Turq used his shorter stature to his advantage: with his tusks locked with Di’s, Turq raised his head, forcing Di’s head back and up.
Luis held his breath. Clever Turq.
A twist, and Turq’s tusk slashed perilously close to Di’s throat.
But Di’s strength gave him the advantage. He forced the young bull’s head back down and shoved, pushing Turq into the brush.
Turq stepped back, disengaging—but not running.
Could Luis stop the fight? Possibly, but sparring for rank was natural behavior. There would be no peace in the herd until the two males worked it out.
On the other hand, bull elephants could do this sort of thing for days, and Luis needed to get the herd moving.
Di solved the dilemma for him by roaring out his frustration and rushing toward the upstart.
Turq had had enough. He turned and scampered out of sight, chastened—for the moment.
Honor satisfied, Di sealed his victory by mounting a complacent Pearl, to the great interest—admiration?—of the assembled females.
Luis hoped Pearl would get past estrus soon—this sort of conflict was getting in the way of the herd’s migration.
“Tcha.” He urged Ruby to move out, steering toward the encampment he and Brandon had used two nights before. Excitement over, the herd fell into line, dutifully following the matriarch.
As Ruby plodded and swayed, Luis found himself nodding off. Damn, he was tired. But he couldn’t sleep yet—he had to move the herd away from the river, away from homesteads.
Another hour brought him to the cache where the saddlebags were still suspended from the trees. All he needed to do was load up the girls and take them away.
Then Alaska State Wildlife Trooper Kanut stepped out of the trees, casually cradling his rifle.
“Well, I’ll be damned. If it ain’t Lou—or is it Bran? Along with a goddamn small, hairy elephant.”
CHAPTER 20
Small, hairy elephants
Ruby jerked to a stop, trumpeting in alarm, nearly toppling Luis off her back.
Hell, it was that nosy trooper, Kanut. Smokey Bear hat, flak jacket, and his damn rifle cradled in his arms.
Luis raked his heels down Ruby’s sides. “Back, Ruby. Back.”
No good. She sidled left, keeping her eye on the trooper. She stamped, ears flared. Prelude to a charge.
“Put that rifle out of sight,” Luis called. “They don’t like them.”
“They?” Kanut took a step back. His eyes widened as he appeared to register for the first time that Ruby was not alone. “Holy Moses, how many you got there?”
At his movement, Ruby shied skittishly.
“I’ll answer all your questions once you put your rifle away. You can see I’m not armed.”
That wasn’t precisely true. Luis had trained the mammoths to recognize a rifle the same way he’d trained them to recognize a dog or wolf: as something to be wary of, something to avoid.
Something to attack, if need be.
The idiot cop just stood there gaping, as if his badge would protect him from four thousand pounds of angry mammoth.
Ruby raised her trunk with another alarm cry, showing off her scimitar-curved tusks.
Luis had only to give the protect call, and the mammoths would come together in the instinctive urge to destroy a predator.
Or—and for a moment he contemplated the possibility—he could urge Ruby forward, letting Kanut choose whether to shoot, run, or get trampled.
But his mammoths were no killers. “The rifle!” Luis called. “Put it down!”
The trooper just smirked. “Did you think I wouldn’t . . .”
In a single movement, Ruby stepped forward and snatched the rifle, curling her trunk around the barrel. She held it over her head like a trophy, trumpeting loudly.
“Give that back!” Kanut demanded.
Luis slipped off Ruby’s neck, landing with a thump. With arms outstretched, he rushed to place himself in front of the trooper. “Good girl. Good Ruby. Drop it. Drop.”
She handed the rifle to Luis, as docile as a Labrador.
“Good girl.” He unclipped the magazine and emptied the chamber, letting the firearm, cartridges, and magazine fall to the ground. “All gone. Move out now. Tcha! Tcha!”
In a moment, the mammoths scattered, crashing into the brush and gone.
Luis turned to face the furious trooper.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Kanut shouted.
Cold as ice, Luis overrode him. “Saving your life. Would you startle a grizzly that way? Jumping out right in front of him? You could have been killed.”
Kanut said tightly, “Give. Me. My. Rifle.”
Luis stepped aside and let him collect his armaments.
“Where’s your partner?” Kanut peered into the barrel to see if it was clear.
“Probably in Mankeeta by now. He’d had enough, decided to leave.” Luis crossed his arms and leaned against a tree. “So . . . Officer Kanut, right? You tracked me down. What do you want to talk about?”
Kanut swore under his breath. “Let’s start with your real name and an ID this time.”
Luis fished a driver’s license out of his jeans. “Luis Cortez. You don’t seem as surprised by my hairy friends as I’d expect.”
“Where’s Dr. Henry Anjou?”
“Henri,” Luis corrected, giving it the French inflection. “He’s very particular about his name. As to where he is, he has a lab outside Fairbanks.”
“Yeah, I’ve been there,” Kanut said. “The place has been cleaned out.”
“Cleaned out?” Luis let his eyes go wide to mimic surprise. “You must be mistaken. It’s about eighty miles northwest of town, out in the woods.”
The trooper nodded. “I was there three days ago. Nobody there. The buildings are empty, not even a coffeemaker left.”
Luis frowned. “Well, shit. I wonder where . . . ? Wait, why were you there?”
“State Wildlife got a report that Anjou was breeding dangerous animals up there. ‘Small, hairy elephants.’” He nodded toward the path where the beasts had run off. “Turns out the reports were true.”
“They’re mammoths,” Luis said, unable to stifle
