Wild Country (The World of the Others #2)- Anne Bishop Page 0,65

but the scent of humans must have scared them off.

Virgil sniffed at a tuft of fur that had a trace of skin and blood.

Or maybe the dogs had run away because the Owlgard had been hunting around the stable and had flown in on those silent wings and used talons to encourage the dogs to leave the horses alone.

He marked a few of the posts as another way to warn off the dogs, then did a quick turn around the town square. One of the two small buses now in operation disgorged workers in front of the hotel so that they could eat some food before starting their work.

Every resident was allowed to have a car, but gasoline was another matter. Eventually the humans would start grumbling about restrictions and rules and all the things they couldn’t do or have, and then flesh would be torn and blood would flow.

He looked forward to that day. Until then, he’d do his job as the dominant enforcer in Bennett.

“Becky!”

Virgil moved toward the sound of Hannah Gott’s voice, then veered when he spotted the skippy girl heading for the spring bubbling into the human-made pool that held some of the water before flowing down a channel that had been made to look like a creek ending at the small pond near the southern end of the square. The skippy girl liked playing in the water, but Hannah Gott didn’t want the girl to be wet during the working time.

Easy enough to distract her. All it usually took was for him or Kane to show up in Wolf form. Then she was more interested in giving them hugs and pats than getting wet or digging in the dirt. Not that he found anything wrong with doing either of those things, but humans had rules about when the skippy girl could play.

Getting between her and the water, Virgil play-growled and licked and nudged her until she gave him a choking hug and followed him back to where Hannah Gott waited with the other adult female in her pack and the male pup.

“I appreciate you being so kind to Becky,” Hannah Gott said when he and the girl reached the sidewalk opposite the square. “Come along now, Becky. It’s time for breakfast.”

“Bye-bye, Virgil,” the skippy girl said, moving the fingers of one hand as Hannah Gott took the other hand and led her away.

As he trotted back to the sheriff’s office to wash up and put on human clothes, Virgil thought it was interesting that the Gott pack had arrived in Bennett a week ago, but only the girl with the skippy brain could tell the difference between him and Kane when they were in Wolf form.

* * *

* * *

Jesse Walker smiled at Lila Gold and Candice Caravelli, who were waiting for her outside Bennett’s general store.

“You’re my helpers today?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lila said. “Is this like an old-fashioned store?”

Jesse paused to consider the question. “I don’t know. It looks pretty much like mine. More small town than old-fashioned since there are the refrigerated units along one wall, and the store is set up to have a little bit of a lot of things.”

She wondered when someone would ask about the empty lot next to the general store—or suggest clearing out the debris so that people didn’t mistake the plot of land for a dump. It wasn’t completely empty, and it wasn’t a place to discard anything unwanted since the only human thing left on that land was a rusting woodstove.

No, that plot of land wasn’t empty, and it wasn’t a dump. It was a daily reminder that the original residents of Bennett had ignored—a warning decades old of what can happen if you clash with the terra indigene. Why the people had been smart enough to keep the warning but not smart enough to heed it was a question that would never be answered.

“I believe this store was built when the town was first settled,” Jesse continued.

“Handy for travelers or people working in the buildings around the square,” Candice said, looking around. She stared at the wall behind the cash register. “Why do so many places around here decorate with animal skulls?”

Lila studied the skull. “Are we going to have to hang animal skulls in our apartments in order to fit in? Is that a standard frontier motif?”

Jesse couldn’t tell if Lila was hoping it was or hoping it wasn’t. “My family has lived in Prairie Gold since the town was created, and we’ve never