Wild Country (The World of the Others #2)- Anne Bishop Page 0,8

lives. From there I’ll take a boat.” Henry laughed softly. “I’m told it’s a common way to reach the towns along the lakes. You just have to get used to some of the travelers being a bit … furry.”

Parlan shuddered. He didn’t want to think about having to deal with the Others. “Well, Henry, I wish you luck.”

We need to get out of this car. When he felt this strongly that a game was going to go wrong, he didn’t ignore the feelings that came from being an Intuit.

Parlan gathered the cards and put the deck in his pocket. He nudged the hundred-dollar bill toward Henry. “You keep it.” He smiled. “We’ll be at the next station in a few minutes. You can buy me lunch.”

He saw Henry open his mouth, ready to remind Parlan that the executive car provided food as part of the cost of the ticket. Then Henry moved his eyes to look toward the four men at the other table. Parlan gave the tiniest nod.

Thugs dressed in suits were still thugs.

When the train pulled into the station, Parlan rose swiftly and headed toward the door with Henry right behind him. He didn’t look back, but he knew Judd had also moved, and whatever was said—or done—would encourage the men not to follow.

“Come with me,” Parlan said, going down the steps so fast he almost slipped. They were on the wrong side of the train to be seen by the four men or anyone at the station, but he still crouched low as he hurried to his private car. Once they were inside, he lifted the side of one of the window blinds just enough to see Judd walk off the train and go into the station.

He didn’t see the four men who had been in the executive car.

Just before the train began to pull out of the station, Parlan heard a quiet knock on the door of his private car before Judd walked in, holding a paper bag.

“The best they had,” Judd said, pulling sandwiches and bottles of beer out of the bag. He took a sandwich and a bottle of beer, then retreated to the chair farthest from the table where Parlan and Henry sat.

“I always admired how you knew when to avoid a game,” Henry said.

Parlan got up and locked the door before returning to the table and unwrapping his sandwich. “I’m just good at reading other people’s tells.”

“Your daughter was good at reading those fortune-telling cards.”

That wasn’t the bitch’s only skill, but reading those cards was an ability seen at every harvest fair and was, therefore, nothing extraordinary, nothing that would call undo attention to the family.

“Sweet girl,” Henry continued. “Is she still traveling with you?”

“No, she hasn’t traveled with us for a while now,” he replied quietly.

“Too bad. I could have asked her to read the cards and tell me my future.”

Parlan stared at Henry with cold eyes. “She lost the knack for seeing the future.”

“Sorry,” Henry said. “I didn’t realize …”

He waved away the apology. “All families have their troubles. We’ll work it out.” He asked Henry about the town where the sister and brother-in-law lived and deflected any more talk about his own family—especially any talk about his ungrateful daughter.

CHAPTER 5

Firesday, Sumor 27

Already out of sorts because Prairie Gold’s post office was still closed, Abigail Burch returned to her little shop and felt a dissonance so severe she began to shake.

Where had that come from? She had to find it before it unraveled the protections that had kept her safe for the past three years.

She approached the bison-scented jar candles on the display table. What had sounded like a good idea, using free bison fat instead of buying tallow from Floyd Tanner, had turned out to be a spectacular failure. Even the Wolves didn’t want to use the darn candles and they liked the smell of bison! And now that nothing could be wasted, she had to keep trying to unload the things on Prairie Gold citizens who took pity on her. At least there weren’t that many candles to sell.

A chill ran through her. There had been a dozen jars on the table when she’d left. Now there were six more.

Abigail stepped away from the table. This shouldn’t be happening. Couldn’t be happening. Nothing she’d done when she’d gone through the steps to turn bison fat into candles could account for this dissonance. Except …

She hadn’t counted the number of jars. She’d thought she’d made more than a dozen,