One Minute Younger Always Second Best Until I Walked Out the Door novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Gravel Fork Again

Colt asked to go to the ford that night.

Jonas said yes before I could, and then he was silent for the whole drive.

Gravel Fork is a shallow crossing under a steep bank, with willow roots hanging into the water.

Black Creek had come out to meet us with torches.

Dozens of wolves lined the bank, in coats and work boots, with the firelight on their faces.

At the front stood an old woman in a yellow raincoat, with her white hair pinned back and her hands folded over a cane.

She was Jonas's mother.

She did not look at me.

She looked at my brother.

Colt walked down the bank on his own.

He stopped at the water's edge, in the exact place where Jonas had found the boots.

I knew because Jonas's hand tightened on mine.

"I'm Colt Radley," my brother said.

His voice was hoarse, and it shook.

"Three years ago I took my sister's ridge map and a drill order she drew for me. I changed the order and sent it to my patrol leader. I told him a Black Creek party was coming through this crossing to steal from our south pasture. It wasn't true."

Nobody moved.

"I wrote in the margin: Pin them at the ford. Three on the high bank. Nobody leaves."

A sound went through the Black Creek wolves.

Colt made himself keep going.

"I wanted to scare them. I wanted my father to see I could lead something. I told myself it would be a scuffle and a bloody nose, and I'd be the Alpha's son who had held the line."

The old woman's cane trembled in the mud.

"Your son came up the Gravel Fork road because the hard way was his to take," Colt said. "I read his name afterwards in a list. I was at home eating dinner. I didn't tell anyone. I let Roxana keep drawing for me, and I never said that her map had been used."

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