Chapter 51: A New Cage

I did not get to the barn.

I got as far as the kitchen door and the yard beyond it, and the yard was full of headlights and men with rifles and a truck with the Council mark on the door, and a tall wolf in a long coat was standing on the steps with a paper in his hand.

“Wren Halloran,” he said. “I am the culling officer for this territory. The Council has appointed me to carry out the order on the wolf known as Elias, and I am placing you under pack arrest for obstruction and for harboring a rogue.”

“You are not the culling officer,” I said. “The Council appointed Silas.”

The tall wolf looked at the paper in his hand.

“The Council appointed Silas,” he said. “And Silas has declined the appointment, and the Council has appointed me in his place.” He folded the paper. “My name is Rourke. I have come a long way and I am not going to argue with a Gamma in a yard. You will come with me to the pack house and you will stay there until the cull is done.”

Harlan came out onto the steps behind me.

“Rourke,” he said. “This is my territory and my pack and you are not taking a Gamma of mine anywhere.”

“Alpha,” Rourke said, “I have a Council order with a seal on it and a register number on it and a signature from the chief clerk. It is not the false order your investigator has been waving around. This one is real. It came through the register and it was signed and stamped and it says the Gamma is to be held until the cull is complete.” He held it out. “You may read it.”

Harlan read it. His face did not change, but his hand on the paper was not steady.

“It is real,” he said.

“It is real,” Rourke said. “And if you stand in the way of it, the Council will have your rank and your territory by the end of the week. So I am going to ask you one more time, Alpha. Step aside.”

I looked at the yard. There were four men with rifles and two trucks and a wolf in a long coat, and behind me there was a pack house full of wolves and a barn with a back door and a ridge with a mill road on it.

“Harlan,” I said. “Do not fight them. Not here. Not tonight.”

Harlan turned and looked at me.

“Wren,” he said.

“If you fight them they will have the pack by morning and the Council will call it a rebellion and the Alphas will never come.” I put my hand on his arm. “I will go to the pack house. I will be fine. But you have to send word to the mill. You have to tell them not to come down.”

Harlan looked at me for a long moment. Then he nodded.

Rourke took me by the arm and walked me across the yard to the pack house and up the stairs to the room at the end of the hall where the Council kept its records. It had a window with bars on it and a bed and a table and a chair, and there was a guard at the door.

“You will be brought food three times a day,” Rourke said. “You will not be permitted to leave this room. If you try to climb out of that window, the guard will shoot you in the leg.” He went out and shut the door and I heard the key turn.

I sat down on the bed.

The window looked out on the yard and the barn and the co-op road, and through it I could see the hunters' truck and the men and the lights. I could see Rourke walking across the yard with his paper in his hand. I could see Harlan standing on the steps with his hat off and his hand on the rail.

And then I saw Dale.

He came out of the barn with his coat on and his hair combed and he walked across the yard and shook Rourke's hand and stood beside him and talked to the men with the rifles. He was not in the pack house. He was not under guard. He was standing in the yard with the Council's culling officer and he was smiling.

I stood up and put my hands on the bars.

“Dale,” I said. “Dale.”

He did not hear me. He was too far and the yard was too loud and the wind was against me. He shook Rourke's hand again and then he walked off toward the barn and the men with the rifles went with him.

I sat down on the bed and put my head in my hands.

They brought me food at nine o'clock and it was Harold's wife who brought it, and she put the plate on the table and looked at me and said, “I am sorry, Wren,” and went out.

At ten o'clock the door opened again and Dale came in.

He had his coat on and his hat in his hand and he stood in the doorway with the guard behind him and did not come in.

“Wren,” he said.

“You are not under guard,” I said. “You confessed to murder in front of the whole pack and you are standing in my doorway with your hat in your hand and you are not under guard.”

Dale put his hat on the table.

“Rourke came to me an hour before he came to you,” he said. “He came to the barn and he told me that the Council has decided not to pursue the matter of your brother. He told me that if I would take over the border patrols and help him with the cull, the Council would forget the confession and the hearing and everything that was said in the square.” He looked at the floor. “And I said yes.”

I stood up.

“You said yes,” I said.

“I said yes.” He looked up. “Wren, I have a son. I have a son who came home for the winter and who asked me what was in the box and I told him the truth and he has not spoken to me since. If the Council takes my rank and my land and puts me in a cell, my son will be the son of a murderer and a traitor and he will not be able to hold up his head in this county for the rest of his life.” He put his hands on the back of the chair. “Rourke offered me a way to keep my land and my name and I took it. I am not going to apologize for it. I am going to tell you what it means.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means the border patrols are mine again and the hunters are under my orders and the cull is going to happen.” He looked at me. “And it means I am going to do everything I can to make sure the wolf is not in this territory when it happens.”

I stood there and looked at him.

“You are going to help him,” I said.

“I am going to help him.” Dale picked up his hat. “The cull is set for the twenty-ninth. That is six days. Rourke has men on every road and a list of every truck in the county and a man at the depot in Walla Walla. But Rourke does not know the old mill road and he does not know the track behind the miller’s house and he does not know that the trees on the north line are thick enough to hide a wolf.” He put his hat on. “I am going to be on the north line every night this week. If a wolf comes through the trees, I am going to be looking the other way. And if a Gamma of this pack needs to be somewhere other than this room on the twenty-eighth, I am going to be the one who leaves the door unlocked.”

I looked at him for a long time.

“Why?” I said. “You have just told me you took the Council’s offer. Why are you doing this?”

Dale stood in the doorway with his hat on and his face gray and tired.

“Because my son asked me what was in the box,” he said. “And because I told him the truth and he has not spoken to me since. And because I would rather have a son who does not speak to me than a son who finds out in twenty years that his father let a wolf be killed to keep his land.” He went out and shut the door and I heard the key turn and his boots going down the hall.

I sat down on the bed.

At midnight the door opened again and June came in with a plate of bread and a cup of tea and a face that was white to the lips.

“Wren,” she said. “I have been to the mill. I went through the trees and I got there before the hunters did. Elias is in the clearing with Arthur and Hannah and the stones.” She put the plate down. “And Wren, there is a thing I have to tell you. I went into the mill to get the last of the bread and there was a man in the loft. He had a lantern and he was writing in a book and he did not hear me come in.” She took a breath. “It was Rourke. The culling officer. He was in the mill loft writing in a book and there was a box on the table in front of him with the Council mark on it.”

“What was in the box?”

“I do not know,” June said. “But there was a map on the wall behind him and the map had the mill on it and the east field and the stone wall, and there were marks on it in red pencil.” She put her hand on my arm. “Wren, he is not here to cull a wolf. He is here to find the stone.”