Mighty Old Bones (21 page)

W
hen Jane realized the noise in the woods was a car coming toward us, she grabbed Aunt Woo-Woo and ran her to where the old rock wall was highest. Those rocks were directly on the other side of a small wooded strip that separated the rock wall and the big tree that the lightning hit.

“Homer!” Jane called. She helped Aunt Woo-Woo sit down and asked her to stay there and hide behind the rocks until Jane came back for her. When Homer ran up, she said, “Stay here, boy. Keep Ruby Alice safe.” Jane put a hand on his back. He must have understood because he sat right there, stretched his paws out on the ground toward her and looked at Aunt Woo-Woo.

Jane jumped up. I followed her as she set off at a trot for the bluff. “Careful!” I said.

She set her bag on the dirt, rummaged through it, and found her cell phone. “Pray for luck. And good reception.”

Thank goodness we were on top of the mountain where she could get any reception at all. Jane went as far to the edge as she could without falling over. A few seconds later, somebody answered because she said, “Yes. I need help.” While she told the police dispatcher to get Detective Waters, I looked through my bag of supplies for my cap. For a second, I wished I’d left on my black wig that I’d worn at the haunted house. It’s hard to be stealthy when your hair is so red it looks like your head is on fire.

I found the cap. What a relief. Then I was glad I’d taken the wig off. A black stocking cap matches war paint and an AK-46 and a half a whole lot better than a wig with a lunchroom hairnet stuck on it.

Jane clicked her cell phone shut. She looked relieved. “The police are on their way,” she said and then she grabbed me. We fast-walked across and down the slope to her car.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought they would come later. I didn’t want you to be involved in another dangerous situation. Sometimes you’re too stubborn for your own good, you know.” She opened her car trunk, took out a big gun case, and unzipped it. She hauled one of her monster assault rifles out of it. “This is merely a precaution. There’s no need to worry,” she said. “I’ll take care of everything.”

From the other side of the trunk where I’d put my things, I pulled my camouflage bag out, unzipped it, and took out my own big honking gun. I grabbed a magazine and loaded it underneath with a good hard slap. “I’m not worried,” I said. “Because tonight I’m a gangsta. With protective face tatts.” I smiled as I loaded the chamber with a loud
chock-chock.

My gun bag is nice because it has all these compartments for your paraphernalia. I grabbed my double shoulder holster and put my arms through it. Then I took my CZ 75 out of one compartment, got a magazine for it out of another one, and smacked it up in the gun. I holstered it on my left so I could draw with my shooting hand. Jane looked at me funny when I took an extra thirty-round magazine out and holstered it on my right. I winked. “Just a precaution.” From her look, I don’t think I eased her mind.

She hesitated, and then she pulled a metal box toward her and opened it. “Now, Phoebe, I want you to listen carefully. This may be useful, but you must promise me not to use it unless absolutely necessary. In fact, don’t, unless I give you the word.”

She reached in the box and brought out a tiny green fire extinguisher. Or that’s what it looked like to me.

“This can disable an enemy momentarily. It allows you to take advantage or get out of a bad situation.” Jane said it was a flash-bang, sort of like a hand grenade but it doesn’t destroy anything. When it goes off, it temporarily blinds and deafens the bad guy. I clipped it on my belt.

“So how do I work it? If there’s an emergency?”

“You pull the pin out and toss the canister. Quickly. Before it explodes. Toss it, turn away, and cover your ears if possible.”

“Can I bite it?” I said. “Bite the pin and yank it out with my teeth like they do in movies?”

“Let’s hope that won’t be necessary.”

The car kept coming and was louder, but we knew it wouldn’t be in sight for a while. Jane handed me a canvas bag to carry. She took one herself, plus her rifle. We ran to the top of the ridge and stopped. Jane looked in both directions. She pointed to a slightly open area in the trees. She set her bag down and took something out.

“Hold this,” she said. She gave me the end of a spool of fishing line. “Hold it low, like so, only about two inches high.”

She walked backward, bent at the waist, to run the thin line across to a tree trunk. She cut the line and tied her end around the trunk. From her bag, she took out what looked like a compact, then stuck her fingers in where the makeup or powder would be and rubbed the blackish contents over the length of the wire.

“Camo paint,” she said. “To make it more invisible. If our visitors are the thieves and they try to get away, herd them in this direction.”

“Why don’t we put a line across where they’ll come up the ridge and trip them before they even get up here?”

A sly little smile curled on her lips but there was a hard, serious glint in her eyes. She looked kind of scary, especially with all that war paint on her face. She spoke in a low, quiet voice that made her even scarier.

“Because I want them to come in,” she said. “I want them to be caught red-handed when the police arrive. If we don’t catch them, they go free and will no doubt continue to rob and perhaps kill again. Tripping them at the start would alert them to our presence. We don’t want that. Besides, it would take the sport out of it. What fun would that be, eh?”

