Mighty Old Bones

by Mary Saums

  The detective recited Miranda rights, then pulled his charge toward the car. Graybear jerked his body in the opposite direction but was no match in strength for the larger, taller policeman. Graybear did, however, gain a step or two to his right.

  “You’ll hear about this from my council.”

  “That I might,” Waters said. “I heard from them last time, that they’d be happy for me to keep you. You just aren’t very good at making friends at all, are you?”

  Graybear yanked his arms once more in an attempt to twist out of the detective’s grip. He didn’t achieve that, but stumbled farther to the side. He gave me a look of distaste but only for an instant. His head moved so that he stared at a spot to my left and behind me. I turned to see what it was. He had moved too quickly for Carol to compensate before he saw what she hid.

  It was the scar. His expression changed to one of awe and great interest for the few seconds of clear view he had before Carol blocked the scar once more. Detective Waters moved his gaze sharply to the tree for only a second then pulled Graybear around by the arms. Pointed in the opposite direction, he marched him to the police car.

  “Y’all carry on. Never mind us. Take your time,” the detective said. “I’ll be right back.”

  Michael resumed his work, clearing away dirt with a careful hand around the skull. He assigned me a few tasks as he and Dr. Norwood worked steadily for the rest of the afternoon.

  When I wasn’t busy assisting the two doctors, I enjoyed talking with Grant and Carol, both of whom were quite knowledgeable about the plants that grew nearby. They pointed out a nice patch of ginseng as well as other healing herbs, some of which I’d seen mentioned in Cal’s notebooks full of potions. They spent time at the rock overhang where the engraved markings were much easier to see in full daylight now that the storm clouds had cleared.

  Grant put his hand on the slope of rock overhead and felt the markings. “Many other shelters like this one are scattered around. We’ve never been to this one, of course. It’s a beauty.”

  We walked along the ridge together, away from the burial site, following the line of the low wall of rock built perhaps two yards from the edge of the mountaintop. I took more pictures, and when Michael took a break, we walked around it again and back to muse over the overhang engravings.

  We heard Detective Waters’s car returning through the woods. Michael and Dr. Norwood agreed that the day’s work was done and began to repack their tools.

  This struck me as odd. I didn’t question them, but found it strange that they would stop while we still had a couple of hours of daylight left. With time short as far as re-burial regulations of native bones, it seemed to me that it would be better to do as much as possible as soon as possible. However, when the detective joined us again, Michael made everything clear.

  “We’ve been able to make a few determinations,” he said as he knelt beside the bones. “We will both check our measurements against profiles in our software programs to confirm our findings. But neither of us have doubts in a few key areas.”

  He ran a finger over the dome of the skull where the joints of bone interlocked. “Here you see the sutures are vague, almost completely grown together. I would say he was about forty years old at the time of death.”

  “He?” Detective Waters said.

  “Yes.” Michael moved slightly so as to reach the hip bones that they had exposed. “Here, the angle of this notch in males is narrow.” He put his thumb on the notch and wiggled it. “Too tight. In females, the angle is wider.” He moved back to the skull to point at other telling features. “Several things here, a retreating forehead, square chin, the occipital protuberance here at the back. The more rounded blunt superior orbital margins.” He gently traced the eye sockets. “Most definitely male. But the things of most interest for all here today are these.”

  He moved his hand over the nose area, the cheeks, the chin, and the teeth. “A long nasal opening that is tall and narrow. The chin is projected. The anterior protrusion of the dental arch, the oval eye orbits. All these tell us that this person was not Native American. He was Caucasian.”

  A silence fell over the group. I hadn’t even considered that this was anything but a native burial, yet surely I should have. Cal’s ancestors who were white would also have been buried on this land for many generations. Most likely, it was one of them.

  “This doesn’t look much like a white graveyard,” Detective Waters said.

