Chapter 97: The Photograph

I went out into the yard.

The man beside the car was gray-haired and he had a folder under his arm and he was holding the photograph in his other hand and he was looking at it.

“That is mine,” I said.

He looked up.

“Beta,” he said. “I am the Council’s archivist for the western district. I have been sent to collect the Council’s property from this territory and the photograph is Council property. It has been in the Council’s file since 1911.”

“It is a photograph of my family,” I said. “And it was taken out of the Council’s file by an Alpha of the Council of Alphas and given to me.”

“The Alpha has been arrested,” the archivist said. “And everything he took from the file is to be returned.” He put the photograph in his folder. “There is a warrant for the box and for the register and for the crates in the tunnel and for every paper in this pack house. I am going to ask you to show me the office.”

Silas came out onto the steps behind me.

“The office is a pack office,” he said. “The Council has no standing in it.”

“The Council has a warrant,” the archivist said.

“The warrant is signed by the chief clerk,” Silas said. “And the chief clerk has been arrested.”

The archivist looked at him.

“The chief clerk has not been arrested,” he said. “The chief clerk is in Boise and he is at his desk and he has been at his desk all week.”

The yard was quiet.

“What?” I said.

“The chief clerk is in Boise and he is at his desk,” the archivist said again. “I saw him this morning. He signed the warrant himself and he gave it to me and he told me to come to this territory and collect the Council’s property.” He held up the folder. “I do not know what is happening in this territory and I do not want to know. I have been an archivist for thirty years and I do what I am told.”

I stood in the yard.

“He is not in a cell,” I said.

“He is not in a cell,” the archivist said. “The Councilman Halloran is in a cell. The chief clerk is at his desk.”

Silas came down the steps.

“Wren,” he said quietly. “The Alphas wrote to Boise to have him arrested. They wrote the letter the night of the tribunal. If he is still at his desk, the letter did not arrive or it did arrive and it was ignored.”

“Or the Alphas who wrote it are the seven who are going to be removed in three days,” I said.

The archivist put the photograph in his folder and closed it.

“I am going to go into that office,” he said. “And I am going to take the register and the letters and the crates. And if you stand in my way I am going to write in my report that the Beta of the Palouse Ridge pack obstructed a Council archivist.”

I looked at him.

“Take it,” I said.

He stopped.

“What?”

“Take the register and the letters and the crates,” I said. “Take the whole of it. Take it to Boise and put it in the Council’s file and let the Council read it.” I stepped closer. “Because the register is a copy and the letters are copies and the crates are copies and the originals are in a vault in Boise under the Council’s own seal. And the Council has been keeping the originals for eighty-five years and there is not a wolf in Boise who has ever read them.” I looked at him. “Take them. And when you get to Boise, ask the chief clerk why he wants the copies back when he already has the originals.”

The archivist stood in the yard.

“I do not know anything about originals,” he said.

“No,” I said. “You do not. And that is the whole of the problem.”

He went into the office with his folder and he was in there for an hour and when he came out he had the register and the letters and two crates on a handcart and he put them in his car and drove away.

Silas stood in the yard and watched him go.

“We have lost the register,” he said.

“We have lost a copy of the register,” I said. “The Alphas have the original. They have had it since Tuesday.”

Silas looked at me.

“The Alphas have the original,” he said.

“Arthur Renn took it out of the archive on Monday night and he has been carrying it in his truck ever since. He brought it to the tribunal and he read it in front of the pack.” I put my hand on his arm. “Silas. The archivist took the copies and the photograph and he is going to Boise with them and he is going to put them on the chief clerk’s desk. And when he does, the chief clerk is going to look at the photograph and he is going to see the numbers on the back and he is going to know that we have found the thing he has been hiding for eighty-five years.”

Silas was quiet.

“Then we have to get to Boise before he does,” he said.

“We cannot get to Boise before him,” I said. “He has a car and a head start and a warrant.”

“Then what do we do?”

I stood in the yard.

“We go to the Kessler pack,” I said.

Silas looked at me.

“The Kessler pack?”

“Hannah is the Kessler line. And there is a thing I have not done yet. I have not asked the Kessler pack what it knows about the three twins.” I looked at the ridge. “Hannah’s mother was the Luna’s line and she died in 1971 and before she died she told Hannah about the three sisters. But she did not tell Hannah everything.” I put my hand in my pocket and touched the photograph that the archivist had not taken because I had put it in my jacket before I went out into the yard. “The numbers on the back of this photograph. Eleven, four, seven. My brother wrote them on the wall. Margaret wrote them on the photograph. And there is only one woman alive who can tell me what they mean.”

“Who?” Silas said.

“Hannah’s grandmother,” I said. “She is ninety-four years old and she lives with the Kessler pack and she has been there since 1891.”

Silas stared at me.

“Since 1891,” he said.

“She was born in 1885,” I said. “She is the oldest wolf in the territory. And she is the only wolf alive who was in this territory before the founders took it.” I looked at him. “And she has never spoken to anyone about it.”

We went to the Kessler pack that night.