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I thought about the key chain incrossto cops was harder still "Mhtfully "I think there are only two, and they’re looking to runted "Darindylow is on the hureen Yoda with fangs and claws, about four feet tall Don’t shoot it It’s your friend"

Grizzard’s eyes narrowed "This grindy better not take the law into his hands Vigilante law’s got no place in my county"

I chuckled "You corner the wolves, and they’ll go down fighting Whichup furry Then, if you doenough to hold theo furry Werewolves are erous than any other supernatural creature, even a varindy do his job Just uarantee that fangheads didn’t do this?" He jerked his head vaguely down the mountain

"Guarantee" I looked atit

CHAPTER EIGHT

You Chasing the Big Doggies?

I drove away, pulling up the GIS le and Yahoo! and MSR Maps, which offered aerial views that could be overlaid with or exchanged for street ht take ood off-road as they were on And hoped the extra weight of the ar back out Ia place to execute a tight three-point turn that wasto slide off the narrow trail and carryback up the hill, drank a liter of water, added twoto end up at the convergence of another creek It was a harrowing descent, and I worked up a sweat

The S their ownthe natural west-to-east trade winds The teressively le needed to warrew aroundvertical strips, the mist for which the Smoky Mountains had been named It stuck to my skin and clothes, cold and cla down vertical rock faces and cutting into the mountain floor My sweat chilled andraw fro across bark and rock that decelerated h surely the land had been surveyed, it looked as though no one had been here since the deforestation in the 1920s I found no hun, deer scat and tracks, and arubs, a honeybee nest high in a tree showing fresh claw e where the bear had clin, old scat, dried and strewn Beast heldthe scat with all her senses Mythe scent in through nose andability left Beast nearly head-blind She looked up the s froht at her

Finally she thought at me, uncertain, Bobcat Male

When? I asked

Last snow ti in the scents of the place, s on the breeze, deer, bear, rabbit, opossum and raccoon, numerous birds, the dry reek of snake e cats Idead-fish-shed, the only hue "Yes"

Kill and eat it?

"No Definitely not It’s hunting the olves"

Beast hissed, deep in my mind Kill and leave wolves to rot Killers of winter food Thieves of meat Wasters of meat There were few more horrible insults fro else, but I appreciated her focus She often saw and snored because I didn’t knohat they meant Like the scat and the claw marks