  “That’s true,” Dr. Norwood said. “Out here in the early days of white settlement, that tradition may not have been observed. Excavations might reveal other family members. Then again, they might not. It could have been a single man, a trapper down on his own who had no family here.”

  Detective Waters scratched his forehead. “The first trappers were here in the early 1700s. So the two of you would agree with the coroner’s assessment, that these bones have been buried here at least a hundred years? Or more?”

  Michael nodded. “Oh, yes, no question, at the very least one hundred in my view, though my guess would be older. The color and patina are quite telling. The rate of deterioration depends on a number of factors, so looks could be deceiving. Soil tests will tell us more. Dr. Norwood will take a DNA sample from one of the teeth we found loose. That will give us a much better picture.”

  As he spoke, I remembered another long-forgotten habit of my old friend. When he knew something from experience but didn’t want to discuss the matter until testing proved him right, he always stood with his hands clasped behind his back, and would not make eye contact with anyone. Instead, he’d move his head side to side in a certain way. He was doing that now. I knew it meant he was holding something important back.

  I suddenly thought of Cal’s books. “I may be able to find out who this is in Cal’s papers.”

  The small radio device on Detective Waters’s belt screeched. He unclipped it and held it closer to hear the dispatcher’s message in code. He hesitated, hung his head, then responded with, “Waters. I’m on my way.”

  On the return trip home, he didn’t tell us what the call was about. It was only later that evening when I talked to Phoebe that I learned what happened. Search dogs had found Brody Reed, the old man and forest guide who had gone missing. The poor man was dead.

  Eighteen

  Phoebe Comes Up with a Plan

  You would never guess that Jane, the sweetest thing in the world, was a sneak, just by looking at her. Her face is so innocent and she’s so tiny, she could play Tinkerbell or one of those little fairies that giggles real high and hides behind a buttercup in the forest. She’s a sneak because she never let on that Michael, her friend she has known for years, was one studly hunk, even if he is older than she is.

  She could have warned me. When she told me he would be coming to help her with the digging, she showed me his pictures. Honey. That boy should have been a movie star. Sure, he’s kind of an old geezer, a little tweedy and moth-eaten around the edges, but big deal. All those college professors are like that. They’re distracted by too many facts crammed into their brains so they forget normal stuff like haircuts and taking their jacket to the cleaners. Michael’s up a notch or two from that because he does keep his moustache and beard trimmed. I’d say his only fault is he could stand to gain a few pounds. He needs a woman who knows how to cook.

  He’s not for me, though. I like a man with some meat on him. Even if he was my type, it only took one look at them together to see he was sweet on Jane. He wouldn’t come all the way down here to help her if he wasn’t, would he? She acts like she doesn’t give a flip about him, other than being friends.

  Jane told me once she didn’t want to ever get married again. Goodness knows she could use a big strong man in that creepy house out by itself. That thing is surrounded by wild animals, I mean wild wild. Ones that could eat you alive if you’re not careful and not armed. Thank goodness Jane is no dummy. She’s sitting on that big stash of guns, the good kind, so she’s not defenseless. The
only thing better would be if she had a husband to do her shooting for her.

  I guess I’m old-fashioned. There’s nothing like a man around the house to make you feel safe. It gets lonely around here. Ronald was the best husband anyone could want. I sure do miss him. I wish I could find another one. Not that it’s likely. There’s about as much chance of that happening as for Elvis to come back from the dead and star on Broadway as Scarlett O’Hara in a musical version of Gone with the Wind.

  Jane, on the other hand, has a single, handsome, potential husband dropped right on her doorstep. And that is why I came up with a plan to get those two more serious about each other. For their own good, naturally. Jane needs a man, and Michael needs to move out of whatever dirty, rat-infested, crime-ridden city up north he’s in. I forget which one, but wherever it is, Tullulah is much better, no question. I mean, it’s not like he’s living anywhere exciting like New York City or Chicago or Portland or somewhere like that, where people are cultured.

