A TOUCH OF HARRY By Susan Sizemore Dedication For Matthew Krause, who introduced me to Mission Wolf. Chapter 1 "Was that a coyote?" "Coyotes don't come in black," Marj Piper answered the man in the seat beside her, as the ghostly dark form disappeared from the blaze of her headlights. "That thing is fast!" She followed the creature's movements across the moonlit Arizona desert before darkness completely swallowed it. It was some kind of dog; its outline was beautiful and sleek. "Marj! Look out!" She swung her gaze forward, just in time to slam on the brakes as another large animal raced in front of her truck. This creature was as black as the first, but much larger and more muscular, with denser fur. As the animal gave a quick glance toward the headlights, its eyes glowed with a blue sheen. It bared its fangs in a snarl, then bounded away, following the other animal almost faster than the eye could see. "That's a wolf!" Patrick shouted. "Yeah," she agreed, her heart hammering in her chest. "That was a wolf." In the backseat of the cab, her chocolate Lab, Taffy, lifted his head and whimpered his agreement. Marj drove the truck at a near crawl as the hard-packed dirt road ascended a steep, curving hill. The first animal had been terrified. The wolf had been furious. And it had looked at her, almost in outrage, as if it was demanding that she help. Help with what? Pat touched her arm. "Are you okay?" "I'm fine." "You don't sound fine." Reverend Patrick Muller was new to Kennedyville, and Marj was giving him a ride home from a dinner party where friends had tried to hook them up. She supposed Alice meant well in trying to draw her out of the shell she'd been in since her father died. She wasn't sure she really appreciated it, though. The one person who'd understood her was gone, and it would take a miracle to cure the loneliness that had closed in when he was gone. Still, because Alice had accused her of trying to be a Scrooge and ignore the Christmas season, she had made the effort to be sociable through dinner at Alice's house. It had drained her incredibly, and she was glad to be heading home. Reverend Pat was nice; he'd made intelligent conversation over dinner, even persuaded her to participate in a charity function at the high school in a couple of days. And he wasn't at all bad-looking. No doubt he was going to be an asset to the community. As agreeable as he was, though, she certainly wasn't going to tell him about her "special" ability. When she was a kid, she'd assumed everybody could do it. It had taken her painful years to realize that it was anything but normal, and to learn to control it. It had taken even more years to learn how to hide it from the rest of the world. Most of the time. "I can't believe I almost hit a couple of animals," she told Pat, after she'd been silent maybe a little too long. "They ran in front of the truck. It wouldn't have been your fault," he said comfortingly. "But the animals would still be dead." The truck was laboring up the steep rise, and she put her foot on the gas. "And we could have been injured, as well. Even as large as this truck is, hitting something as big as that wolf could have caused a lot of damage." They rounded the curve and reached the top of the hill, and all hell broke loose. There was a big white van parked sideways across the road, its headlights shining out onto the landscape. A pair of men stood in front of the van. One held a rifle up to his shoulder and fired twice, just as the second man saw Marj's truck. She slammed on the brakes and came to a stop inches from the van, just as a wave of pain hit Marj in the back. NO! Run! Save yourself! Her spine arched, and dizziness shot through her, even as the wolf's voice inside her head faded. She might have fallen forward, unconscious across the steering wheel, if Patrick hadn't grabbed her by the arm and shook her. She heard his concerned voice. She couldn't respond to it, but she did react to Taffy's barking in her ear and the nudge of his wet nose on the back of her neck. That was her, all right. She didn't respond much to people, but animals… There were animals in trouble out there. One was terrified, the other was hurt. Can't move. Getting dark. Marj knew she had to do something, but for a moment she had no idea where she was. As she looked up, the second man grabbed the shooter by the arm. He shouted something, and pointed at them. The man with the weapon whirled around, the rifle still poised on his shoulder. For a second, she thought she was going to be shot again. Again? But the other man grabbed the shooter's arm and pushed him toward the van's open sliding door. The second man got into the driver's seat and barely took the time to slam the door before he roared off up the road. Marj was out of the truck before the van's taillights disappeared around the next curve. Taffy jumped