Alle Kapitel von The New Moon Mate: Kapitel 61 – Kapitel 70

The barn door came down and Rourke came in.He was in his shirt with his coat off and his face was red and there was a cut on his cheek and he had a rifle in his hands. Behind him there were two men with rifles and a third man on the ground in the yard with his hands over his head.“Warden,” Rourke said. “Put the key down.”Elias was between us. He had his shoulder into the bar and the bar had come down with the door and he was standing in the gap with his hands up and his teeth showing and the smell of him was the smell of a wolf who was about to change.“Rourke,” I said. “There are thirty-one wolves in your front yard and they have rifles and they are not going to stop.”“I have twelve men and four of them are on the roof.”“You had twelve men,” I said. “I have been listening. You have nine.”Rourke looked at the yard behind him. There were men on the ground and men running and the shouting from the front of the pack house had not stopped. The Corrigan boys had got into the barn lot

The pack house dining room had been cleared and the long table had been moved to one side and seven chairs had been set in a row at the top of the room. Ada sat in the middle of the seven. The other six Alphas sat beside her, and behind them the Council men stood with their folders and their pens.The pack crowded in at the back and along the walls. There were more wolves in that room than it had ever held. The Corrigan boys stood by the window. Mrs. Pike had a chair by the stove. Harold was at the door with his hat in his hands. June was beside me with the ledger and Arthur Renn was on my other side with the record and Hannah stood behind me with the box of stones.Ada put her stick across her knees."Gamma," she said. "You have brought a book and a record and a box of stones into my hearing. I am going to ask you to tell me what they are and then I am going to ask you to tell me what the Council has done in this territory. And then I am going to ask the Council to answer for it."I

We were halfway down the ridge when the lanterns came up the mill road.There were six of them and they were moving fast and they were not Council men. They were pack wolves, and the one at the front was Mrs. Pike, and the one beside her was Harold, and the one behind them was Dale.“Wren,” Elias said.“I see them.”We went into the trees off the ridge road and crouched down and watched the lanterns go past. They went up the ridge toward the cottage and the clearing and they did not see us and they did not stop.“They are going to Maeve's,” I said. “They think we went to Maeve's.”“Then they will be at Maeve's for a while.” Elias got up. “The mill road is open. Go now.”We went down the ridge on the other side, through the trees where the ground was rocky and the snow did not settle, and we came out on the mill road a quarter mile above the mill and we went down it at a run.The mill was dark. There was no lantern in the window and no light in the loft and the door was open the way it

Nobody moved.Rourke stood at the edge of the lantern light with the rifle against his shoulder and his face still bloody from the tack room and his hands steady."Rourke," Ada said. "Put the rifle down.""The rifle goes down when the register goes in the fire," Rourke said. "You have read it. Every wire the Council ever sent is in that book. Every order and every cull and every Luna. If that book goes in front of the Council of Alphas, every clerk in Boise goes to the wall and every Alpha who ever signed a claim goes with them." He looked at me. "And I am not going to the wall for a clerk in a suit.""You are already going to the wall," I said. "You put a false order in my pack's hands and you burned my co-op and you put a silver chain on a wolf in a pack square. There is no version of this where you walk away.""There is a version where the book burns and the register is a story and the Alphas go home." Rourke lifted the rifle. "Step away from the table, warden."I did not step away

I sat down in the chair and did not take my eyes off the man.He was thin and he was old and he had a face like a hatchet and he was wearing a gray coat that had been mended at the elbow. His hair was gray and his eyes were pale and when he said his name the second time he said it the way a man says a thing he has practiced.“Erik,” Ada said. “The tribunal requires a surname.”“I do not have one that anyone here would know,” the man said.“Then give us the one you have.”The man looked at the table.“Renn,” he said. “Erik Renn.”The square went quiet.Ada put her hand flat on the table.“There is a man in this territory who has already confessed to the name Erik Renn,” she said. “He is in the pack house under guard and he has confessed to the murder of Owen Halloran and to the abduction of the Luna in 1891. Are you telling this tribunal that you are the same man?”“I am telling this tribunal that I am Erik Renn,” the thin man said. “There is only one.”Harlan stood up.“That is not po