Nothing happened for the first few days of our plan, and although I enjoyed my walks with Sam through the sanctuary and playing with Teddy in the field while Sam practiced some fancy maneuvers with Fáilte under saddle, we saw no signs of Jarrett. It wasn’t until the following Saturday, over a week later, that the strange man made another appearance.

Teddy and I were really getting into a good game of tag in the big field, the first we’d been able to have as there had been events at the cabin the previous few times we’d been through. He was in a very silly mood that day, and he bounced from right to left as fast as he could go, dodging my outstretched hand by inches, and darting back in, teasingly just out of reach. Sam stood back a-ways with Fáilte, stroking her neck and laughing at the two of us. Teddy suddenly thudded his feet down solidly in front of me, snorting and tossing his head, eyes focused behind me towards the trail. I grabbed his halter, clipping the lead onto the ring, and turned to see Jarrett walking down towards us.

“And here you are again,” he said, smiling.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sam start to walk over to join me, leading the mare gently by the reins. Jarrett nodded in Sam’s direction, and stopped.

“I came down hoping to get to see you playing with your horse again, and here you are,” he said. “How are you this fair day?”

“Well,” I said shortly. “Except that you’ve once again disturbed our fun.”

“Well, yes, I suppose I have,” he said, not sounding too contrite. “It isn’t often though that you get to see such a pretty sight as a horse at liberty.”

He turned to Sam and smiled.

“I take it your horse is not so calm off the lead?” he asked.

“Not usually, no,” said Sam. “She’s pretty good, but I need to practice with her more than play.”

“I see,” said Jarrett. “Well, I’ll come to the point. I’m looking for someone who has a good relationship with horses to help me track down something. Have you seen any other unusual horses around? I heard a rumor that one got loose in town and was seen by many people before disappearing. People said it was reddish, like yours, but that they have no idea where it went. Has yours ever escaped?”

“No,” I said, truthfully, as I patted Teddy on the neck. “He’s never taken off or been loose in town while I’ve had him. I did hear about this one you mention, though.”

“Hmm,” Jarrett said. “I assume you would know. Is there a vet in town who works with horses closely?”

“I’m one of the town vets. I don’t,” said Sam, “but I think that Dr. Schaffer out at River Road Veterinary does, though.”

“Ah,” smiled Jarrett. “You must be Dr. Winston. Glad to meet you. Dr. Schaffer, you say? I’ll have to check him out. I’m looking to get a horse, you see, and need a vet who understands the unique needs of horses.”

“He’s the one I’d recommend. We go to a specialist down towards Boston; a Dr. Francois Jules. He’s very good, but a bit of a trip. Still, we’ve known him for years, and he makes house calls. We went to school together.”

I looked at Sam like he’d lost his mind, but he just smiled as if there was nothing at all weird about his commentary. Jarrett, too, looked puzzled, but nodded.

“I’ll have to keep him in mind,” he said. “Well, I won’t keep you any longer.”

With that, Jarrett turned and wandered away towards the path that curved out the long way. We watched him go, and then I turned to Sam to see him grinning ear to ear.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing,” he said. “I called Francois a few days ago in preparation for this. He looks after some of the city’s horses, as well as some of those in some of the more glamorous suburbs. He was more than happy to do me a good turn as he knows how much I value my privacy and he values his. He also told me that he has gotten a number of odd calls down his way as of late. His family is from the Beacon Hill district…nice people, old money… anyway, they are not big believers in spreading rumors or entertaining fools. He said he’s shut down a few requests for comments on odd sightings, not that any of our folk live in the city. He basically tells them to go read the tabloids and hangs up on them. He said they stopped calling about a month ago.”

“That might be why Jarrett walked away so fast,” I said. “If they’d ruled him out, then they’d have no reason to suspect him.”

We began to walk back towards the front gate, taking our time and ambling down the path to the lower dam, and then wending our way back up the hill. Teddy tried to move a little faster, but I reminded him that we had to give Jarrett time to get into place to follow us. He heaved a sigh and fell back into a slow walk with impatience.

When we reached the crossroads, there was no sign of Jarrett, but then again, we didn’t look too hard. We headed out the main gate and then swung up onto the little trail beside the pond. The way was narrow and full of tree roots jutting out of the soil, but we made fairly good time, getting back to where we parked the truck and trailer for the last few days after asking the neighbors of they would mind. No one had a problem with it, and some of the neighborhood kids always seemed to be on hand when we got back to come and say hi to the horses. One of them, a pretty girl of about sixteen, always came over with sugar cubes, and it was all we could do to keep Teddy from shape shifting on the spot to talk to her. He swore that he would get a chance to meet her eventually.

