Chapter Eight

Bringing the Freed Pack to Richland had been necessary, but had rolling consequences I hadn't begun to foresee. The Freed wanted to stay together — the submissives needed one another, and the dominants wouldn't leave them — but restriction to one city chafed, though they understood packs sharing space was at best iffy, and they weren't at all impressed with a northern rain-shadow climate. Much more serious, though, was the combination of standout social isolation and distance from family, and as we'd had state and federal governments on board, the state pleased by positive publicity and the feds very aware of compensation owed, we'd been able to do something about that.

Though many Hanford staff had been reassigned within the area — we have lots of government stuff round here — some moved on, so Richland had vacant alphabet properties, and besides the L- and T-houses off Duportail the Freed had pretty much been given, we managed to get the use of other Ts nearby for visiting families. There had been subsidies for those visits, and they had been fraught, as people at once joyous, worried, and angry had to cope with new realities, loved ones who were now and for ever moonbound packbound predators, largely invulnerable and seriously strong, and had packmates and an Alpha, loyalties cutting across blood- and kin-ties. Some Freed were young enough that restored parents expected obedience, and after Ramona had to back down a father who lost it Adam and I instituted a system of prior briefing. Coming to Kennewick gave us a chance to lodge explanations and post ground rules, while families saw wolves on four legs and demonstrations of strength and speed from those on two. Many still didn't like it, but did mostly realise that shouting and waving arms around wasn't going to work.

On the isolation, Ramona, Adam, and I had done some hard thinking. Richland was the least multicultural Tri-City, almost 90% Anglo at the last census, and the Freed were predominantly Hispanic and African-American; they were young, and needed things to do. College would be an option once they'd settled and their time was their own, as would jobs, but meantime a common reluctance to be alone, treatment for PTSD, and need to be available to investigators, with calls as witnesses looming, had made any answer difficult. Nor had everyone in Richland been thrilled by their presence, human–wolf lines deepened by racial and religious ones, and Ramona opted to tackle that head-on.

Using the problem of press intrusion, paparazzi who tried everything from climbing trees to door-stepping with video already running, and pulling in Richland PD, she set up a patrol system for the blocks around the Pack's houses. Trios of wolves, with one on four legs, walked circuits day and night, and as they didn't hesitate to step in when it seemed necessary, whether to rescue cats from trees or chase any muggers, burglars, vandals, or worse they came across, first the local then wider Richland petty crime rates took a nosedive. Wolf hearing and scenting meant awareness of other problems too — schoolkids talking about things no-one should be up to, domestic violence, concealed rape — and where the police couldn't act, Ramona often would. The gender, slightness, and youth of so many of her wolves meant men filled with self-righteous misogyny hopelessly underestimated them, while sight of, say, a teenage girl weighing less than a hundred pounds throwing two-hundred-plus of man and beer gut into a wall had its own happily rippling consequences. Richland became still more civilised, its appreciative PD developing close ties to the Freed, while a growing number of citizens acquired personal knowledge of wolf neighbours and reasons for grateful respect.

To undercut the paparazzi Ramona did a deal with Penny Ligatt and PBS for a reality show with plenty of human interest that respected the privacy of traumatised people receiving serious counselling, and tried hard to focus on real questions. Ramona and Bran had done a lot of productive arguing, between themselves and with other Alphas, and while any number of wolf matters did not get discussed on air, some did. Nudity made it tricky, but from the circumstances of their Changes and imprisonment the Freed did not expect privacy to change, so for the first time a very large audience saw people become wolves, and wolves become people. The severe pain involved was underlined, with the lack of choice at full moon — the moon not caring if it was your birthday, or a relative was ill, or there was a can't-miss game. Because it was a major issue for so many Freed, the inability of female werewolves to carry to term also came out, with the built-in skew that left them the choices of adoption or surrogacy but allowed males to father humans on humans. Wolf age was still off the agenda, and Ligatt knew why, but swift if more painful healing was in there with things they were learning — making-up interrupted educations, but also scenting from me, citizens' rights and duties from a state educator, and martial arts from Brent and several humans. Adam had insisted on the last, less for self-defence than to teach them their own strength and speed, and the impact on opponents. That it regularly showed off wolf toughness suited us too. To no-one's surprise Living Free and Moonbound was pulling PBS's biggest audiences in years, and informing a great deal of helpful debate.

