Wild Refuge: A Yellowstone Shifters Novel

by K. Panikian

  I agreed and patted her shoulder briefly. When Jordan called out her instructions, I slipped away.

  IN my human form, I jogged quickly along the trail, closer and closer to the swollen, black clouds. I pulled on my puma strength but didn’t want to shift forms in case I ran across any firefighters or other rangers. My muscles felt loose and I knew I could keep up my pace for miles.

  The landscape changed around me as I entered another old burned area—the white and black remnants of the lodgepoles stood straight, like ghosts of their former selves, amid the green new growth.

  At the crest of a hill, I saw a river snaking below and on the other side of it, the ridgeline glowed orange. I’d found the fire.

  I caught my breath, gulping down the warm air, and debated what to do. If the fire died, like the experts predicted it would, then I could come back later to investigate. But if it continued to grow, every second it burned was potentially a lost piece of evidence. Evidence of what, I didn’t know yet. Arson, Daniel’s murder…

  I reminded myself, yet again, that I didn’t need to investigate at all. This wasn’t my job. Daniel wasn’t my responsibility and neither was the fire. But Yellowstone was my home and I felt a powerful need to protect it, and all the shifters that lived there.

  Decision made, I slipped down the hill and crossed the river.

  As I skirted the glowing ridge, my claws pricked and I growled. I blinked and felt my eyes begin to glow. My puma was surfacing. Shuddering, I tried to push her back but she resisted. I bent at the waist, struggling as I battled for control. I felt shocked—we hadn’t fought in months. The puma didn’t like the fire—the warm earth under my feet or the smoky air around us. It took all of my strength—all of the trust we’d developed over our time in Yellowstone—to calm my wild side. Still, she paced in my soul, her tail twitching in agitation.

  Finally, at the crest, I looked into the burned, smoking valley. The fire smoldered directly below me, both in the undergrowth and in the crowns of the pines. The space between the river and the fire flickered black and gray, obliterated with ash and smoldering, ruined trees. The fire whistled and popped in the undergrowth and crackled in the treetops.

  I coughed out a hot breath of smoky air. The breeze blew westwardly as I traced the swath of black to the east and south until it disappeared from sight. Following the burn corridor and staying on my high ridge, I jogged along the rocks. The ridgeline dropped and the swath changed shape into a triangle, bounded by unburned trees—the origination point. In the cleared space, dark shapes huddled.

  My heart thundered as I raced down the hill.

  When I reached the unburned boundary, I stopped. The blackened soil and still glowing embers held me back but in the center of the clearing, a dozen or so animal bodies nestled in the ashes. I could see charred hooves and scorched antlers, and the splintered, blackened bones. A herd of elk died in the fire.

  No, I decided. That doesn’t make sense. Their bodies lay at the origination point. No way would a herd of elk stand still and burn to death like that, right? Was it possible that the fire didn’t kill the elk, but merely burned their already dead bodies? Did someone start the fire specifically to burn the bodies? And if so, why?

  My thoughts spun. Or maybe the elk died naturally and I was seeing villains in every shadow because of the elk shifter’s death? Lightning could have struck right where the herd stood, killing or stunning the animals before the fire reached them.

  I paced back and forth at the ashy edge, my jaw clenched.

  The phone alarm buzzed in my pocket. I had to turn back if I was going to get to the trailhead to meet Jordan and the campers again. I ground my teeth and took a last look around the clearing, inhaling with my puma senses. Although the fire scents were strong, I didn’t smell what I expected. No burned flesh perfumed the air; no charred hair either. I smelled the bones, the earth, the trees... I wrinkled my nose as more questions circled my brain. I turned and jogged up the slope again.

  I caught up with the group about a mile short of the trailhead, panting and sweating. I’d sprinted the last few miles along the flat parts of the trail and my throat screamed for water. I knew my face glowed red and sweaty.

  Jordan turned and gave me a slight wave as I stayed at the back of the group, trying to find my breath as I dug a water bottle from my hip pack. A few of the campers blinked at my sudden appearance and I waved my hand at them, smiling tightly.