Sheesh. You think you know a person and then
wham.

“Remind me never to cross you,” I said. “But look, they’ll know we’re here because they’ll see your car parked out there.”

She shook her head. “Not if we don’t show ourselves. Let them wonder. Now.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “Don’t be concerned. I have a plan.”

While she talked, she pulled two headsets from her bag. She gave me one, then clipped a small black box to my waistband. “I didn’t get through to Michael. The line is busy.” A microphone folded down from the headset. “We only need to whisper to hear each other. I prefer no talking, only when absolutely necessary, understand? Our goal is to stay hidden and safe until the police arrive. We do not want to give away our locations. Got it?”

“Gotcha. Testing, one, two.”

“I checked them last night. Do you read me?”

“Roger that, Gray Fox. I read you loud and clear. Red Bird Tango, over and out.”

We heard the vehicle as it came around the nearest bend, just about to us. Jane turned to me with a serious expression. “Tango?”

I shrugged. “I’ve always liked that word.”

“Mm. It suits you. Now, go to Ruby Alice. You are not to fire a single shot, understood? Only in emergency and only a warning shot. I’m going to take cover behind the tree roots here to keep watch over the dig site. I’ll be almost directly behind the three of you, just on the other side of these trees. Only come out of cover if I call for you. You alone. Ruby Alice and Homer stay where they are. In that instance, work your way away from the bluff around the length of the wall. Wait there for instructions. You’ll be near the trip wire, so if you see me running our quarry toward it, you do so from your side as well. Understood?

“Understood. Ten-four.”

The vehicle was almost to us. Its lights bounced around in the trees as it came down the last stretch and stopped. We heard it sit and idle a while. I figured they had seen Jane’s car and were wondering what to do next. Jane pushed me in Aunt Woo-Woo’s direction and took off for the big tree. A minute later, I heard the car move again. It parked and its engine cut off.

Would they hunt for us since her car was there? Or would they just start digging? I wondered if Jane would let them dig, to keep them busy until the cops got here. Or, if not, how she planned on stopping them herself. Part of me worried about Jane. The other part reminded me she acts mighty comfortable in this kind of situation. That sneak has done more of this kind of ambush and cowboy stuff than she lets on, I believe.

I heard a soft metal
clunk
as I rounded the strip of trees behind Jane. Now she was cocked and locked. She might talk big about not shooting unless absolutely necessary, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t go ahead and get ready. That’s my girl.

I slowed down so I could walk without making so much noise. All was as quiet as could be until car doors opened and slammed shut and then footsteps crunched up the hill.

T
here were three of them. Two heads came into view slowly above the ridge first, approximately ten feet apart, both young men. One was vaguely familiar. Neither wore hats or caps or dark clothing to blend into the night. They held no weapons.

They had expected no one to challenge them. Still, on seeing my car, their vehicle slowed. I pictured them sitting, considering a retreat. Why had they not done so?

Artifact thieves usually looted sites when they could be sure no one might interfere. Nonconfrontational this lot, not keen on assault. And yet, if my suspicions were correct, they may have assaulted Michael and perhaps others in order to bring loot to their buyers.

This site was unknown. Who would be interested and why? No great finds had ever been reported in this part of the state. Yet the young man who took my purse had accessed the forensic anthropologist’s records and was killed. Was that a coincidence or was it because of those records? Someone thought Dr. Norwood’s reports were important enough to kill for and now had planned to steal again. Yet other than the police, Dr. Norwood, and myself, no one else knew of those reports. Except for Michael.

Suddenly, his words came back to me. He had been expecting a call. From whom? Someone he contacted in regard to our findings? My heart felt as if it sank into my stomach. He had promised to tell no one. And now, maps to the site had brought trespassers, ones who most likely had killed before. I hoped with all my heart that the call was personal and had nothing to do with our work.

The thieves were unusually early. They came at a time when I wasn’t supposed to be here, when I still should have been at the Halloween party or at Phoebe’s house as I had planned. Michael knew this. He knew I meant to come home some hours later on, have a short rest, and then go to the dig site with Homer for the night.

Michael had volunteered to sit with me, but I refused the offer. If no one came, he would have been uncomfortable all night for no reason. If anyone did come, he would have complicated things.

After all this time, I still thought in terms of casualties to civilians. I began to worry what Phoebe must think, now that she had even more evidence that I knew about the guns and other fancies of the Colonel’s a bit too much. She suspected that I hadn’t told her the complete truth about my past. I wasn’t keen on telling her.

The thieves risked being seen on the main road and going through the entrance at a time that passing traffic, or I, looking out a window or sitting on my porch, might see them. Without Ruby Alice’s unwitting intervention, the site would have been unprotected until much later in the evening. The thieves would have come, done their dirty work, and gone before Homer and I arrived for our evening vigil.

