Silver & Snow

Vincent “Miisii” Red Crow

“And where was the last place you saw them, Billy?” I dip my fingers into the boot tracks. They tell me a lot, but not enough. My cousin is still missing.

I try to temper my anxiety concentrating on the boot tracks, the direction they’re pointed, the size and depth of the gouges.

“Near the ridge—I mean, you know where the falls are, right?” The teenager scratches the side of his jaw. Billy is seventeen, he’s been shifting for two years and still can’t get his bearings straight.

“Everyone knows where the falls are,” I look up at him. “Height, skin color, what were they wearing, did they have guns?” There, let’s make it easy.

“Shorter than you, as tall as me, I think.” He twists his fingers together. “White men, wearing camo pants, black boots, and dark sweaters, and yes, they had guns.”

Grunting, I push myself off the ground and look around before directing my gaze back to Billy. He’s 5′8.” The white man drew borders and called this edge the Blackfeet’s land. Historically, we know where we roamed. Where we come from and how far we can go. It’s not uncommon for us to roam this far. My cousin trains the young shifters, brings them here to run free and wild, learn to do as animals do, so no one gets caught.

We’ve kept our secret this long; the wild still hides its own. Then the invaders came—some learned our secrets. Some were jealous. They began hunting us, all the shifters who call these so-called United States, home.

“How long ago did Lucian leave you?” I close my eyes to the autumnal sun and try to think. Where would he go? He’d gather all the kids again with a roar, he’d make sure they were safe… then what?

“Two weeks ago,” Billy nods. “I’ve been doing fine on my own.”

“Didn’t say you weren’t.” I answer. He wants to prove himself, that much I do know. His father was one of our best trackers, damn good hunter as well.

Billy kicks a rock away, his shoes are scuffed with clay, the toes are nearly worn through. He climbed in them, but when and why? “I heard Lucian roar, the one he uses for danger. I came straight to this spot, but it’s been two days.”

Two days too long. “Go back to the reservation.” I say turning away from him. “Tell the elders I’m looking into it, and… don’t send anyone after me.”

“No,” Billy stands in front of me, face defiant as he crosses his arms over his chest. “I can help, Miisii. I’m not a kid.”

He uses my tribal name, not my English one. His hazel eyes scrunch as the afternoon sun shines onto his brown face. He’s a kid though, and I don’t know what I’ll find.

“What if some nosy hiker sees a wolf trailing a cougar, hm? What then?” The wind brushes a few strands of my hair across my cheek.

He shrugs. “They’ll think I’m following you for a kill, chasing you out of my territory.”

Maybe. Swiping my tongue over my teeth I sigh. I might need his help, what if I find another kid? Billy was the oldest out here, and he’ll be the one to take them back to the reservation. Won’t that be a sight. Three wolves, a grizzly, a black bear, and a mountain lion—all trotting in line, heading east.

This feels like the beginning of a joke. Shaking my head, I point at him. “You stay ten paces behind me.”

“Yes, sir.” He’s excited, his form already rippling with the change.

“Hey,” I grab the front of his coat. “Pay attention to me, if I send you away, you go. If there are two, what do you do?”

“Attack the one you aren’t. If he has a knife, grab that hand, he won’t expect it.” Good.

I nod, and crack my neck.

The change comes fast for me, I’ve been doing this for 26 years and now it’s as natural as breathing. I draw a deep breath into my lungs and when I exhale, my hands hit the soft underbrush as paws, my tail flicks out behind me, and the thrum through my veins hums with the blood of the cougar.

Behind me, Billy is turning in a neat circle, stretching his head towards his side as he bites his flank with his incisors. A quick meow is all it takes to secure his attention, and he’s staring, tail high, ears forward.

Blowing air through my nose, I sniff the tracks and follow the scent into a bramble of bushes. It’s late September; the chill of winter has begun to set in. I shake out my coat once, then slap a bush to get Billy’s attention.

He comes trotting forward and sniffs the greenery, growling softly as he looks back at me. That’s the scent. Moving my head to one side, he takes off through the trees and I follow.

Not sure if this kid realizes that mountain lions are not built for stamina, but I can keep up better than most. He slows himself into a steady walk once he’s sees that I’m behind him.

The forest’s sounds are comforting. Somewhere above, ravens call to each other between the branches of the Douglas firs. A spiders web collects strings of dew in the shadow. Our paws move over the fallen pine needles, dead leaves, flattened grasses, and moss.

This is the place that we call home. That I know like the back of my hand, well, paw, right now.

We move in silence, a lone red fox darting under the brush and away from us as we near it.

As we near the waterfall, I can hear them… voices as they chuckle. The smell of man, especially these men permeates the senses. Gunpowder, sweat, cheese, something lingering between the stench of dirty socks with the thickness of blood.

I growl, soft and low, and Billy stops; falling behind me as we creep up near the mouth of hill.

Three men, one is washing his hands in the water, the other two are smoking and talking. Rifles strapped to their back, winter jackets, thick boots. I watch their movements while vitriol creeps into bloodstream. The man washing his hands shakes them, and I watch as droplets of blood slide from his fingers onto the pebbled edges of the river.

Billy whines softly, his belly to the ground next to me. One look tells me these are the fools we’re looking for.

There’s an easy path to get down to where they are. I could easily grab one while Billy snatched the other, but the third might get a shot off in that time.

That’s when I see the fourth man approach, he’s carrying a rope over his shoulder… he’s dragging something.

“I bet my bottom dollar there’s another one of these bastards near.” The man with the wet hands sighs. “Got one… so where could the others be?”

A man with dark jeans shrugs. “Fucking shifters… abominations all of them. Mockus saw the cat with a black bear… we’ll need to look in trees.”

As the fourth man approaches, my heart rate goes into overdrive once he drops what he’s carrying. My breath heightens, claws extending as they dig into the rock and soil beneath my paws.

Lucian…

they murdered him.