Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Dewi’s gaze widened as she stared at Badger. “I’m sorry, whut now? My parents?”
He nodded, wistfully smiling. “Aye.”
She stared, blinking. When Badger didn’t continue, Dewi kept her voice down so as not to wake the baby. “You cannot drop that steaming pile of bullshit in my lap and not explain it.”
He smirked. “Ye mean ye don’t want me to not explain it. Because I can stand up right now and walk away without tellin’ ye a single feckin’ word.”
Dewi clenched her fists to help keep her cool, but then Badger laughed. “Calm down, Dew. Of course I’ll tell ye. I’m just yankin’ yer chain…”
And…
He told her.
Stunned, Dewi sat back and processed everything once Badger finished telling the story. “How come no one told me any of that before? Do Peyton and Trent know?”
“They don’t know all the details. Back then, with us first losin’ Louisa, then Duncan, and then yer parents…
” He shrugged. “Those details didn’t matter any longer and only woulda been a distraction.
” He sighed. “I also owe Ken an apology because I fudged the truth a little way back when, after he killed Endquist. Told him I didn’t know much about the story because I was still… gobsmacked.”
He wore a grim look. “Spent a lot of years tryin’ to go on after losin’ Duncan, then yer parents. It was easier to not tell the full story to him.” A sad smile appeared. “But then we got Duncan back. And Endquist is mulch, so it doesn’t matter anymore, I suppose.”
“Mom really pulled a gun on Endquist?”
“Aye. Because of her commute, Duncan and Charlie both insisted she carry. Remember, back then, it was even more desolate. All she told us was he surprised her at school and she didn’t feel comfortable with him stayin’ around the pack compound if he was unmated.
She asked Duncan to wait until after the next Muster to send him away, in case he met someone.
We didn’t find out about her drawing on him until after the fact.
I think she was so softhearted she didn’t want Duncan to rip his throat out. ”
“Or Dad.”
Badger slowly nodded. “Endquist never woulda lived to see the sunset had yer father known about the incident. And yer mum, Goddess bless her, she was a beautifully kind soul. Tried to give people the benefit of the doubt, but she was also her father’s daughter.
Once ye got on her wrong side, and I don’t mean through a simple misunderstanding because she was incredibly slow to anger, ye never faced a colder person.
She was a strong Alpha. But she was also the kind of Alpha we raised ye to be—knowin’ yer true strength is not defaulting to force when ye can use other means. ”
“The strongest people don’t feel a need to tell people how strong they are,” she said, still processing…everything.
That was something they all drilled into her from as far back as she could remember.
“Exactly. That’s one of the reasons Duncan gave Endquist the jobs he did when the man first arrived.
To evaluate his mettle. Good Primes, who are loyal to their pack, they do what the Pack Alpha tells them to, without question or complaint.
And when they prove themselves—which they normally do—they quickly advance.
There was no way Duncan was making him an Enforcer or givin’ him any kind of authority until he knew the man was mature enough to handle it.
Especially when he grew up without a pack and knowin’ the hierarchy. ”
“I find it hard to believe he just left without protest.”
“After the Muster, Duncan and I went and had a little talk wi’ him.
Duncan gave him a generous payout to leave, more than enough to get started somewhere else.
Nothin’ different than we’d done fer others before him.
Duncan told Endquist if he left immediately and quietly, Duncan would vouch for him with another pack should he join one.
But we never heard anything else from him. ”
He darkly scowled. “Which is why I bloody well hate that I never thought about him bein’ behind yer parents’ deaths.
I suppose if I’d heard of him kickin’ up a fuss or bad-mouthin’ Duncan or yer parents, he woulda come to mind straight away.
But honestly, we had enough to deal with that we never paid attention to wolves that didn’t bark, ye ken?
And those events were over fifty years in the past.”
Badger sighed. “Yer mum was a kind heart. Too kind, I’d say in retrospect.
It’s why she was so beloved by our pack—because she was kind.
People think that only weak people are kind, but that’s the wrong way ’round.
Only strong people can be truly kind. Because being kind means making even a small part of yerself vulnerable.
Anyone can be a mean, miserable bastard.
But being kind?” He punctuated it with a sharp nod.
“Never seen a kind person who wasn’t strong in some way. ”
Later, after Duncan and Ken returned, Badger filled them in and they gathered in the office with Badger and Dewi to talk.
“I think he covered all the bases,” Duncan said with a sad smile. “I’d forgotten about the sword.”
“Are you going to tell my brothers about this?” Dewi asked, still processing her stunned shock over the revelation. “Because they should know.”
“I don’t see why not,” Duncan wistfully said.
“My first instinct had been to hunt Endquist down and kill him back then, once Chelsea told us about the incident. But he’d already left for parts unknown long before she did.
In the past, Charlie and I would have killed Endquist for cause without a moment of lost sleep.
But we grew up in the old ways, and Chelsea was fully a child of America, all bright hope and high spirits.
She’d never had to deal with a hungry belly or rogue wolves hunting her.
In that way, I wish I’d instilled more… More understanding of the potential darkness in others. Maybe if I had, she’d still be alive.”
“She wasn’t vengeful, Duncan,” Badger gently said.
