Chapter 47: The Council Hearing

The pack square is not a square. It is the space between the pack house and the barn where the ground has been worn down to bare dirt by eighty years of boots and meetings, and there is a post with an iron ring in it at the north end and a bench at the south end where the old wolves sit.

By seven o'clock it was full.

The snow had stopped and the sky had cleared and the cold had come down hard, and the pack stood in their coats and their hats and their scarves and their breath came out white. There were more wolves there than I had ever seen at a meeting. The Corrigan boys and their mother. Mrs. Pike with her hands folded. The young border-wardens in a clump. Old Mr. Carter who had not come to a meeting in five years. The co-op men. The farmers from the west line. Harold with his hat in his hands. And at the back, near the fence, three wolves I did not know, in dark coats, with the snow on their shoulders, who had come in from the north road on foot and were not saying anything to anyone.

Kessler was there with his folder. He stood at the side of the square by the pack house steps and did not look at anybody.

Dale was there. He stood by the bench at the south end with no coat on and his hands at his sides, and he looked at the ground and did not look up.

Erik Renn stood in the middle of the square with his gloves in his hands and his white hair and his brown face, and he was so old and so small in that big space that half the pack did not seem to know what to make of him.

Harlan came out of the pack house with his hat on and his beard combed and he stood on the top step.

"This is not a pack meeting," he said. "This is a hearing. The Alpha of the Palouse Ridge pack is holding a hearing under pack law, section nine, the section that says an Alpha may hear a charge against any wolf in his territory, including a wolf who is not of his pack, if the charge touches the safety of the territory." He looked around the square. "The charge is the murder of Owen Halloran. The accused are Dale, Beta of this pack, and Erik Renn, who is not of this pack and who has been living in this territory since 1891."

The square went quiet.

"There will be no shouting," Harlan said. "There will be no fights. Any wolf who raises a hand in this square tonight will answer to me. The investigator from the Council will question the witnesses. The witnesses will answer. When it is done I will give my judgment and the pack will hear it."

He stepped back and Silas came down the steps.

Silas was in his gray suit with his arm out of the sling and his black hair combed and his face pale and steady, and he stood in front of the pack with his folder in his hand and he did not look like a Council man. He looked like a man who had not slept in three days and had made up his mind about something.

"My name is Silas," he said. "I am an investigator for the Council of Alphas and I have been in this territory for three weeks. I am going to tell you what I have found and then I am going to ask the witnesses to tell you what they know, and then the Alpha will judge." He opened the folder. "Three weeks ago I came to this territory to buy grain land. I was told the east field was for sale and that the boundary was six miles east of the north fence. I have since found that the boundary map is a forgery. It was forged in 1891 by a Council clerk named Silas and a wolf named Erik Renn, and the deed that came from it was filed with the Council and has been used to take land from this pack for eighty-five years."

The square did not move.

"I have also found that the Council has been paying a maintenance man since 1954," Silas said. "The maintenance man is Erik Renn. He is the last of the eleven wolves who came to this territory in 1891 with a forged deed and a stolen Luna. He has been living at the end of the north road for twenty-five years and he has been paid by the Council every month and nobody has ever asked who he was."

He turned a page.

"On the night of the twenty-second of June this year, Owen Halloran was killed in the field behind the mill road. The coroner's report says he was killed by a wild animal. The sheriff's report says the body was found at six in the morning by a farmhand whose name is not in the record. The report was countersigned by a Council clerk in Boise after the body had already been buried in a closed casket." Silas looked up. "The coroner's report is false. The sheriff's report is incomplete. The Council countersigned a false report and sealed it and kept it from this pack for four months."

Somebody in the square said something and Harlan raised his hand and the square went quiet.

"I am going to ask the witnesses now," Silas said. "The first witness is Wren Halloran, Gamma of this pack and sister of the dead wolf."

I walked out into the middle of the square.

The pack was quiet and the cold was in my bones and the mark on my shoulder was warm and steady. I could feel Elias at the edge of the square behind me, and I could feel June beside him, and I could feel the rope between us pulled tight and easy.

"Miss Halloran," Silas said. "Tell the pack what you found on the night of the twenty-second of June."

I told them. I told them about the calf in the combine yard and the scent at the fence and the naked man in the snow. I told them about the coat in the tack room and the knife in the drawer and the box behind the board. I told them about the mill and the room under the loft and the tally marks and the writing on the wall. I told them about the founders and the Luna and the curse and the field.

I did not tell them about the mark on my shoulder. I did not tell them about the circle in the trees. There were things I was keeping back and I had decided to keep them back until Boise.

When I was done Silas closed his folder.

"Miss Halloran," he said. "Did you see the Beta of this pack in the field on the night your brother died?"

"No," I said. "I was at home with my mother and my sister."

"Did the Beta of this pack tell you he was in that field?"

"He did."

"And did he tell you what he did there?"

The square was silent.

"He told me he put a knife in my brother's chest," I said. "And he told me he left him alive."

Somebody in the square cried out. Mrs. Pike put her hand over her mouth. The Corrigan boys turned and looked at Dale and Dale did not look up.

Silas turned to the bench at the south end.

"Beta," he said. "Is that true?"

Dale stood up. He came out into the middle of the square and stood beside me with his hands at his sides and his face gray and his voice low.

"It is true," he said. "I put a knife in Owen Halloran on the night of the twenty-second of June because he was going to tell the Alpha about the box in the tack room and the letters and the coat, and I was afraid of the Council, and I was afraid of losing my rank. I did not mean to kill him. I meant to make him listen. And when I saw what I had done I ran and I left him in the field and I have been living with it for four months."

The square broke into noise.

Harlan raised his hand and it took a long time for the noise to stop.

Silas waited. Then he said, "Beta, did you kill Owen Halloran?"

Dale looked at me and then at the ground.

"No," he said. "I put a knife in him and I left him alive. Somebody else finished it."

Silas turned to the middle of the square.

"Erik Renn," he said. "Did you kill Owen Halloran?"

Erik Renn stepped forward with his gloves in his hands.

"I did," he said. "The Beta put a knife in him and left him breathing. I came out of the trees and I knelt down beside him and I finished it. I did it because he had written to the Council and asked who I was, and because the Luna was coming home and I was not going to let a boy with a letter ruin eighty-eight years of work." He looked around the square. "I have been the Council's hand in this territory since 1891. I have done what the Council told me to do and I have never been sorry for it. But I am sorry for the boy. He was a good wolf and he did not deserve what I did to him."

The square was quiet.

And then a woman at the back of the crowd, one of the three from the north road in the dark coats, stepped forward and said, "Alpha, I am Clara Renn's niece from the Kessler pack and I have a thing to say about the Luna."

Harlan turned.

"Say it," he said.

She took off her hat. She had gray hair and a plain face and she looked at me and she said, "The Luna did not come down through one line. She came down through three. There were three sisters and one of them was taken to Boise and one of them stayed here and one of them went to the Kessler pack. And the woman standing in this square is not the only heir to the Luna's blood."