Chapter 117: The Light in His Eyes

Rourke came into the kitchen with two wolves on either side of him and his hands tied and his face bruised and his coat torn at the shoulder.

He had come down the co-op road on foot in the snow and he had not eaten in two days and he was not the wolf who had stood in the pack square with a rifle. He was smaller and he was older and his eyes were red.

"Alpha," he said.

"Rourke," I said.

"I have come to tell you a thing," he said. "And I am going to tell it to you and then you can do whatever you want with me."

"Say it."

"The eleven Alphas of the north are not coming to this territory to hold a hearing," Rourke said. "They have called a hearing and they have called it for the full moon and they are going to come and they are going to stand in the square and they are going to rule." He looked at me. "But the hearing is not the point. The hearing is the cover."

The kitchen was quiet.

"What is the point?" I said.

"The point is the circle," Rourke said. "The eleven Alphas of the north know the curse is in the pack now. They know the whole of the pack has to stand in the circle at the full moon and give it back. And they are going to let you do it."

I stood at the table.

"Let us do it," I said.

"Let you do it and then take the circle," Rourke said. "The circle is the heart of the territory and the heart of the territory is the land. If the eleven Alphas of the north can take the circle after the curse is broken, they do not need the deed and they do not need the register and they do not need the Council. They have the ground and the ground is the whole of it." He put his tied hands on the table. "They are going to come to the hearing with forty wolves and a cannon and they are going to stand in the square and they are going to rule that the pack is rogue and the Luna is a fraud. And then while the pack is in the circle at the full moon, they are going to come through the trees and take the circle and hold it."

The kitchen was silent.

"And how do you know this?" I said.

Rourke looked at me.

"Because I was in the meeting," he said. "I was the culling officer for nine territories and I was in the room when the eleven Alphas of the north planned it. They met in Boise on the night the chief clerk was arrested and I was there because I was the officer who had run the company." He put his hand on the table. "And I did not say a word. I stood in the corner and I listened and I did not say a word."

I looked at him.

"And now you have come to tell me," I said.

"And now I have come to tell you." Rourke looked at his hands. "I have been a Council officer for twenty years and I have done what I was told and I have never once asked a question. And then I stood in a field in the snow and I watched a Gamma with a ledger turn a company against its captain and I went back to Boise and I sat in a room with eleven Alphas and I listened to them plan to take a circle from a pack." He looked up. "And I could not do it anymore."

The kitchen was quiet.

"Then you are going to help us," I said.

"I am going to help you," Rourke said. "I am going to tell you what they are going to do and when they are going to do it and how many wolves they have and where they are going to come through the trees." He looked at me. "And then I am going to stand in front of the Alphas and I am going to say it again and I am going to answer for the field and the wire and the co-op and the whole of it."

I sat down at the table.

"Then we have twenty days," I said.

"Twenty days," Rourke said. "And there is a thing you should know about the circle. About what happens when the pack stands in it."

"What thing?"

Rourke looked at me.

"The eleven Alphas of the north have a record," he said. "It is the Alphas' record and it is in the north and it is older than the Council. It says that when the pack stands in the circle and the curse is given back, the circle opens and the land answers. And it says the land answers to the wolf who is standing in the middle of it."

I looked at him.

"The middle of it," I said.

"The middle of it," Rourke said. "The Luna and the cursed wolf stand in the middle and the pack stands around them and the land answers to the Luna. Not to the pack. To the Luna." He put his hand on the table. "And the eleven Alphas of the north know that. And that is why they are going to take the circle. Because the wolf in the middle of the circle is the wolf who holds the land."

I stood at the table.

"Then the whole of it comes down to one night," I said.

"The whole of it comes down to one night," Rourke said. "And there is one more thing." He looked up. "The eleven Alphas of the north have a wolf in this territory. They have had a wolf in this territory since the tribunal. And the wolf is close to you."

The kitchen went still.

"Who?" I said.

"I do not know his name," Rourke said. "I only know that he sends wires and that the wires go to the north and that the last wire he sent said the Alpha of the Palouse Ridge pack is going to stand in the circle with the whole of the pack and that the circle can be taken on the night."

I looked around the kitchen at June and Maeve and Clara Renn and Arthur Renn and Hannah and Ruth and Ada Kessler.

"Then we find him," I said.

And then June stood up.

"Wren," she said. "There is a thing I have to tell you. About the wire. About the wire that came this morning."

I turned around.

"What about it?"

"The rider who brought it," June said. "He was not a Council rider. He was a wolf from this territory. He came down the co-op road on a horse and he gave me the wire and he went away." She put her hand on the table. "And Wren, I knew him. He was one of the Corrigan boys."

The kitchen was silent.

"Which one?" I said.

"The older one," June said. "The one who stood up in the square and said Dale should be Alpha."

I stood in the kitchen.

"The one who has been in the pack house with Dale since Boise," I said.

"The one who has been in the pack house with Dale since Boise," June said.

I turned and went out of the kitchen and down the hall and out the door and across the yard to the pack house and up the stairs to the room where the Corrigan boy slept.

The door was open and the room was empty and the bed was made and the window was open.

And there was a wire on the bed.

It was a copy of the wire that had come that morning and there was a note under it in a hand I did not know.

It said: the Alpha knows. Move to the north road and wait.