Wolf Tracker (3 page)

Mayor Leach had smelled angry and desperate. Natural, for a man who was worried about his stolen wife. The youngest of the councilmen had smelled of guilty shame. Because he should have been able to find the lady? Tracker wasn’t sure. Something didn’t quite fit. Steve and Dwight had smelled of deception. Maybe it was just their nature, or maybe they had sold Mrs. Leach to the thieves? Tracker just didn’t know. But he would find the lady and bring her back to her husband. He had given his word, and Tracker had never once broken his word.

The lady’s scent led him from the house to a horse corral. After that it was mingled with the horses, and then faded completely. Tracker couldn’t scent a strange man with her, but there were so many aromas that even his nose was confused. Unless he got lucky and found her scent on the trail his best bet was to start asking people if anyone had seen her.

He started at the nearest town that had a drinking establishment. Woman stealers were either part of a community, in which case the community would protect them, or strangers, in which case they would have caused talk. Lacey was a sizeable town, holding near three hundred residents. As a stranger, even one whose reputation preceded him, he garnered more than his fair share of stares. Maybe folks were surprised by the way he inhaled deeply every now and then. He saw them taking in his Clan-style clothes and the blond braids that slapped the high back of his saddle and felt folks settle when they realized who he was: The Tracker, the loner who had an uncanny gift for finding lost or stolen things. It was known he didn’t bother women and the men he’d killed had deserved it, so folks mostly let him be. He let his horse stand in front of the bar and went inside to buy a beer. He sipped slowly and let the townsmen look him over some more. It was warm for the second week of November, but he wore his buckskin shirt and leggings with his breechclout and moccasins. He didn’t feel the cold like a pure human would and he’d rather not wear so many heavy layers, but clothes made folks more at ease. Talking was something he did only when he had to, and in order to get information on the woman stealers he would have to talk. So Tracker sipped his beer and made conversation with the bartender. He found out no strangers had been through for a couple weeks and that they hadn’t heard about Leach’s wife being stolen. Sure, they’d heard he’d recently found a wife, but none of them had seen her. Poor lady, they said. And Tracker could feel their sincere pity for the woman.

In the next town it was the same, and the next, and the next. Every few hours he pulled the gray fabric from the waist cord of his breech cloth and inhaled. The scent was still clean and sweet, and even sweeter now that his scent had mingled with it. With that aroma in his nostrils he couldn’t even imagine paying gold to spend time with any of Gabe’s girls. Leach was one lucky son of a bitch.

Tracker was only two hours from Kearney when he heard in a saloon his cousin Taye had found a mate. That was good news. Surprising, and digging little claws of envy into his gut, but good. Talk said his cousin’s mate had come from the Times Before. Tracker knew almost nothing about the Times Before, except what the Grandmother had taught all of them, and that there had been lots of women then, as many as men. What a crazy idea. Almost as crazy as the story his cousin’s mate had been dropped by a giant bird from the sky. He was close, so he decided to continue his search in that direction. Taye lived just outside the biggest town in central Nebraska so he had access to lots of rumors. Besides, he was family and Clan, and if he knew anything of Mrs. Leach or women stealers he would share.

When Tracker arrived at Taye’s den it looked the same as it had the last time he’d been through here. There was a tall chain-link fence patrolled by wolves, a grassy area for training, and the long one-story den itself sprawled inside the fence. After he’d been allowed through the gate and given his horse to his teenaged cousin Jelly, the first thing Tracker heard was a guitar being played and a woman’s voice singing. A woman! He stepped inside the den and went into the common room. The Pack were all wearing clothes, too, which was strange. Since Aunt Naomi had died Taye let his wolves dress as they pleased. And most wolves pleased to wear nothing. The music stopped with a jangle of notes, and the woman who had been playing stared at him. There were two other women on either side of her and one of those women had a townie man standing protectively beside her. Taye came forward at once to give him a bear hug and pound him on the back.

“Dan! Where’d you come from?”

Tracker tilted his head to the northwest. “I was close by. Thought I’d stop in and say howdy.”

“Good. I want you to meet my mate.” Taye urged him to the woman sitting in a large leather chair with a guitar across her lap. “Carla, this is my cousin, Dan Stensrud. Dan, my Lupa, Carla.”