“Ye know that. None of us knew what he was capable of. In that vein, I can blame myself for never telling Peyton and Trent the story, because maybe they would’ve immediately looked to Endquist as a suspect, whereas I didn’t give him a second thought since he went away without a peep.
I mean, how many dozens of wolves—and humans—did we send away over the years because they weren’t a good fit for our pack?
Not a single one of them ever caused another bit of trouble. ”
“Exactly,” Duncan said. He reached over and squeezed Badger’s shoulder. “That’s why you shouldn’t feel guilty.”
“So who, and what, was that woman?” Dewi asked. “The one from the pub who predicted all that stuff? What happened with her?”
When Duncan finished retelling the story of that night so long ago, he walked over to the wet bar and poured himself and Badger glasses of bourbon.
Stunned, Dewi stared at Duncan, needing a moment to find her voice.
This day is going to drive me over the edge, I swear it is.
“The whole humane assisted suicide thing aside,” she started, “because I agree that back then there were no other options and it really was the kindest thing you could have done for her—you’re telling me this woman not only saw what you three were and accurately foretold the future from nearly 150 years back, but she also appeared to Tully while she was dying? ”
Duncan slowly nodded. “Aye.” He took a long swallow from his glass.
“Hoooo, boy.” Dewi sank onto the sofa, staring at him. “So the whole reason the Targhee Pack is as successful as we are is because you happened to follow and talk to a dying woman everyone else wrote off as a mad drunk?”
He nodded again, heavily sighing. “Aye.”
“She weren’t wrong,” Badger pointed out. “About Charlie an’ yer mum, about Endquist—about everything. Ye can hand-wave away the business stuff, but how’s a poor washerwoman 150 years ago gonna know all those things about America without a second sight of some sort?”
“Not like you had Google,” Dewi snarked.
“Exactly,” Badger said. “And even amongst our kind, if ye told this story back then, people would look at ye like yer a mad bastard, and rightfully so.”
Ken finally spoke up after mostly listening in silence.
“It’d be nice if we could figure out what she was, even if not specifically who she was.
” Everyone looked at him. “There’s a long history of stone rings and all sorts of legends surrounding that region.
What’s that saying about advanced science being almost indistinguishable from magick?
Quantum physics, the multi-verse theories—there’s a gaping hole in our scientific knowledge from not even knowing what we don’t know yet. ”
He held out his hands, indicating the three of them. “Case in point—shifters. You’re impossible, and yet you’re here and you’re obviously not figments of my imagination. You all exist. But science can’t explain you yet.”
“Not letting them explain me, either,” Dewi grumbled. “They can do that shit without any of us being dissected.”
“How do we know that’s what would happen?” Ken asked. “We’re all assuming, but do we know for sure?”
Badger snorted. “Yer not up on yer history, are ye, boyo? Tuskegee Experiment? Ever hear of it? Smallpox blankets? James Marion Sims butcherin’ enslaved Black women?
Operation Sea-Spray? Holmesburg Prison? Feckin’ Nazi doctors?
Those are just off the top of my head. I’m certain of very few things in this world, but one thing I am certain of is that I do not trust any government not to weaponize what we are if they learn about us.
The only way we could ever be safely exposed to the world is if we’re already in power and can protect our kind.
And even then, I’m not sure we should ever willingly reveal ourselves.
I don’t think that will ever happen in my lifetime, and I plan on bein’ around for quite a while yet. ”
“Money is power,” Duncan quietly said. “You don’t need to be a politician if you’re rich enough to buy or bribe them, or a Supreme Court judge.
Money is protection. People might not respect who a person is or what they believe, but if you flash enough cash, those same people will respect that.
Unfortunately, that’s one human constant throughout history.
Those with more get more, and not necessarily because they earned or deserved it. ”
“But you worked hard to build the pack, Da,” Dewi said. “Okay, granted, you had insider info, but you and Badger and Dad still put in the effort.”
“We did,” Duncan said. “But who’s to say our pack would be as large and powerful as it is now if I didn’t have those tips?
And I made some morally questionable business choices I might not otherwise have because she specifically encouraged me to.
We profited from war efforts. ‘Blood money.’ It still spent. ”
“And you used it to protect and grow our pack,” she said.
Duncan shrugged. “Not saying I’d do things differently, but I also won’t lie and say I’m proud of every decision I’ve made.
Unfortunately, with the world the way it is, even with a fire hose of information available at our fingertips, those decisions haven’t become easier, only more morally grey.
Different industries are so enmeshed with each other and political regimes and, hell, even huge religious organizations, that it’s difficult to invest in something completely moral and green and ethical.
Not if you want to make money. It was complex before I went away, and in all those decades it’s grown infinitely more so. ”
He studied his glass. “I agonized over selectively timbering some of our land. Louisa strongly lobbied in favor of it, saying a well-managed forestry program would bring us income as well as reduce fire risks around the compound. Carefully timber, replant, and lather-rinse-repeat.” He took another drink.
“She spent time researching it, spoke to forestry experts, and even tribal representatives from nearby reservations about traditional practices. I finally gave in to her, and it was one of those same lumber trucks that lost its load and killed her. That’s a guilt no one will ever convince me I don’t bear. ”