Cross Bones

by Kathy Reichs

Heart thudding, I pushed to my elbows and played the light over the northern and eastern walls.

  No jackal.

  The southern wall.

  No jackal.

  Reorienting, I swept the beam over the western side of the tomb. Every recess was filled with dirt and rock, leaving no crevice in which a jackal could hide.

  I was probing the loculus closest to me, when a trickle of dirt cascaded down the wall.

  The batteries chose that moment to die.

  I heard movement above my head.

  Fighting back tears, I shook the flashlight. It kicked back on.

  I raised the beam.

  The loculi were stacked one above the other in the western wall. The jackal was crouched in one of the upper-level recesses.

  When my beam hit her, the jackal drew back her lips and snarled. Her body tensed. Her limbs flexed.

  Our eyes met. The jackal’s were round and shiny.

  A sudden realization. The jackal, too, felt trapped. She wanted out. I was blocking the tunnel.

  We stared at each other. I stared a split second longer.

  Snarling, the jackal launched herself at me.

  I reacted without thought, dropping to the floor, wrapping my hands around my head, and tucking into a fetal curl. The weight of the jackal hit my left hip and thigh. I heard a snarl, and felt the weight shift.

  Levering an elbow, I tried dragging myself away from the tunnel mouth. Paws hit my chest and moved toward my throat. I tucked my chin and crossed my arms, expecting teeth to rip my flesh. Then, the press of weight against my torso, the brush of fur against my head, and sudden release. The jackal had bounded over me and upward.

  I heard panting and claws scraping stone. I turned my light toward the tunnel. The jackal was slinking out of sight.

  Amazingly, the flashlight continued to shine, though weakly. Quick assessment. I gave the jackal time to put mileage between us, then crawled toward the tunnel. There had been some collapse, but the stones were nothing I couldn’t handle.

  I spent two minutes lifting and rolling rock, then positioned my feet as before and flexed to heave myself upward.

  And realized my left hip had taken a hit. Great. All I needed was another tumble and I’d be down here for a very long time.

  Dropping back, I tested my legs.

  As I shifted from foot to foot, my light angled upward and caught a hollow from which rocks had been knocked free.

  I let my beam sniff the scar.

  It looked deep. Too deep.

  I rose and wedged myself upward into the tunnel for a closer look.

  The scar wasn’t a scar. It was a breach.

  Angling the beam, I peered into the void beyond.

  It took a moment for my eyes to pick it out.

  It took another for my mind to comprehend.

  Oh my God! I had to show Jake!

  Injuries forgotten, I pulled myself upward.

  Just below the tunnel mouth, I paused and peeked out, prairie-dog style.

  The upper chamber looked empty. No Jake. No jackal.

  “Jake!” I hissed.

  No answer.

  “Jake!” I repeated as loudly as I could without bringing in vocal cords.

  Same nonresponse.

  I braced my feet, threw out my arms, and pulled and pushed myself onto the upper-chamber floor.

  Jake didn’t appear.

  Ignoring the objections of my shoulder and hip, I rose to a squat and looked around in the flashlight sweep.

  I was alone.

  I listened.

  No sound filtered in from outside the tomb.

  Rotating quickly, I moved my beam through the velvety black around me.

  Blue flashed in the darkness of a northern loculus.

  What the hell?

  I knew what the hell.

  I worked the light. I was right. The hockey bag.

  But why? Where was Jake?

  “Jake!” Full vocal.

  I dropped to all fours, crawled toward the loculus, stopped. Jake had hidden the bag for a reason. Reversing, I crawled toward the tomb’s entrance.

  It was then I heard the first sound since leaving the tunnel. I froze, head cocked.

  A muffled voice.

  Another.

  Shouting.

  Jake’s voice. Words I couldn’t make out. Hebrew?

  More words I couldn’t make out. Angry words.

  A soft thud. Another.

  Running footsteps.

  The blackness grew blacker. I glanced toward the entrance.

  Legs were blocking the small square of sunlight.