“Ma’am,” he murmured, a little heat creeping up his neck when she smiled at him. Taye’s mate was the Lupa, the Alpha female of the Pack. Like Taye, she seemed almost too nice to rule a wolf pack, but there was steel under the creamy sweetness of her scent.

The woman tucked her long brown hair behind her ear. “Nice to meet you.”

A blonde woman was on her right, wearing a plain dress of blue cotton that didn’t quite manage to hide her boniness. The townie man Tracker didn’t know was standing half in front of her, bristling at him. He nodded to the man, and ignored the woman until Taye introduced Eddie Madison and his wife, Lisa. Lisa’s beautiful face almost made up for her skinniness. Taye began to introduce the other woman, barely more than a girl in age, with wavy blonde hair cropped an even length just below her jaw. She was wearing too-tight denim pants and a stretchy shirt of pale pink. Stretchy… Tracker instinctively reached to caress the fabric he’d tucked into the waist cord of his breechcloth.

“Where did you get that?” the younger woman demanded suspiciously, cutting through Taye’s introduction.

“Rose!” Carla chided. “Don’t be rude. This is Rose Turner. She’s, um, Sky’s mate.”

The younger woman’s fair cheeks flushed red, and Tracker could smell her anger. “Sky,” she uttered with loathing.

Tracker politely pretended to not notice this sign of discord in his young cousin’s mating. He would allow himself to be amused by it later when he was alone. “This belongs to a woman I’ve been hired to find.”

Rose turned to Carla and the other woman. “It has to be someone from the plane. See? It’s part of a T-shirt. They don’t have T-shirts here, not like this.”

Carla looked at the fabric he held out briefly before returning it to its place against his skin. “I think you’re right, Rose,” she said. Have a seat, Mr. Stensrud. Can I get you something to eat or drink?”

“No, thank you, ma’am.” Tracker took a seat in one of the wooden chairs and nodded to the dozen wolves in the room. They were all his cousins or members of the Clan, like Taye. He remembered all of them as babies, but they were growing up now. At thirty-four, Tracker was older than any of them.

Taye sat on the arm of Carla’s chair and put his arm around her waist. Tracker could smell their happiness and contentment. Taye nodded at the gray fabric tucked back into the waist of Tracker’s breechcloth. “What happened to the woman?”

Tracker shrugged. “She was stolen. Her husband wants me to find her.”

“Stolen? Join the club.” Rose smelled angry again.

“Husband?” said Carla, smelling curious.

Lisa Madison smelled like tears when she said, “Oh, no.”

Taye looked at him inquiringly, so Tracker labored on. He’d talked more this one week than he had in the last year. “I got word Tom Leach up in Greasy Butte wanted to see me. Turns out his wife was stolen while he was out. He gave me this—” He touched the gray fabric. “—to help me find her. I’ve been to every bar between here and Greasy Butte, but no one’s seen or heard anything about woman stealers. You hear anything?”

Taye thought about it for a minute. “I haven’t heard anything either.” He touched his mate’s shoulder. “You think she’s from the plane, sweetheart?”

“Where else would that man in Greasy Butte get a piece of a T-shirt?” Carla looked at Tracker. “Can I see it?”

He handed it over reluctantly. He didn’t want another woman’s scent on it.

Carla turned it over and spread it out for the two other women to see. Rose pointed out the small design on the fabric. “Hey, Carla, isn’t that the University of Denver logo? Wasn’t one of the people who walked for help wearing a T-shirt under a flannel shirt? She was tall, I think. Muscular.”

Carla agreed. “Yeah. I remember her. She was a park ranger or something. She was from Denver.”

Mrs. Madison nodded her angelic blonde head. “She was wearing khakis, and the flannel shirt was an ugly plaid, sort of green, gray, and dull gold. Her hair was brown and the short hairstyle did nothing for her. But she had beautiful skin. Her name was Terry … or Tina?”

“Tami,” said Tracker quietly. He had to remind himself she was another man’s wife, and he had been hired to bring her back to her husband. “Her name is Tami Leach.”

“Yeah, I remember the name Tami,” said Carla.

Rose was stroking the cloth. “She’s not happy,” she said abruptly. “She’s going toward the mountains.” She closed her mouth tight and held the cloth out. Tracker took it and tucked it away again.

“Rose is a seer,” Taye commented.

Tracker looked at the youngster with surprised respect. The only Seer he knew was his stepfather. “Where is she now? How many men have her?”

