Quinn Read Free

deposited the pup on the ground and got to his feet, wiping his hands down his pant legs.
    Whenever they started talking about their mother he got this terrible empty feeling inside, as though nothing in the world would ever be enough to fill the hole. Maybe this was how their dad felt when he went off to the barn and worked like a devil was after him.
    “Time for us to head home.”
    Despite their reluctance, the other two set down the pups they’d been petting and pulled themselves into their saddles. It never occurred to them to question Quinn’s authority.
    As they turned away, Quinn pointed to a blur of shadow in the woods. “Just in time. There’s their ma now, heading home with their dinner. Let’s not spook her.” He wheeled his mount and the others did the same.
    As they rode away they kept looking back, relieved that the mother wolf had returned to her pups.
    For Quinn, it was a sign of hope. Maybe, by the time they got home, their own ma would be back, too.
    Just as they topped a ridge they heard a single gunshot and the high, sharp cry of something wild, followed by a volley of gunshots that echoed and reechoed like thunder through the still air.
    With the hairs at the back of his neck bristling, Quinn tugged on the reins, wheeling his mount, and the other two followed, urging their horses into a run as they raced back to the wolf den.
    A neighboring rancher, Porter Stanford, was standing over the bodies of the female and her pups sprawled around her.
    It was a grisly scene, the ground already stained with blood, the bodies twisted and still where only moments earlier they’d been filled with life.
    The children stared in stunned silence as Porter spit a wad of tobacco. “Lucky I got here when I did. I just saved my herd and yours from these filthy predators.”
    “But they didn’t—” At Jake’s protest Quinn reached over and covered his mouth, stifling anything more.
    He saw the flash of fury in their neighbor’s eyes as he looked up at them, still seated on their horses.
    “You got anything to say?” he demanded of Quinn.
    “No, sir.”
    “Good. Glad your daddy taught you to respect your elders.” He looked back at the wolves. “Murdering bastards got no right to live.”
    With a muttered oath the man swung away and pulled himself heavily into the saddle. He dug in his heels and his horse took off with a flurry of hooves.
    Without a word Quinn slid from the saddle and bent to cradle one of the dead pups. Despite its eerie stillness, the tiny body was still warm.
    He knelt and set it gently inside the den.
    Seeing what he intended, Jake and Josh did the same, placing the pups side by side in the hollowed-out earth.
    It took all three of the children, sighing and straining, to lift the female’s body, which they placed on top of her pups. By the time they were finished, their clothes were stained with blood and dirt.
    “Should we say a prayer?” Jake asked.
    Though his brothers looked uncomfortable, they nodded, and Quinn murmured the words from one of the familiar nighttime prayers their mother had always insisted on, while the other two echoed his words.
    They remained there for long, silent moments, bound together by their shared pain.
    As they mounted their horses and started away, Quinn could no longer hold back his tears. Of rage. Of frustration. Of a deep, unexplained pain at the loss of beautiful creatures that had been so alive, so vibrant, just a short time ago. They didn’t deserve this cruel fate. They deserved to live, to grow, to play, and to howl at the moon. To mate, and have pups of their own.
    Instead, their lives had been cut short by the whims of one man.
    This cruel act was so final. So wrong and unfair.
    As wrong and unfair as the twist of fate that had stolen a mother from the family that needed her.
    As Quinn worked frantically to stem his tears, his fingers left filthy streaks of mud and dirt on his cheeks, like the war paint Ela had described to them when telling