The pieds might find them there, too. But they preferred the lower elevations.
All except the one.
On cue, a lonely yip from well outside the herd perimeter gave tentative reply to the call of the pack. The loner. The exception.
Tenaciously pack-oriented were the pieds, notoriously so. Modern scientists said man had once tried to domesticate them, fifteen thousand years ago. Give or take a year, Neil thought, and snorted softly. He didn’t believe it, himself—in spite of DNA evidence. The creatures worked together in an eerie fashion, so tightly knit as to read each other’s very glance or the flick of a huge, upright ear on the run, shifting formation, surrounding and harrying their prey with deadly skill. The only thing Neil believed of the scientists’ claims was their interpretations of the archaeological digs where ancient pied and man had died together. Where man had let the pieds too close, and paid the price. Massacre. Betrayal, if one could call it such from a species so self-serving as to be traitors by nature.
Unlike the llamas, who understood their place in the herd and embraced it with fierce intent. Unlike the many domesticated creatures who served man—the miniature horses who guided the blind, the compact scenting pigs who inspected vehicles for drugs and explosives alike, the loud-mouthed, sharp-clawed Siamese cats guarding hearth and home, highly territorial after thousands of years of specialized breeding. Unlike the tolters, who trusted him so deeply they had defied instinct to save him from landslide, from predator . . . and now, he hoped, from flood.
No, the pieds knew only how to cleave to themselves, forming the large packs who harried every rural farmer, herder, and unfortunate hiker across the lowlands of Utah and the southwest, into the midwestern states and even against the edges of the more populated southeast. They effortlessly shared territory with the larger predators in the hard-to-tame western states, avoiding conflict with anything bigger and toothier than themselves. They evaded even the latest predator detection devices, already in widespread use in populated areas—where headlines constantly blared of yet another clash between bear or big cat or wolves and mankind. Indeed, the pieds looked after their own with a wily skill that permeated folklore and news broadcasts alike.
Except . . .
That lonely yip again. The yearling pied who’d joined up with them at the spring crossing to summer turf, clinging to them all the way up to the Markagunt Plateau and circling just close enough to keep Ben the llama on constant guard, stomping and blowing and occasionally charging. Neil hadn’t worried about the lone pied. No one even knew why, but every now and then the packs evicted a loner male . . . who inevitably perished. Alone, they weren’t effective hunters of anything bigger than a ground squirrel, and they pined for the company of their own. That this one had survived to make the return journey with the herd surprised him, but unless the pack received him—and they wouldn’t—the pied would die over the winter. He wasn’t even worth wasting a bullet.
Not that he’d ever given Neil a chance.
Neil looked over the herd, thinking of his apartment in Rockville, small but snug and full of the conveniences he lacked on his summer rounds. Things everyone else took for granted, like plumbing and electricity and the computer games his nephew Cort had given him during the last winter holidays. Half the year Neil spent his time like a herder from the previous century, exposed to the danger of the wilds, living a simple life based on eating, protecting Churras, and surviving. The other half he rejoined contemporary life—fast-paced, full of disposable things and disposable people, making his last paycheck last until first the spring shearing, and then next partido contract.
When he made camp boss, he’d have work all year round.
Except he’d never make camp boss if he lost this herd, never mind the college diploma hanging on his wall that declared him academically fit to run a ranch. He’d never make it if he lost even a tenth of the flock to either the river or the pieds.
Ben swiveled his head atop a long neck to look at Neil, his silhouette distinctive and evocative of the llama’s characteristic pursed-lipped annoyance. Ben the alert, wisely uneasy at the increasing separation between Neil and the still ambling herd. Neil’s second tolter had enough sheep sense to keep the herd moving evenly; Bessa tackled her job with a glint in her eye that Neil could only call wicked, whether she was under saddle or free of it. But Ben cared not about chivying from a chunk-bodied pony. If he looked to anyone other than himself, it was to Neil.
