Mateo Santiago novel · Chapter 19 of 24
Chapter 19: The Winter Moon
The Council of Five Packs sat at Las Trampas for three nights before the Winter Moon.
On the first night, the challenge went into the record in a clerk's neat hand.
Alpha against rogue Alpha, at moonrise on the fourth, in the church yard, before five packs.
"I accept," said Mateo, standing at my shoulder, and my stomach turned over.
On the second night, the Rio Pueblo Alpha read out the county record of the north ridge.
He read it in the flat voice of a man who dislikes what he is reading.
Lodge Ridge Holdings, the buyer.
Aurelio Maldonado, the sole signer, behind a front in Santa Fe.
Forty families' names, and a total on the last line that made the Cañon Alpha whistle.
"That's a land matter," said my father from his chair, mildly.
"It has nothing to do with a girl who cannot hold a wolf."
"It has to do with why a woman died," said the Hondo Alpha.
"I'll tell this table what I heard in a rogue kitchen, and you can call me a liar to my face."
He did.
It took him four minutes, and nobody on the benches breathed.
My father let him finish.
Then he rose and turned to the room with his hand over his heart.
I knew, before he opened his mouth, what he had chosen to do.
"I have kept a grief to myself for thirteen years," said Aurelio.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of Mateo Santiago are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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