  22

  IN A HEARTBEAT, BOOTS SHOT INTO THE TOMB. A body followed. A large body.

  I scrabbled backward and pressed myself to a wall. Crumpled cans jabbed my knees and pop-tops gouged the palms of my hands.

  My mind flashed again to the man on the valley rim. My heart pounded. Sweet Mother of God! Would I live through this day?

  Tightening my grip, I raised the flashlight, ready to strike.

  The body had settled onto its haunches, back to me. My beam lit coconut palms on Waikiki blue.

  I took my first breath since seeing the legs. Outside I could hear shouting.

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  “Hevrat Kadisha.” Jake threw the words over one shoulder, never taking his eyes from the entrance.

  “I don’t speak Hebrew.”

  “The goddamn bone police.” Jake was panting from exertion.

  I waited for him to explain.

  “Da’ataim.”

  “That clears it up.”

  “The ultra-Orthodox.”

  “They’re here?” I pictured men in shtreimel and peyos rolling over the rim of the Kidron.

  “In force.”

  “Why?”

  “They think we have human bones in here.”

  “We do have human bones in here.”

  “They want them.”

  “What do we do?”

  “Wait them out.”

  “Will they leave?”

  “Eventually.”

  That was not reassuring.

  “This is insane,” I said after listening for a few moments to the shouting outside.

  “These cretins show up at excavations all the time.”

  “Why?”

  “To harass. Hell, we often need police protection just to do our jobs.”

  “Isn’t access to archaeological sites by permit only?”

  “These head cases don’t care. They’re opposed to the unearthing of the dead for any reason, and they’ll riot in order to stop a dig.”

  “Is theirs a majority view?” In my mind’s eye the bearded men now carried posters and placards.

  “God, no.”

  Outside, the voices eventually stilled. Somehow, I found the quiet more disconcerting than the shouting.

  I told Jake about the jackal.

  “You’re sure it was a jackal?”

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  “I didn’t see it run from the tomb.”

  “She was moving fast,” I said.

  “And I was focused on those morons out there. You’re okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Sorry,” Jake said. “I should have checked before we went down.”

  I agreed wholeheartedly.

  Outside the tomb, the silence continued.

  I shone the light on my watch. Nine-seventeen.

  “What’s the law in Israel regarding human remains?” I asked, still speaking in a loud church whisper.

  “Bones can be excavated if they’re about to be destroyed by development or plunder. Once they’ve been studied, they must be handed over to the Ministry of Religious Affairs for reburial.”

  As we spoke, Jake kept his eyes on the small opening through which he’d just slithered.

  “Sounds reasonable. Similar statutes protect native burials in North America.”

  “These fanatics are hardly reasonable. They believe
halakha, Jewish law, forbids any disturbance of the Jewish dead. Period.”

  “What if a site is about to be bulldozed?”

  “They don’t care.” Jake flapped a hand at the entrance. “They say build a bridge, dig a tunnel, reroute the road, encase the whole bloody tomb in cement.”

  “Are they still out there?”

  “Probably.”

  “Who decides if human remains are Jewish?” My stomach was still knotted from my encounter with the jackal. I was talking mainly to calm myself.

  “The guardians of Orthodoxy, themselves. Handy, eh?”

  “What if ancestry’s unclear?” I was thinking of the bones in the bag behind me.

  Jake snorted. “The Ministry of Religious Affairs ponies up a thousand shekels for each reburial. How many do you suppose are declared non-Jewish?”

  “But—”

  “The Hevrat Kadisha say prayers over the bones and, voilà, the dead are converted to Judaism.”

  I didn’t get it, but I let it go.

  Ominous quiet slipped in from outside. Again I checked my watch. Nine twenty-two.

  “How long do we wait?” I asked.

  “Until the coast is clear,” Jake said.

  Jake and I fell silent. Now and then one or the other of us would shift, seeking to gain a more comfortable position. Being six-six, Jake shifted most.

