TO CATCH A WOLF By Susan Krinard

I could leave now, he thought. But he remained where he was, turning his face to the north where men held sway. He had not gone into town since the troupe’s arrival three days ago; he never slept in the cheap hotel rooms shared by the troupe’s top performers when they could find such accommodations.

But it was not Colorado Springs that drew his attention northward instead of west into the mountains. Instinct, the only part of himself he dared trust, whispered in a lost and unlamented tongue.

You are not alone, it said.

He shivered violently, as if the words were raindrops to be shaken from his coat. He had been alone since he’d left home at fourteen. In all his years of searching for Aaron Holt, there had never been another like him or his mother or sister.

You cannot hide forever.

He snarled and turned south, toward the big top. For once safety lay in the crowd, where the voices of his past did not reach. He strode past loitering townies along the midway and entered the pad room where the troupers dressed and prepared for their entrance. The smell of human bodies assaulted him once more. The crowd roared approval as the clowns completed their performance.

“Is it tonight, then?”

Morgan looked down at Ulysses, who still wore his scholar’s robes and mortarboard. The “Little Professor” was, according to the sideshow talker, both the smallest and most brilliant man on earth. He could answer any question, and sometimes made remarkably accurate judgments of character. Morgan knew that only too well.

Morgan showed his teeth in a half-smile. “Reading my mind, Professor?”

“Not at all. Simple logic and observation.” He flipped back the sleeves of his robes. “Our finances appear to be in good order. You have achieved what you set out to do. Your debt to us is paid, is it not?”

Us. It was always us, the troupers against the world, and Morgan just outside the circle. He wanted it that way.

“Harry would be most disappointed if you failed to bid him farewell.” Ulysses removed the oversized cap with its gold tassel and held it between his manicured hands. “Caitlin, as well.”

By unspoken consent, they both moved to the back door, the trouper’s entrance, to get a better view of the big top’s interior. Caitlin was just beginning her act, balanced gracefully atop the bare back of one of her well-trained gray geldings as it cantered around the ring. With each circling, Caitlin somersaulted over banners held by her assistants, landing perfectly each time. Her bare feet, blessed with remarkably flexible toes, never lost their grip. Red hair bounced above a laughing face.

“Caitlin cannot understand your desire for solitude,” Ulysses said. “She, more than any of us, has kept the troupe together. But you have no ties to bind you here. You do not seek a home among others like yourself.”

“There are no others like me.”

Ulysses raised his brows. “While it is true that I have never observed a second member of your species, I theorize that you do have kin somewhere—family—who share your gifts.”

It was not the first time that Ulysses had tried to pry into Morgan’s past. If anyone had the right to ask, he did. The two of them shared living quarters, and Ulysses’s dispassionate nature suited Morgan’s desire for privacy.

Morgan grudgingly admired the little man’s detachment from the scourge of emotion. But Ulysses had one besetting flaw, and that was his curiosity. On more than one occasion, that persistent quest for knowledge had pierced Morgan’s careful guard.

“I have no family,” he said. “Do not feel sorry for me, Professor. I don’t need what you and the others want.”

“But you have changed,” Ulysses said. “Whether or not you wish to admit it, you are different from the man who came to us months ago. Harry and Caitlin saw it in you from the beginning.”

“Saw what? That I could be tamed like a dog to a leash? Men will sooner kill each other than give up any part of what they are.”

“Men will fight for what they believe in. What do you believe, my friend?”