A Pack of Their Own novel · Chapter 23 of 32

Chapter 23: The Land Below the Ridge

My brother and sister slept on the porch that night, on two borrowed quilts, with their shoes on.

Neither of them said much at breakfast. My brother ate four biscuits and watched me over the rim of his cup.

My sister asked Nana Bess if she could help with the dishes. Nana handed her a towel and did not say a word.

At noon, a line of trucks came up the gravel road.

Dale was in the first one. Six more followed, and in each were Moon Rise wolves with duffel bags in the back.

He climbed out and took off his sunglasses.

"We held a vote," he said. "Last night, in the Moon Rise hall."

"On what?" I asked.

"On whether anyone in my pack ought to keep quiet about what happened to my cousin on those steps." He rubbed his beard. "It wasn't close."

The wolves behind him looked at their boots.

"Nine of them want a place that leaves the door open," Dale said. "The rest will stand up for you at the Gathering. I would like to be the first of those."

"Dale."

"I stood on that step and hugged you and said I wished you'd stand beside me," he said. "Then I let your father send you to the last SUV. I'll be sorry about that a long time."

I crossed the yard and hugged him, hard.

Grandpa found me after the trucks were unpacked.

"Walk with me," he said. "Bring the boy."

We went down the back slope in the afternoon light, the three of us. Beyond the pasture fence the ground fell away into a long green valley, with a creek along the bottom, an old stone mill and a ragged orchard.

Nobody lived there. A few fence posts leaned in the grass.

"Forty acres," Grandpa said. "Your Nana's family land. Nobody has farmed it in thirty years."

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