Neil again glanced up at the sky. Above the dark blot of darkness at the western skyline, Orion the hunter chased his prey, clearing the sky of predators. On his heels shone the bright star of Ovis, the sheep following safely in wake of the great hunt. Be an omen, he told Orion and Ovis, though he was more worried about the clouds than the great predators on this particular night. He touched his legs to Zip’s sides. The pony leaped forward in his smooth, swift tolting gait, the sheepskin-padded saddle rolling evenly under Neil’s seat.
They’d try to make the next station, where at the least Neil could replace the batteries in his tired hand radio and send out a trouble call. They’d try to beat the rain. And maybe, just maybe, the rain wouldn’t even make it into this region. It didn’t belong here, not in the strong, beating storms they’d been getting these past few days. Making a shambles of Neil’s pasture schedule and turning a routine journey into nothing but trouble.
But they’d beat the rain. They’d reach the river. They’d punch through pied territory in the daytime, and make the safety of the mesh-fenced range perimeter.
Because they had to.
Loneliness forced a whine, flattened the pied’s generous ears. His long, lanky legs picked up a loose-limbed walk, pacing the sheep. A trot now and then, circling in the darkness when he got too far ahead. Watching the long-necked one for signs of trouble.
They were not of his kind. None of them. But they were all he had. He’d learned to lick splattered bacon grease off fire circle rocks once they’d gone cold and abandoned, he’d learned how close he could get before he was noticed by man, pony, or llama. He’d learned that the traveling herd often flushed small ground creatures for a quick satisfying crunch-and-swallow. Squirrel, shrew, even jackrabbit.
He did not go hungry. But he went lonely. This night he went lonely with the fresh cold biting the inside of his nose and the scent of rain waxing by the moment, all of which made him uneasy.
But not half so uneasy as the scent of unfamiliar human on the rising breeze.
A long-eared owl swooped from the hardwoods to the east, bringing its wings together in a clap of territorial sound. Zip snorted and shook his head, tangling a mane damp with the first drops of rain. The moon hung sullenly over the eastern treetops, as though it was trying to rise and the weight of the descending clouds kept it prisoner.
But Neil knew this spot, where the trees crept closer to the canyon’s edge—beech, maple, and hard, thorned locust. The next station waited only moments from here—and the ponies, the llama, and half the sheep knew it. There’d be fences—mesh reinforced fencing, this close to pied territory—and shelter and the kind of food a man could throw into dinner within moments.
Even better, light already winked through the window, glaring in the increasing rain. Solar-powered light, battery-stored—it meant the boss was already there, changing his own plans to help Neil manage the herd in the unusual weather. No surprise. It’s what a good boss did. It also meant the hot water heater would be fired up, the troughs already filled . . . Neil’s wet late-night arrival suddenly became a lot simpler.
Within the trees, the lone pied wolf gave a sharp alarm bark. Ridiculous creature, the young pied—all lanky leg, with its bold calico-cat coloring and plumy brush of a tail trailing behind it. A pointed nose spent most of its time to the ground, and those ears . . . big, upright, scooped in shape and alert in nature. They flattened anytime the creature saw Neil looking its way, but that didn’t surprise Neil. The pieds had an uncanny ability to read human expression and body languag
e. Those scientists claimed the skill came as a result of failed domestication, of man’s short association with the ancient pieds. Neil didn’t much care, as long as the pied understood Neil’s contempt for it, his desire to kill it. He thought it did. It never appeared when Neil’s rifle was to hand.
It barked again, challenging something. Unusually bold. Within the Churras, Ben’s neck lifted, stretching tall; he gave a blasting snort into the wet night and took a few steps against the tide of movement, toward the trees.
Not because of the pied. Ben knew the pied, ignored it as the pale threat it wasn’t.
“Hold on, girls,” Neil murmured to the sheep as their movements became more sporadic, signs of anxiety rippling through the bunched, rounded shapes. A shift of his weight sent Zip toward the spot where a bulge threatened to turn into sheep bursting away from the herd. “Another minute and we’ll have you safely away. . . .”
