“She came back really late last night and operated on the bobcat and coyote. They’re both doing very well.”

Kirsten nods with relief.

“Then she sent me and Manny home. Wouldn’t take no for an answer, so we went.” Behind her, she can feel Manny’s silent laughter as Tacoma continues. “We got here about ten minutes ago. All the cages are clean and the animals look fine, so I think she nodded off just a little while ago.”

“Is it safe for her to be like that?” Kirsten asks, a little nervously as she watches the female stir slightly and display wickedly long, wickedly sharp teeth in a large canine yawn before settling back against Dakota’s warm body.

“Oh yeah,” Tacoma replies easily. “She’s safe. She’s with her family.”

She turns her head slowly, meeting Tacoma’s gaze, not exactly sure what she’s expecting to see. Humor over his sister’s eccentricities, maybe? Jealousy, perhaps? But she sees none of those things. The only emotions there are an overwhelming pride and, as he turns back to peer through the window, an adoration one would usually see reserved only for the worship of a higher power.

And suddenly, like the Grinch of that long ago children’s tale, she recognizes, and admits, the swelling in her own chest as she too turns back to the scene in the clinic for exactly what it is.

Simple, and complex, and completely irresistible.

Love.

The moment is shattered by the sound of the rear door opening and Shannon, still looking about sixteen hours from rested, stumbling in, dry scrubbing her face and yawning hugely.

Turning quickly, Tacoma bars the way and gently escorts the half-sleeping young woman back the way she came. The others slowly follow, leaving Kirsten to stare at the window, grappling with an emotion, with a revelation, so monumental that it literally steals the breath from her lungs.

I’m in love with her.

Those words go round and round in her mind, each time with a different emphasis until all of them are capitalized and pounding so hard at her heart and head that she fears she’s screaming them at the top of her lungs.

What comes out, however, is the tiniest of whispers, spoken only to an empty, sterile hall. Her breath, as it speaks the words, forms a tiny flower of fog against the glass, misting the scene before her.

“I’m in love with you.”

*

The waiting room sees three men standing at rigid attention as Maggie, back to the exit door, stares at them, dark eyes snapping. “We need to talk.” Her voice, though soft, carries with it the authority of a god. “Be in my office in two hours.”

And with that, she is gone, leaving the men to sag against the walls and desk of the large room.

“We’re in for it now,” Manny mutters, dragging a nervous hand across the freshly sharpened bristles of his regimental buzz-cut.

“We are truly fucked,” Andrews agrees, his face pale as curdled milk.

“Come on, guys,” Tacoma finally says with a quick glance back down the corridor. “Let’s make ourselves presentable before she hands us our guts on a platter.”

The three men quickly exit, leaving one bewildered woman behind trying to convince herself that she’s still dreaming.

*

Maggie unlocks the door to her office and turns up the light switch. Overhead, the fluorescent tubes flicker to life, their cold light falling on the spartan desk and metal-frame chairs, leeching the life from the two Guatemalan cutout tapestries of jungle cats worked in scarlet and orange, bright yellow and fuchsia that share the wall with the ubiquitous color photographs of combat aircraft. One of these shows Maggie herself poised on the ladder of her lead plane, the Bobcats logo splendid in orange and gold above her. It, and the tapestries, are the only personal items in the room. All else belongs to the Squadron Leader, not the woman.

Maggie raises the blinds that cover the one window, giving her a view of the flightline close to the hangers. It is not exactly your executive scenic panorama, but its stark shadings of grey pavement and swept-winged silver birds has never failed to please her. Today they are topped by pale sky and white clouds in the same palette, and a part of her longs to cut free of the ground and lose herself in the blue air where cloud tops fall away beneath her like pristine snowfields.

But that is not why she is here today. Sliding open the top drawer of her file cabinet, she withdraws two fat manila folders and lays them on the desk. A third, empty, she takes from a supply cabinet and labels with Tacoma Rivers’ name. He is not, strictly speaking, “her” non-com, but by following his sister to the Base and fighting under Maggie’s command at the Cheyenne, he has made her his commanding officer. And that makes her responsible for him and his actions.

Briefly she glances at her watch. Ten minutes.

She uses half the time to review the contents of yet a fourth folder, the medical report detailing the manner and cause of death of one William Dietrich, late of Rapid City, South Dakota, currently a pain in Maggie’s official posterior. According to the examining physician, a single 9 mm round had entered the frontal bone of Dietrich’s skull, rather neatly on the medial line between the orbital ridges. It had exited rear, carrying with it a large portion of the late Mr. Dietrich’s cerebrum and cerebellum and an even larger piece of his occipital plate. Death had been instantaneous, not attributable to accident or to suicide.

In plain language, Manny had potted the bastard right between the eyes, blowing his brains out. The said bastard had been dead before he hit the ground.

The body has not been returned to the family because no information is available on Mr. Dietrich’s residence or relations. He carried no identification and is not listed in the Rapid City telephone directory. Maggie makes a note to question the three yahoos presently repining in the brig for shooting at the wolf. Statistically, they are unlikely to have known the late Mr. Dietrich. On the theory that one sadistic thug is likely to know other sadistic thugs, it is the best that anyone has come up with yet.

A shadow passes over her window. Maggie looks up in time to catch a glimpse of three men in uniform, two blue and one green. When the knock comes a few seconds later, she stands in front of her desk, claiming the available space for herself except for a narrow strip at the front of the small room. She lets them wait long enough to knock a second time, then raps out, “Come in!”

