Chapter 40: Dale's Alibi

The Council clerk stood in the yard with his folder under his arm and the paper in his hand, and Harlan came out of the pack house with his hat on and his face set.

“Mr. Kessler,” Harlan said. “You are a long way from Boise.”

“I am a long way from Boise and I have been on the road since Tuesday,” the clerk said. “The Council sent me because the Beta of this pack sent a letter and then did not answer a single one of the four telegrams that followed it. So the Council sent a man to find out what is happening in this territory.” He held up the paper. “This is a warrant for the wolf known as Elias. It says he is to be taken and held until the Council can hear the matter. And this is a notice that the trial claim will be heard on the twenty-ninth of September, which is six days from today.”

“The trial claim has been withdrawn,” Harlan said.

“The trial claim has been withdrawn by the Beta,” the clerk said. “The Beta does not have the standing to withdraw a claim the Council has registered. The Council has looked at the letter and the Council has decided the claim stands.”

I stepped out onto the porch.

“The claim cannot stand,” I said. “I am marked and mated. A marked wolf cannot be claimed under the trial provision. That is in the code and it has been in the code since 1902.”

The clerk looked at me.

“You are Wren Halloran,” he said.

“I am.”

“You are the Gamma of this pack.”

“I am.”

“Then you know that a mark has to be witnessed and registered to be recognized by the Council,” he said. “A mark in a barn or a mill is a mark between two wolves. It is not a mark the Council can see. If you want the claim void, you will bring your mate to the hearing on the twenty-ninth and you will bring two witnesses and you will stand in front of the Council and you will let the Council look at the mark.” He put the paper back in his folder. “Until then, the claim stands, and the warrant stands, and I would like to speak to the Beta.”

Dale was at the co-op. June went to fetch him and brought him back up the road with his coat on and his face gray and his hands in his pockets, and the clerk met him in the yard and took him aside and talked to him in a low voice for a long time.

I stood on the porch and watched them. Dale did not look at me. He looked at the ground and nodded and once he shook his head, and the clerk said something and Dale said something back and the clerk put his hand on Dale’s shoulder in a way that was not friendly.

Then Dale came up the steps.

“He wants me to take the warrant and go out with the hunters tonight,” Dale said. “He says the Council does not accept the withdrawal and he says if I do not take the warrant he will have me removed from my rank and held for obstruction.” He looked at me. “I told him I would not do it. I told him I would resign the Beta position before I would take a warrant against your mate. And he said that if I resign I will be held anyway, because a Beta who resigns in the middle of a Council matter is a Beta who has something to hide.”

“What did you say to that?”

“I said I had plenty to hide and he could have it all in front of the Alphas in October.” Dale put his hands on the porch rail. “He did not like that. He is going to the trailer to write his report and he is going to send it to Boise tonight and by tomorrow the Council is going to know that the Beta of the Palouse Ridge pack has turned against them.”

I looked at him.

“There is a thing I need to ask you,” I said. “About the night my brother died.”

He did not move.

“You told me you met Owen in the field and you argued and he turned his back and you put the knife up and it went into his chest.” I kept my voice flat. “You told me you were there alone. You told me nobody else was in that field.”

“I did.”

“Then tell me why there is a second set of boot prints in the county record,” I said. “The sheriff’s report says there were two sets of prints at the body. One was Owen’s and one was yours. And there was a third set, smaller, that went from the road to the wall and back again, and it was not in the report when it was filed but it is in the clerk’s copy from Boise.”

Dale was very still.

“I do not know,” he said. “I did not see anyone else.”

“You did not see anyone else,” I said. “Or you did and you are not telling me.”

“Wren.”

“I have been lying to myself about you for four months,” I said. “I have been telling myself that you were a liar and a coward and a man who wanted my land, and I have been telling myself that was the whole of it, because a man who is a liar and a coward is a man I can understand.” I stepped closer. “But a man who killed my brother by accident and then put a coat in a box and kept it for four months is a man who is carrying something else. So I am going to ask you again. Was there anyone else in that field?”

Dale looked at me for a long moment.

“There was one other thing,” he said. “And I have not told anyone because I did not think it mattered and because I did not want to think about it.” He took a breath. “When I went out to that field I had a lantern and I had the knife. And when I got there Owen was already sitting on the ground by the wall and there was a light in the trees behind him. I thought it was a hunter or a warden, and I called out, and the light went out. And then Owen stood up and we argued and I put the knife up and it went into him, and after he fell I looked at the trees and there was nothing there.” He looked at me. “I told myself it was a firefly or a trick of the light. But it was not a firefly. It was a lantern, and there was a man behind it, and he put it out when I called out.”

I stood on the porch with the wind coming up from the north.

“A man with a lantern,” I said.

“A man with a lantern,” Dale said. “And I do not know who he was or what he saw or why he did not come forward, and I have been telling myself for four months that I imagined him, and I know that I did not.”

I turned and went into the pack house and up the stairs to the Alpha’s office where Silas was sitting at the table with his arm in the sling and his pencil in his hand.

“Silas,” I said. “The sheriff’s report. The clerk’s copy from Boise. You said there were three sets of boot prints.”

“There were three.”

“Who found the body?”

“A farmhand named Erik,” Silas said. “At six in the morning. He is not in the county and he is not on any roll.”

“And there is no statement from him on file.”

“There is no statement.”

I sat down.

“Then the man who found the body and the man with the lantern might be the same man,” I said. “And he might still be in this territory.”

Silas put his pencil down.

“Wren,” he said. “There is something I have been meaning to tell you and I have been putting it off because I did not want to say it until I was sure.” He turned the paper around. “I have been going through the Council’s payroll records for this territory. There is a name on the payroll that has been paid every month since 1954 and it is not a Council name and it is not a pack name. It is a name that does not appear in any pack record and does not appear in any county record.” He put his finger on the paper. “It is the name Erik.”

I looked at the paper.

“Erik has been on the Council payroll since 1954,” I said.

“Erik has been on the Council payroll since 1954,” Silas said, “and the payments have been signed every year by a Council clerk in Boise, and the clerk who signs them is the same clerk who is standing in the yard right now with a warrant in his folder.”

I looked out the window at the yard. The clerk was standing by his car with his folder under his arm and his face like a closed door, and he was looking up at the pack house and he was not smiling.