She thought about that for a moment, then nodded. “I will be called Madam Scythe.”

He’d been thinking of something more benign, but maybe having a saloon run by someone named Scythe would encourage good behavior.

“Madam Scythe it is.” Tolya wrote the name on the pad of paper. “While you journeyed here, did you consider a name for your saloon?”

There was warmth and a little bafflement in her smile. “No, I didn’t. Tell me about the yellow bird the Barbara Ellen female will bring me.”

Not sure what one thing had to do with the other, he said, “It is a kind of bird that humans call a pet. It lives in a cage. I don’t think it could survive here if it were released outside.” He didn’t know if that would be true under other circumstances, but with the number of predators in the area, he doubted a small bird that wasn’t native to this part of Thaisia would survive long.

“Rather like the humans themselves, living in a place that is surrounded by Elders.” Scythe smiled again. “I will call my place the Bird Cage Saloon.”

Tolya pushed back from the desk. “Let’s take a look at the building and see what needs to be done to get your business up and running.”

CHAPTER 9

Watersday, Messis 4

Tolya walked around the town square, appreciating the park that made up the center of the business district—a park made possible because of the spring that bubbled up out of the earth, defying its man-made containment to spill over into a narrow channel that ended at a small pond. The spring had originally been a natural watering hole for everything that lived around here, but when humans reached the northern edge of the Elder Hills and negotiated with the terra indigene to settle in the area, they made the spring the center of their territory, corralling the water and siphoning it off to supply water to all the businesses. Trees and grass grew in the square. Birds and small mammals lived in the square, but none of the larger “normal” animals that lived in the area made it in far enough to reach this source of water.

There were other sources of water in the wild country. Or so he’d been told. During frontier days, he imagined the square would have been used as a place for horses to drink and graze while humans bought supplies in the stores. Now?

Tolya stopped and watched two ponies—one black and one brown—grazing near the pond.

Now the square provided a shady place for a different kind of steed.

He continued his walk, past the Universal Temple and the community center, then up the other long side of the square, heading toward his office.

Hundreds of humans had lived in and around Bennett. Maybe a few thousand. Tolya didn’t know, didn’t care. The task of clearing out all the homes was daunting. He wasn’t sure they ever would—and with everyone feeling pressured to provide living spaces for the humans migrating to Bennett next week, he wasn’t sure they should. Teams of human males were still going through the houses and collecting the food that could be salvaged. Other teams were going through an office building that had small offices that could be used by a variety of professions. Jesse Walker recommended letting the newcomers sort through the business files or box them up and put them in the basement storage area, but she emphasized the need to clean the offices and hire people for janitorial services for the whole building.

If the people who were going to run the businesses were expected to sort through the files in their new offices, why couldn’t they sort through the belongings in their new homes? And how upset would he make Jesse Walker when he announced his decision to stop the cleanup as it was currently being done?

And how was a species that seemed to need so much going to be able to survive on so little? Bennett would not be allowed to swell to its original population, and life would be simpler because of that.

Tolya stopped in front of the Bird Cage Saloon, which was a hive of activity. For a form of terra indigene that lived on the outskirts of almost everything, Scythe had recognized the one business that had galvanized all the humans who were already in Bennett. And not just because it was a saloon and a place that provided the alcoholic beverages humans liked to drink. It was a frontier saloon, with bartenders and girls dressed as they had dressed decades ago. Madam Scythe even hired an Intuit who would be the saloon’s professional gambler. Jesse Walker said there was romance to the idea—a concept he didn’t understand but accepted.

He felt another predator silently moving toward him but gave no sign of knowing until Saul Panthergard said, “Tolya.”

He dipped his head to acknowledge the Panther. “Saul. Are you settling in?” It had surprised him that one of the Panthergard had wanted to be this close to humans—until he’d been introduced to Joshua Painter, a human who had been raised by Saul’s kin and was, in human terms, considered Saul’s younger brother.

The Panthergard weren’t as solitary as the cougars whose form they had absorbed many generations ago. They had learned how to hunt as that cat hunted—in fact, they could hunt far better than the animal. But regardless of whatever form the terra indigene absorbed to keep them the dominant predators in the world, regardless of whether they took the shape of Ravens or Wolves or Panthers—or humans—they were still terra indigene and lived solitary or in packs according to the ways of their particular kind of terra indigene and not the shape they could wear over their true form.

“The cub needs to be socialized with his own kind, but I can’t teach him how to be around humans or even talk to humans,” Saul said. “He needs a task so that he can fit in, and he needs a teacher.”