  Actually, it’s probably a good thing he’s not in Portland, because if he was, Jane might want to move up there with him because of all the trees. Instead of vice versa.

  But back to Michael. See, Jane needs a certain kind of guy. Not “weird,” but that’s what comes to mind first. Maybe “eccentric” is what I mean. She needs somebody like her, who wants to mess around in the dirt and get all surprised and excited when he digs in it and finds a rock. It’s beyond me. That’s what I’d expect to find, wouldn’t you? I just don’t understand the appeal. It takes all kinds.

  When Jane asked if I wanted to ride with her to pick up Michael at the airport, I said no. They needed to be alone to catch up on old times. I told her to bring him by the house on the way home if she wanted, so she did. I fixed them some homemade soup and chicken salad sandwiches. We sat at the kitchen table, getting acquainted. Michael wanted to hear about Tullulah, so Jane told him about the town and about how all the people were friendly. And then she snapped her finger, like she remembered something, and asked me a question that knocked me for a loop.

  “Phoebe, I hear you know a couple of interesting people I’d like very much to meet. Ruby and Reese?”

  If she had asked me what time the mothership from Jupiter usually lands on the square on the weekends, I wouldn’t have been any more surprised.

  I turned in my chair to face her straight on. “How in the world do you know about them?”

  She hemmed and hawed around a minute, like she was trying to think up a lie. That’s not like her. That made me even more curious.

  “Oh, dear,” she said, “it must have been someone in the grocery. Or the bookstore. I can’t remember at the moment.”

  “Huh. You might’ve seen some of her special preserves at the bookstore.” But I knew that wasn’t it. I knew somebody had been gossiping about my crazy relatives. That’s the only reason I could think of that Jane wanted to meet them, because she heard they were bonkers. Plus, that would explain why she lied. She didn’t want to finger the gossipers. She has too much manners and class, like I do. Remember how I said she enjoys talking to people who aren’t all there? She sure couldn’t have picked better examples than those two. Anyway, I told her we could drive out and see them tomorrow.

  Now, before I tell you about them, I want you to understand that my family does not believe in superstitious mumbo-jumbo. We are all good church people. I say that so you’ll understand when I tell you about Ruby. She’s a fluke. Just remember that. The rest of us are normal. As normal people though, we have normal intelligence. So when things have kept happening around her over the years, things that couldn’t be explained by science or common sense, our normal intelligence has verified that Aunt Woo-Woo, which is what we’ve always called her, was the one doing it.

  She’s not right. And it’s not like she’s one of those New Age people who were perfectly fine before they found Gandhi or whoever that is they make all the statues of over in the Far East. No, Aunt Woo-Woo has never been right.

  As early as age four, according to her immediate family, she could read their minds. Granted, none of her brothers or sisters had much of a mind to read in the first place, but still. And the older she got, the more weird things would happen around her.

  I don’t hear about that sort of thing much anymore. She lives way out in the country by herself. Just about all her close kinfolks are dead now, so I never get any reports. These days, she is mainly known for her special preserves and her tea recipes and for one other thing, which will make me sound completely koo-koo myself just for saying it, but here it is.

  She’s got this rock. It sits off to the side of her house near her well. It isn’t like a plain old hump on the ground, like a lot of the rocks Jane and I see out by her place. This one is taller, about six feet high, thinner, say about two or three inches thick, and it has a hole in it. It’s a little over shoulder-high on me, so you stretch your arm up to touch the hole that is about as big around as a basketball. Two other big rocks lean on the ground up next to it, but they don’t have any holes or anything, they’re just regular.

  For as long as I can remember, people have told stories about how they took their babies to Aunt Woo-Woo when they were sick. Sometimes she would make them a homemade salve, or give them herbs or weeds to brew into a drink. Other times, if it was a tiny baby, what they would do is hand the baby through the hole in the rock. Nothing else. Aunt Woo-Woo would put it through and the mother or daddy would take it on the other side. Within twenty-four hours, the baby would be well again.