Ben hesitated, looking from the station cabin to the woods rising from the tall grasses of the plateau, brushy hackberries making way for the taller trees. Thin at first but then . . . plenty of cover for anything from bobcat to bear. With economical motion, Neil jerked his rifle from the scabbard. Well-trained, Zip stopped, steady beneath him so Neil could aim and shoot.
If he’d known what to shoot at. Or where. For now Ben had settled his protective gaze on the station itself, taking a few swift and threatening steps in that direction.
But Ben knew the camp boss—had known him longer than Neil. Would never alert to him.
But he’d alert to human strangers.
Humans in the woods, humans at the station—
Bad news.
“Hold, Bessa!” he cried to the pony mare, urging Zip forward to help. It wouldn’t be easy now, stopping the sheep when they had their mind set on the station. Not only stopping them, but turning them.
No man belongs here.
No man but one who’s looking for trouble. Or to take a few convenient sheep along with them—or even the sheep fleece. He’d heard of such rustling operations, and the Churras grew fleece so fast that shearing them now, months early, would still provide an easily marketable fiber.
Losing fleece was better than losing sheep . . . but either would be the end of his chances for promotion. For this year, and maybe the next. For the chance at steady work, at building more than just a job. At building a life.
He’d take no chances with the occupied station. Exhaustion dropped over him with the realization that he had but two choices—back to the last station or forward to the swelling river, all in a drumming rain that chilled him deeply in spite of his canvas and goretex riding duster under the broad-rimmed hat that caught and channeled the rain away from him. Neither choice was a good one, and the animals were as tired as he.
Zip lunged beneath him, leaping forward to cut off a breakaway. The sheep thought to make a contest of it; the stout little tolter tucked his haunches and anticipated every move the woolly made until the sheep sullenly retreated into the herd. Neil, riding out the abrupt changes of direction with practiced ease, rifle still to hand, gave the tolter a pat of appreciation. Then he waved a broad direction to Bessa. “Turn ’em around!” he yelled. “We’re going back.”
The pied understood. The man wanted his sheep turned. His sheep. For the man was the alpha here, and the pied was the lowest of them all. The pied knew to leave alone that which the alpha claimed. He knew to cling to his edges, his barely acceptable perimeter. And he knew danger when he scented it. Unfamiliar humans, tainted with the acrid smell of gunpowder and gun oil and the sweat of those in fear and stress.
Those unfamiliar humans moved as the man moved the herd, chivvying it with the tired ponies. The unfamiliar humans circled, quick and quiet, following the woods to a spot where they could break into the open ahead of the herd.
The pied knew that hunting maneuver. Had used it. Clinging to the shadows, he gave another warning bark. That was his job, though the man had not yet realized it. The youngest, the most submissive . . . the out guards. Warning the more valuable members of the pack when danger neared.
This time, the man heeded him. Noted his change of position and his persistence—along with the increasing agitation of the long-necked one. Lifted his shaped, noise-making wood-and-metal staff.
Not soon enough.
Neil understood immediately. Ben told him, the damned pied told him. Those in the woods were moving in response to his retreat. They’d try to cut him off. Damn them. And though he couldn’t see them, not yet, he lifted his rifle—
He felt the impact before he heard the shot, rocking in the saddle as his upper arm took a bone-breaking bullet. He barely managed to keep hold of his rifle—barely managed to snatch Zip’s pale mane and keep himself mounted. In the next instant Zip leaped forward, nearly unseating Neil all over again. The Churras! Rain pelted his face, escalating waves of agony clenched his arm at each new movement; he could not hold it close to his body and still grip the wet mass of mane that had become his lifeline. The night swept by in streaky images of shadow and shape, in the sound of running horses and the softer, endless ticking of cloven sheep hooves, in the smell of wet wool and steaming horses and his own fear and the sharp tang of his own blood, spilling freely down his arm and onto his thigh, streaming off the duster in a mix of water and life.