Movement in the square made Tolya turn. Barbara Ellen, riding the blue horse named Rowan, cantered toward the sheriff’s office, her face scrunched up in anger—an expression so unusual for the usually bouncy almost-vet that Tolya realized she must have been brooding about yesterday’s clash with the sheriff and had finally worked up to being mad enough for a confrontation.

“Follow me,” he told Saul. “I have a teacher for Joshua.” If Virgil doesn’t eat her, he added silently as he shifted to his smoke form and raced toward the sheriff’s office.

He arrived just ahead of Barbara Ellen—and just in time to shift back to human form before Virgil walked out of the office. There were flickers of red in the Wolf’s amber eyes, a clear warning that Barbara Ellen wasn’t the only one who was angry.

Barbara Ellen’s blue eyes didn’t change to provide such a warning, but the horse reacted to her emotions. Or maybe Rowan reacted to Kane’s sudden, and silent, appearance in Wolf form as the deputy came around the side of the building.

Barbara Ellen dismounted and said, “Hold this,” as she flicked one of the reins at Kane. He snapped at the leather and then looked surprised that he was now a horse holder.

Exploding fluffball, Tolya thought, remembering Vlad’s phrase for uppity human females as Barbara Ellen stomped up to Virgil.

“Look!” She pushed up the sleeve of her shirt to reveal dark bruises. “Look! That’s police brutality!”

Virgil leaned toward her, bringing his face closer to hers before he pulled back his lips and revealed teeth that were too long and sharp to be human. “You were resisting arrest.”

Her mouth dropped open. “I wasn’t arrested. You didn’t arrest me!” She looked at Tolya, who wondered what he was supposed to do.

“If you howl ‘police brutality’ for a bruise you got because you fought me, then I’ll write up your stay in the cell as an arrest for disturbing the peace,” Virgil growled. “Or we can just say you spent a few hours in jail because you needed some ‘me time’ to help you remember that many predators who will be in this town don’t know much about humans and need to be approached with some measure of caution and sense. Which way do you want me to report this to your brother the cop?”

Her mouth opened and closed, making Tolya think of a fish out of water—a comparison he was sure should not be shared with any female within a day’s travel of this town.

“Barbara Ellen and I have business to discuss,” Tolya said to Virgil. “Do you need to continue this discussion?”

“I wasn’t interested in this discussion in the first place.” Virgil stared at Barbara Ellen and growled, “The next time, the bruise you get as discipline will be from my teeth.”

Barbara Ellen lowered her head and muttered a word quietly enough that a human wouldn’t have heard what she’d said. Unfortunately, the four males standing around her heard the word just fine.

Virgil showed his teeth.

<Let it go,> Tolya said. <I have something that will keep Barbara Ellen from chewing your tail for the rest of the day.>

Virgil eyed him, clearly torn between wanting to establish dominance over the fluffball and getting her out of his fur. <Fine. Take her.>

More gently than Virgil had grabbed her yesterday, Tolya closed his hand over Barbara Ellen’s wrist in an inescapable hold. “Come with me.”

“What about Rowan?” she protested. “I should take him back to the stables if I’m going to be a while.”

“Kane can do that for you.”

<I can?> Kane didn’t sound interested in being a horse walker. <I have to sniff around the town and do deputy things.>

Tolya didn’t respond to the Wolf. Instead he reached out to the Panther. <Bring your cub to the government building.>

“Are all the pet animals fed and watered?” he asked. Since she was an almost-vet, this was her primary task right now—caring for the small animals that had survived until she could convince other humans to take them.

“Yes, but—”

“Good. I need you for a special task.”

“We’re all supposed to help sort things from the houses for a couple of hours each day.”

Tolya nodded. “You’ll be sorting books.” No one had asked why he’d designated a room in the government building as the place to store the books that had been removed from houses and now would have to be sorted into some kind of order. The truth was, he’d wanted to keep that task for himself instead of handling other, less interesting, human possessions. But to keep the peace, and to help Saul, he would give up some of the pleasure of looking through the books.

“You’ll also be showing another member of our community how to do this sorting,” he continued. “In return, you may select a bag of books as a bonus for being a mentor. I would also appreciate you setting aside any books you find about the frontier days. Those would be for me.”

“Okay. Who am I helping?” she asked, almost pulling ahead of him now that the task sounded interesting.

“Joshua Painter.”

“Oh.”

What did “oh” mean? Good? Bad? He guessed it meant something good since her blue eyes now had a sparkle to them that had nothing to do with being angry with Virgil.

“Saul feels Joshua is ready to interact with humans,” Tolya said. “I thought sorting the books would help the cub reinforce his reading skills, and you, having experience with shifters because you lived in Lakeside, could help Joshua bridge the gap between his old life and this new one, as well as answer any questions he has about human things.”