Wild Country (The World of the Others #2)- Anne Bishop Page 0,149

any other wrongdoer who came into the saloon could be arrested according to human law instead of facing the Elders’ form of justice.

She mounted Mel and headed into town. But she looked back once and saw Virgil, in Wolf form, trotting back to the car—and the Elders who might be waiting there.

CHAPTER 28

Earthday, Messis 26

Despite this being the day of the week when no one was supposed to be at work or cause any trouble, the phone in the sheriff’s office rang. And rang. And rang.

Virgil bared his teeth at it, but it was just a stupid machine that didn’t know the pack member who would normally respond to its howl wasn’t in the office yet.

Why wasn’t the wolverine in the office yet? She had said Barbara Ellen was all right, and the human bodywalker had said nothing was broken in the hand that bad male had squeezed. They wouldn’t have lied to him. They wouldn’t have dared lie to him. But he knew from the teaching stories about humans that there were degrees of untruth between an actual lie and true speaking. Was Jana late because Barbara Ellen had other injuries and needed help and the females didn’t want to tell him?

He’d make it clear to both those females that there would be no not-telling. They could whine about that all they wanted, but he’d make it clear that …

“What?” he snarled as he grabbed the phone that wouldn’t stop ringing because it didn’t know enough to be cowed by the dominant Wolf.

“Sheriff?” Male voice. Adult. Upset but not whining, not sounding weak.

“Yes.”

“It’s Zeke.”

He didn’t know the human well enough that he would recognize the man’s scent, but he knew the name, knew Zeke was the leader of a business pack that was clearing out houses. “Yes?”

“We found a body. You need to come.”

* * *

* * *

Parlan Blackstone looked around the private railcar that served as his home as well as a discreet place where he ran high-stakes card games and entertained women when he wanted female company. Moving from town to town had been essential to the clan. Even the wealthiest marks could be squeezed for only so long. Always better to move on and be welcomed back by those eager for a chance to get even than be seen as the embodiment of vices that had ruined a family’s fortune.

Now he was gambling that he could gain a strong enough foothold in Bennett to secure a living for all of them—at least until travel restrictions relaxed and they could make their way back to the West Coast and settle down in one of the civilized cities still under human control.

Dalton would stay in Bennett with him. The boy would have to keep a low profile for a while, maybe even change his looks and go by another last name. Wouldn’t be the first time they’d played that game. And Lawry would be there. Judd? Yes, Judd would stay with him, even if he had to put aside his preferred line of work.

They would streamline their operations back to the original clan. Bringing in Sweeney Cooke and Charlie Webb as muscle had been a mistake. Neither of them understood subtlety or the need to put aside their own gratification in order to do a job. They had smeared the clan with the shit of their behavior, and because of that, his boy’s face and name were tacked to train station and post office walls all over the region.

One way or another, Sweeney Cooke and Charlie Webb had to go before the clan could establish itself in Bennett.

Unfortunately, Parlan didn’t have a feeling about their success or failure. What he did have was the feeling that he’d dealt himself a bad hand, that coming into the Midwest had been a mistake, that he should have made the decision to play the respectable con before they’d left the Northeast. Or they should have gone to the Southeast Region and set themselves up in a virgin town—a place they hadn’t plied their trade before.

Parlan wandered around the car, idly shuffling a deck of cards. That action always soothed him, helped him think, helped him sharpen his focus. He’d always been that way, even as a boy. He’d known when he could cheat—and how much—and when he needed to play it straight. His father had loved gambling but hadn’t had the knack. Not with cards, not with dice, not with life. And his mother, who might have been a vibrant woman