There was also a religious front. Most Freed were at least nominally Catholics, though three had been raised Baptist, but if the local padre in Richland made a few right noises, he'd been too scared and theologically ambivalent about the preternatural to offer much welcome. He'd also been offended by Ramona's habit of saying Virgen de los Lobos, and the Madonna with wolves on either side the father of one of the Freed had carved for her, so my Episcopalians had seen a chance and stepped in. Reverend Jackson had garnered heavy publicity conducting the Interview for All Faiths with Medicine Wolf, and her congregation's reasonable wariness had swiftly been overcome by the Freed, their ages, builds, and known experiences clearly calling for care and charity. My more cynical backbrain thought celebrity didn't hurt, particularly when the Bishop made a trip from Spokane to welcome them and preach a very decent sermon about national shame and loving thy neighbour. The Episcopalian liturgy was strange to them, but had its own satisfying sense of ancient ritual, and the counselling they were receiving was substituting for confession, so it worked out well enough.

Everything shifted with the televised trial of Senator Heuter. Beyond the additional celebrity effect — and the Freed gave evidence over two weeks, so there was a lot of screen-time — the flat accounts and elicited details turned everyone's stomachs and when Heuter became the only federal senator ever to be convicted of mass murder and sentenced to death, his surviving victims, wolf and fae, entered the history books and became icons of a new kind. They also became very much wealthier.

With Wyoming verdicts filed it was impossible for Heuter's remaining lawyers to defend him against the lawsuits Jenny filed against Cantrip, naming him specifically, on behalf of Adam, Jesse, and me, the Freed Pack, the Wyoming dead, their kin, and kin of the River Devil's and Guayota's victims for the distress caused by MacLandis's malicious lies about them. The Federal Government had pleaded no contest, and with Heuter legally found to have commissioned, bankrolled, and facilitated Cantrip's crimes his entire, multi-generational fortune was liable for compensation and punitive damages. The DC jury had a field day juggling numbers, and while for Adam, Jesse, and me there were good baselines, in actual costs of security and dealing with the global circus Cantrip had inflicted, as well as previous awards for kidnapping, assault with a deadly, and intimidation, with the Freed there were huge imponderables. Length of false imprisonment varied more than severity of treatment, but in all cases traumata were multiple, prolonged, and complex, not least as witnesses to others being tortured, raped, and murdered, and there were forced Changes with life-changing consequences. The Freed argued against trying to quantify it individually, Ramona memorably pointing out that while being Changed had in some ways actually helped her with rape trauma she would not much care for any deductions on that score. It could have become an ugly crapshoot, but Jenny co-ordinated a joint submission about what we thought priorities, and a relieved judge and jury, with an eye on Heuter's known fortune of seven billion and change, decided Adam, Jesse, and I should each get ten million, plus all claimed expenses, relatives of the 313 Wyoming dead ten million per victim, relatives of other dead fifty million between them, and the Freed, fae and wolf, a hundred million each.

It would take time to realise the value of Heuter's portfolios and properties, but the Federal Government, as co-defendant, stepped in to underwrite awards in the interim, including those to fae, and the Freed Pack became a billionaire — which had more than Ramona scratching heads. I was still trying to explain being multi-millionaires to the earth fae, to Gwyn ap Lugh's amusement, though I'd made sure Baba Yaga had the burden of financial oversight for them and the freed fae Underhill. For the Freed Pack Charles set up trust funds that gave everyone permanent security, as well as spending accounts, and they decided everyone should tithe ten million to a pack fund, and thereafter ignore the pack-fee system. Even more impressively, they made a joint statement to their many suddenly very interested relatives about what they were and were not prepared to do. Mortgages would be paid, and school or college fees met, but consumer indulgence would not be funded, nor new property — unless families cared to move to Richland, in which case the Feds were willing to offer good deals.

I'd gathered from an amused if exasperated Ramona that there had been a great deal of squawking, but even submissive wolves are hard for non-wolves to argue with, and wolves as alpha as Ramona have a low tolerance for histrionics. The result had been a slow but cumulative migration of families, giving Richland what amounted to a Latinx quarter with an African-American slice — though Episcopalian-leaning Latinx was confusing everyone and amusing Reverend Jenkins, who made herself a helpful as well as challenging local presence.