  My hip hurt. My shoulder hurt. I was cold and damp. I was sitting in garbage in a crypt waiting out folks who would have put the Inquisition to shame.

  And it wasn’t even 10 A.M.

  An eon later, I again illuminated my watch face. Twenty minutes had passed. I was about to suggest checking for cleared coasts, when a man shouted.

  “Asur!”

  Another took up the cry. “Asur!”

  My stomach knot tightened. The men were close now, on the hillside just outside the tomb.

  I looked at Jake.

  “‘Forbidden,’” he translated.

  “Chilul!”

  “‘Desecration.’”

  Something ricocheted off the outcrop above the tomb entrance.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “Probably a rock.”

  “They’re throwing at us?” If a whisper can be shrill, mine was.

  I heard another something wing off the capstone.

  “B’nei Belial!”

  “They say we’re children of the devil,” Jake explained.

  “How many are out there?” I asked.

  “Several carloads.”

  A fist-size stone hit the rim of the entrance.

  “Asur! Asur la’asot et zeh!” It had now become a chant. “Asur! Asur!”

  Jake raised his eyebrows at me. In the darkness they looked like a solid black hedge levitating skyward. I raised mine back.

  “I’ll have a look,” he said.

  “Be careful,” I said, for lack of a better contribution.

  Squat-walking to the entrance, Jake dropped one knee, placed a hand on it, and craned out.

  What happened next happened fast.

  The chanting fragmented into individual cries.

  “Shalom alaichem,” Jake wished the men peace.

  Angry voices shouted back.

  “Lo!” Jake shouted. I understood enough Hebrew to know that meant no.

  More yelling.

  “Reik—”

  There was a sickening crack, as rock hit bone.

  Jake’s spine arched, one leg shot backward, and he slumped to the ground.

  “Jake!”

  I scrabbled to him on all fours.

  Jake’s head lay outside, his shoulders and body inside the tomb.

  “Jake!”

  No response.

  Reaching out, I placed trembling fingers on Jake’s throat.

  I felt a pulse, weak but steady.

  Rising to a crouch, I leaned into the opening for a better view of Jake’s head.

  Jake’s face was down, but I could see the back and side of his skull. Blood flecked his ear, and glistened red in the sunlit grass. Already flies were buzzing in for quick look-sees.

  Cold fear barreled through my veins.

  First a jackal, and now this! What to do? Move Jake and risk exacerbating his injury? Leave him and go for help?

  Impossible without risking a skull fracture of my own.

  Outside, the chanting started up again.

  Give the bastards what they want?

  They’d bury the skeleton. The truth about Max would be lost forever.

  Another rock winged off the tomb’s exterior. Then another.

  Sonovabitch!

  No ancient mystery was worth the loss of a life. Jake needed medical attention.

  Setting the flashlight on the tomb floor, I scrabbled backward, took hold of Jake’s boots, and pulled.

  He didn’t budge. I pulled again. Harder.

  Inch by inch, I tugged Jake into the protection of the tomb. Then I crawled around his body and turned his head sideways. Should Jake become nauseous, I didn’t want him choking on his vomit.

  Then I remembered.

  Jake’s cell phone! Was it on him? Could I get at it?

  Working my way down, I checked Jake’s shirt pocket, his left front and rear jeans pockets, and every accessible opening on his camouflage jacket.

  No phone.

  Damn!

  The hockey bag?

  I angled toward the northern loculi. My hands looked bitter white as I crawled toward the bag. It was as though I were watching the hands of another. I saw them struggle with zippers, disappear into pouch after pouch.

  My brain recognized the feel of the familiar shape.

  Yanking the phone free, I flipped the cover. The small screen flashed a neon blue welcome.

  What digits to punch? 911?

  I had no idea what one dialed in an emergency in Israel.

  Scrolling through Jake’s directory, I chose a local listing, and hit “send.”

  The screen flashed the number and the word “Dialing.” I heard a series of beeps, then one long beep, then the screen welcomed me anew.

  I tried again. Same result.