  When we reached the parking lot, the campers climbed into their cars and drove off while Jordan radioed Melanie that we were off the trail and heading back to headquarters.

  “Roger that. The fire is still moving west, though very slowly. We’re monitoring it but unless it suddenly grows, we’re not expecting it to threaten any structures. The plan for now is to let it burn,” Melanie said.

  “You two can call it a day. Thanks for getting those campers out.”

  I leaned against the truck door, stretching my sore and tired muscles. The faint smoke on the breeze still tickled my nose. I dug out another bottle of water and drank it down while Jordan loaded up her gear.

  “Did you find anything?” Jordan asked as she started the engine, getting the air conditioning going before she opened her own water bottle.

  “I found the origin point. I couldn’t tell if it was arson or not—the forest floor was still burning so I couldn’t get close, but I didn’t smell any gas or anything in the air. However,” my brow wrinkled, “I saw a small herd of elk there, burned to a crisp.”

  Jordan sat back, her own brows high. “Really? A herd? I’ve never heard of that happening before. Forest fires sometimes kill animals, of course, if they get trapped or if they’re too slow to escape. But elk are fast. That’s weird.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought too. And, I can’t say for sure, but I’m almost positive they were butchered first. I think only their bones burned.”

  Jordan gaped at me. “Someone dropped a bunch of skinned and harvested elk? Then set the scene on fire? What, to make it look like they died in the fire?”

  I shrugged. “That’s my guess.”

  Jordan shook her head. “That makes no sense. Why would someone do that?” She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel and stared at the meadow.

  “Poachers?” I offered.

  Squinting thoughtfully, Jordan said, “I guess, maybe. Elk meat is an industry, though a small one, I think. And it’s hunting season. If someone shot them in the park and butchered them, they could probably pass it off as hunted meat from outside the park…” Jordan trailed off before shaking her head decisively, looking at me with grave, gray eyes. “How many did you say?”

  “Fifteen or so.”

  “That’s a big job. If it’s poachers, it’s a group of them. No way did one person kill that many animals at once, butcher them, and then start a fire without getting found out.”

  I nodded. Jordan had said everything that echoed worriedly in my own mind. I fingered the rim of my water bottle. “And if it’s tied to Daniel? An elk shifter is murdered? A herd of elk are poached?”

  “Like he was mistaken for one of the wild animals?” Jordan inhaled quickly. “And after he got hunted and shot, he snuck away, trying to get home?”

  I swallowed. “Yeah.”

  We both stared out of the windshield. Jordan blew out a shaky breath and muttered. “You keep doing this to me. You’re going to get involved, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. Probably. Sorry.”

  Jordan sighed and clenched her hands on the wheel. “I’ll help you, for a little while. I’ll ask around and see if anyone’s got some extra elk meat they’re trying to sell.” She turned to look at me directly again and I winced at her glaring expression. “If it turns out that the packs are involved in this at all, I’m out. You know my rule.”

  “I know. Thanks.”

  THAT night, I paced my apartment. I’d just gotten off the phone with Nick. The fire management team had determined the Lower Boundary Creek Fire was naturally caus
ed. Although the fire lookout hadn’t reported any lightning strikes in the storm, he could have missed one. There were no signs of arson at the origination site.

  “Was there anything weird at the origin site?” I’d probed Nick.

  “No. Some animals didn’t make it out in time. But the firefighters found no accelerant on the trees or ground.”

  I thanked him and hung up, my thoughts whirling again. The human investigators hadn’t noted what I’d seen, that the elk had been butchered first. There would be no police examination of the fire.

  Once more, I needed to decide whether or not to get involved. There was a chance the dead elk in the fire were tied to Daniel’s death. I held my phone in my hand, lifting it and dropping it with every spin in my living room. I wanted to talk to August about the elk refuge in his territory. But would he share any information willingly? Or would he put a price on it that I didn’t want to pay? In the spring, I’d agreed to meet with him against my better judgment, and I’d been hurt badly as a result.