In Ramona's case there was some bittersweet. She'd told me that night in Wyoming that most Freed weren't much older than her own kids, and it turned out she had four — three sons between nineteen and twenty-five, and a fifteen-year-old daughter. Her marriage had been 'necessary', in the Boss's terms, and not unhappy, but with the children mostly grown her husband drifted away and she'd been willing he should. Her disappearance meant the youngest had become his responsibility, and he'd moved back into the family home so she didn't have to change schools. Ramona approved, but her integrity meant she agreed her daughter should stay put, though it was not good for their phone bills. And though the two middle boys had migrated willingly, which made Ramona happy, the eldest — married with an infant daughter — had not, and from what I'd heard had the biggest problem with a mother showing herself thoroughly alpha and becoming a national heroine. It was lose-lose however anyone cut it, and though I'd have some things to say if I ever met him, as would Adam and Jesse, we had to be content with welcoming the middle sons and, on the weekends she visited, the daughter. Jesse had only had a few hours to bend Carmen's ear, but set to with a will, and there was regular email and message traffic, involving Sally Willis and Jenna Fisher, that was answering all sorts of questions and soothing fears.

The Freed wanted their kin working, even if regular employment was tricky for themselves, and besides small shops and restaurants that sprang up, helped by mayoral and PD grease, Ramona had — after encountering miracle pies — been inspired to seek out Benny and persuade him to open a second outlet in Richland offering inside and delivery jobs preferentially to those she and hers would vouch for. As Benny's had become sufficiently famous he'd been at full stretch for months he'd leapt at the deal, and Richland now boasted not only much faster delivery of miracle pies but a large and cheerful eat-in pizzeria doing a roaring trade. It was finding an interesting balance between preternatural-friendly and open to all, attracting the open-minded on all sides and paying enough taxes that Richland and the state were warmly grateful.

The purchase of hunting land had taken longer, and even with the additional land Adam and I had bought to secure our own tract the strains of two packs hunting the same area every full moon had been sufficient I'd asked the Man for some WD-40 in the works, and he'd come through. Ramona had purchased three hybrid SUVs for use by whoever, and an ElDorado sixty-seater coach that ran on a hydrogen fuel cell for pack and family outings. She, Hector Martinez, and three others had passed the driving tests, more good publicity on PBS, so Saturday morning, with everyone heading towards Rimrock, all Adam, Jesse, and I had to do was make a call, pile with Brent into the Grand Cherokee while Darryl, Warren, and Ben took a Range Rover, slide west on 392 to I82, and slow at the interchange so Ramona could tuck the ElDorado in behind us.

If you want hunting land for wolf-packs on the Columbia Plateau you need out of the rain-shadow, which from the Tri-Cities means the Cascades. It was a sunny day with some high cloud, and as Adam was driving, and Brent and Jesse entertaining one another trashing boy bands, I was happy to appreciate the view. Between Prosser and Yakima I82 ran through irrigated fields, but once we'd turned onto 12 for Naches and swung west for Rimrock we were back in scrub until we started climbing, pine, larch, hemlock, and fir began to thicken, and I wound down the window to enjoy the smell of mountains.

The Freed's land was north of Rimrock Lake, and though still quite dry, with a lot of clearings among the trees, it was a completely different ecosystem and excellent wolf country. Coyote country, too. When we pulled into the carpark at John Russel Ranch Jim Alvin and a delegation of Yakama elders, with some younger men and women, were waiting in full tribal fig, because Penny Ligatt and crew were along to catch the Freed Pack discovering its new land. Spare seats had been filled with family, mostly children wanting a day out, with teens and adults toting picnic baskets, so there was a lot of disembarking and sorting out, but once the pack was all out, Jesse and Brent standing safely off camera, Ramona set things in motion and for a while we went quite formal.

I didn't have the cloak, but had brought Thunderbird's feather as well as Manannán's Bane, and made introductions. It was good publicity for Yakama and First People as well as wolves to be seen to be mutually respectful, elders warmly welcoming the pack to land adjoining their reservation, pack agreeing to mind the boundary, and everyone happy with what they would take care to do, and not do, as visiting apex predators. We acquired an audience from the campsite, all agog when the Freed, with Warren and Ben, disappeared behind a screen the Yakama had provided to change. Penny came to collar me and Adam, and grabbing opportunity we towed her over to the gawkers, explaining what was happening, and once wolves began to emerge made a point of introducing them, especially to children. The wolves got to register scent, look good, and make nice, and once gawkers got over their nerves they felt the thrill, far more vital than celebrity, of being close to powerful animals that were not harming you because they chose not to.

