Chapter 60: The Grain Co-op Fire

I ran.

I did not think about Rourke or the rifles or the pack square. I ran down the co-op road with the fire in front of me and the heat coming off it in waves and the smoke rolling over the road in a black wall, and by the time I got to the yard the loading dock was on fire and the office roof was on fire and the elevator was a column of flame with the red light still burning on top of it.

Harold was standing in the yard with a bucket in his hand and his face black with smoke.

“The elevator,” he said. “It went up in one go. I was in the office and there was a noise behind the wall and then the whole thing went up.”

“Where is June?”

“I do not know.”

I went into the yard. The heat was like a hand on my face and the smoke was going down my throat and I pulled my collar up over my nose and went around the loading dock to the back.

The back of the co-op was not on fire yet. The wall was hot and the paint was blistering and there was smoke coming out of the window of the office and the window was broken.

I put my head in.

“June,” I called.

Nothing.

“June.”

There was a sound from the back room. It was a small sound and it was not a word and I went along the wall and kicked the back door open and the smoke came out at me and I went in low with my hand over my mouth.

She was on the floor by the cot with the ledger in her arms and a wet sack over her face.

I got her by the collar and pulled her out and we came out of the back door and fell down the step into the snow, and I lay there with my sister in my arms and the co-op burning over us.

“I got it,” June said. Her voice was a croak. “I got the ledger. I went back for it.”

“You went back into a burning building for a ledger.”

“It has the payments in it. It has every payment Dale took from the Council and every ticket Dale signed and the whole of it.” She held it up. “It is wet but it is not burned.”

I took it out of her hands and put it in the snow and put my arms around her and held on.

We got the fire out at four in the morning.

It took every wolf in the territory and every bucket and hose and the river water and the fire truck from Walla Walla that came too late to save anything. The elevator was gone. The loading dock was gone. The office was a shell of black boards and the roof had fallen in and the grain in the bins was burning from the inside and it would burn for three days.

I stood in the yard at dawn with the smoke still coming off the rubble and my hands black and my throat raw.

The co-op was the heart of this pack. It was the work and the wages and the wheat. It was the place where every wolf in this territory had stood at some point in their lives with a ticket in their hand and a wagon behind them. And it was gone.

June came up beside me with a blanket around her shoulders and her hair singed at the ends.

“It started in the office,” she said. “I saw it. When I went in the back for the ledger, the fire was not in the elevator yet. The fire was in the office, behind the desk, where the drawers are.”

I turned and looked at her.

“The office,” I said.

“The office. It started at the desk and it went up the wall to the elevator and then the whole thing went.” She pulled the blanket tighter. “Somebody set it, Wren. Somebody came into that office and poured something on the floor and lit it and walked out.”

I looked at the yard.

“Where was Rourke when it started?”

“He was in the square. He was standing right there. Everybody saw him.”

“Rourke has twelve men,” I said. “One of them did it while he was standing in the square.”

Elias came across the yard. His face was black with smoke and his coat was burned at the hem and his shoulder was bleeding through the bandage.

“The stones,” he said. “The stones are in the truck. The record is in the truck. Hannah and Arthur are all right. They are at Maeve's.”

“And Silas?”

Elias was quiet.

“Rourke took him,” he said. “While the co-op was burning. He took him to the pack house and he put him in the room you were in and he put two men on the door.”

I stood in the yard with the smoke and the ash coming down like snow.

“He burned the co-op,” I said. “He burned the co-op to make us run to the fire and while we were running he took Silas.” I looked at the ruin of the office. “It was a warning. It was not about the fire. It was about the paper. The ledger was in that office and the grain tickets were in that office and the whole of the co-op accounts were in that office and Rourke wanted them burned.”

“He did not get the ledger,” June said. “I got it.”

“He does not know that.” I turned to Elias. “Rourke thinks the ledger is ash. He thinks he has burned the only record of every payment the Council ever made to Dale and every ticket Dale ever signed. He thinks the co-op is finished and the pack is finished and we have nothing left to show the Alphas.”

Elias looked at me.

“And he is wrong,” he said.

“He is wrong.” I looked at the rubble and the smoke and the wolves going home with buckets in their hands. “But he has Silas and he has the key to the vault and he has twelve men and he has the pack house. And we have a burned co-op and a wet ledger and four days until the Alphas are supposed to arrive.”

“The Alphas are not coming,” June said. “The wire was a forgery.”

I turned and looked at her.

“The wire was a forgery,” I said. “But the petition was not. Harlan sent it to Boise by rider two nights ago and the rider is on his way and the Alphas will read it. And if they read it and they do not come, then the Council has told them the petition was a lie.” I looked at the road. “So we need to make sure that when the Alphas read the petition, there is a thing in this territory that makes them come.”

“What thing?” June said.

I looked at the mill.

“The vault,” I said. “Silas said there is a vault under the mill with eighty-five years of Council paper in it. That is the thing the Alphas cannot ignore. If we open that vault and we put the paper in front of them, the Council falls.” I turned to Elias. “We need the second key. And the second key is in the pack house and Rourke has the pack house.”

Elias looked at me for a long moment.

“Then we take the pack house,” he said.

“With what?”

“With the pack,” he said.

I looked at the yard. There were wolves standing in it with buckets in their hands and ash on their faces. Harold. The Corrigan boys and their mother. Mrs. Pike. Old Mr. Carter. The young border-wardens. The co-op men. They were standing in the ruin of their own co-op and they were looking at me.

“They are not going to fight Rourke,” I said.

“They are not going to fight Rourke for a Gamma,” Elias said. “They are going to fight Rourke for the co-op.”

I stood in the yard and looked at all of them.

Then I climbed up on the loading dock that was not burned and stood in front of the pack with my hands black and my face black and my sister beside me.

“The co-op is burned,” I said. “The grain is burned and the books are burned and the work is gone. And it was not an accident. It was set by a man in this territory who is standing in the pack house right now with a Council order in his hand and a forger in a cell.” I looked at the yard. “The Alphas are coming. They will be here in four days if the petition reaches them and if they hear the truth. And there is a vault under this mill that has every trial claim and every forged deed the Council has ever written, and if we open it, the Council falls.”

The yard was quiet.

“I cannot open it alone,” I said. “I need every wolf in this yard to go to the pack house with me and take it back. Not for me. Not for my brother. For the co-op and the work and the wheat and the eighty-five years of paper that took the land from this pack.”

Harold looked at the ruin of his co-op.

Then he picked up a shovel.