Chapter 70: The Witness Who Lied

I sat down in the chair and did not take my eyes off the man.

He was thin and he was old and he had a face like a hatchet and he was wearing a gray coat that had been mended at the elbow. His hair was gray and his eyes were pale and when he said his name the second time he said it the way a man says a thing he has practiced.

“Erik,” Ada said. “The tribunal requires a surname.”

“I do not have one that anyone here would know,” the man said.

“Then give us the one you have.”

The man looked at the table.

“Renn,” he said. “Erik Renn.”

The square went quiet.

Ada put her hand flat on the table.

“There is a man in this territory who has already confessed to the name Erik Renn,” she said. “He is in the pack house under guard and he has confessed to the murder of Owen Halloran and to the abduction of the Luna in 1891. Are you telling this tribunal that you are the same man?”

“I am telling this tribunal that I am Erik Renn,” the thin man said. “There is only one.”

Harlan stood up.

“That is not possible,” he said. “I have seen the man in the pack house. He is eighty years old and he is white-haired and he is heavy. This man is not him.”

“I have been in the trees for four months,” the thin man said. “I have been living on rabbits and snow and I have lost a great deal of weight. A man can change in four months.”

I stood up.

“His eyes,” I said.

Everyone looked at me.

“His eyes are pale and his hair is gray and his coat is mended at the elbow,” I said. “But the man in the pack house has a scar on his left hand and a burn on his forearm and he walks with a limp on his right side. Does this man have a limp?”

The thin man stood very still.

“Take off your coat,” I said.

“I am not going to take off my coat in front of a tribunal.”

“Take off your coat.”

Ada looked at me and then at the man.

“Take off your coat,” she said.

The man did not move.

And then Elias said, from the side of the square, “He is not Erik Renn. I have smelled Erik Renn. Erik Renn smells of dust and old paper and lamp oil. This man smells of hay and horses and the tack room.”

The thin man turned and looked at Elias.

And I saw it.

He had been standing with his head down and his shoulders hunched and his hands in his pockets, and when he turned his head to look at Elias his shoulders came back and his chin came up and he was not a thin old man in a mended coat any more.

He was Rourke.

“Rourke,” I said.

The man in the gray coat smiled.

“You are quicker than the Alphas,” he said.

He moved fast. He put his hand in his coat and came out with a knife and he went for Ada, and the Kessler wolves went for him, and the square broke.

I do not know how it happened. There was a shout and a scuffle and a table going over and Ada's stick coming up and then Rourke was on the ground with four wolves on him and the knife had gone into the snow.

They got him up. His coat was torn and his face was bleeding and he was not smiling any more.

Ada stood over him with her stick in her hand and her gray cloak torn at the shoulder.

“Rourke,” she said. “You have been the culling officer for nine territories and you have put a false witness in front of a tribunal in my hearing. You will be held and you will be tried and if I have anything to say about it you will be exiled from every pack in the territory.” She turned to the square. “This tribunal is adjourned until tomorrow. The Alphas will hear the rest of the evidence in the morning.”

The square began to empty.

I went to Elias.

“He was going to put it on you,” I said. “He was going to stand up in front of seven Alphas and swear he saw you with your hands on my brother and he was going to make you the murderer.”

“He tried,” Elias said. “He did not do it.”

“If he had not moved when he looked at you I would never have known. He had the coat and the hair and the voice and he was good.” I looked at him. “He is good.”

And then June was beside me.

“Wren,” she said. “The Alphas want to see you. All seven of them. In the pack house. Now.”

I went into the pack house and up the stairs to the room at the end of the hall and the seven Alphas were at the table with the register open in front of them and Ada at the head.

“Gamma,” Ada said. “Sit down.”

I sat down.

“The tribunal is going to hear the rest of the evidence tomorrow and then it is going to rule,” Ada said. “But there is a thing the Alphas have to decide before we rule and it is not a thing that is in the register.” She looked at me. “The curse. The wolf in the trees. The three Lunas in the circle. We have heard it from you and we have heard it from the healer and we have heard it from the archivist and we have heard it from Hannah of the Kessler pack. And there is a thing the Alphas are going to have to decide about the curse before the tribunal is over, and it is a thing that affects the land and the pack and the whole of this territory.”

“What thing?” I said.

Ada put her hand on the table.

“If you break the curse at the new moon,” she said, “the founders’ bargain is void. The land goes back to the Luna’s line. Every deed in that vault is a lie and the territory is not the Council’s and it is not the Palouse Ridge pack’s. It is yours.” She looked at me. “Do you understand what that means?”

“It means the pack loses its land.”

“It means the pack loses its land,” Ada said. “And there are thirty-one wolves in this territory who stood with you in the square and who are going to find out that the ground they have farmed for eighty-five years belongs to a woman they have known since she was a girl. And some of them are going to ask you to give it back.”

I sat in the chair.

“What would you do?” I said.

“I am not going to tell you what to do,” Ada said. “I am going to tell you what the Alphas will do. If the curse is broken and the land is returned to the Luna’s line, the Alphas will recognize you as the Alpha of this territory and the pack will be yours to keep or to share. And if you keep it, you will be the Alpha of a pack that does not want you.” She looked at me. “And if you share it, you will be the Alpha of a pack that does.”

I sat there for a long time.

“And the new moon?” I said.

“The new moon is in four days,” Ada said. “It comes after the tribunal. And the Alphas will be here to see it.”