Rose shrugged unhappily. “I don’t … uh, feel men. She’s scared and I think she’s hurt. She’s … crying.” The pale blue eyes clenched shut. “That way. West of here. Maybe a hundred miles?” Her eyes opened. “I’m not too good with distances. It’s not like this is an exact science.”

Tracker said something he rarely did. “Thanks. I owe you.” He stood. “Better be on my way to find that woman.”

“It’s almost suppertime,” Carla said. “And it will be dark in an hour. Won’t you stay?”

“No, ma’am, thank you. That lady needs help.”

Taye walked him out to the yard. “Sounds like this one’s gotten to you.”

Taye was nearly ten years younger than he was, but he had always been one of the cousins he got along with best. “Yup. Don’t much care to hear she’s hurt and crying. What’s all the talk about a plane? Heard your mate was from the Times Before.”

“That’s right. Same as Lisa Madison and Rose. They were in an airplane flying in the sky when it fell. Crashed about forty miles northwest of here.”

“The Seer. Rose. She really Sky’s mate?”

“His wolf chose her. It’s gonna take some persuading on his part, though.” Taye’s dimple flared. “Rose doesn’t like him, and Carla won’t hear of him doing more than long-distance courting until Rose is at least eighteen.”

Tracker winced. Could a wolf be made to wait that long without going mad? “Tough on the kid.”

“Sky or Rose? Sky’s taken work with that guy who wants to get the rails operational. Quill and a couple boys went with him.” Taye put a hand on his shoulder. “When you find the lady, if she doesn’t want to go back to Leach, you can bring her here. The Grandmother and some other mates are spending the winter with us. We’d welcome another woman. I can’t read emotions like you can, but I could tell Carla doesn’t believe this woman is happily married to Leach.”

Temptation clawed at Tracker’s heart, but he pushed it back and mounted his horse. “I’m not a wife stealer. Her husband misses her.”

Taye’s face was serious when he looked up. “What if he misses being able to hurt her?”

Cold settled in Tracker’s bones. “Then he dies.”

Chapter Four

There he was
again.
The sun was almost down, lighting those long blond braids to pale corn silk. He was too far away to see clearly, but Tami knew it was the same man who had come to the ranch house yesterday afternoon. His hair was distinctive. How many men had white-blond braids to their waists? How many of them rode bare-chested wearing only a breechcloth and leggings in the November cold? Yesterday, when she’d first spotted him while checking her snare, she had considered asking him for help. But her experiences in Greasy Butt made her cautious. Instead of hanging around for him to find her, she ran, abandoning the ranch house she’d found before she’d gotten any food or rest. Damn him.

Tami backed one careful footstep at a time away from the lip of the hill. All her knowledge of tracking hadn’t been enough to prevent him from following her. Her hopes that his appearance at the ranch was just coincidence or that he wouldn’t try to find her were dashed. He was definitely following her. But why? Because she was a lone woman and easy prey as she had been for the men in Greasy Butte? Damn them all straight to hell.

Dammit, how was he following her? She wasn’t a novice on the trail and she knew she wasn’t leaving many clues. She estimated the blond-haired man was no more than an hour behind her. It would be after sunset before he got to this point. Maybe she could lose him in the dark.

She went back to Freedom and forced herself back into the saddle. “I know, boy,” she murmured. “I’m tired, too. But we have to keep moving or Blondie will catch us, and that would be bad. Real bad.”

She had been so busy running she hadn’t had time to catch anything to eat, much less cook it. Raw meat sounded just fine right now. Thanksgiving was only a few weeks away, and back home she’d have a table groaning under the weight of a turkey and all the trimmings. Just the thought of it flooded her mouth with saliva. In half the fiction books she’d read the ninny of a heroine would have conveniently found a berry bush or some nuts she could eat on the run. Western Nebraska in November didn’t supply those. Even if Tami found anything like that, it would have taken hours of picking to satisfy her hunger. She didn’t have hours, not with Blondie so close behind her.

So her stomach rumbled, and she rode with her hands tucked under her arms to try to warm them. The weather had stayed unusually warm for mid-November, but it wasn’t summer. Riding hungry and cold meant making mistakes if she wasn’t careful. Mistakes would send her right back to a bed with her arms and legs tied to the bed posts.