Chapter 130: My Father's Land

The page was in my mother's hand and it was a list of seventy-one names and there was a line at the bottom of it that I had not read.

I read it.

I read it twice.

It said: And there is one more. His name is not on the co-op roll and it is not on the pack roll and it has never been on either. His name is Daniel and he came to this territory in 1949 and he worked the west line for twenty years and he died in 1969 in a threshing accident. He was my husband and he was the father of my children and he never had a claim to the land.

I sat on the steps.

“Wren,” June said. “What is it?”

“My father,” I said. “My father’s name is Daniel and he came to this territory in 1949 and he worked the west line for twenty years and he died in a threshing accident in 1969 and he never had a claim to the land.”

The square was quiet.

“I was sixteen when he died,” I said. “I remember him. I remember him in the field and I remember him at the table and I remember the day the belt came off the thresher and the men carried him up the road. And I have never once thought about whether he owned the ground he was standing on.”

I put the ledger down.

“He did not own it,” I said. “He worked it for twenty years and he did not own a foot of it and when he died my mother did not inherit a claim because there was no claim to inherit. She had the house and she had the co-op share and she had the whole of the west line and none of it was hers.”

The square was quiet.

And then Thomas the old wolf with the hoe came forward.

“Alpha,” he said. “I knew your father.”

I looked up.

“You knew him?”

“I worked the west line with him for eleven years,” Thomas said. “He was a good wolf. He was quiet and he was strong and he did not talk much and he taught me how to set a fence post so it would hold in the spring.” He put his hand on the rail. “And he knew. He knew he did not own the ground. He told me once that he had come to this territory with nothing and that the land belonged to the pack and that a wolf who worked it was a wolf who had a place, and that a place was enough.”

I sat on the steps.

“He said that,” I said.

“He said that,” Thomas said. “And he said a second thing. He said that if he ever had a daughter he was going to teach her to walk the fence line and to read the co-op books and to know the whole of the territory by its scent. And he said that a daughter who knew the territory would never be lost.”

I put my hand over my mouth.

“He taught me the fence line,” I said. “He took me out when I was six years old and he walked me along the north fence and he made me smell every post.”

“He told me he would,” Thomas said.

The square was quiet.

And then June said, “Wren. There is a thing on the page. Under the line about our father. There is a note in a different hand.”

I looked.

There was a note at the bottom of the page and it was in a hand I did not know and it was dated 1970 and it said: The woman who wrote this page is Mary Hale and she is the Luna’s line and she has been paying rent on this land for fourteen years. The wolf who wrote this note is Silas of the Council and he has been paid to keep the rent coming and he has been paid to keep the name off the roll.

I looked at Silas.

“You wrote this,” I said.

Silas was standing at the rail with his folder in his hand.

“I wrote it,” he said. “In 1970. I was twenty-nine years old and I had been an investigator for six years and I came to this territory to collect the rent and your mother gave me the money and I wrote the note.” He put his hand on the rail. “And there is a thing about the note that I have never told anybody. Your mother gave me the money and then she gave me a second thing. She gave me a page in her own hand and she asked me to put it in the ledger and to keep it there. And I did. I put it in the ledger and I closed the book and I did not look at it again for nine years.”

I sat on the steps.

“Why?” I said.

“Because she asked me to,” Silas said. “And because she was the only wolf in this territory who had ever asked me for anything that was not a paper.” He put his hand on the rail. “I have been the Council’s pen for nineteen years and I have never once done a thing that was not for the Council. And your mother asked me to keep a page and I kept it.”

I stood up.

“Then there is a thing I have to do,” I said.

I went down the steps and across the square and I put my hand on the co-op book and I opened it to the page with the seventy-one names.

“Pack,” I said. “The deed has one hundred and forty names on it. And there are seventy-one wolves in this square who are not on the deed and there is one more wolf who is not on the deed and who has been dead for ten years. His name is Daniel and he was my father and he worked the west line for twenty years and he never had a claim.” I put my hand on the page. “So I am going to put him on it. Tonight. And I am going to put the seventy-one on it and I am going to put the whole of the territory in the hands of the pack and the whole of it is going to be signed and filed and held.”

The square roared.

And then Silas came down the steps with his folder and put it on the rail.

“Alpha,” he said. “The deed is ready. The grants are ready. The names are in the folder and the whole of it is in the co-op books and the register and the crates.” He looked at me. “And there is a thing about the deed that I have not told you and I am going to tell you now because it is the last thing and it is the worst of it.”

“Say it.”

Silas opened the folder and took out a paper.

“The deed has a clause,” he said. “It is the founders’ clause and it has been in every deed in this territory since 1891. And it says the land is held by the pack as long as the pack holds the circle.” He put the paper on the rail. “And there is a second clause under it. It is in the chief clerk’s hand and it was added in 1954. And it says that if the pack holds the circle and the circle is claimed by a wolf who is not of the Luna’s line, the land goes to the Council.”

The square was silent.

“Then the Gamma of the north cannot claim the circle,” I said.

“The Gamma of the north cannot claim the circle,” Silas said. “But he does not have to. The curse is in the pack and the whole of the pack has to stand in the circle and give it back. And if the whole of the pack stands in the circle and the curse is given back, the circle is claimed by the pack. And the pack is the one hundred and forty and the seventy-one and the whole of the territory.”

“Then the land goes to the pack,” I said.

“The land goes to the pack,” Silas said. “Unless the whole of the pack does not stand in the circle. And the Gamma of the north is not going to take the circle. He is going to take the keeper and he is going to keep the whole of the pack out of the circle.”

I stood in the square.

And then June said, “Wren. The wire. The one from Boise. It says the Council is sending envoys to this territory to take the keeper at the full moon. And it says the envoys are not the Gamma of the north. It says the envoys are the Council’s own wolves and they are coming to take the keeper to Boise.”

I stood in the square.

“Then the Council is coming,” I said.

“The Council is coming,” June said.