Chapter 48: My Testimony

The woman from the Kessler pack stood in the middle of the square with her hat in her hands and her gray hair coming down out of its pin, and the whole pack turned and looked at her.

“My name is Hannah,” she said. “I am Clara Renn’s niece. My mother was Clara’s sister and she married into the Kessler pack across the ridge and she died in 1971. Before she died she told me a thing and made me promise not to say it until the Luna came home.” She looked at me. “She told me there were three sisters and not two. She told me one stayed here and one went to Boise and one went to the Kessler pack, and the one who went to the Kessler pack was her grandmother, and the one who stayed here was your grandmother, and the one who went to Boise was the third.”

“We know that,” I said. “We found the photograph. Three children in the field.”

“You found the photograph,” Hannah said. “You did not find the third child’s line. The third twin went to Boise and married a Renn and her grandson is the archivist. That is one line. The second twin stayed here and her line is yours. And the third twin went to the Kessler pack.” She looked at Harlan. “Alpha, I am the third line. My mother was the Luna’s great-granddaughter and I am her great-great-granddaughter and there is a thing that my mother told me that I have never told anyone.”

“Say it,” Harlan said.

“The cure is not in one Luna,” Hannah said. “The old Alpha said the Luna carries the cure. But the Luna was never one woman. The old pack had three sisters in the Luna’s house and they were all of the blood, and the old Alpha’s bargain was made with all three of them. The curse cannot be broken by one wolf standing in the circle. It has to be broken by three, and they have to stand together.”

The square was so quiet I could hear the snow sliding off the barn roof.

“Three,” I said.

“Three,” Hannah said. “The one who stayed here and the one who went to Boise and the one who went to the Kessler pack. That is why the founders could never break it. They could kill one Luna. They could not kill three.”

I stood in the middle of the square with the cold coming up through my boots.

“Then who are the three?” I said.

“You are the first,” Hannah said. “Arthur Renn is the second. He is the last of the Boise line and he is standing in this square tonight with the founders’ record in his hands.” She looked at me. “And I am the third.”

Silas had not moved. He stood at the side of the square with his folder open and his pencil in his hand and his face very still.

“Miss Halloran,” he said. “Do you have proof of this?”

“I have my mother’s letters and my mother’s ring and my mother’s word,” Hannah said. “And I have a thing that the Alphas can test, if the Alphas want to test it. There is a stone in the east field and there is a circle in the trees and there are sixteen stones in this territory and four in Boise. If three Lunas stand in the circle with the stones at the new moon, the curse will break. If one stands alone, it will not.”

Harlan came down the steps.

“This hearing is about the murder of Owen Halloran,” he said. “The Luna and the curse are a Council matter and they will be heard by the Council of Alphas in Boise in October. What I am going to judge tonight is what happened in that field.” He turned to Dale. “Beta. You have admitted that you put a knife in Owen Halloran and left him alive. Under pack law that is assault with a weapon and it is a crime against this pack. You are stripped of your rank and you will be held in the pack house until the Alphas decide what to do with you.”

Dale did not move.

“Alpha,” he said. “I am not going to fight it. I am going to say one thing and then I will go quietly. I did not act alone and I did not act for myself. The Council ordered me to keep the wardens off the east field and the Council ordered me to file a claim on Wren and the Council ordered me to keep the rogue matter quiet. I have the letters. They are in the box in the tack room behind the board. Every letter the Council ever sent me is in that box and every one of them is signed.” He looked at Silas. “The Council has been running this territory for eighty-five years and I have been its Beta for six of them and I am not going to be the only one who answers for it.”

Silas closed his folder.

“Then I am going to ask the Alpha to hold the box,” he said. “And I am going to ask the pack to hear the rest of it.”

The square was quiet.

Harlan looked at Dale for a long moment.

“You are stripped of your rank,” he said. “You will be held in the pack house and you will give the investigator every letter in that box and you will answer every question he asks you. And when the Alphas meet in October you will go to Boise and you will stand in front of them and you will tell them what you told this pack.”

Dale nodded once.

Then he turned and looked at me.

“Wren,” he said. “I am sorry. For your brother and for your mother and for the four months you spent walking that fence line looking for a wolf that did not do it. I am sorry and I know it is not enough.”

I looked at him.

“It is not enough,” I said. “But it is a start.”

He went with Harlan to the pack house and the square began to break up.

I stood in the middle of it with the cold coming down and the mark on my shoulder warm and steady, and Elias came out of the crowd and put his hand on my arm.

“You did it,” he said.

“I did half of it.” I looked at Hannah and Arthur Renn and the folder in Silas’s hand. “There is a thing I do not understand. The cure is three Lunas in the circle. But the circle is in the trees and the stones are in Clara Renn’s cupboard and the Alphas are in Boise and the new moon is in three weeks. We cannot get three Lunas and sixteen stones and a full moon into a Council chamber.”

“No,” Silas said. He came over with the folder under his arm. “You cannot. But you do not have to. The Council hearing on the twenty-ninth is a hearing about the trial claim and the rogue. The Alphas do not come to this territory for that. They come to Boise in October for their own meeting.” He looked at me. “But there is a thing in the code that I have been reading for three weeks. A hearing can be moved. If the Alpha of the territory petitions the Council and the petition is signed by three packs, the hearing can be held where the evidence is. And the evidence is here.”

Harlan came back down the steps.

“The investigator is right,” he said. “I have been reading the same section. If three packs sign the petition, the Council of Alphas will come to this territory and hold the hearing in the pack square.” He looked at me. “The Palouse Ridge pack will sign. The Kessler pack will sign if Hannah asks them. And there is a third pack across the river that has been feuding with the Council for ten years and would sign anything that makes the Council come out from behind its desk.” He put his hat back on. “I will send riders tonight. The petition will be on its way to Boise by morning.”

I stood in the square with the snow and the cold and the three lines of the Luna standing around me.

“Then we have three weeks,” I said.

“Three weeks,” Harlan said. “And a petition. And a hearing in this square with the Alphas in it.”

June came up beside me with her coat pulled tight.

“Wren,” she said. “If the Alphas come here, the Council comes with them. And the Council has a man at the end of the north road and a clerk with a folder and a hunters’ truck and a cull order with your name on it.” She looked at me. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

I looked at the pack house and the barn and the square and the snow on the ground and the wolves going home.

“No,” I said. “But it is what we have.”

And then Kessler came up the steps with his folder in his hand and his face white and said, “Alpha, I have received a telegram from Boise. It came while the hearing was going on.” He held it out. “The Council has ruled on the rogue. It has ruled that the wolf known as Elias is to be culled in this territory on the twenty-ninth of September. And it has ruled that the cull is to be carried out by the Council’s own hunters, and that any wolf who interferes will be culled with him.”