Sure enough, there were several kids hanging around when we got back, and they came over to talk to us. The sixteen-year-old was not among them, but the other kids had brought carrots and were happily feeding the horses as we had taught them to from flat palms. Fáilte was very delicate with the offerings, and Teddy made sure not to take more than his share.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted movement up in the woods. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought it was Jarrett, spying on us to the last. We put Fáilte and Teddy in the trailer and drove back to Jo’s. No one followed us.

What followed were several months of relative calm. Meredith and Teddy eventually left to go back home, and Sarah and I completed our separate moves. Our Monday night gatherings continued, however, at Sam’s house usually, though Tim and Sarah hosted a few good-naturedly as a trade-off. I was still adjusting to living with Sam, and we had found that, finances permitting, we might be able to find a larger place if things continued to work out between us. In the meantime, we both saved what we weren’t spending with that eventual goal in mind and made plans for a trip to Montana in mid-September.

We also still made occasional trips to the Bird Sanctuary, though we had taken to driving over to Jo’s back field as we had her blessing to use it for riding practice whenever we liked. On one occasion when Jo wasn’t home, we played tag in the field for a while and then settled down in the late afternoon sun, resting comfortably together as we had that interrupted day when Jarrett had first found us. The peace in that field was so calming and so lulling that I fell asleep on Sam’s silken side, and it wasn’t until almost dark that he roused me so we could head home.

There had been no other rumors of the Mystery Seekers hunting in our area, but we kept our wits about us anyway. Because we didn’t have a horse trailer for Sam, we managed to find out-of-the-way places to change in Andover by being very, very circumspect. Other times, we drove up north, primarily on visits to my folks who had by now had met and decided they adored Sam, but also to go to some of the remote parks I knew in upper New Hampshire. In the meantime, we kept an eye out for a small farm or other secluded property that we could look into eventually purchasing. There was nothing in Andover within a price range we felt we could afford, so we began to expand the search out further.

September finally rolled around and with it came the preparation for our trip to Montana. We were only going for a week, but there was so much to do to prep for it. Sarah would be coming over to check on Sam’s cat Micha, there was the vet who would be taking Sam’s emergency cases for him to make arrangements with, and there were also plenty of things I had to finish up at work before I left. It wasn’t until the night before we the trip that I finally admitted how nervous I was to be going to visit his family.

“Wow,” he said. “I never thought about it. I mean, we’ve been to visit your family and that was a bit unnerving for me, but I figured that as you’ve met my mother, it wouldn’t be so bad.”

“Remember again how many people you said live there?” I asked.

“Only about ten at the main ranch,” he said. “Then about twenty or so more scattered around the region…Yeah, okay, I see what you might mean. I’ll try to get the word to them not to all mob you at the same time.”

I snuggled up against him, and he stroked my hair as we lay in the dark.

“Do you think Jarrett and his group have given up?” I said.

“No,” he sighed. “I think we’ve been granted a reprieve for a time, is all. If we’re lucky, they’re convinced enough to leave us be while they look elsewhere. If not, they are planning to try to catch us somehow. We just haven’t been consistent enough for them.”

“Still want to do dressage?” I teased. “That would certainly throw them off.”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” he said. “I think it could be a lot of work, but potentially really fun too. I figure we’ll talk to a few people while we’re on our trip home. See what they think.”

“Your mom will have a field day,” I said.

“She might at that,” he laughed. “We’ll just have to see.”

The flight to Montana was uneventful, thankfully, and we picked up our rental car once we arrived to begin the long three-hour drive to the ranch. Sam drove while I gawked at the scenery. The land was a lot of open space once we were outside of the city of Billings, and the longer we drove, the more sparsely populated the land became. The further north we went, the more mountainous it became, but the more sky also became visible.

We passed through a few small towns and even these became less evident the further we went. Big ranches began to take over the scenery, and we eventually got to a point where it was mostly wildlife and road signs. I saw at least one pronghorn antelope on a far hill looking down at us, and eagles and other birds of prey were everywhere. Sam seemed to relax the further we drove, and I felt like I could breathe without looking over my shoulder for the first time in a long while. The land out there was different than anything I had ever known. It was not so much sparse as untouched. There just weren’t that many people. We didn’t even pass that many cars after the first hour, and once we edged onto a secondary road two hours into the drive, I don’t think we saw anyone for the rest way.

