’t intrigue him into wanting to reveal what the garments hid. Parlan had a feeling their husbands’ fingers were exploring nubile flesh right now, and being discovered by hurt, outraged wives would cast a shadow on his plans. So he squelched his desire for solitude and took just enough time to step outside and place the calls, leaving messages for Judd and Lawry. Then he stretched his legs before rejoining the women and keeping them occupied until dinner.

* * *

* * *

Jana rode Mel around the business district’s side streets and up and down the residential streets, looking for any sign that the Elders were, once again, coming down from the hills to unleash their fury on the residents of Bennett—innocent people who had nothing to do with whatever was happening in the Northeast. Not that being innocent would make any difference.

Was ignorance better than knowledge? She and Jesse Walker were the only humans in Bennett who had seen the drawing of Meg Corbyn in the trunk of that car. They were the only ones who knew the name of Meg’s abductor—Cyrus James Montgomery. They were the only ones who knew the problem wasn’t something anyone here could fix, that it was happening hundreds of miles from here.

But every human here would pay in flesh and blood if the drawing Tolya had sent didn’t arrive in time to help save Meg Corbyn. And she wondered, as she’d wondered throughout the day, what made this one woman so important to the terra indigene that her loss might unleash a flood of hate toward the rest of the humans on the continent.

She’d probably never know the answer, so she rode around the town square and the nearby streets where other businesses were located. People watched her, taking some comfort in the knowledge that she was there to serve and protect—just as she took comfort whenever she heard a Wolf howl.

We are here.

She wondered if that would be true tomorrow.

* * *

* * *

Virgil leaned in the doorway of the sheriff’s office, conserving energy for when it was needed, and checked in with his brother.