Chapter 56: The Beta's Second Lie

The signature was in the same narrow hand as the knife and the payroll and the mailbox on the north road.

“E. R.,” I said. “Erik Renn signed the cull order.”

“He signed it,” Mrs. Bell said. “And I have been a licensed hunter for eleven years and I know what a cull order looks like and this one is real. Register number, seal, chief clerk’s signature, and a countersignature from the Council’s hand in the territory.” She put her hand on the door of the truck. “Warden, I have been lied to for three weeks. Rourke told me the order was for a rogue. Rourke told me the wolf had killed calves. And then I stood in a field in the snow and watched a man put silver wire across a fence and I began to wonder who was the rogue in this county.”

I folded the order and put it in my jacket.

“Where is Rourke now?”

“In the tack room of the pack house with two of his own men on the door and Dale standing in front of it with a rifle.” She looked at me. “And Dale is not going to hold them much longer. Rourke’s men have been sending up flares since midnight. Somebody in Boise knows something has gone wrong and they are going to send more men.”

“Then we have to get to Boise before they do.”

“You will not get there in this truck.” Mrs. Bell looked at Harold’s truck and then at the river road ahead. “The county line is four miles south. There is a roadblock at the bridge and there have been men there since Tuesday. Rourke put them there himself.”

I sat in the truck with my hands on the wheel.

“Then we go around the bridge,” I said. “There is a ford at the old mill crossing.”

“The ford is under three feet of water in the spring and it is under a foot of snow in September.”

“Then we go through it,” I said. “Mrs. Bell, I have three Lunas and a box of stones and the founders’ record in this truck and I am not going to sit on the river road waiting for the Council to catch me. If the ford is deep I will float the truck.”

She looked at me for a long moment.

“I will go first,” she said. “My truck is heavier. If the ford is passable I will flash my lights and you follow.”

She went back to her truck and pulled out ahead of us and we went south along the river road with her headlights in front of us and the river on our left and the sky pink and gray over the water.

We had gone about a mile when she slowed and stopped.

I stopped behind her and got out.

There was a truck across the road.

It was Dale’s truck and it was parked sideways with the engine running and the headlights on, and Dale was standing in front of it with his hands at his sides and his coat open and his face gray.

“Dale,” I said.

“You have to come back,” he said. “Rourke got out.”

I stopped walking.

“What do you mean he got out?”

“He got out.” Dale came forward. “His men came at the tack room with a crowbar and a rifle and they got him out and they took the pack house and they put Harlan in the room you were in and they are going through the Alpha’s office right now looking for the box of letters.” He stopped in front of me. “And Rourke has sent a wire to Boise. He has told them the Gamma of the Palouse Ridge pack has taken the stones and the record and the archivist and is on the road to Boise with a cursed wolf, and he has asked for a warrant.”

“A warrant for what?”

“For all of us,” Dale said. “For you and Elias and the archivist and Hannah and June. He has asked for a warrant for the whole of us and he has called it treason.”

I looked at him.

“You said you would hold them.”

“I did hold them. I held them for four hours.” He put his hand on the hood of his truck. “Wren, I have been holding them with a rifle and a lie and a name I do not have any more. And I am not going to be able to hold them again because Rourke has the pack house and half the pack is standing in the yard doing nothing and the other half is standing with Rourke because they are afraid.”

“Then we go back and we take the pack house back.”

“With what?” Dale said. “With three Lunas and a box of stones and a cursed wolf who can barely lift his arm?”

“With the truth,” I said.

Dale looked at me for a long moment.

“The truth is not a weapon,” he said.

“It is the only weapon I have.”

He was quiet.

“Wren,” he said. “There is a thing I have not told you. I told you I killed your brother by accident. I told you I met him in the field and we argued and I put the knife up and it went into his chest. That is true.” He looked at me. “But I did not go to that field to talk to him.”

The river went past the truck and the wind came up off the water.

“What did you go to that field to do?” I said.

Dale put his hand in his coat and took out a paper and held it up.

“The Council sent me an order on the twelfth of June,” he said. “It said I was to take the rogue on the north line before the end of the month. It was signed by the chief clerk and countersigned by the Council’s hand. And there was a second paper with it.” He handed it to me. “It said the wolf who had written to the Council asking about Erik Renn was to be dealt with under the same order.”

I read the paper.

It was a Council order. It was dated the twelfth of June. It had a register number and a seal and two signatures, and the second one was E. R.

And it said: the wolf known as Owen Halloran is to be brought to the Council’s hand in the territory for questioning. If he resists, the Beta is authorized to use whatever force is necessary to restrain him.

I read it twice.

“You were ordered to bring him in,” I said.

“I was ordered to bring him in for questioning.” Dale put his hands at his sides. “And when I got to the field he would not come. He said he was going to Harlan and he was going to the Alphas and he was not going to talk to a Council hand. And I grabbed him and he swung at me and I put the knife up and it went into him.” He looked at me. “I did not kill your brother on purpose. I killed him because the Council told me to bring him in and I was afraid of what they would do to me if I came back without him. That is the truth and it is not a thing that makes me look better. It makes me look worse.”

I stood on the river road with the paper in my hand.

“He was going to the Alphas,” I said.

“He was going to the Alphas.”

“And the Council killed him to stop him.”

“The Council killed him to stop him,” Dale said. “And I was the knife.”

I folded the order and put it in my jacket with the other one.

“Get in the truck,” I said.

“Wren.”

“I said get in the truck.” I turned around and walked back toward Harold’s truck. “You are going to Boise with us and you are going to stand in front of the Alphas and you are going to tell them what you just told me. You are going to tell them about the cull order and the second paper and the night in the field and the coat in the box and the letter to the Council and everything else. You are going to tell them all of it.”

Dale stood in the road.

“And then what?” he said.

“And then they will decide what to do with you,” I said. “And I will not say a word in your favor and I will not say a word against you. You will stand in that room and you will tell the truth and the Alphas will judge you and I will not lift a finger to save you.”

Dale looked at me for a moment. Then he got in his truck and started the engine.

Elias was standing by the window of Harold’s truck with his coat over his shoulder.

“You are taking him with us,” he said.

“I am taking him with us.”

“He put a knife in your brother.”

“He did.” I opened the door. “And he is the only man alive who can tell the Alphas what the Council ordered him to do and show them the paper that proves it. If I leave him on this road, Rourke will find him and the paper will go in a fire and the Alphas will never see it.” I got in. “I am not taking him with us to save him. I am taking him with us to hang the Council with his own mouth.”

Elias looked at me for a long moment. Then he got in.

Mrs. Bell flashed her lights ahead of us and pulled out onto the road.