I was dozing when Sam stopped the car outside of a big iron gate that was set into a very long fence. He got out, opened the padlock with a key, and swung the gate wide. Once through the gate, he stopped again to relock it, then drove on down a long, winding dirt road through what appeared to be miles and miles of pasturelands. Groups of horses grazed on the hills or dozed in the shade under irregular stands of trees that spotted the landscape.

“Are they horses or your people?” I asked Sam.

Sam smiled.

“They are horses,” he said. “We raise roping stock, mostly quarter horses, so that when we do go out for a run, we tend to blend in. I am guessing that most of my people are up at the ranch proper, getting ready for our visit. I don’t get home often, so you may get a bit inundated today. The word is that there will be a big supper tonight with pretty much the whole clan. It’ll be smaller groups the rest of the time, never fear. I told Mom that it might be a little much for you, but she said that one big gathering had to happen for everyone to meet you.”

The car rounded a hill, and we suddenly were faced with a long, low ranch house that seemed to go on endlessly. Nestled as it was just below the rise, it nevertheless offered a great view of the surrounding landscape and would have a clear line of sight almost all the way to the gate. Out in front of this house stood a fairly large crowd of people. I recognized Susan right off and was also pleased to see Meredith and her husband, along with Teddy and the other children as well. The sight of familiar faces cheered me immeasurably as I had not been sure if I would know anyone else aside from Susan. Meredith and I had hit it off well, and I found I had missed Teddy too.

“It is a family reunion,” said Sam with a smile. “They don’t come every year, but this year, they wanted to see how you got on with the rest of the family.”

He pulled the car to a stop behind a late model pick-up with Wyoming plates and got out of the car. I climbed out into the bright, somewhat chilly afternoon sun a little stiffly, and found myself swarmed with people and children of all ages. Then Meredith was at my elbow, and she introduced me around, seeing that Sam was in no way going to disentangle himself from the crazy hoard of young people surrounding him any time soon.

“Is it always like this?” I asked Meredith in an undertone.

She laughed and nodded, then introduced me to more people. I turned at one point and found the whole group that had surrounded Sam had disappeared along with my boyfriend. I looked at Meredith who pointed over across from the ranch at a group of horses running across the grassy expanse. I could see two distinct copper horses running in the midst of the group and thought I could tell Teddy from Sam, but only just.

“It’s a cousin thing,” she said. “Kind of like hazing. When a newly changed family member arrives, they strip him down and everyone races off together. This is Teddy’s first year of being here able to change. They waited for Sam, though, so it would be more fun or some such rationale.”

I could hear a slight wistfulness in Meredith’s voice along with a sense of pride in her son’s change. Her younger children looked somewhat crestfallen at being excluded from the fun, but hopeful that they too might one day join in. Susan put a hand on Meredith’s shoulder, and they all watched the horses gallop across the hilltops, bucking and charging playfully at each other.

“Come on,” said Susan, looking at her sister and the others who had either not elected to or been able to join in the fun. “Let’s go on inside. Laura, grab your bags and we’ll get you settled into the room you and Sam will share. You’ll get to rest a few while he’s off playing. Once you’re all set, come down for coffee with us. There is always a pot of coffee on here. That’s one of the rules of the reunion. Never let the coffee run out.”

I grabbed my bags and followed Susan into the ranch house. It was very rustic with a lot of split wood beams and elk rugs on the floor and walls. The main room was a sunken living room with a huge circle of couches in the center. A massive fireplace took up one whole wall and a large fire crackled brightly in it, throwing off some welcome warmth. Susan led me around the rim of the room, up a set of stairs, and half way round a balcony to a door which she opened to reveal a large bedroom with a walk-in closet and queen sized bed.

“Make yourself at home,” she said, turning to go. “We’ll be down in the dining room – it’s just off the living room.”

I unpacked quickly and went downstairs to grab a cup of the coffee I could smell all the way upstairs. The dining room was another open concept room, and there was a huge carafe of coffee standing on a side table filled with cups, spoons, and various fixings. I put together a large cup and went to sit down with Meredith, her husband, and about seven other people I didn’t know. I was quickly introduced around to the others, all of them married to or in relationships with family members, and was very quickly drawn in to their group as they were recounting the same problems we had been having with the branches of the Mystery Seekers in their areas.