  Damn! Too deep in rock for a signal!

  I was about to try again, when Jake moaned. Pocketing the phone, I crawled to him.

  When I arrived, Jake had rolled to his belly, and drawn his palms in under his chest.

  “Take it easy,” I said, picking up the flashlight.

  Moving gingerly, Jake maneuvered to a sit. A tendril of blood trickled from a gash in his forehead. He swiped at it, creating a dark smear across his nose and right cheek.

  “What happened?” Groggy.

  “You stopped a rock with your head.”

  “Where are we?”

  “A tomb in the Kidron.”

  Jake seemed to struggle a moment, then, “The Hevrat Kadisha.”

  “At least one of them has a future in major league baseball.”

  “We’ve got to get out of this place.”

  “If it’s the last thing we ever do.”

  “Is the bag still in the loculus?”

  “Yes.”

  Jake hopped to a squat, swayed, dropped his head, and braced himself straight-armed against the ground.

  I reached out to steady him.

  “Can you climb the hill?”

  “Minor setback.” Whole muscle bundles went taut, then Jake dropped to all fours. “Beam me up, Scottie.”

  As I lit his way, Jake crawled not to the entrance, but to the northern wall, rolled a large stone toward the loculus containing Masada Max, and wedged it into the opening.

  “Let’s go,” he said, rejoining me.

  “Will they come in here?”

  “Maybe. But we’d never make it past them to the truck.”

  “Will they notice the hockey bag?”

  “I could move it to the lower level.”

  For the first time since crawling topside, I remembered what I’d uncovered in the lower chamber. I didn’t want the Hevrat Kadi
sha going down there and finding it. Losing Max would be bad enough. Losing what had been walled in below would double the calamity.

  “Let’s leave the bag in the loculus and hope they don’t spot it. If they do come in here, I don’t want them poking around downstairs. I’ll explain when we’re in the truck. How do we do this?”

  “We walk out.”

  “Just like that?”

  “When they see that I’m injured, they’ll probably back off.”

  “They’ll also note that we’re empty-handed.”

  “They’ll also note that.”

  “Do you suppose they saw the hockey bag?”

  “I have no idea. Are you ready?”

  I nodded, and switched off the flashlight. Jake stuck his head through the opening and shouted.

  Surprised? Wary? Rearming? The Hevrat Kadisha fell silent.

  Extending both arms, Jake flexed his legs, and torqued himself up and out.

  When Jake’s boots cleared the opening, I followed. Halfway up I felt a hand on my waistband, then I was kneeling on the hillside.

  The jolt to sunlight was blinding. My pupils went to pinpoints. My eyes slammed shut.

  I opened them to one of the strangest scenes I’ve ever witnessed.

  23

  OUR ATTACKERS WORE BROAD-BRIMMED HATS and long-coated black suits. Bearded and side-curled, each looked hotter and angrier than the next.

  Okay. My mental image had been spot-on. But I’d been way off on the numbers.

  As Jake again wished the men peace and opened discussion, I took a quick count.

  Forty-two, including a couple of kids under the age of twelve, and another half dozen who looked to be teenagers. Apparently ultra-Orthodoxy was a growth industry.

  Hebrew flew around me. Based on my newly acquired vocabulary, I was able to grasp that Jake and I were being accused of having taken or done something forbidden, and that some thought we were the children of Satan. I assumed Jake was denying both charges.

  Men and boys shouted, glasses and clothing coated with dust. Some bobbed, side curls bouncing like tethered Slinkys.

  After several minutes of animated dialogue, Jake focused on a gray-hair who seemed to be the alpha male, probably a rabbi. As the two spoke, the others fell silent.

  The rabbi bellowed, face raspberry, pointed finger wagging in the sunlight. I caught the word “ashem.” Shame.

  Jake listened, replied calmly, the voice of reason.

  Eventually, the foot soldiers of Orthodoxy grew restless. Some resumed shouting. Some shook fists. A few of the younger men, probably yeshiva students, picked up stones.