The Spring Between Us

Chapter 74: What Owen Buried

The clerk had the hall doors opened and the table carried out into the yard and the whole canyon came in through the gate.

It took an hour to get them in. The Kızıltaş pack came first with Sten at the head and Berik behind him, and then the Çöl pack with Nora at the front and Ryland walking behind her with his hat in his hands and his face grey, and then the town with Owen and the doctor and the sick man's wife. The soldiers along the fence did not move. The rogue Nell was brought up from the cellar in irons and put on a bench at the front with two warriors on either side of her.

Silas was brought out last. He came up the cellar steps in irons with four warriors round him and he stood in the yard in the morning light with his silver hair uncombed and his coat torn and looked at the table and the clerk and the whole canyon and did not say anything.

The clerk struck the table with his gavel.

"This hearing is convened by the authority of the Council of Alphas," he said, "and it will be written down and sent to the autumn gathering. The envoy Silas is charged with the theft of water and ore from this canyon, with the corruption of a pack, and with the murder of a Luna. The Luna of the Kızıltaş pack is charged with nothing and is here as a witness. The hearing will hear the papers first and the witnesses after."

He heard the papers first. It took the morning. He read the water order and the ore receipts and the assay shed papers and the letters to the capital and the little book and the lease and the list my mother wrote and the page out of the quarry ledger with Ruth's name on it. He read them out loud and he read them slowly and he wrote down every one of them in his book.

At noon he put the pen down and said, "The papers are recorded. Now the witnesses."

Owen stood up before he was called.

"Clerk," he said. "Before the witnesses there is a thing I have to show you and it is not a paper. It is in the ground and it has been in the ground for three years and I put it there."

The yard went quiet.

"Three years ago the south section water order came down to the quarry," Owen said. "The Council man signed it and the Beta signed it and I was told to cut the line at the cistern and cap the spring house pipe and put the plate on the welling hole. And I did it. I cut the line and I capped the pipe and I put the plate on and I did it with my own hands and I have been sick about it for three years." He looked at the clerk. "But I did not cut it all. There was a length of pipe between the cistern and the spring house that I could not cut without bringing the whole line down, so I cut it at the cistern and I capped it there and I buried the length under the pump house yard and I put a rock with a white mark on it over the place. And I have been waiting three years for a wolf to come and dig it up."

The clerk looked at him.

"Show me," he said.

We went out of the yard to the pump house. Owen took a shovel out of the shed and went to the corner of the yard where a rock with a white mark on it sat in the dust, and he dug.

It took him a quarter of an hour. The whole canyon stood in the yard of the pump house and watched an old man dig, and the sun was high and the dust came up, and then the shovel hit iron.

It was a length of pipe. It was six feet long and it was iron and it had gone orange with rust, and there was a cut at each end of it and the cut was clean and the edges were bright.

Owen lifted it out of the hole and set it on the ground.

"That is the pipe that fed the Kızıltaş pack," he said. "That is the pipe that was cut three years ago by the order of the Council man and the Beta. I have kept it in the ground because I knew one day a wolf would come and want to see it."

The clerk came forward and knelt down in the dust and looked at the pipe. He put his hand on the cut edge and then he took his hand away and wrote in his book.

"Recorded," he said. "The pipe is recorded."

Then a voice from the back of the yard said, "Clerk. I have a thing to say."

It was Ryland. He came forward through the crowd with his hat in his hands and his face grey, and he stopped in front of the table and said, "I am the Beta of the Çöl pack and I have been a Council wolf for two years. I took money from the Council man and I sent him the coordinates of the wells and the patrol routes and the depth of the old ore shaft. And I did it because he paid me and because I was a fool. And there is a wolf in this yard who told me to do it and who told me to keep the letters and who kept them in a box under her floor." He looked at the hall. "Her name was Ruth and she is dead. And I am not going to let her be the only one who says what happened, because I am alive and I am standing here and I am going to say it."

The clerk wrote it down.

The hearing went on into the afternoon. It heard the doctor and the sick man's wife and Mira and Nora and the Council healer and the rogue Nell. It heard Sten and Berik and Cal and old Tomas. It heard the clerk's own record of the first hearing and the vote and the declaration in the pack house and the stone that came up out of the spring.

And at sundown, when the yard was full and the lanterns were lit, the clerk put down his pen and stood up and took off his hat.

"I have written down everything I have heard," he said. "And I am going to say a thing now that a Council clerk is not supposed to say. I have been a clerk for twenty two years and I have written down every hearing I have ever attended and I have never once written down a lie. And in all those years I have never seen a canyon that has been treated the way this one has been treated by the Council I serve." He looked at Silas. "The envoy Silas is guilty of the charges of theft and corruption. He has taken water and ore out of this canyon for twenty years and he has paid wolves to look the other way and he has written reports that were not true. He is not guilty of the murder of the Luna. That was done by the Beta, Ruth, who is dead and who confessed and who left the papers in a box under her floor. The murder of the Luna is recorded and the guilt rests on Ruth and on the rogue Nell and on nobody else."

Silas stood in irons and did not say anything.

"The envoy will be taken to the capital under Council guard and the papers will go with him and the autumn gathering will rule on him," the clerk said. "That is the law and I will not go beyond it." He put his hat on. "But I will say one thing more and then I will close this hearing. The Council of Alphas has been taking water and ore out of this canyon for forty years and it has been paying wolves to keep the packs divided and it has been writing reports that said the packs were savages. I have written down what I have seen and I am going to send it to the autumn gathering with the papers. And I am going to say in my own hand that the Council of Alphas owes this canyon a debt that no ruling of mine can pay."

The yard was silent.

Then the whole canyon made a sound that went up to the sky.

And out in the dark beyond the gate, a wolf began to howl. And then another. And then the whole canyon was howling, both packs and the town and the wolves on the ridge and the wolves in the yard, and it went on for a long time.

I stood at the table with Hank beside me and the mark on my arm bright, and I said, "It is not over."

"No," Hank said. "It is not over."

"There is still the autumn gathering and the first volume and the seats."

"There is still the autumn gathering." He put his hand out. "But tonight it is over. Tonight we sleep."

I took his hand.