Estelle nodded. “Focus on the journey—that makes sense. There was so much more to Marie than the way she died.” She blinked back tears, remembering the sassy, competitive little sister, always teasing, always goading Estelle to be just a little better. “She loved dancing too, you know. She’d march in the parades every year, no matter what the weather was.”
Annie patted Sera’s knee. “You go on dancing, dear. Your mother’s clapping with the rhythm, cheering you on.”
Estelle gave Annie a grateful smile. Sera had a long hard road to reconciling herself to her mother’s death, but every step, no matter how small, was a positive one.
From afar came a slow, undulating cry. The hair rose on Estelle’s neck.
“Is that what I think it is?” Sera whispered.
Another howl answered, echoing off the rocky hills.
Annie nodded. “Wolves.”
CHAPTER 28
Alpha wolf
Luis had been a fool to agree to this rescue. Now he was stuck with the gun-happy trooper grieving over the shards of his stupid rifle.
It would take the herd hours to settle down enough to mount up again. Settling Kanut might take even longer.
“Ground rules,” the cop thundered, face pale with fury. “Never touch a trooper’s weapon. I mean never!”
Calmly and reasonably, Luis answered, “I wasn’t the one who threatened you with your own rifle. If you think about it, by removing the ammunition, I actually kept the two of us from harm. We were never in any danger at all.”
That only made Kanut angrier. “You’re unbelievable.” He inspected the remains of his rifle, murmuring as if to a wounded child.
“If you’re going to keep that, wrap it up.”
“Of course I’m going to keep it!” More quietly, Kanut added, “I just hope to God it can be repaired. You’re a madman, you know. You endanger our lives by stealing my ammo, you let your overgrown pets attack people . . . At the very least, your priorities need some drastic rearranging.”
The cop’s priorities were clear: protect the people in my charge, respect my property. Plus a need for control. An alpha wolf, Luis thought. Dangerous, dogged, and devoted to protecting his pack.
Fair enough. A show of submission would defuse aggression.
Luis bent to pick up his drying clothing, incidentally making himself small in front of the trooper. Submissive posture. “I’m sorry,” Luis said. “The rifle is important to you, not just as a weapon but because of the connection to your father. I’m sorry it’s damaged.”
Kanut grunted.
Luis deemed that to mean apology accepted. “Now, if you want to do something useful, help me find the saddlebag they stole. That’s got several days’ worth of food I’d rather not lose.”
Luis let Kanut take the lead, although following Diamond’s trail wasn’t hard—broken branches and flattened shrubs marked his path. It led over a ridge to a shallow lake that hosted a float plane. Beside the lake the valley floor was filled with cultivated cannabis plants.
In the middle were Diamond, Opal, and the troika, all calmly munching on the tender buds.
Kanut laughed. “Those two pot farmers are probably halfway to Canada by now. Normally, I’d notify the drug squad to come in and destroy the plants, but your pets seem to be taking care of the problem.”
Cannabis as fodder. It probably wouldn’t hurt the mammoths—the chemicals that made a user high needed heat to be released. And even if Luis had wanted to cut short the marijuana banquet, there was no way he could stop a mammoth from eating something it found tasty.
“Keep looking for the saddlebag,” Luis said.
“You look. I’m going to check out the plane.”
While Kanut poked around the plane, Luis spent an hour searching for the saddlebag, with no luck. Either the pot grower had managed to hang on to it, or it was lost in the brush.
“We’re wasting time,” Kanut said. “What does that do to our food supply?”
Our food? A day ago it had been Luis’s food. “I have two more food packs. We planned on enough for two men for a month, but if you add three stranded travelers . . .” He did a quick calculation. “We have enough for a few days, but a real rescue better come soon.”
Kanut grunted. “At least we didn’t find any bodies.”
The fate of the thieves hadn’t even crossed Luis’s mind. “Diamond’s only interest is to protect the herd. Once the man threw down the rifle and ran, Di wouldn’t follow him far.”
It took another hour to entice the mammoths back to the cache of supplies and load them. When the men were again mounted and the herd was on the move, Ruby set a strong pace. Topaz followed Ruby closely, near enough that Luis and Kanut could have a conversation of sorts.
“You got any other surprises in that tablet?” Kanut shouted.
“Recorded elephant calls. I raised these animals. I had to learn to communicate with them in their language.”
“How’d you learn to speak elephant?”
“After I got my degree in animal behavior, I went to Asia. For two years, I managed elephants that had been working in the logging camps, reintroducing them into the wild. Taking elephants that had learned to follow human commands and retraining them to stay away from people and farms. Teaching them to look to the herd for companionship and guidance, instead of to people. When Anjou called me to help him train mammoths to be released into the wild, I jumped at the chance.”
“Maybe you should have trained that Diamond to be a little friendlier.”
“I don’t want them friendly. I taught them to stay away from people, especially people with firearms. They’re not
