Vision in Silver(46)
When the pack leaders asked him to talk to Simon about allowing a few Wolves to visit Lakeside to learn these extra human things, Nathan worried that he might have told a few stories too many. But Simon had talked about closing the stores to most humans so that terra indigene could learn about different kinds of stores and merchandise, and safely interact with humans who could be trusted.
Another reason he was heading home earlier than expected.
He had tried to call Simon, and then Blair, yesterday to tell them he was returning, but all the phone lines were busy, busy, busy. This morning he’d fielded so many last-minute requests from the pack that he’d barely gotten to the station in time to show his travel pass and receive a free ticket before the train pulled out. Now he realized no one yet knew he needed a ride home when the train reached the Lakeside station.
He’d call Blair when the train made its next stop. There were a lot of miles between the Addirondak Mountains and a city on the shores of Lake Etu.
After the conductor came through and checked his ticket, Nathan opened his book, a thriller by a human author. He’d read it when it came out a couple of years ago, but most of the Addirondak Wolves found it difficult to visit the human settlements and go into stores to purchase things, so he’d traded the two new books he’d brought with him for this one to read on the way home—and made a mental note to ask Meg’s human pack for ideas about how the terra indigene could get more stories.
He didn’t know how much time had passed when a human male walked by his seat. Nathan raised his head and bared his teeth.
Intruder!
No, he thought, fighting for control. Not an intruder, as such. It was the pungent scent of the man’s cologne that had triggered Nathan’s response to a strange male trying to mark territory where he didn’t belong. But the man might not have been trying to claim anything. The man could have come from the dining car and needed to pass through this car to return to his seat.
The terra indigene didn’t like the smells humans used to disguise their own scent, but for the first time, Nathan wondered if males drenching themselves in a nose-pricking smell was equivalent to Wolves rolling on a dead fish to leave behind a stronger scent marker.
Now that he thought about it, that particular scent had been in the car when he sat down. It had been diluted by the fresh air that entered with the people going in and out, but it had been there.
Troubled by that but not sure why, Nathan took stock of his surroundings. Except for the stinky man, no other humans had entered this car since it left the Addirondak station.
Why was that wrong?
He looked down at the book but moved his head enough to study the passenger on the other side of the aisle.
Girl. Young enough that he would still consider her a puppy. Skin the color of milk chocolate. Big dark eyes. Braided black hair that was tied just under her ears and stuck out like two finger-long tails.
She was cheek to jaw with a fuzzy brown bear, and both of them were looking in his direction.
Why did humans give their offspring fake versions of predators that would happily eat those offspring?
Those two faces side by side did look cute, though.
Then he noticed the small dark hands clamped around the bear’s hips, and those thin fingers squeezing and squeezing. He looked away because that was just creepy.
He caught the pungent cologne scent as the same human male entered the car again, walked through, then out the other door. But this time, Nathan caught something new in the scent that made him watch the human until the man left the car.
Then he gave the girl a quick look and realized what was wrong.
Humans and Wolves had one thing in common: they didn’t leave their young alone for long. So where were the adults who should be around the girl? She’d been alone when he’d taken his seat. Had the adults gotten off the train and left her behind? There were stories about lost children. Wolves didn’t like those stories. Maybe the girl should have gotten off at the Addirondak station?