After a whirl of random movement they straightened and went downhill. Down, with only one thing at the end of their run, that which grew loud in his ears, a roaring that battled with and overcame the personal roar in his ears.
The angry river.
As suddenly as the run began it stopped, with Zip bouncing to a stop to avoid slewing them both into the river, his smooth tolting turned into a crow hop of desperation. Cold air bit at Neil’s bottom as he lost the saddle; his mane-trapped fingers weren’t enough to keep him there and he cried out an angry, betrayed curse as he lost his stirrups and still fought to stay mounted, knowing even as he greeted air that beneath him lay only the—
Rocks.
Panting at the edge of the herd.
Exhausted, as all of them. Rubbery legs, hot hot tongue. But the cold of the rain pelted against his wet fur. Not yet penetrating the soft, thick undercoat of his body, but soaking his legs, his ears . . . and soon enough, the whole of him.
The unfamiliars were behind them. One, attacked by the llama, smelling of blood. Another, lost in a sea of horned sheep and no longer moving. Others from the cabin, not yet following.
Not yet.
But the pied knew predators when he saw them.
Daring much, he slunk between the man’s sheep to find the man himself. The alpha. He fully expected to be struck down, to find teeth at his throat. But he found the man motionless, bleeding on the rocks with his hands clutching the reins of the pony beside him. The pony, too, lay on the rocks, too used-up to stand any longer. Its breath still came panting from flared nostrils; it did not bother to notice the pied.
The pied licked a bloody rock. It licked the man’s head where fresh blood still welled, and then pawed slightly at the arm that stank of being wounded, raw flesh and blood combined.
The man groaned; the pied startled away.
But it came back. Uncertain of its role, waiting for direction, even waiting to be driven off, it curled up beside the man to lick its sore paws and soak up what little warmth rose between them.
In the midst of darkness, the man shifted. He groaned, the kind of noise that comes from creatures not truly aware of themselves. By then the pied was a safe distance away, shivering in fear and cold and the startling want to return to that warm spot by the man’s side . . . his first companionable contact since the spring. The loss of it made a huge spot into which his loneliness rushed.
Not far, a sheep lay cooling, stiffening in the night. Not the pied’s doing . . . but he looked on it with hungry longing.
His own pack rules kept him from it. It belonged to the man. The pack leader. The pied licked his lips, drooling . . . and waited. The pack lead
er would not let him go hungry, not once the pied’s submissive restraint became clear.
The man groaned again, and this time struggled to sit, reaching for the horse beside him in dreamy, fumbling movement. One-handed, he found the bulging leather case at the horse’s flank and pulled an object free, a rustling, flapping thing that drove the pied even farther away.
When the pied ventured back, full only of weak and tentative courage, he discovered the man covered by a tarp, and rain beading to roll off the sides. Uncertain, he nosed the stiff material . . . and heard the others arriving. The unfamiliar, and those whose scents had started this miserable course of events in the rain. Those who had shed blood. His rain-soaked hackles rose, and he stalked the edges of the herd, Churras growing uneasy with the new intrusion. The pony mare called a greeting, was answered. Fake man’s-light reflected off the wet backs of the sheep, the glistening blades of grass and the small bushy willows scattered through the area.
The pied glanced back. The man hadn’t moved beneath his tarp. The man had no idea his territory had been invaded.
But the pied knew.
The pied crouched, whimpering. Shy and frightened and keenly aware of his role here. Protect the territory. The sheep were territory; the ponies were territory.
The unfamiliar humans on their unfamiliar ponies, easing in from the east . . . they did not belong in this territory.
The llama knew it; he gave an outraged snort, rose to his feet from the center of the herd, and charged the interlopers. A noose flashed through the darkness, looping over the llama’s neck; pony and llama set against one another while men closed in on the long-necked one. The llama gave a sudden bleating cry, one the pied had never heard from its kind before. Moments later, it settled heavily into the grasses. The smell of blood came thick and rank.
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