Kirsten tries to imagine leaving Flandry’s body in the street where he lay bleeding in the street, or even in the open where crows and weasels and other scavengers could tear at it. She cannot. Because what I did for him was right—for me For someone whose beliefs and customs were different, giving a beloved friend to a hole in the earth would seem as wrong as leaving his body in the open would to her. Just as painful. Aloud she says, “You have to tell her.”

“I have to tell her. But first I have to find her.”

“I’ll help. Let me get my jacket, and—“

She is not halfway to her feet when the front door slams open against the wall of the entryway. Boots echo sharply on the floorboards. Dakota Rivers stands in the archway that opens into the room, her hair loose about her face, her chest heaving. Her blue eyes are as cold as the dark between the stars. “There you are,” she says in a voice colder still. “Goddam you , what have you done?”

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

DAKOTA ABRUPTLY AWAKENS to the sound of a low, but purposeful, growl, and the feel of a tense body all but vibrating along her left side. Her eyes quickly open to see Shannon plastered against the far wall next to the door, eyes wide as saucers, face white as cream.

“Relax,” Koda orders in a calm, even tone. “She’s not strong enough to come after you, and if you stay that way much longer, you’re gonna pass out.”

The Vet Tech’s dark, staring gaze darts, unseeing, around the room as if seeking an escape that is literally one step away.

“I mean it, Shannon. Calm down. Now.”

Instinctively responding to Dakota’s tone, Shannon relaxes, slumping against the wall and breathing deeply, as if she’s just come out of a trance.

“Good,” Dakota replied, rolling up to a seated position in time to cushion the fall of the she-wolf, whose energy has been completely drained by her protective display. Stroking the wolf’s head, she cradles the slowly awakening pup in her free hand, smiling slightly as tiny teeth and a curled pink tongue are displayed in a puppy-sized yawn. “Do me a favor and mix up some formula for this one. I made up some mash for the others, it’s in the refrigerator. Just take it out to warm and I’ll feed them when I’m done here.”

Nodding, Shannon keeps to the walls as she circles the room toward the counter where the formula ingredients are kept. Moments later, she approaches the tall woman, bottle in hand. Her posture is deliberately relaxed, but Dakota can smell the fear radiating from her in waves. The she-wolf scents it as well, and growls low in her throat, causing Shannon to drop the bottle into Dakota’s lap and back away, hands raised. “I—I’m sorry,” she mumbles. “My brother was attacked by a wolf when we were kids. It’d been shot and just left there to die. He just wanted to help, but…. I—I don’t think I’ve ever gotten past that.”

Nodding in understanding, Koda curls the pup next to his mother while supporting his head. He latches on as soon as the nipple enters his mouth, sucking vigorously and making little squeaking noises that cause Shannon to smile past her fear.

“G’wan out and see to the rest of our patients,” Koda says without looking up from her task “I’ll take care of things here.”

“Alright,” Shannon answers softly, somewhat embarrassed at her fearful display. “I’ll…um…be just down the hall if you need me.”

Without waiting for an answer, she darts outside and into the hall, leaning back against the cool wall with a definite sense of relief. Even so, the embarrassment still suffuses her face with a rosy glow. She’s old and honest enough to admit to the healthy crush she has on the tall, beautiful vet. The thought of doing something to upset her is….

“Alright,” she says, pushing herself away from the wall. “There are still a lot of animals that need care, Shannon, so start doing what they’re not paying you for and forget about this mess.”

*

Two hours later, all of the animals in the isolation ward have been examined, fed, watered, and placed back within their cleaned kennels. The she-wolf is sleeping soundly, her pup curled tight against her. Rising up from the kennel, Koda goes to the sink and washes her hands, then pulls off the gown she’s used to care for the animals in her charge. With one last look around, assuring herself that all is fine, she steps from the room, allowing the door to hiss softly closed behind her. She comes upon Shannon in the hallway as the young tech is attempting to convince a large, furry dog of indeterminate parentage that he really does want to go into the exam room and get his ears looked at.