  Who else could I talk to about elk poaching? Maybe I could go down to the refuge myself and talk to the experts there directly, I thought. But what if August counted the refuge as part of his territory? Would he take that as an incursion and try to punish me again? I flashed back to my beaten, bloody body in the spring. No, thanks.

  I paced more. The phone in my hand buzzed and I looked at it leerily. “Logan Black Calling.” I swiped away and took it as a sign. I didn’t want to talk to Logan—there was nothing for me there.

  I called August’s number.

  After a moment, a smooth, growling voice came on the line. “Sienna.”

  I cleared my throat, ignoring the quiver that shook me when I heard the alpha speak. “I have some questions about elk hunting and the elk refuge in your territory. Do you have a minute?”

  “No,” August answered and my heart sank. “Not right now, I don’t. But if you agree to meet me for dinner? Tomorrow? I might be willing to talk.”

  I pulled the phone from my ear and stared at it, fighting my conflicting urges. My Beast was dying to see August again, to inhale his deliciously powerful scent, but my human brain knew that with him would come only pain. I paced more.

  “Trust goes both ways, Sienna,” the gruff male voice on the phone told me.

  I swallowed. He was right. If I showed him that I trusted him, that I’d forgiven what happened in the spring, the odds of him helping me grew. And how could I trust his information if I didn’t trust the man telling it to me?

  “Answer one question first. Can I go to the elk refuge or will it violate your territory?”

  August’s silence weighed heavily on the line for a long moment. “You can go to the refuge. I’ll tell the pack you have my permission. We’ll talk about what that means tomorrow.”

  I felt a pit opening underneath my feet and shook off the feeling. This was fine—I could work with this. “Okay, dinner tomorrow. But I don’t want to see any of your betas. I catch a hint of a lioness stench, and I’m gone.”

  “Deal. Meet me at the Jenny Lake Brewery at seven.” August hung up.

  I sighed.

  Chapter 5

  Darcy and I stepped out of my car and inhaled. The bright blue sky stretched so far and so high, for a moment I felt like I was at the center of the world. I closed my eyes and relaxed, feeling my spirits rise as my wild nature calmed. This was why I’d worked so hard to get to Yellowstone and my park ranger job. This expansive sky and this open, wild landscape. My puma rolled onto her back, paws in the air, and stretched. I mimicked her shoulder movement and saw Darcy do the same from the corner of my eye.

  She saw me watching and grinned. “Right? Someone get me a margarita and a lawn chair and I’ll just sit here for the next few hours.”

  “It’s nine in the morning.”

  Darcy rolled her eyes at me, stretching again. “Spoilsport. Okay, a coffee.”

  I shook my head. “Come on, we’ve got answers to figure out.”

  I strode toward the visitor center and Darcy fell in beside me. I looked at her under my lashes and noticed her completely inappropriate tank top and ripped jeans. I shivered in my fleece. “You’re not cold?”

  Darcy shrugged, muscular shoulders flexing under her tank. “I’m a bear, Sienna. It’ll take more than a brisk morning to get me to wear a coat.”

  I grinned at her and teased, “Do you hibernate?”

  She grinned back, her dark eyes sparkling. “Not exactly. But if you knock on my door at seven a.m. in January, you’d better be carrying an espresso or a whiskey sour.”

  I laughed. “Noted.”

  We headed for the slant-roofed wooden building nestled in front of the meadow, at the base of the brown, rolling foothills, and slipped inside. The scent of animal fur, stuffed and mounted, assaulted my nose and I flinched back briefly before stepping forward again.

  I followed Darcy to the front desk and smiled and nodded while she introduced us to the young man who stood there.

  “Hi—” Darcy read the nametag, “Alex. My name’s Darcy and this is Sienna. We’re rangers in Yellowstone and it’s our day off. Can we convince someone to give us a tour?”

  Alex gazed at Darcy with rapt eyes and swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Jerking his head to the side, he looked around the empty visitor center and then back at us. “Sure,” he stammered.

  We watched him duck out of sight in the back office before popping out again, pulling on a jacket. “This way,” he called to us, waving at the back door and stepping through.

