Chapter 93: The Founder's Wife

We went to Walla Walla the next morning.

It was a hundred and twenty miles and the roads were clear and the snow had stopped in the night and the sky was white and flat. We took Mrs. Bell's truck and Mrs. Bell drove and Elias sat in the middle and I sat by the window with the letter in my hand.

June did not come. She stayed with Maeve and Harlan and the pack and the stones. I told her she was the only wolf in this territory I trusted to keep the whole of it together while I was gone and she looked at me for a long moment and then she said, "Fine," and put her chin out and went up the ridge.

The house was at the end of a street on the north side of town. It was small and white and it had a porch and a garden that had gone to seed and there was a chair by the window with a blanket on it.

A woman opened the door.

She was old and she was small and she had white hair pulled back in a knot and she had dark eyes that were not the pale gray of the Council and were not the amber of the founders' line. They were brown and they were sharp.

"I am Ruth," she said. "You are the wolf from the newspaper."

"I am Wren."

"I know who you are." She stepped back. "Come in. I have been waiting for someone from that territory since 1954."

We went in and she sat us down at a table in the kitchen and put a pot of tea on it and sat down across from me with her hands folded.

"My mother was Ruth," she said. "And her mother was Ruth. And her mother was Ruth. And her mother was the Luna."

I put my cup down.

"The Luna was taken to Walla Walla in 1892," I said. "She had a daughter."

"She had two daughters," Ruth said. "Twins. One of them was named Ruth and one of them was named Ruth." She looked at me. "The Luna named them both Ruth because she was afraid the founders would find her and she wanted one of them to survive. If they came for one Ruth the other Ruth would still be there."

I sat very still.

"Two Ruths," I said.

"Two Ruths. The first Ruth stayed in Walla Walla and married a farmer and her daughter was Ruth and her daughter was Ruth and I am the fourth." She looked at me. "And the second Ruth was taken east when she was a baby and given to a family in Idaho and I have been looking for her my whole life."

I put my hand on the table.

"The second Ruth was Elias's mother," I said.

Ruth looked at Elias.

"Your mother's name was Ruth," she said.

"It was."

"And she was born in Walla Walla in 1893."

"She was born in Walla Walla in 1893 and she was taken east when she was a baby and she was raised in Idaho and she died when I was eleven." Elias put his hands on the table. "She never knew what she was. She never knew she was the Luna's line."

Ruth looked at him for a long moment.

"Then you are my cousin," she said. "And I have been alone in this town for eighty-six years and I did not know I had a cousin until this week."

She got up and went into the back room and came out with a box.

It was a wooden box with a brass clasp and she put it on the table and opened it.

There was a ring in it. It was silver and it had a stone in it that was not a stone and the stone was warm when I touched it.

There was a photograph. It was a woman with dark hair and a long coat and she was standing in front of a house with a baby in her arms.

There was a piece of a stone. It was gray and flat and it had a line in it.

And there was a letter.

"Read it," Ruth said.

I unfolded the letter. It was in a hand I had seen before on the founders' record and it was dated 1911 and it was signed Margaret.

It said: I am the founder's wife and I am the Luna's cousin and I have done what I could. I have sent the record to the Council and I have kept the photograph and I have hidden the stones and I have done the one thing I could do that no one else could do. I have made sure the Luna's line did not end. My husband believes his children are his. They are mine and they are the Luna's and they are the founders' and they are all three. Tell the Luna's daughter that I am sorry. Tell her that I loved her mother. Tell her that I did what I could.

I put the letter down.

"Margaret was the founder's wife," I said. "And she was the Luna's cousin. And she made sure the Luna's line did not end by having children who were both."

"She had three children," Ruth said. "Two girls and a boy. The boy died in the war. The girls married and went away. One of them went to Boise and her line is Arthur Renn. One of them went to the Kessler pack and her line is Hannah. And one of them stayed in Walla Walla and her line is me."

I sat at the table with the box and the letter and the ring.

"Then there are four lines," I said. "The Boise line and the Kessler line and the Walla Walla line and the Palouse line. And they are all the Luna's line and they are all the founders' line and they are all the same line."

Ruth put her hand on the table.

"There is a thing I have not told you," she said. "About the founder's wife. About Margaret. She did not die in 1911. She lived until 1932 and she came back to this territory in 1920 and she lived in the miller's house for twelve years." She looked at me. "And there is a woman in your pack who is her granddaughter."

The kitchen was quiet.

"Clara Renn," I said.

"Clara Renn," Ruth said. "Her mother was Mary the miller's daughter and her father was Margaret's son. And Clara Renn has been the founder's wife's granddaughter her whole life and she has been the second wolf and she has been sitting in that house at the end of the mill road and she has never told you."

I stood up.

"We have to go back," I said. "We have to go back tonight."

And then the door opened and a man came in.

He was tall and he was in a Council coat and he had a paper in his hand and behind him there was a car in the street with two more men in it.

"Beta," he said. "I am the district officer for Walla Walla and I have a warrant for your arrest. The Council of Alphas has ruled that you are a rogue wolf and that you are to be taken to Boise and held until the full Council meets."

I looked at him.

"On what charge?" I said.

"On the charge of claiming a territory without a lawful deed," he said. "And on the charge of harboring a cursed wolf."