The dog takes one look at Koda coming up behind Shannon and obediently walks into the room, leaving the young tech stumbling and almost falling into Dakota’s arms.

“Oh!” She jumps forward, spinning to look at the woman behind her, and immediately colors. “I’m sorry. You startled me.”

Koda steadies her with a touch to her arm, then passes, taking a brief look into the exam room, where the dog stands wagging his tail at her. “The Iso ward is buttoned up. Check in on them every fifteen minutes or so, and if there’s anything amiss, get ahold of Tacoma or Manny. I won’t be gone long.”

“Ok,” Shannon replies. “I’ll keep watch.”

“Good.” With a final smile, Koda continues her trek down the well-lit hallway and slips through the door.

The air is warm and smells of a spring that has finally come as she opens the final door and steps outside. She takes in a deep breath to cleanse her sinuses of the smell of bleach and alcohol and sickness, then lets it out a bit at a time, feeling some of the tension wash away from her body. With an added energy to her step, she crosses the short walk, and rounds the battered “company truck”, pulling open the back doors and peering inside. A cased hunting rifle, a .22 and perfect for her needs, sits near the front, the black leather of its case gleaming mellowly in the sunlight streaming through the truck’s bed. She lays a hand on it, then draws it away as a thought enters her mind. With a short nod, she leaves the rifle where it lies and backs out, slamming the doors securely shut.

Breaking into a light jog that warms and soothes her muscles, she heads back to the house. The house is, as expected, empty, and she enters quickly and quietly, as is her custom. In deference to the beauty of the day, most of the windows are open. The slight breeze flutters the curtains and brings with it the freshness of the outside air, tingeing the faint lingering smell of woodsmoke with the scent of newly budding life. A fist lightly clenches her heart, then releases as she thinks of her own beloved home, shuttered and abandoned these long, bleak months.

On the heels of that thought, quiet unbidden, comes a mental picture of Kirsten stepping into that space for the first time. An unconscious smile bows her lips as she plays the image through in her mind. And on the heels of that image comes another; the memory—so very vivid—of the kiss she shared with Kirsten in the very spot where she now stands. She can feel her pulse quicken as little sparks skitter down her limbs and belly, coiling together to form a gentle warmth that she is coming more and more to associate with the young scientist.

A moment later, she shakes her head, dispelling her thoughts, though not the feelings accompanying them, and walks into a spare room where most of her gear is stored. There, sitting behind her largest knapsack is a finely detailed leather case. Lifting it, she unhooks the rawhide loops from the bone buttons and slips out her bow. It is a beautiful piece, made for her by her uncle, Manny’s father, and a master craftsman. Made from the wood of the Osage Orange tree, it is strong, limber, and Traditional. Her quiver and arrows, these steel-tipped, lay next to the bowcase, and she picks up the quiver and slips it over her shoulder so that it rests easily, familiarly, against her back.

Bow in hand, she exits the house as quickly and as quietly as she had entered, leaving nothing to mark her passing behind.

*

The guards open the gate for her without complaint, and she slips into the freedom of open spaces, taking in the beauty of the day and letting the sun work its customary magic on her as she breaks into a trot, headed for the high crest ahead, where she’d found the she-wolf nights before.

She spies several sets of rabbit tracks straight away and smiles. The meat will be perfect to mix with the mash she’s already prepared, enabling the injured animals to regain their strength more quickly on food they’re accustomed to eating.

She notices that the tracks lead in the direction of the lone tree directly ahead; the tree whose bark litters the ground and whose trunk provides a living monument to the friend she’s lost. With a soft sigh, she continues in the direction of the tree, stepping around the huge trunk as the tracks veer off, and stopping, bow hanging slackly from a suddenly limp hand.

