Chapter 84: The Pack Split

The square broke.

It did not break all at once. It broke the way a fence breaks in a flood, one post at a time, and then the whole line goes. There was a shout from the back and a shout from the front and then the Corrigan boys were on their feet and Mrs. Pike was standing on a chair and a wolf I did not know was pushing through the crowd toward the table.

Harlan brought his hand down on the table three times.

"Enough," he said. "Enough. Sit down. All of you, sit down."

Nobody sat down.

Ada stood up.

"Gamma," she said. "You have made an accusation against a member of the Council of Alphas in front of this pack. That is a serious thing. It is a thing that requires proof and it is a thing that requires a hearing of its own." She put her hand on the table. "Do you have proof?"

"I have a register number," I said. "The letter that ordered my brother's death was written on Council paper and it had a register number and the register number started with the letter A. Arthur Renn has the register of the Council of Alphas and he has brought it with him from Boise. If the letter was registered, the register will say who wrote it."

The square went quiet.

Arthur Renn came forward with the record under his arm.

"The register is in my bag," he said. "It is the register of the Council of Alphas and it goes back to 1802. It is not the Council's register. It is the Alphas' register and it is kept in Boise and it is written by the archivist and it has never been in the hands of the chief clerk." He put the bag on the table. "I took it out of the archive on Monday night when I took the founders' record. It has been in my truck since."

Ada looked at him.

"Open it," she said.

Arthur Renn opened the bag and took out a book.

It was not a book like the register in the vault. It was smaller and it was bound in leather and it was old and it had brass corners. He put it on the table and opened it and turned the pages.

"The letter series A is the Alphas' series," he said. "Every letter the Alphas write is registered in this book and every one of them has a number and a date and the name of the Alpha who wrote it." He turned the pages. "The letter that ordered the Beta to bring Owen Halloran in was written in June of this year. It would be in the A series for 1975."

He turned the pages.

And then he stopped.

"There is no letter," he said.

The square was silent.

"What do you mean there is no letter?" Ada said.

"There is no letter in the A series for June 1975," Arthur Renn said. "There are letters for January and February and March and April and May. There is a letter for the third of June. And then there is nothing until the eighth of July." He looked up. "There is a gap. The pages have been cut out."

I stood in the middle of the square.

"Cut out," I said.

"Cut out." Arthur Renn held up the book. "Three pages have been cut out of this register with a razor. The gap is from the third of June to the eighth of July."

The square was shouting again.

Harlan came down the steps.

"Quiet," he said. "Quiet." He turned to the seven Alphas. "Ada. This register has been in the archive in Boise for eighty-five years and the archivist is the only man who has the key. If the pages were cut out, they were cut out by the archivist."

Arthur Renn shook his head.

"I did not cut them out," he said. "I have been the archivist for thirty years and I have never cut a page out of that book." He put his hand on the register. "But there is one other man who has a key to the archive. The chief clerk has a key. He has had a key since 1939 and he can go into the archive at any time and he has been in it every week for forty years."

Ada looked at the six Alphas.

"Then the chief clerk cut the pages out," she said. "And the chief clerk wrote the letter. And the chief clerk is in Boise."

"No," I said.

Everybody looked at me.

"The chief clerk wrote the letter," I said. "But he did not write it for himself. He wrote it for a Councilman. Dale said the letter had the seal of the Alphas on it and a note at the bottom in the chief clerk's hand that said the Councilman was not to be named. The chief clerk was protecting him." I looked at the seven Alphas. "One of you wrote that letter. Or one of you knows who did. And the chief clerk cut the pages out of the register to protect him."

The square was silent.

And then one of the Alphas stood up.

He was the old wolf with the white beard and the scar through his eyebrow, and he had been the first to say he would sit on the tribunal.

"My name is Halloran," he said.

The square went quiet.

"I am the Alpha of the Walla Walla pack," he said. "I have been on the Council of Alphas for thirty years. And I am the man who wrote the letter."

Ada turned and looked at him.

"Halloran," she said.

"My name is Halloran and I am a cousin of the Hallorans of this territory. My grandfather was a brother of Wren's great-grandfather and he left this territory in 1891 and went to Walla Walla and took the name with him." He looked at me. "I am your blood, Wren. And I wrote the letter that killed your brother."

The square was so quiet I could hear the snow.

"Why?" I said.

"Because the Luna was coming home," Halloran said. "And because the chief clerk told me that if the Luna came home and stood in the circle and claimed the territory in the old way, the Council of Alphas would fall. Every Alpha who had ever signed a claim would be named. Every one of us. And I have signed four hundred claims in thirty years and I have taken land from eleven packs and I have a family and a name and a seat on the Council and I was not going to lose it." He put his hand on the table. "So I wrote the letter and I sent it to the Beta and I told him to bring the boy in and I told him that if the boy resisted he was to use whatever force was necessary and it would be called a rogue attack."

"And you let a wolf take the blame for it," I said.

"I let a wolf take the blame for it and I let the Council pay the Beta for six years and I let the curse stay on the wolf in the trees and I have been sitting on the Council of Alphas for thirty years and I have never once been asked a question about it." He looked at me. "Until you."

The square broke.

And this time it did not stop.

There were wolves on their feet and wolves shouting and the Corrigan boys were going for the table and Mrs. Pike was screaming something at the Alphas and Harlan was shouting and Ada was bringing her stick down on the table and nobody was listening.

And then a wolf in the crowd picked up a chair and threw it at the Alphas' table and the table went over.

Harlan went down.

I saw him go down in the crowd and I went for him and the square was a river of wolves and I could not get through.

And then Elias was beside me and he put his shoulder into the crowd and made a hole and I got through and Harlan was on the ground with his hat off and his face white and his hand on his chest.

"Harlan," I said.

"Wren," he said. "I cannot get up."

The square was fighting above us.

And then a shot went off into the air and the whole square stopped.

It was June. She was standing on the pack house steps with the pistol in her hand and her red hair down and her face white.

"Everybody stop," she said. "The Alpha is on the ground."

The square went quiet.

And then a voice from the back said, "The Alpha is old and the Alpha is done. We need a new Alpha."

It was one of the Corrigan boys. It was the older one. He was standing on a chair with his fist in the air and his face red.

"An Alpha who will not let the Council rule this pack," he said. "An Alpha who will stand in the circle. We need a new Alpha and I know who it should be."

The square turned.

And then the other Corrigan boy said, "Dale."

The square was silent.

Dale was standing at the back with his hands tied and his face gray and he looked up.

"What?" he said.

"Dale," the older Corrigan boy said again. "Dale is the only wolf in this territory who has stood against the Council and told the truth in front of the pack. Dale should be Alpha."

The square broke again and this time it was not a fight. It was a roar and half the pack was on its feet and the other half was standing there with its mouth open.

Harlan was on the ground with his hand on his chest and his eyes closed.

And the pack was splitting.