“So our solution has been to find a house with a barn in our area,” said one woman from California by the name of Sherri. “I can’t think of anything else that will work. We’re currently saving for a nice little ranch near Ojai. Everything around there is gated anyway, so no one will think the need for privacy is odd.”

“We’re looking into a similar solution down in Jersey,” said a man by the name of Paul. “It’s just that everything there is so expensive and anything we can afford seems to be right on top of someone else’s land. No privacy in that.”

“That’s our problem as well,” I said. “Sam would love to stay in Andover, but it costs so much to live there.”

Meredith smiled sadly.

“That is the one worry I didn’t used to have,” she said, “though now with Teddy, that is not the case any more. We’ve got enough space, but there are enough regulars who show up at the barn that if we suddenly had an extra horse one day, they might question it. As it is, Teddy and Matt only practice in the evening, but often it is too dark. We’re discussing putting up an indoor riding arena, but that costs a lot too.”

“It’s the choice between college and an arena at this point,” said Peter, looking at his wife. “The boys will tell you that the arena is more important, but I would tend to disagree. Although having an indoor arena would mean we could do late classes a few times a week and bring in more money. We could also hold classes during inclement weather, so the trade off might be worth it.”

“It’s getting worse out here too,” said another woman who had introduced herself as Nef. “John and I went riding trails over in Lewis and Clark a few weeks ago, and there was a truck parked near the entrance that followed our car for a while, then veered off. I didn’t think much of it until later when we had parked in a nice secluded spot and headed up onto the trails. We came out near the top of some of those bluffs where you can see everything and looked down to see that same car parked on an overlook and a guy with binoculars scanning everything. He spotted our car and sat watching it for at least forty minutes while we watched him. John had transformed back so we could get under cover easier if need be – we were only using a bareback pad and a hackamore, so easy enough to just stick them into the back pack, you know? This guy then drove down to where we had parked and started snooping around, looking at the ground. Eventually, he got back in his car and drove away, at which point we got back down to the car as fast as we could. I’m just thankful that Jon waited to transform until we were a good mile down the trail from the car. We managed not to run into him again when we left, but it was pretty tense.”

Susan had come in halfway through the discussion and sat with her hands steepled in front of her, saying nothing as she listened. Finally she nodded.

“We are not alone in these problems,” she said finally. “We are going to have a meeting tonight to talk about this further, and I’ve invited a couple of other leaders here to join the discussion. I’ve been in touch with some of the other shapeshifting groups in the area. We’ve agreed we need to meet.”

Meredith looked at her sister in surprise.

“Which ones?” she asked.

“All of them,” said Susan. “The wolves, bison, puma, elk, bear…all of them.”

“Isn’t that a little bit rash?” asked Nef. “We know they consider us just one step shy of invaders here.”

“Yes,” said Susan. “But we need to consult with them too. They are in as much danger as we are…more, really. We can at least pretend to be something innocuous.”

A commotion at the door caught everyone’s attention, and a rowdy group of the recently transformed, men and women alike, came through the door cheering and shouting. Their exuberance was contagious, and everyone joined in their conversation and their joy. Eventually things settled back down, and we all moved into the living room where Susan caught everyone else up to the upcoming meeting. The mood became sober at once and several of the older men looked ill-at-ease.

“Remember two years ago when I had a run in with that puma shifter?” asked one of the men, pointing at the scar that ran across his nose. “Not saying we’re tame or nothing, but this was not a picnic.”

“I’m aware,” said Susan calmly. “They want to meet as much as we do. None of them are feral animals. They’ve had to tighten their own security and create new rules too. None of us are alone in this.”

“When are they due to show up?” asked one of the other men whom I did not know.

“At seven tonight,” Susan replied. “I thought we should all be here, human and horse alike. They need to know that we do have human allies.”

A lot of muttering ensued, but no one really seemed to question the necessity of the gathering. Sam came over to sit with me, and we quietly watched the others. Meredith and Peter moved to join us, and eventually everyone’s spirits came back up. Teddy and Matt went out to go riding, and Sam and I found ourselves immersed in a conversation with Nef and her husband about rodeo roping. They were tickled when we mentioned dressage, and we were given a lot of pointers on how to manage being around crowds and not giving away that Sam was human. I saw Susan listening on the edge of our group, and she simply winked at me before moving out into the kitchen to help with preparing the evening meal.