Wa Uspewicakiyapi is gone. Only the blood swirling in the rapidly melting snow remains. There are no bits of fur, no drag marks that would indicate a large predator coming upon his corpse. She blinks, and then stares. There, in the fresh muck and gore, lie a fresh set of bootprints of a size and a pattern she knows all too well.

Her lips peel back from her teeth, exposing a snarl more feral than any wolf ever born.

“TACOMA!!!!!”

*

The man who slowly rises to his feet is her brother. That thought is clear in the part of her mind that remains in the human world. Tacoma, her twin in all but the day of his birth, close as if they had shared the floating darkness of their mother’s womb.

It is all that stops Dakota from launching herself across the room at him. Her vision holds him in the bright center of encroaching darkness, the hunter-sight that narrows until it focuses on the prey and the prey alone. Vaguely she is aware of another presence in the room, shifting form as the light pulses with every slam of her heart against her breastbone, now human, now not. Her blood howls in her veins, adrenaline sending shock after shock through nerves that she wills not to respond. Dry as old cotton, her mouth struggles to shape human speech. She says again, laying the words down like stones, “What have you done with him?”

In all their lives, Tacoma has never spoken less than truth to her. At some level, she knows that the shadow in his eyes is not a lie but uncertainty not over what to tell her but how. She waits in frozen silence, her anger gone all to ice within her. After a moment he says, “I brought him back to the clinic, Dakota.”

The cold within her goes more frigid still. There is only one place in the clinic he can be. Just to make certain, she asks. “In the freezer? Is that why the keys weren’t on the hook this morning?”

“Yes,” he answers quietly, “to both questions.”

“I scolded Shannon for losing them..” She makes a small, futile gesture with one hand. It seems to move on its own volition, apart from her will. “I should have believed her when she said she hadn’t been careless.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for her to be blamed. I was looking for you just now to tell you.”

Slowly color fades back into the edges of her vision, expanding the space around Tacoma to include the rust-red bricks of hearth behind him; the puzzled face of Asimov, head canted to one side; Kirsten, her eyes wide with something that is part fear, part pain. Some of her anger goes out of her then, leaving emptiness behind. And yet, she knows that the fear is for her, not of her; the pain endured for her. She lets some of the anger flow out of her on a sigh. “Why, Tacoma? For gods’ sake, why?”

Tacoma pauses, and Koda realizes that he is choosing his words carefully. Then he says, “To be a witness, tanksi. Partly to show that Manny shot a man who was violent and dangerous and had earned his death. And more importantly, to show what we—we humans, all of us—can fall back to all too easily.”

“We’ve already begun to slip, Dakota.” That is Kirsten, speaking softly. “Think about that mob at the gate. The bastards who shot the mother wolf for sheer cruelty. We—all of us, the scraps of our society—can go back to living as we did a hundred years ago. Or we can make something different.”

Stepping softly, Tacoma crosses the space between them, holding out his hand to her. “The buffalo can come back, Koda. Igmu Tanka Kte’s son and his grandsons can run free on the plains again. Puma can come down from the mountain and out of the desert where she has been driven by too many guns, too little care for life.”

Tacoma is not a shaman. But Koda can see the vision clear in his eyes and does not doubt its truth. A shiver ghosts over her skin. The prophecy is an ancient one, brought to the Lakota people along with the sacred pipe and the seven ceremonies. In an age long past, Ptecincala Ska Wakan Winan, White Buffalo Calf Woman, had foretold the restoration of the Earth and all her children, the return of nations long since passed over to walk the Blue Road of spirit. Their father’s great grandfather had danced the Ghost Dance to bring that restoration nearer. His father and mother had danced, too, and had died in a hail of U. S. Cavalry bullets for it. Wanblee Wakpa. himself wore the hummingbird shirt and stamped the measure of the dance into the dry earth of Pine Ridge during the uprising of ’73. “The time of the white buffalo is coming,” Dakota says. “You see it.”