The tree-rimmed clearing glowed in the moonlight, a peaceful work of nature with only the incongruous plastic tarp marring its beauty. The two young men looked out from the ridge over the flat expanse and seemed satisfied. They looked behind them toward the car and nodded their heads as if giving the all clear.

I’d brought my AR-15, a large, dependable, and fairly common assault rifle. It’s quite handy. I gently set its barrel on a tuft of moss on the tree trunk. I put an eye to the scope for a clearer look at the approaching figure, the one the two men had signaled.

I knew him. We had never met, but his photograph frequently appeared in archaeological periodicals in the nineties at the height of his career. I would have recognized the short man with a white beard and moustache anywhere. Dr. Edward Draughn. Once respected but now brought low by his shady dealings.

I heard him give a lecture once in Frankfurt, Germany, when I was between jobs. His status plummeted some years later when he was accused of smuggling rare Incan artifacts into this country. The charges were dropped on a technicality, as I recall, but he lost his professorship at a prestigious New England university. Reputable archaeological teams found other experts to head their projects. And now, it seemed, his new job was thievery.

He had a battered leather satchel over one shoulder and carried an oversized battery-powered lantern. He meant to work.

“Hello?” he called, putting a spin of friendly English on the word. He stepped to the ridge, surveyed it left and right while his assistants moved forward with him, also continuing to scan the moonlit crest. The older man nodded, a curt signal that sent his companions back to their vehicle. They returned with two shovels, two more lanterns, and large empty duffels.

“Hello? Anyone here?” Draughn called again as the three of them moved forward slowly to the blue tarp.

The tallest of the three, a young skinny man who continued to look about the edge of the woods, set the tip of his shovel on the ground. “Nobody’s here,” he said, though he did so quietly as if he didn’t quite believe his own words. “Probably had car trouble and left it here for the night. Walked back.”

Draughn also scanned the perimeter of trees once more, slowly and carefully, in the quiet. He seemed satisfied they were alone, let the leather bag fall with a thud at the edge of the plastic covering, and set his lantern beside the bag. He turned the light on and squatted to adjust the bright beam that illuminated the dig area.

Then he stood and called out, “Michael? Are you here?”

I stopped breathing. I trembled at the words. My stomach felt queasy as I shut my eyes to get a grip on my emotions. I would not, could not, allow them to affect my judgment now.

I considered this new wrinkle and my options. I looked beyond the men into the trees. I cleared my mind, allowing it to dwell on the serenity of the woods. I submersed myself in it as a brief meditation until a calm, clear resolve took hold. Slowly, I adjusted the AR-15’s position. I found my target in the scope and took aim with steady hands.

Though I’m not sure I heard a noise, I became aware of a presence to my left and slightly behind me. First I studied the three men’s faces to see if they, too, had gone on alert. They had not. I turned my head only slightly, ready to swing my rifle if a fourth visitor had somehow outflanked us.

It was Phoebe. If her AK had not been painted an apricot orange, I might not have seen her right away in her present location behind the old wall’s nearest standing rock. Her clothing blended into the rock’s shadow and left little white skin to glow in the moonlight. The whites of her eyes stood out against Ruby Alice’s remarkable artwork of black lines and symbols on her face.

With her AK held against her chest, she crouched in a near-seated position. Her body jolted when she peered from behind the rock to see the men. She jiggled her head a bit as if she couldn’t believe her eyes, shook her head harder side to side, and looked again.

She turned to me. The exasperation on her face probably reflected my own. I eased my left hand down and put it out toward her as a signal to stay put. I had told her to wait. Yet there she was, returning my signal with a few indecipherable ones of her own. She mouthed “O,” then waved to me, wiggling the ends of her fingers while mouthing “Hi,” then repeated “O,” and ended by pointing with quick jabs at the men. My expression must have reflected my ignorance. She ended by mouthing the words “That’s him,” in an exaggerated fashion.

I gave her a stern look. I yanked my head sharply in the direction of Ruby Alice and Homer, hoping she would understand my silent order. Phoebe pursed her lips but obeyed and was soon out of sight. Apparently, her Mr. Gould from Ohio was really my Edward Draughn, once-prominent archaeologist.

He took more digging implements out of his leather bag. “All right. Let’s see what we have here.”

The younger of his assistants, a stocky man whom I felt certain I had seen somewhere before, looked as if he might be in his early twenties. He did the honors of removing the rocks that held the tarp in place. The other, skinnier assistant, whom I decided must be in his late twenties or early thirties, switched on the remaining two lanterns, setting them opposite one another on either side of the pit at its furthest points.

The younger man grasped the plastic corner closest him in order to pull the tarp off the pit. I moved the AR-15’s barrel slightly, steadied myself, and acquired a new target.

Suddenly, Phoebe’s voice whispered in my ears from her walkie-talkie. I listened, then silently swore.