  I’m not saying I believe it completely. And I’m not like some people who think it must be the devil doing it. I wouldn’t believe it at all if my own mama hadn’t said she knew it worked and that the devil wasn’t involved whatsoever. She put me through the hole one time when I was a baby and look how I turned out. Just as normal as could be. So I know for a fact it worked one time and, from what I hear, lots of others, too.

  More people go out to Aunt Woo-Woo’s house just to touch the rock rather than sling a baby through it. They say if you’re having bad luck, or you have a special need or wish, you just have to touch the rock while you think about your wish and it will come true. Others take something that belongs to them or the person they have a wish for, and they throw it through the hole. I am not making this up. They throw it through the hole and before they know it, sha-zam, they get their wish.

  Now, Reese is her nephew. He lives in the next house down the road. They say when his parents, Bill Evans and Lottie Evans, who was Aunt Woo-Woo’s sister, saw that Reese wasn’t like everybody else, they sent him to live up yonder with her. He’s not as crazy as she is, but it’s rumored that if you visit and you take them both a gift, your luck doubles from what the rock does for you by itself.

  All of a sudden, a brilliant idea came to me. I got up from the table and got my scissors. “Michael,” I said. “Sit still right like you are. You’ve got a clump of hair sticking out that the barber missed. It’s bugging the fire out of me. Just one little snip and that will take care of it.” I chose a curl that looked longer than the rest and clipped it before he could say anything. I went over to the trash can like I was throwing the hair away, but when I turned my back, I stuck it in my pocket.

  I walked behind Jane. “Sit still,” I said. Snip. “There. You had a little cowlick, too.” The trash can routine worked again. Now, all I had to do was sew them in a square of fabric, which I have tons of, so they would stay together and be heavy enough to go through the rock without floating off.

  Jane’s stubborn. As much as I’d like to help out, the truth is that if she wants him, she wants him, and if she doesn’t, nothing I say or do will make a difference. She’s a grown woman, unlike my sister Corene who could use some real help.

  I’d do one for me and one for Corene, too. Since we don’t know specifically who our Mr. Right would be, I’d make a fabric square with something of ours in it, one for each of us. I’d use one of her hair combs at the rock. I found it on the floor a
fter she left my house that last time. Then while Jane gets her fill of crazy talk with Aunt Woo-Woo, I’ll slip out to the rock.

  I already knew what I’d say. I’d wish that Corene would find somebody nice to settle down with, that Jane would wake up about Michael, and that I could catch a man myself.

  Nineteen

  Jane Meets Phoebe’s Relatives

  Phoebe agreed to take me out to visit Ruby and Reese the next morning. All along the way, though she drove down a curving, narrow street, she turned her head toward me in the passenger seat, giving me more attention, I feared, than the road.

  “Now, Jane,” she said, “I need to prepare you a little for Aunt Woo-Woo. Because when people see her for the first time, sometimes they act a little odd, not meaning to or anything. So when we get there, I don’t want you to stare at her. She’s harmless. It’s just she looks a little insane sometimes, in the eyes. So try not to stare.”

  “All right. I’ll be careful. What exactly is it about her that makes one want to stare, if I may ask? Is it solely a difference in her eyes then?”

  Phoebe hesitated. Her brow furrowed. “You’ll like her. She’s sweet as can be.” She seemed to consider saying more but, after a moment’s thought, returned her attention to the road. For that, I was thankful.

  “How did she come by such an odd name?”

  “Well, first of all, she’s not really my aunt. She was my daddy’s second cousin. By marriage. She got the name from one of her nephews. He couldn’t say her real name, which is Ruby, when he was first learning to talk. Most people called her by her full name, Ruby Alice. Anyway, the nephew couldn’t say Ruby, and he called her Aunt Woo-Woo. The name stuck because that bunch already had another aunt named Ruby. So they called one Aunt Ruby and Ruby Alice Aunt Woo-Woo.”