Chapter 64: Wren's First Mistake

The pack house dining room had been cleared and the long table had been moved to one side and seven chairs had been set in a row at the top of the room. Ada sat in the middle of the seven. The other six Alphas sat beside her, and behind them the Council men stood with their folders and their pens.

The pack crowded in at the back and along the walls. There were more wolves in that room than it had ever held. The Corrigan boys stood by the window. Mrs. Pike had a chair by the stove. Harold was at the door with his hat in his hands. June was beside me with the ledger and Arthur Renn was on my other side with the record and Hannah stood behind me with the box of stones.

Ada put her stick across her knees.

"Gamma," she said. "You have brought a book and a record and a box of stones into my hearing. I am going to ask you to tell me what they are and then I am going to ask you to tell me what the Council has done in this territory. And then I am going to ask the Council to answer for it."

I stood up.

I told it all. I told them about the calf in the combine yard and the naked man in the snow. I told them about the coat in the tack room and the cull list and the silver wire and the mill and the room under the loft. I told them about the founders and the Luna and the stones and the curse. I told them about Erik Renn and the payroll and the pond and the wagon and the daughter in Walla Walla. I told them about my brother and the knife and the lantern and the man who came out of the trees and finished what Dale had started.

When I was done the room was quiet.

Ada looked at me for a long moment.

"Gamma," she said. "You have told us a great many things. Some of them are supported by paper and some of them are supported by a cursed wolf and a bookkeeper and an old woman. I am going to ask you the one question that matters. Can you prove that the Council ordered the death of your brother?"

I opened the ledger to the page and held it up.

"Here," I said. "The payments. Two hundred dollars on the twelfth of June, on the fourteenth, on the fifteenth, on the twenty-second, on the twenty-third. Every one of them in the Beta's hand with the initials of the Council's hand beside it. The twelfth is the day the cull order was written. The twenty-second is the day my brother died."

Ada held out her hand and the herald took the ledger and carried it to her. She turned it over and looked at the page for a long time.

"This is a page in a co-op ledger," she said. "It has dates and amounts and two letters. It does not say what the money was for."

"It says the money came from the Council," I said.

"It says E. R.," Ada said. "It could be a farmer's initials. It could be a wagon number. It could be anything at all." She closed the book. "Have you anything else?"

I stood there.

"The order," I said. "The cull order from the twelfth of June with Erik Renn's signature on it."

"The order is in your jacket and I have seen it and it is a Council order," Ada said. "It authorizes the Beta to take a rogue on the north line. It does not name your brother. The second order names your brother and authorizes the Beta to bring him in for questioning. It does not authorize his death." She put the ledger down. "I am not saying your brother was not murdered. I am saying that you have brought me a paper that says the Beta was allowed to arrest him and a book that says the Beta was paid by a man whose name you know but cannot prove. That is not proof of a Council murder. That is proof of a Council arrest."

The room was very quiet.

"Alpha," I said. "There is a vault under the mill."

"I have heard about the vault."

"Then send your men down into it. There is paper in it. Trial claims and deeds and registers and a file of fourteen Lunas. If you open that vault you will have eighty-five years of Council paper in your hands and you will not need to ask me what the money was for."

Ada looked at me for a long time.

"The vault is Council property," she said. "It was built with Council money and it is registered to the Council and it is not in this territory's land records. I cannot send my men into it on the word of a Gamma who has been at war with the Council for a week." She looked at the six Alphas beside her. "The Council has filed a motion that this territory is in rebellion and that its Gamma is a rogue. I have read the motion and I have read the petition and I have heard the Gamma's testimony." She put her stick on the floor. "The motion is granted in part. The hearing on the claim of blood will proceed. The hearing on the land will proceed. But the Gamma of this pack is suspended from her rank until the hearing is complete, and the mill and the vault are placed under Council administration until the Alphas have ruled on the land."

The room broke into noise.

Harlan was on his feet.

"Ada," he said. "You cannot suspend my Gamma on the word of a clerk."

"I can and I have." Ada stood up. "This pack has been at war with itself for a week and there is a dead wolf in a field and a burned co-op and a Beta who has confessed to murder and a Council officer in a tack room. Somebody in this territory has been lying to somebody and I am going to find out who. But I am not going to do it with a Gamma who has been hiding a cursed wolf in the trees and a sister who went into a burning building for a book." She looked at me. "You are suspended, Wren Halloran. You will hand your rank to the Alpha and you will not act in the name of this pack until the Alphas have ruled."

I stood there with my hands at my sides.

"Then the vault stays closed," I said.

"The vault stays closed."

"Then the Lunas stay in it."

"The Lunas stay in it until the hearing."

I looked at the seven Alphas and the Council men behind them and the pack along the walls and the box of stones on the table and the ledger in Ada's hand.

And then I did the thing I should not have done.

I turned around and faced the pack.

"You heard her," I said. "The Alphas have ruled and the vault stays closed and the paper stays in it. But you have all been in this territory for eighty-five years and you know what the Council has done to this pack. You know the co-op burned and the calves died and the east field was cut before it was ready. You know the Beta took the Council's money and you know the Council paid for a cull order that was written ten days before the first calf died." I looked at them. "So I am asking you. Not the Alphas. You. Will you stand with me?"

The room was silent.

And then Mrs. Pike stood up and said, "I will."

And the Corrigan boys stood up and said, "We will."

And Harold stood up and said, "I will."

And then a wolf at the back of the room, a wolf I did not know, a young border-warden with a red face, said, "My father lost his land in 1962 and he never knew why and I will stand with you."

And the room broke.

Ada brought her stick down on the table three times and the room went quiet.

"Enough," she said. "Gamma, you have just done a very foolish thing. You have asked this pack to stand against a ruling of the Alphas in the presence of the Alphas. That is not a mistake. That is a challenge." She looked at me. "You are suspended from your rank and you will be confined to the pack house until the hearing. And if one wolf in this room raises a hand in your name before the hearing is over, I will declare this pack rogue and I will do it before the sun goes down."

I stood there.

Harlan came and took my arm.

"Wren," he said quietly. "Come with me."

I went with him.

He took me down the hall to the room with the bars on the window and he opened the door and I went in and he shut it behind me and turned the key.

"Wren," he said through the door. "You should not have done that."

"I know," I said.