Chapter 100: The Truth He Kept

The boat’s engine turned over in the dark below the ring and the whole co-op turned and looked down the track.

It was the Star of the Sea, the old Donegal boat that had taken my sister north in April and come back in the fog with nobody on her. She came out of the north cove with her light going and she went along the shore toward the harbor and there was one man on her deck and he was in a hood.

“That is the man in the hood,” Cormac said. “That is the man who was on that boat in the fog and who took the ring off the deck and who went up to the hall with the Alpha.”

Mairéad was on her feet.

“I did not send anyone to that boat,” she said. “I have not sent a wolf to that boat since April and I have not been in the north cove since the claim.”

The whole ring was watching the boat go along the shore.

“Then there is a thing I have to say,” Declan said, “and I have been sitting on it since the first night and I am not going to carry it another hour.”

The whole co-op turned round.

Declan stood at the edge of the ring with the wind in his auburn hair and his face grey and his hands at his sides.

“The man in the hood is not from this village,” he said. “He is from Galway and he has been on this coast since April and he has been on that boat since April and he has been taking letters and money and a woman’s ring up and down this coast for a woman in Galway who has been paying him.” He looked at me. “And there is a thing about him that I have to say and that I have not said to a living soul. I have known since April that your sister was alive. I have known it since the night the salvage crew took her off the rocks and I have known it every day since and I have let you believe she was dead.”

The whole headland was silent.

“I knew in April,” Declan said. “I knew on the night the men from Galway took her off the rocks and put her on that boat and took her north. And I did not tell you in June and I did not tell you in July and I sat in that office at noon every day and went through the boathouse and let you grieve.” He put his hands flat at his sides. “And there is a thing about that which is worse than the not telling. The man in the hood came to the harbor office in May with a letter from Galway and the letter said the claimant is alive and she is in the north and she is to be kept in the north. And I read the letter and I put it in the drawer and I did not send it to the co-op and I did not send it to the enforcer and I did not send it to you. I kept it in a drawer with eleven letters that I wrote and did not post and I have been a man with a drawer full of the truth since April.”

The whole co-op was silent.

“Why?” I said.

“Because I was frightened,” Declan said. “Because the man in the hood knew where she was and because the letter said she was to be kept in the north and because a wolf who goes against a letter from Galway is a wolf who brings the hunters down on this coast. And because there was a boy in this village who had been in the hand of the Alpha since he was fourteen and because I had one thing in the world and it was him and because a man who is frightened for his son will let a woman grieve to keep the boy alive.” He looked at me. “I have been telling myself for four months that I was protecting you. I was protecting myself. And there is a thing about that which I have to say in front of the whole co-op and then I am going to be quiet. I am not the Beta of this pack any more. I am going to give the rank to the co-op in the morning and I am going to stand in the hall and say the whole of it and take whatever the co-op gives me.”

The whole headland was silent.

I stood in the ring of stones with the whole co-op around me and the man I had loved since the first night in front of me and the whole of it in my chest.

“Declan,” I said. “There is a thing I have to say and I am going to say it and then I am going to go down that track and I am going to get on a boat and I am going to Galway. You knew in April. You knew in April and you sat in that office in June and you watched me come in with my sister's boots in my hand and you did not say a word. And I have been standing beside you since the first night and I have been telling myself that a man who is frightened is a man who can be forgiven and that the bond was true and the man was true.” I put my hand on my chest. “The bond is true. I have felt it since the first night and it has not lied to me once. But there is a thing about the bond that I have been getting wrong since the rope walk. The bond is a thing that tells you what a wolf is feeling. It does not tell you what a wolf is.”

Declan did not move.

“You knew my sister was alive,” I said. “And you let me bury her.”

The wind came up over the headland. The whole co-op was silent.

And then Cormac came across the ring and stood between his father and me.

“He let you bury her,” he said. “And he did not let me bury my mother because my mother is in the ground on the hill and she has been in it since 1981. And there is a thing I have to say to the both of you and I am going to say it now because there is a boat going along that shore and a woman in Galway writing letters and a moon coming up. I have been a boy in the hand of the Alpha since I was fourteen and I have done things that I cannot take back and I have watched my father do things that he cannot take back. And there is a thing about the two of you that I have been watching since the first night and that I am going to say out loud. You are both of you wolves who do the wrong thing for the right reason and then tell yourselves that the reason makes it right. And it does not. It does not make it right. And there is a whole village down there that has been living with the wrong thing for thirty six years because every wolf in it told himself that the reason made it right.”

The whole headland was silent.

Declan looked at his son.

“You are right,” he said. “And there is a thing about being right that I have been running from since 1975.”

I went to the edge of the ring and looked down at the shore. The Star of the Sea was coming into the harbor with her light going and there was a light on the pier and there was a car at the top of the slip.

“There is a thing I have to do before the moon is up,” I said. “And I cannot do it alone.” I turned round. “The man in the hood is going up to the hall with a letter and the letter is from Galway and it says the wolves who have been asking questions are to be put out of the territory before the sun is up. And there is a wolf in this village who is going to be in that hall when he gets there and who is going to be told to put us out and who has been told what to do since she was nineteen years old.”

Mairéad was standing on the flat rock with the telephone receiver in her hand.

“There is a thing about the morning that I have not said,” she said. “And I am going to say it now in front of the whole co-op and then I am going to go down to the hall and I am going to do the one thing I have been able to do since 1961. I am going to say no.” She put the receiver down on the stone. “I have been told what to do since I was nineteen years old and I have done it and I have been the Alpha of this village for fourteen years on a lie. And there is a thing about the letter that is coming up from the pier. It is not from the Council. It is from my sister and it has the seal of the Council on it and the seal is a thing she has been copying since 1961. And I am not going to do what it says.”

The whole headland was silent.

And then, from the shore below, there was a shot.

It was not a hunter’s rifle. It was a small thing and it came from the pier and it went up over the water and the whole co-op went down the track at a run with lamps and the moon came up behind the fog and the harbor was full of lights.

I got down to the pier and the Star of the Sea was alongside and there was a man on the deck in a hood with a gun in his hand and there was a wolf on the planks in front of him with its head down and its shoulders up.

It was Padraig. He had shifted. He had not shifted once since he came to this village and he was standing on the planks in front of the man in the hood with his teeth bared and his coat in a heap behind him.

And behind the man in the hood, coming up the pier with a lamp in her hand and a grey coat over her arm, there was a woman with gold hair going grey at the temples and a face I had known since I was a child.

My sister.