Mateo Santiago novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Traitor

Somebody on the ranch had cut a man loose, and I knew how I would find out who.

"Nobody smells me lie," I told Mateo.

We were standing in the barn doorway with the sun going down behind the sheds.

"So lie," he said, half a question.

"At supper," I said.

"In front of everyone."

He studied me for a long moment.

Then he nodded once, the way he did when he trusted a thing and wanted it done.

Supper was thirty-eight people at three long tables, and Chela's green chile stew steaming from every bowl.

I stood at the head of the middle table, and the room quieted when I tapped my spoon on a mug.

"The hunter got away," I said.

"Somebody cut him loose, and I know who."

A bowl clattered.

I let it ring.

"He told me before he was cut free," I said.

"I didn't say so this morning because I wanted to see who would sit at supper like nothing had happened."

It was a flat lie, and my voice was calm and warm and perfectly even.

Thirty-eight wolves lifted their noses and tasted the air for it.

They found nothing, because there was nothing to find.

"I won't say the name," I said.

"I'll give that person until the end of the meal to say it first."

I sat down and picked up my spoon.

A big gray-haired man at the far table put his hands flat on the wood.

He ran the feed store accounts and the ranch's books, and I had seen him laugh at Nico's jokes.

His face had gone the color of paper.

He couldn't smell a lie on me.

He was sure I was telling the truth, which meant he was sure he was caught.

"I didn't have a choice," he said.

The room turned.

"They've got my daughter," he said, and his voice cracked.

"She's sixteen, she lives with my sister in Mora, and they sent me a picture of her walking to school."

"They said if I opened one rope they'd leave her alone."

I looked at Mateo.

His face had gone very quiet, and the wolf was behind his eyes.

"Stand up," he said, and the bookkeeper did, shaking.

"You cut him loose?"

"Yes, Alpha."

"You've fed this table for eight years."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Mateo Santiago from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.