Chapter 41: Harlan's Doubt

I went down to the yard and stood in front of the clerk with the wind coming across the snow and my hands in my pockets.

“Mr. Kessler,” I said. “I have a question about the payroll.”

He looked at me and did not blink.

“The payroll is a Council matter,” he said. “It is not a matter for a Gamma of a pack in the middle of a rogue investigation.”

“It is a matter for a Gamma when a Council employee has been paid every month since 1954 and nobody in this territory has ever seen him.” I watched his face. “The name is Erik. There is no surname on the record. There is no address and no county roll and no pack roll, and the payments have been signed by the same clerk every year for twenty-five years.”

The clerk closed his folder.

“I do not know what you are talking about,” he said.

“You signed the payments,” I said. “Your name is at the bottom of every one of them.”

He looked at me for a long moment. Then he smiled, and it was a small thin thing that did not go anywhere near his eyes.

“Miss Halloran,” he said. “I am going to give you a piece of advice and I am going to give it to you once. The Council has been paying the wages of this territory for eighty-five years. There is a line on the payroll for a maintenance man and there has been a line on the payroll for a maintenance man since 1954, and the maintenance man has been keeping the Council’s property in order, and if you go to Boise in October and stand in front of the Council of Alphas and wave a payroll sheet at them, they are going to ask you what a Gamma of a wheat pack knows about the Council’s bookkeeping. And then they are going to ask you why you have been living in the trees with a cursed wolf for two weeks.” He put his folder under his arm. “I have read your file, Miss Halloran. I have read the file the Council has been keeping on your family since 1954. There is a note in it that says your mother was a difficult woman and there is a note under that which says her daughter is worse. I would think very carefully about what I put in front of the Alphas.”

He got in his car and drove off down the road and the snow came up behind his wheels.

I stood in the yard for a while.

Then I went and found Harlan.

He was in the Alpha’s office with the door shut and the curtains drawn and he was sitting in his chair with his hat on the desk and a bottle of something in front of him that he had not opened.

“Sit down, Wren,” he said.

I sat down.

“I have been Alpha of this pack for twenty-two years,” Harlan said. “I have signed the Council’s paper every year and I have never read it. I have let the Council tell me who to make Beta and I have let the Council tell me which fields to cut and I have let the Council tell me that my own Gamma’s brother died of a rogue attack when I knew in my gut that it was not true.” He picked up the bottle and put it down again without opening it. “I have known you since you were born. I have known your mother and your brother and your sister. And when Owen died I stood at the back of that church and I told myself that the Council knew better than I did and that I should not ask questions because questions make trouble.”

“You said the injuries were too much for an open coffin,” I said.

“I said that because Dale told me to say it,” Harlan said. “He came to me the morning after the body was found and he said, Alpha, the injuries are too much for an open coffin, and I said, I have not seen the body, and he said, I have, and I am telling you. And I did what I have done for twenty-two years. I did what the Council’s man told me to do.” He looked at me. “I did not see your brother’s body. I have never seen it. I have never seen the report. I have never asked why the casket was closed or why the coroner signed the paper after the burial. I am the Alpha of this pack and I have been the Alpha of this pack in name only, and I am ashamed of it.”

I sat with my hands in my lap.

“Why are you telling me this now?” I said.

“Because the clerk came to me this morning,” Harlan said. “He came into this office and he sat in that chair and he told me that if I supported you in Boise the Council would strip this pack of its territory and hand the land to the Kessler pack in the east. He told me that the Council has been looking for a reason to take the Palouse Ridge land for thirty years and that a Gamma with a cursed wolf and a dead brother and a box of forged paper would be the reason.” He put his hand flat on the desk. “And then he told me that the Council would be willing to forget the whole thing if I would do one thing. If I would send you to Boise alone. Without the archivist and without the investigator and without the old woman from the mill road. If I would send you to Boise with the claim of blood and let the Council hear it in a room with no witnesses, they would see that the claim failed and the land would stay with the pack and the curse would stay with the wolf and everybody would go home.”

“And what did you say?”

“I said I would think about it,” Harlan said.

The office was very quiet. The clock on the wall ticked.

“Harlan,” I said. “If you send me to Boise alone I will not come back. The Council will rule the claim void and the mark void and the curse stays on Elias and the land stays with the pack and I will be a Gamma with a dead brother and no proof and no witness and no place to go. And then the Council will come back for the land anyway, because a pack that has done what this pack has done for eighty-five years does not get to keep its territory just because it did what it was told one more time.”

Harlan looked at me for a long moment.

“I know,” he said. “I have known it since the clerk left the room.”

He opened the drawer of the desk and took out a folded paper and put it on the desk between us.

“This is the letter you asked me for,” he said. “Signed and sealed. The Alpha of the Palouse Ridge pack supports the claim of blood and will send his Gamma to Boise with his authority and his blessing.” He pushed it across the desk. “And there is a second letter under it. It is to the Council of Alphas and it says that the Alpha of the Palouse Ridge pack has known for four months that his Beta killed a wolf of this pack and did not report it, and that he is prepared to answer to the Alphas for it.”

I picked up the letters.

“Harlan,” I said.

“I am sixty-one years old,” he said. “I have been afraid of the Council for twenty-two years and I am not going to be afraid of it for the rest of my life.” He stood up. “Now. You asked me to keep this quiet and I am going to keep it quiet. The clerk is going to send his report tonight and by tomorrow the Council will know what we are doing. So you have until tomorrow to get the archivist and the investigator and the old woman and your sister out of this territory and on the road to Boise. And you are going to do it quietly. No pack meeting. No goodbyes. No lights on the road.”

“And Elias?”

“Elias goes with you,” Harlan said. “If the Council wants a cursed wolf they are going to have to come to Boise to get him, and they are going to have to do it in front of every Alpha in the territory.”

I stood up and put the letters in my jacket.

“There is one more thing,” I said. “The clerk said there is a note in the Council file on my family. It says my mother was a difficult woman. It says the file goes back to 1954.” I looked at him. “1954 is the year Ruth came home from Boise with the copies. It is the year the record was sealed. It is the year the Council started paying a maintenance man who does not exist.” I put my hand on the desk. “Somebody in this territory has been on the Council payroll since 1954 and the clerk knows who it is. And I am going to find out before we go to Boise.”

Harlan looked at me.

“Wren,” he said. “The clerk is going back to his trailer tonight. He is going to write his report and he is going to sleep. And in the morning he is going to drive to Boise with everything he knows.” He picked up his hat. “So if you are going to find out who the maintenance man is, you had better do it tonight.”

I went out of the office and down the stairs.

Elias was waiting for me in the hall with his coat on.

“Well?” he said.

“We are going to Boise,” I said. “But first we are going to the trailer.”