And the Freed did look good. The gauntness they all had when rescued had filled out, silver was gone from lungs, fitness was way up, coats glossy, and tails briskly mobile. Quite a few were distinctly larger, a phenomenon Bran was watching closely because the rules meant humans who hadn't finished growing weren't Changed, so it wasn't one he'd seen much since Charles was small. It was more pronounced in males, wolf chests filling out as human ones did, but there was a slight general enlargement, and Charles and Darryl had been correlating human and wolf weights with fascinated puzzlement, sharing data with other mathematically-minded wolves to see if anyone could find a rule of proportionality. No-one had, save that it was probably exponential, but it made the Freed Pack increasingly formidable, while the high percentage of submissives kept it unusually calm.

They didn't do close formation any more than other packs, but had that shared awareness and instinctive co-operation that meant for all the swirling there was no jostling, wolves flowing into spaces that opened up and opening other spaces to be filled. Adam and I gave sound bites, explaining what most pleased us and the Freed about regained health and growth, and the importance of dialogue with First People. When the last wolf was ready, and Ramona, Darryl and Warren trotting beside her, led the pack towards the road, I had to laugh because after a firm glance at both her pack's kin and camping children Ramona ostentatiously stopped at the verge to look both ways, cocking her head, before bounding across to leap the further bank and disappear among trees. I could feel Warren's amusement as he copied her, and all followed suit. I pointed out to the children that even wolves obeyed that code, because being hit by cars really hurt, and once Penny had wrapped she gave me a grin.

"You don't miss a trick, Mercy. Nor Ramona. It'll be a great segment, and we could turn it into a Safety Drill film kids would love."

The state would like it too — Washington had one of the lowest figures for road deaths per million inhabitants, and Montana the highest, so there were regional bragging rights at stake — and I gave a thumbs-up.

"Good thought, Penny. Check with Ramona, but I'd be happy with that. And using preternaturals for that kind of thing is worth thinking about." Penny looked thoughtful, and I wondered how wrong it was to think it could become a policy. Maybe Stefan could do dental hygiene and flossing by way of giving vamps better PR. "All well with you?"

"Can't complain. Becoming a PBS poster-girl is more fun than not, I have a professional reason for regular contact with Benny's pies, and I'm working off the extra calories."

Adam, who liked her as much as I did, gave her a grin. "You can add wolf poster-girl, too. Alphas are very happy with the show."

"Glad to be so, Adam. It feels important work, and having that and audience figures is pleasing. I've had kind words from many quarters."

"Rightly."

She nodded, curiosity in her eyes. "Thanks. I was surprised when Ramona told me you were both coming today."

I shrugged. "Birds and stones. Even wolves prefer a guide in a strange place, so some Columbia Basin Pack were always coming first time, Adam, Jesse, and I can both do with a day in the sun, and Yakama elders and I need to talk land issues and giving the state legislature a prod."

"Huh. You're getting impatient with them?"

"Increasingly. We need clarity sooner than later about Celilo Falls."

"That I get. And I look forward to you prodding anything governmental, so I'll watch that space. Why do I still feel like I'm missing something?"

"Couldn't say, Penny. If there were anything else, might be I'll be in touch soon, but not today. And we need to get going, as we're on two legs."

She looked after us, calculation joining curiosity, but wouldn't push, yet, one reason we'd come to trust her. The younger Yakama recruited older children to shift boxes of wolves' clothes into the ElDorado's vault, and the woman in charge, Selene Lewis, pulled in camping families, for lessons in safe outdoor cooking. Hampers were unpacked, and with good if sometimes mutually baffled multiculturalism going on Adam and I were free to collect Jesse and Brent, join Jim and the waiting elders, who'd shed finery to reveal proper hiking gear, and head up the mountain.

Dan Strongbear, Ed Selmuit, and Riva Lewis — Selene's mother — were all over seventy, and I was as always struck by their undiminished ease in climbing. I was relishing being on a mountainside, as Adam was; Jesse too, but she had less breath, so conversation shifted into business.

"Say Celilo Falls gets sacred status, with acceptable tourist access. I don't think that will be a problem, but the compensation paid is, however inadequate. So how about, the ruling is that anyone who owned land for which they or an ancestor received compensation has first dibs — direct descent, then sibling and cousin — but half the compensation must be refunded. And the state or Feds offer long-term, low-interest loans as necessary. The strongest claims would be met, most land would revert to the pre-dam status quo, and no-one with a dominant claim who really wanted the land, enough to work for it, would be denied."

