Chapter 72: The Second Wound

Rourke came into the records room with the shotgun at his shoulder and his two men behind him and the lantern light went across his face and I saw that he had not slept either.

“Put the file down, warden,” he said.

I did not put the file down. I closed it and held it against my chest.

“You cannot shoot me in a courthouse,” I said. “There are seven Alphas in this territory and a tribunal in the morning and the whole pack is asleep three miles up the road.”

“The Alphas are asleep in the pack house and the pack is asleep in its beds and the courthouse is empty,” Rourke said. “I have been watching it since eleven o'clock. There is nobody in this building but you and the Alpha and me.” He came forward. “Put the file down.”

Harlan stepped in front of me.

“Rourke,” he said. “You have already been arrested once tonight and you have already put a knife in front of a tribunal. If you fire that gun in this building every wolf in this town will be in this street before you get to the door.”

Rourke looked at him.

“Then I will not fire it,” he said. “I will take the file and I will walk out of this building and I will be on the river road before anybody knows I am gone.” He held out his hand. “Give me the file.”

I held it against my chest.

“What is in it?” I said. “What is in this file that is worth a courthouse and a shotgun?”

Rourke did not answer.

“It is the second examination,” I said. “The one Clara Renn requested. The one that says there were two wounds and both of them were made by a blade.” I looked at him. “You do not care about the second wound. You care about who requested it. You care about the name at the bottom of the page.”

Rourke’s jaw was tight.

“Clara Renn,” I said. “You have been looking for that name since June. You have been in the trees and in the co-op and in the mill and you have been looking for the one person in this territory who knew there were two wounds and who asked the coroner to look again.” I stood up. “And you know what it means. It means the story the Council has been telling for four months is a lie. It means my brother was not killed by a wolf in a field. It means there was a blade and a man behind the wall and a body that was carried.”

“Give me the file,” Rourke said.

“No.”

He came across the room and put the shotgun against my chest and put his hand on the file.

And then the window behind him came in.

It was Elias. He came through the window with the glass and the frame and the snow, and he hit Rourke in the side and the shotgun went off into the ceiling and the two of them went down in the glass and the papers. The two men with rifles came forward and Harlan took a chair and put it into the first one and the second one got a shot off that went into the wall and then the Kessler wolves were in the door and the room was full of shouting.

It was over in a minute.

Rourke was on the floor with Elias on his back and his arm up behind him and the shotgun under the table. His two men were against the wall with their hands up and the Kessler wolves had their rifles.

Elias got up.

“Wren,” he said. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” I looked at the window and the glass and the snow. “How did you know I was here?”

“Harlan’s truck was gone and the guard said you had gone into town.” He brushed the glass off his coat. “I have been following you since the pack house. I was at the end of the street when I saw Rourke’s truck.”

I put the file on the table and opened it and turned to the last page.

“Elias,” I said. “Look at this.”

He came and looked.

“Two wounds,” he said. “One on the shoulder blade and one on the back.”

“The ones you have.”

“The ones I have.” He put his hand on the page. “But the coroner says the second examination was requested by the family. Nobody in your family requested it.”

“Clara Renn did.” I put my finger on the name. “Clara Renn requested a second examination on the twenty-fourth of June and the coroner found two wounds and wrote it down and signed it and then it went into the file and nobody in this territory ever saw it.” I looked at him. “Clara Renn knew there were two wounds. She knew before anyone. She went to the coroner four days after my brother died and she asked him to look again.”

Elias was quiet.

“Then Clara Renn knows something,” he said.

“Clara Renn has known something since 1932,” I said. “She has been sitting in that house at the end of the mill road for eleven years and she has been watching the east field and she has been waiting for a wolf of the Luna’s blood. And she has been keeping a file and a box and a room in a mill and a list of every year since 1891.” I closed the file. “And she has never told me the whole of it. She has told me about her mother and the pond and the wagon. She has never told me what she knows about the night my brother died.”

Harlan came across the room.

“Wren,” he said. “The tribunal is in the morning.”

“I know it is in the morning.” I put the file in my jacket. “And I am going to spend the rest of the night at Clara Renn’s house.”

We went out of the courthouse into the snow with the file in my jacket and Rourke in the back of the Kessler truck and his two men in the back of Harlan’s. The street was empty and the snow was coming down and the sky was black.

We went down the mill road to the end of it.

The house was dark. There was no light in the window and no smoke from the chimney and the door was shut.

I knocked.

Nobody came.

I knocked again and put my ear against the door and listened.

There was a sound inside. It was a small sound and it was the sound of a chair moving on a floor.

I tried the handle and the door was not locked and I opened it.

The kitchen was cold and the stove was out and the lamp was off the table and lying on the floor. There was a chair turned over and a cup broken and a shawl on the floor by the door.

And Clara Renn was sitting in the corner of the kitchen with her back against the wall and her hands in her lap and her white hair down and her face pale.

“Mrs. Renn,” I said.

She looked up at me.

“I have been waiting for you,” she said. “I have been waiting since he left. He came in the night and he took the box.”

“Who?”

“The old one,” Clara Renn said. “Erik. The one who came with the founders.” She put her hand on the floor and her fingers were shaking. “He came in the night and he took the box of stones and he took my mother’s papers and he took the ring. And he said a thing to me before he went.” She looked at me. “He said the Luna is coming home and he is not going to let her.”

The fire was not in the co-op.

The fire was in the mill. And it had been burning since before midnight and it was still burning and the light of it was coming through the window of Clara Renn’s kitchen and it was not orange any more.

It was white.