out after her. It was a few seconds before Pat Muller followed. She was pacing along the rocky edge of the road by the time he reached her, Taffy trotting beside her, his nose to the ground. "What are you doing?" Pat asked. "I don't think it's safe to be out here." He plucked at the sleeve of her shearling jacket. "That man was shooting at something." "Not us," she answered. "What if they come back?" Marj stared off into the cold, clear December night. "There's something out there." Pat peered into the darkness, then looked worriedly at her. "What?" "Whatever he was shooting at." He'd hit it, too. She'd felt it; more than felt it, for a moment. She'd been the animal. Its thoughts had been hers. The awareness had been so strong that, for the first time in her life, the emotions and images she normally picked up had been experienced as words. Words from a — "The wolf!" Pat exclaimed. "He must have been shooting at the wolf." "Yeah." Pat rubbed his jaw. "Maybe they were trying to shoot it as a protective measure. It wouldn't be good for a wolf to be running loose in the desert." "Why not? There used to be Mexican red wolves running around here all the time." She glared at him. "Until we humans came along and hunted them to extinction in the wild." Pat backed a step. "Yes, but — you saw that animal. It was huge! It would be irresponsible to allow that thing to run loose." "Yes, it would," she agreed. "That's why I'm looking for it." "You?" He sounded horrified, and looked around anxiously. "Marj, I think we better get back in the truck." He took a cell phone out of his jacket. "We should call animal control." "I am animal control in this neck of the woods," she told him. "You're a vet, and you run a shelter, but you're no match for a wolf." "An injured or dead wolf." "What if they didn't hit it?" The wolf had been hit. She couldn't tell Pat how she knew because she was aware of just how crazy it would sound. "Why did they run off when they saw us?" she countered. "What were they up to?" "I better call the sheriff." "Don't bother trying. Your cell won't work out here." She had to find the wolf; it needed her. But where to start? She couldn't feel it any longer. She prayed that it wasn't dead. A lot of desert stretched below, where the hill fell into a wide valley. Even with the moon nearly full, she could barely make out nearby scrub brush and the silhouettes of boulders and a few cacti. Mountains loomed dark on the skyline in the distance. There was a lot of ground to cover. Injured or dead, she needed to find it. But how? Taffy began to bark. Startled, Marj jerked around and saw that he'd moved downhill. His stance was stiff and tense, and he was barking at a shadow lurking deeper in the shadows. Out of long practice, Marj set her own emotions aside and concentrated. Though she couldn't make out the shape of the creature cowering in the darkness, she recognized the animal's fear. "Poor thing," she murmured. Pat looked wildly around. "What?" "Shh. Stay here," Marj whispered, and moved cautiously forward. She put a hand on Taffy's head when she reached him, silencing him instantly. The big dog sat, and stayed alert but still while she moved forward. Within a few steps, she made out the shape of the first animal that had crossed her path earlier. More importantly, she reached its mind with her own questing feelings. She absorbed the fear and sent out calm. When the urge to run tried to take over her limbs, she suppressed it and managed to keep the animal from bolting in renewed panic. She went down on one knee and held a hand out toward the dark shape. She sensed that the animal was a dog, but one that wasn't that used to people. Domesticated, but not a pet? "It's okay," she murmured. "You can come to me." The dog whined piteously and bunched its muscles to run, the one thing it really knew how to do. Marj tugged it toward her with a mental command, and reinforced her will with a stern, "Come." The dog slinked closer, and she saw that it was a long, lean greyhound. It was as dark as the night, her coat black satin in the moonlight. Her sides were heaving with fear and exertion, but she let herself be touched. She was worried, very, very worried; maybe even more worried than she was afraid. Marj rubbed the greyhound's head, caressed its soft ears, and concentrated on finding out what troubled the animal. "You want me to help, don't you?" She sent out a gentle mental probe, and was soon flooded with images and sensations. After a few seconds the dog bounded off. Marj surged to her feet, knowing that the dog knew exactly where to look. As she turned to follow the greyhound, she ran into Pat. He reached out to steady her, but Marj dodged around him and raced downhill after the dog, Taffy loping at her side. After a few seconds, she heard Pat workin...
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