All Chapters of The New Moon Mate: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

“A map with red pencil,” I said. “June, are you sure?”“I know what a map looks like.” She was still holding my arm. “It had the mill and the east field and the stone wall and there were marks on it, and there was a line drawn from the mill to the trees, and Rourke was writing in a book beside it.” She let go of my arm. “I did not wait to see more. I went out the back way and through the gap in the wall and I came up the ridge.”“Did he see you?”“I do not think so. I did not make a sound.”“You made a sound going out the back. The door on the mill office has a hinge that squeals when it is cold.”June was quiet.“I did not hear it,” she said.“You would not. You were frightened and you were listening for him and not for the door.” I stood up and went to the window. The yard was dark and the lights were off in the barn and there was one lantern on the porch. “You have to go back to the clearing. You have to tell Elias and Arthur and Hannah that Rourke is not here to cull a wolf. He is

We got in the truck and I drove.The track behind the miller's house was not a road. It was two ruts with grass in the middle and branches hanging low over it and a crust of snow on everything, and I put the truck into it in second gear and we went up through the trees with the headlights cutting a yellow hole in the dark. The branches scraped the roof and once a limb came down across the hood and I drove through it and it went under the wheels.Nobody said anything for a long time.June sat by the window with her arm in the scarf and her face turned away. Arthur Renn sat in the middle with the record on his knees and his spectacles in his hand. Hannah was in the back with the stones and the blankets. Elias was beside me with his shirt off and Maeve's stitches in his shoulder and his coat over his knees.I drove for about an hour before I said anything.“Elias,” I said. “You said there was more of it and it was worse.”He had been watching the trees go by.“Your mother came to me in 1

The signature was in the same narrow hand as the knife and the payroll and the mailbox on the north road.“E. R.,” I said. “Erik Renn signed the cull order.”“He signed it,” Mrs. Bell said. “And I have been a licensed hunter for eleven years and I know what a cull order looks like and this one is real. Register number, seal, chief clerk’s signature, and a countersignature from the Council’s hand in the territory.” She put her hand on the door of the truck. “Warden, I have been lied to for three weeks. Rourke told me the order was for a rogue. Rourke told me the wolf had killed calves. And then I stood in a field in the snow and watched a man put silver wire across a fence and I began to wonder who was the rogue in this county.”I folded the order and put it in my jacket.“Where is Rourke now?”“In the tack room of the pack house with two of his own men on the door and Dale standing in front of it with a rifle.” She looked at me. “And Dale is not going to hold them much longer. Rourke’

We went into the barn and shut the door and Silas put his folder on a bale of hay and opened it."The wire came into the depot at Walla Walla at four this morning," he said. "It was addressed to me as the investigator of this territory. It says the Council has reviewed the situation and is prepared to make a settlement." He took out the paper. "The terms are these. The wolf known as Elias is to be surrendered to the Council's hand at the bridge on the river road by noon tomorrow. The mill land and the east field are to be signed over to the Council for administration. In exchange, the Council will withdraw the treason warrant, the cull order, and the trial claim, and will confirm the Palouse Ridge pack in its territory and its Alpha in his rank.""And me?" I said."You are named in it." Silas put the paper down. "It says the Gamma Wren Halloran will be permitted to remain in the territory and to retain her rank, and that the matter of her brother's death will be closed and no further

I ran.I did not think about Rourke or the rifles or the pack square. I ran down the co-op road with the fire in front of me and the heat coming off it in waves and the smoke rolling over the road in a black wall, and by the time I got to the yard the loading dock was on fire and the office roof was on fire and the elevator was a column of flame with the red light still burning on top of it.Harold was standing in the yard with a bucket in his hand and his face black with smoke.“The elevator,” he said. “It went up in one go. I was in the office and there was a noise behind the wall and then the whole thing went up.”“Where is June?”“I do not know.”I went into the yard. The heat was like a hand on my face and the smoke was going down my throat and I pulled my collar up over my nose and went around the loading dock to the back.The back of the co-op was not on fire yet. The wall was hot and the paint was blistering and there was smoke coming out of the window of the office and the wi