The shotguns relax, but Tank hovers close to me. The only one who’s not openly hostile is Jordy.
“Sit here,” she whispers when we’re sheltered in the mouth of the cave. The foxes gather around us, their leaders taking places on a few rocks that help them stand a head over Tank.
They pass around a jug of something that smells like Tank’s bottle in a brown paper bag, only a hundred times stronger. They don’t offer it to us.
“Is this how you treat all your visitors?” Tank eyes the guns.
“We don’t get many visitors,” Jason says. The fox next to him, almost identical down to his work boots and dirty overalls, spits.
“Why have you come?” Pa asks.
“I just want to find my father. Can you tell me about Johnny?”
“Yeah, he was one of us,” Jason speaks up. “My dumb brother.”
“So, we’re related?”
“All fox shifters are related,” my uncle answers. “There aren’t many of us. No thanks to the wolves.”
“My pack never did anyone harm,” Tanks says.
“You didn’t have to. Shifters disappearing all over, and it’s got the stink of wolf all over it.” Jason glares at us.
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
“Johnny’s gone,” Pa says bluntly. “He disappeared a year ago.”
Tank and I exchange glances. I notice Jordy staring hard at the ground.
“What, he just disappeared? Did you go looking for him?”
“No. Didn’t have to. The wolves took him. Jeb and Joey went and sniffed them out.” My uncle points to two other sandy-haired shifters who look so much alike, they could be brothers. Or cousins.
“Maybe you should ask your wolf where your father is,” Pa says.
“Wolves aren’t taking people.” Tank frowns.
“Says a wolf,” Jason sneers.
“Do you know where they took him?” I interrupt their glaring contest.
“I just know they took him. Snatched him from the market last summer,” Jeb or Joey answers. All these J names and similar faces, it’s hard to tell them apart.
“Johnny ran the market stall before Jordy. Had all these high falutin’ ideas of foxes being part of society,” Pa says.
“See where it got him,” Jason mutters.
I swallow around the knot in my throat.
“Now, Jordy runs the stall. We didn’t want it, but she insisted.”
Jordy visibly pales. She hasn’t lifted her eyes from the ground. It’s hard to see her standing up for anything.
“And look what happened,” Pa continues berating Jordy. “A wolf tracked us.”
“It’s not her fault,” I say. “I just found out I’m a shifter. My fox wanted to find its kin.” I look around at the shadowed faces.
“You live alone, girl?” Jason looks me up and down.
“She’s under my protection.” Tank moves closer to me.
A few foxes shake their heads.
“Please, can you tell me anything else about my father?”
“Johnny was an odd one. Moved around a bit, even took up residence in town at one time. Moved back here when shifters started disappearing.”
“What sort of shifters?” Tank asks.
“Grizzlies, foxes, eagles. A few big cats. Mostly the loners, or the weak.”
“Who would be taking them?” I ask.
“We don’t know. Wolves, some of them.”
“Not my pack,” Tank says quickly.
“Does it matter? You’re all the same.” Angry mutters ripple around us, and the shotguns bristle again.
“And Johnny, did he know this was happening?” I step in front of Tank, hoping to keep my kin from turning into a mob.
“He knew,” Pa answers. “And he wanted to stop it. Didn’t back off until too late. They got his scent, and when he went out to market, they took him.”
“Kin keep to kin,” Jason says, and a few foxes repeat his words in an eerie chant. My extended family feels more cult-like by the second. “Foxes are meant to live in secret,” my uncle continues. “Johnny never learned. And now he’s gone.”
Foxfire
It’s late afternoon when we hike back to Daisy. The foxes provide an escort to the edge of their land, but only Jordy walks with us.
“Hey,” I whisper to her as we go single file through a dense thicket. “You’re not in trouble, are you? I mean, it’s not your fault we found you. We would’ve sniffed you out one way or another.”
She shakes her head, but I don’t quite believe her.
When we hear the sound of cars on the highway, Tank and I find ourselves alone.
“You all right?” he asks as we climb into Daisy.
I barely nod. My father is missing, and has been for most of the year. My kin are a bunch of backwoods, inbred, wolf-hating hillbillies. We didn’t see any females other than Jordy, but if she’s their example of a liberated woman, I don’t even want to know what they think of hippie feminists who dye their hair and own businesses. No wonder Johnny didn’t bring my mother into the fold. As much as she might dig the homemade clothes and living in caves, she couldn’t give up coffee shops and modern plumbing.
“Foxfire?” Tank has pulled over. We’re at a diner on the edge of town.
“We should call Sunny,” I say. My mom might be worried. Or, knowing her, assume we snuck off to make love in the woods all day. I pull my phone out and shoot her a text, asking if we can bring her dinner. She replies right away that she made friends with a few local market people and is going to a vegan potluck and meditation session with them tonight.
Tank guides me into the diner and orders food. When it comes, I pick at it.
After polishing off his huge order, Tank bumps my foot. “So, you met your kin. Pretty smart of them to hide out like that.”
“Did you know there were… people… living like that?”
“No. But I’m not surprised. It’s dangerous for the weaker species. They lie low.” He frowns. “You gonna eat the rest of your burger?”
I shake my head.
“What do they do if they have to go to the doctor?”
“Shifters don’t need much medical care.”
“What about food? Schools?”
“They don’t trust any outsiders. They take care of their own.”