Chapter 115: A New Wolf

We went back to the square at dawn with the company in front of us and the archivist in the middle of them and the whole of the Luna's line behind us.

The company did not fight. The captain had a wound in his shoulder and his men had put their rifles in a pile in the stubble and they walked up the co-op road with their hands in their pockets and their heads down.

The archivist walked in front of them with his hands tied and his coat torn and he did not say a word.

I put them in the pack house yard and I put two wolves on the door and I went into the office and sat down in the Alpha's chair.

Elias came in and sat down across from me.

"You are the Alpha," he said.

"I am the Alpha."

"Of what?"

I looked at him.

"Of the Palouse Ridge pack," I said. "Of the mill land and the east field and the circle and the whole of the territory. Of two hundred wolves who came down out of the mountains and across the ridge because my sister sent a wire." I put my hands on the desk. "Of a pack that has been the Luna's line for eighty-five years and did not know it."

Elias was quiet.

"There is a thing that happened in the field," he said. "When the light came up and the whole of the pack changed at once. I felt it."

"So did I."

"The curse moved. It went out of me and into the ground and into the whole of the pack." He put his hand on his chest. "I have been carrying it since 1975 and it is not in me anymore. I woke up this morning and I put my hand on my chest and there was nothing there. No weight. No pull. No wolf that was not mine." He looked at me. "I have not felt like this since I was twenty-two years old."

I stood up and went around the desk and put my arms around him.

"It is in the pack now," I said.

"It is in the pack now."

"And the pack is going to have to stand in the circle at the full moon and give it back." I pulled back and looked at him. "Which means every wolf in this territory is going to have to agree to carry it for twenty days and then stand in a circle in the snow and give it up."

Elias looked at me.

"Some of them are not going to want to," he said.

"Some of them are not going to want to."

"And some of them are going to blame you for putting it there."

I sat down on the corner of the desk.

"Then I am going to have to tell them the truth," I said. "The whole of it. Not the story. The truth. That the curse came from a bargain the founders made and that the Luna's line has been carrying it for eighty-five years and that the whole of the pack is carrying it now because the whole of the pack stood in that field and changed together." I looked at him. "And then I am going to ask them to stand in the circle."

The door opened and June came in with the ledger under her arm.

"Wren," she said. "There is a wolf in the yard. She says she is the Alpha of the Coeur d'Alene pack and she has come to see the Luna."

I stood up.

"The Coeur d'Alene Alpha was the one who voted against the chief clerk," I said. "In Boise."

"She is standing in the yard with four wolves and a truck and she says she has a thing to tell you."

I went out into the yard.

The Coeur d'Alene Alpha was old and she had gray hair and a strong face and she was standing by her truck with a paper in her hand.

"Alpha," she said. "I am the Alpha of the Coeur d'Alene pack and I have been on the Council of Alphas for thirty years. I voted against the chief clerk in Boise and I have been paying for it ever since." She held out the paper. "The eleven Alphas of the north have filed a motion to remove me from the Council. They have filed it against every Alpha who voted against the chief clerk. There are twenty-two of us and they are going to remove all twenty-two of us before the full moon."

I took the paper.

"Then the Council of Alphas is going to be eleven wolves," I said.

"The Council of Alphas is going to be eleven wolves and the eleven wolves are the ones who sent a company into this territory to burn the circle." She looked at me. "Alpha. I have been an Alpha for thirty years and I have never asked another Alpha for help. But I am asking you now."

"What do you want?"

"I want the twenty-two Alphas who voted against the chief clerk to come to this territory and stand in the circle with the pack at the full moon," she said. "Not as Alphas. As wolves. And if the curse is broken and the land is claimed and the whole of it is in front of the north, then the eleven Alphas of the north will have nothing to remove us from."

I stood in the yard.

"Twenty-two Alphas," I said.

"Twenty-two Alphas and their packs," the Coeur d'Alene Alpha said. "There are nine hundred wolves in the Coeur d'Alene pack alone and there are eleven thousand in the territories that voted against the chief clerk."

I sat down on the steps.

"Eleven thousand wolves," I said.

"Eleven thousand wolves and a circle in the trees and a full moon in twenty days," she said. "And I am going to send the wires tonight."

The yard was quiet.

And then Elias came out of the office and stood beside me.

"Wren," he said. "There is a thing I have to say to you and I have been putting it off since the field."

I looked up at him.

"Say it."

"I have been the cursed wolf for seventeen years," he said. "I have been the wolf in the trees and the wolf in the mill and the wolf that ran on the new moon and woke up in fields with no clothes and no memory. And I have been carrying the curse for so long that I did not know what I was without it." He put his hand on my face. "And now it is gone and I am just a wolf. And I am standing in a yard with the Alpha of the Palouse Ridge pack and I am going to ask her a thing."

"What thing?"

"Marry me," Elias said. "Not the bond. Not the mark. Not the curse. Marry me in the square in front of the pack and the whole of the Luna's line and let the record say that Elias of the founders' line and the Luna's line married Wren Halloran of the Palouse Ridge pack."

I stood up.

"Elias," I said.

"I have been in the trees for seventeen years," he said. "And I have been waiting for a room with a door that closes and someone to come home to. And I have found the room and I have found the someone. And I am not going to wait for a full moon to ask."

I put my arms around his neck.

"Yes," I said. "In the square. In front of the pack. Before the full moon."

The yard broke into noise.

And then June came down the steps with her face white.

"Wren," she said. "There is a rider coming down the co-op road. He is from Boise and he has a letter and he says it is from the eleven Alphas of the north."

I turned around.

"Read it," I said.

June opened the letter.

"It says the eleven Alphas of the north have declared the Palouse Ridge pack rogue and that every wolf in this territory is to be taken and held." She looked up. "And it says the full moon is cancelled."

The yard was silent.

"The full moon is not cancelled," I said. "The full moon is a thing that happens in the sky and no eleven Alphas can cancel it."