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Benny nodded. He got that, but the Okanogan didn’t speak to him like it did to the others. But he’d seen it. He’d seen his Dad’s peace here. “Dad felt it,” he said out loud. “Do you think he’ll come back here?”
“Maybe a visit,” Titus said, but he sounded doubtful. “I got the impression he thought his time here was over. But he’s too responsible to just bust the ties and walk away. Someone had to take the pack. He thought it would be you.”
“Not me,” Benny said. “And I told him that, a long time ago — and repeatedly since then. Ryder’s the right man.”
“I agree,” Titus said. “And that little gal is perfect to steady him.”
Benny nodded. Titus turned off the highway and paused to put the pickup in 4-wheel drive. He pushed on. This wasn’t the road Titus and his father shared, so he guessed they were going to see someone about Oscar.
Titus parked the pickup. “I’ll call him out,” Titus said. “But it wouldn’t break my heart if you wanted to be the one who takes him down. I’m still a couple of meals shy of fighting strength.”
“It would be my pleasure,” Benny said. “Naomi is important to me —as she is to Ryder and Dad. But I liked Oscar. And I want someone to pay.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m right,” Titus said. “But I’ll ask to make sure. And then be my guest.”
It would be Nick, Benny thought sourly when the man came out of his house. Well, the world would be a better place without him.
“Titus,” Nick said. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Didn’t bother to come after me, did you?” Titus said levelly. “Sat up here and plotted instead. Did you think you could step up and take the pack?”
“No, Titus,” Nick protested. “You know I wouldn’t do that. Last thing I want is that headache.”
Benny thought that was true.
“So what then?” Titus persisted. “What the hell did you think you were doing to torment poor Oscar like that?”
Nick charged, turning wolf as he came. Benny stepped up and shifted. His wolf snarled with pleasure. And five minutes later, Nick was bleeding out. Benny shifted back and pulled on clothes. And damn if it didn’t work to pull off the sweatshirt first. Hadn’t slowed him down much at all, and now he wasn’t standing out here freezing without a shirt. “Ask him who else,” Benny said. “He wasn’t alone.”
Titus ordered the wolf to shift, and then grabbed the man by the hair and forced him to cough up a couple of other names. Titus dropped Nick’s head. “We might as well bury him while we’re up here.”
“He got any descendants? Anyone who needs to be notified?” Benny asked as he went in search of a shovel.
“If he’s got a will, it will be with Meacham’s office in town,” Titus said, referring to a shifter with a law office in Omak. Benny didn’t know how valid the man’s law degree was, but he mostly handled pack business —been in the family for generations, he thought with a roll of his eyes.
They dug two more graves out in the national forest before calling it a day. “Doesn’t bother you, does it,” Titus observed.
“What? Killing these bastards? No, and I’ll sleep just fine tonight,” Benny said. He glanced at Titus. “Do you think it should?”
Titus shook his head. “I dunno,” he said frankly. “Doesn’t bother me that they’re dead. But we both know I’m not all right. I couldn’t function in normal town life any better than they could.”
Benny frowned, puzzled by where Titus was going with this. “Titus I killed my first man before I was 10,” he said slowly. “I’d like to think no one I killed didn’t deserve it, but let’s face it, the reason you and I are doing this instead of leaving it to Ryder is because it doesn’t bother me. And it would him, even if he didn’t admit it. Oscar bothered him. It had to be done, and he knew it. But Oscar all but had to force him to do it.”
“And you’re not like that,” Titus said. He sounded a bit sad about it.
“No,” Benny said. “There are things I regret. But these deaths? Nah. I did the world a favor today.”
“And who judges that? You?”
Benny considered that. “No, you did,” he said slowly. “You’re the pack Second, and you judged them. If you’d asked me as the Council intelligencer to weigh their guilt, I would have found them equally guilty, and exacted the same punishment. But I don’t just kill because someone cut me off in the HOV lane.”
Titus snorted at that. “Good,” he said. “A man should know why he’s killing.”
Benny reached over and patted his arm. “Thanks for the talk, Dad,” he said teasing him. But he was touched by the old man’s concern. Titus rolled his eyes. He parked in front of the cabin Benny had once called home.
“I have a question for you,” Benny said, changing the subject.
“Shoot,” Titus said. “After my little lecture, there, I guess I owe you a question or two.”