Dan waggled a hand behind him, where I could see it.

"The ruling, sure, Mercy. That sounds smart, if the state or Feds will play ball, and I trust you to wrangle them. But with Celilo Falls 'acceptable tourist access' is … I won't say none, because we have to sup with the devil, but as few as possible."

"Agreed." Riva was behind me. "I like the ruling, Mercy. Dan's right it's smart, and you're right it would work. But Celilo Falls … that wrong cuts deep, and there's plenty of living memory."

"OK." There were times when a spirit of compromise just meant incremental destruction all over again. "I doubt no tourist access at all will fly, but … say, nothing for a year and a day, rededication being necessary, then a mid-distance viewpoint that can be restricted during … ceremonies. But you do allow preternatural access. I can't make Celilo Falls what it was as the spiritual centre of the Yakama Nation, we don't yet know how the reborn falls will be, despite that sonar map, and I can't make Anglos respect them as they should, but if it were a place where Elder Spirits, avatars, Medicine Wolf, wolves, and fae could meet as necessary or desired, to thrash something out or say hi, how are you doing … ?"

Dan turned to climb backwards, looking at me hard, but turned back before he spoke.

"How mid- is mid-distance?"

"Just enough to get a photo, say they've seen. I know, but so do you."

He grunted, and Riva laughed.

"We all do, Mercy. But you mean being a place of preternatural meeting would give sacred-space exclusion some real juice?"

"Yes. Right result, even if for the wrong reasons."

"I don't know they're wrong, Mercy." Ed was behind Riva, with Jim. "Dan, a meeting place for spirits and community is what Celilo Falls were, as well as excellent fishing and the river's song. Why shouldn't they get back to being it? And we'd not turn Medicine Wolf away even if we could, so why refuse wolves or fae?"

"Who have done a lot for us." Riva sounded reflective. "Pretty much everything good in the last few years has been Mercy's work one way and another, from killing the River Devil to having a re-emerging land problem to chew on. Edythe has also been helpful with that campground in the gorge. Elder Spirits favour Mercy, and Medicine Wolf chose her. That plan sounds good to me. At Celilo Falls all preternaturals and First People meet in peace. Pipes optional, peace not."

I laughed, as others did.

"That'll have some traction."

Dan's back was stiff, but he was the most conservative and detested cameras, though he'd sucked up Penny. Mirrors were bad too, and CDs and cell phones, but you didn't wield Yakama power without being a realist.

"Maybe. I am not unappreciative, Mercy, but let us hear what the Elder Spirits have to say."

With an eyeroll at Riva, who grinned, I dropped back to join Jesse, pointing things out as we climbed — vine maple, snowberries, and oceanspray in the sparse understory, and a pair of red crossbills, the male a gorgeous orange and his mate mixing green and yellow, attracted by some Douglas firs taking a chance at lower elevation. We were below the limit of glaciation, but there was geology to notice as well. High on the slope, in thicker woodland, I scented a fairly fresh kill — deer by cougar — but said nothing. The slope topped out eight hundred feet above the lake, and we came over the ridgeline into a wide, slightly bowled plateau from which a further rise climbed towards Ironstone Mountain. The trees were denser, firs predominating, and Dan, Ed, Riva, and Jim all went into quiet-footed forest mode, slipping through trees, while Adam and Brent let their wolves ascend to enjoy the scenery and became wolf-quiet. Jesse was never going to be a woodswoman in the way my coyote made me, but liked wilderness, and I spoke softly about how I placed my feet, and what I could see, smell, and hear. It pleased us both, and made Adam very happy, because Christy couldn't tell a ponderosa from a pignut and wouldn't be caught dead in a forest anyway, and wouldn't have spent any time at all teaching Jesse anything. Jesse got it, footfall quieter even in Timberlands, and only a few moments after I'd picked it up her head turned, nose wrinkling.

"Is that smoke?"

"Yup. Well-spotted. There are venison steaks and sausages in there, so it's a campfire and lunch."

Jesse looked dubious, but as we followed the scents food smells strengthened, and dodging around the tangle of a fallen pine we came out into a beautiful small clearing by Wildcat Creek. A traditional circle of river stones contained the fire, but the tripod and camp-cooking kit it supported, steaks and sausages sizzling nicely, were distinctly high-end, and so were the cooks. Gordon was turning sausages, and Coyote looked up from a loaf he was slicing.

"There you all are at last. Good timing, because I'm hungry."