They file in one by one, saluting sharply, then tucking their caps under their left arms. “Ma’am.” She acknowledges them briefly, and then, because there is no choice, they form a line along the concrete wall: Sergeant Tacoma Rivers, United States Army on the end; his cousin Lieutenant Manuel Rivers, USAF in the middle, Lieutenant Bernard Andrews, also USAF, nearest the door. All three pairs of eyes seem fixed on some point behind and about two feet above her head. All three are stiff and straight as wooden soldiers.

She lets the silence spin out for a full minute while she stares at them, then says very quietly, “I have before me on my desk the medical account of the violent death of Mr. William Dietrich, civilian citizen of Rapid City. He died of a single gunshot to the head. However this happened, we now have a potential crisis developing between the townspeople and the personnel of this base. I do not need—I hope I do not need—to remind you of the recent unfortunate occurrences at the gate of this installation, or why this shooting is not just A Bad Thing but a Very. Bad. Thing.”

”No, Ma’am,” Andrews says stiffly.

Maggie takes two steps to stand directly in front of him. She snaps, “Did I ask you a question, Lieutenant?”

His Adam’s apple dips visibly under the knot of his tie. “No, Ma’am.”

She begins to pace the line deliberately, looking each man up and down from the toes of his mirror-shined boots to the top of his head. Finally she says, “Lieutenant Rivers. Explain what you and Lieutenant Andrews were doing in the woods the day Mr. Dietrich was shot.”

“Ma’am, “ he says. “We were looking for illegal leg-hold traps we believed had been set in the area.”

“Why?”

“To disable them, Ma’am. Also to assist any animals we might find caught in them, Ma’am.”

“What made you think you might find illegal trapping devices or injured animals in the area?”

Anger flares in Manny’s eyes, white hot. Maggie ignores it. “Well?”

“Ma’am. My cousin, Dr. Rivers, found a grown male wolf in a similar trap the day before. He was moribund and had to be euthanized, Ma’am.”

“So you set out in search of more.”

“That is correct, Ma’am.”

Maggie has heard, in monosyllables from Koda, in more detail from Kirsten, of finding the maimed and suffering alpha wolf in the trap. She suspects that she has nowhere near the whole story, nor does she wish to violate Koda’s privacy by pushing for more information from others. She says, “What did you find?”

“Ma’am. We collected four empty leg-hold traps of varying sizes. In addition, we found one live coyote with a mangled tail, one live bobcat with an injured foreleg and paw, and one badger only barely alive, suffering from shock and advanced infection.”

“And what action did you take?”

“Lieutenant Andrews and I recovered the injured coyote and bobcat, euthanized the badger and transported the surviving animals to the Ellsworth veterinary facility, where they were treated, Ma’am.

“Andrews!”

“Ma’am!”

“Tell me how Dietrich got into the picture.”

Andrews’ eyes have not moved from the spot on the wall above her head. “He approached the trap containing the bobcat as we were attempting to release her, Ma’am.”

“On foot or in a vehicle?”

“On foot, Ma’am.”

“Armed?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Weapon?”

”Deer rifle, Ma’am.”

“Did he threaten you or Lieutenant Rivers?

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Verbally or with the gun?”

”Both, Ma’am.”

“What did he say?”

“He told us to leave his traps the hell alone, Ma’am. He called us thieves.”

“And?”

“I said that leg-hold traps are illegal, and that we were removing the animals for treatment.”

“And?” Maggie barks. “Do I have to pry this out of you with a crowbar, Andrews?”

“No, Ma’am.” Andrews turns a florid scarlet under his freckles. “He said we were a couple of bleeding-heart candy-ass tree-hugging queers out to steal a real man’s livelihood, and we’d better get out of there before he shoved his gun—that is, Ma’am—”

Almost Maggie takes pity on him, but she cannot afford to. “Shoved his gun, Lieutenant””

“Uh, up our, uh backsides, Ma’am. And blow our lousy yellow guts to hell.” The blush deepens to crimson, spreads down the young man’s neck. “Ma’am.”

“Answer me carefully, Lieutenant. Did you see or otherwise perceive any indication that Mr. Dietrich was impaired in any way?”

“Do you mean, like was he drunk, Ma’am?”

“Was he?”

“Not that I could tell, Ma’am. He didn’t have any liquor on him, and I couldn’t smell any.”

“Rivers?”

“No, Ma’am. No smell and nothing found on him, uh—later.”

“Who shot him?” Maggie leans back on her heels, sweeping the line with her eyes.

“I did, Ma’am,” Manny answers.

“Why?”

“He threatened us with his rifle, Ma’am.”

“Before or after his verbal threat?”

“After, Ma’am. He pointed the weapon directly at Lieutenant Andrews.”

“Why did you have a gun? Did you expect to encounter someone?”

“We had two guns, Ma’am, a handgun with me and a rifle in the truck. We took them for personal safety and because we feared we might find animals who could not be helped.”

“You shot Dietrich with the handgun?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“As a direct response to a threat to the life and well-being of Lieutenant Andrews?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Are you prepared to testify to that under oath in a military court?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

”Andrews?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Finally, she turns her attention to Tacoma. “Sergeant Rivers.”

“Ma’am.”

“Really simple—what did you know, and when did you know it?”

Unlike his cousin’s, Tacoma’s eyes are cold with anger. “I knew that Lieutenants Rivers and Andrews were going out to check for other traps and other animals, Ma’am. I did not know that they had encountered anyone or that anyone had been shot until they returned.”

“But you feared something might have happened, did you not? You reacted rather strongly when you were told Lieutenant Rivers had returned, isn’t that so?”