The Shadows of Christmas Past

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