  A green and gold meadow spread out behind the center and I could see bare ski trails carving down a nearby slope.

  Alex gestured expansively. “The National Elk Refuge provides critical habitat for a number of species, including elk, bison, pronghorn, swans, eagles, and trout.” He pointed to the Teton Range. “We’re in a glacial valley and the animals migrate down from the higher peaks to winter in the meadows here.”

  I tuned him out, inhaling deeply as we crossed the damp field. The grass smelled sweet and the marsh just beyond stank of healthy mud and scaly fish. There were a lot of human scents on the breeze and I wondered how many daily visitors walked in this front meadow. I smelled a lot of elk odors, plus bison too.

  “Do you track the elk at all?” I interrupted. “Are they tagged or fenced or anything like that?”

  Alex shook his head. “Some are tagged, but most aren’t. We try to keep the area as natural as possible, with minimal human interference.”

  “So you wouldn’t know if any went missing?” I asked.

  “Missing?” Alex asked. “They’re wild animals. They can roam wherever they want.”

  I nodded. If no one kept an accurate count of the wild elk here, they were definitely vulnerable to poaching.

  “What about hunting?” Darcy asked.

  Alex said, “Hunting is part of our sustainable population management plan, yes. It’s bison season now and elk season starts next month. We allow a certain number of hunting permits every year as part of our herd management program.”

  “You don’t harvest any of the elk yourself?” I asked. “Sell them to ranchers or restaurants, or, I don’t know, dog food companies?”

  His eyes thoughtful on mine, Alex said, “No. That’s not in our brief. Also, these wild elk can carry diseases, so it’s not a good idea to expose them to farm-raised animals.”

  I toed at a muddy hoof print in the meadow while I listened to Alex. Often shifter animals were larger than their natural counterparts. I wondered if Daniel’s hoofprints would be distinguishable from the wild elk here if I found his tracks.

  Alex pointed to a far slope in the foothills and I looked up to watch a large herd of elk dart across the open space. Behind them a shaggy, dark shape chased. I smiled as the bear followed the herd back and forth across the high meadow, the shapes tiny in the distance. I sharpened my gaze with my puma senses and admired the bear’s rippling stride.

  “Grizzly or black bear?�
� I asked Darcy.

  “Grizzly,” she answered definitively.

  Darcy was an Alaska brown bear, a Kodiak, which was the largest brown bear in the world. If you added on her shifter size bonus, she’d dwarf that grizzly, I knew. But she’d still be smaller than my Beast.

  “Wow,” Alex said looking at Darcy respectfully, “you’ve got really good eyesight. That’s number 57, I think. She’s a young sow and she likes those high reaches. She’s been hunting that herd for a couple of months now, catching an old, slow one here and there.”

  “She’s beautiful,” Darcy said, her eyes focused on the far-away animals.

  Alex sidled a little closer to Darcy and I smirked as he gazed at her entranced face, his throat moving in a hard swallow again.

  “Do you work here most days?” I asked.

  Alex turned to me and blinked. “Ah, yes,” he coughed. “Yeah, I’m here most days.”

  “Do you remember meeting a young guy working at Old Faithful this summer as a volunteer? Daniel Hill? I heard he visited the refuge a lot.”

  Alex’s face paled and his chin trembled briefly. “Yeah, Daniel,” he said softly. “I heard about what happened to him—killed by a bear while he was hiking. I can’t believe it.” He winced, shaking his head.

  “I know his roommate Mike pretty well. He’s from here. He brought Daniel down to see the refuge and then Daniel came most of his days off after that. He liked to drive the Refuge Road and park and sit, and watch the animals for hours. We hung out sometimes. He was a really nice guy.”

  I watched Alex’s expression closely. “Did he ever have anyone else with him?”

  Alex shrugged. “No, other than Mike sometimes. Mike’s down here a lot—his dad’s got a ranch in Wilson.”

  We turned to look as a car pulled into the visitor parking lot and a man stepped out.

  “Do you need to get back inside?” Darcy asked.