by Cara McKenna
Only a couple of weeks ago, Duncan had considered himself so above them all. Enlightened, successful, on an enviable trajectory in every way. But he was coming to realize he was dead broke in all the currencies that mattered to Raina and her friends. Loyalty, history, trust—even among thieves. He felt diminished, barely better than the child he’d worked so hard to erase from his identity.
The only thing he felt rich in, just now, was sex. Passion. He had that in abundance, though at Raina’s behest. He stole a glance, finding her laughing, across the room. Laughing at someone else’s joke, someone she’d not felt moved to introduce him to. Laughing as he’d rarely caused her to do himself. She could grow bored of him tomorrow, and then he really would have nothing aside from a stock portfolio, a condo, a cat. And only one of those things had ever seemed to love him back.
When Abilene caught his eye, holding up the Absolut bottle questioningly, he nodded. “Double.” Again, he wished he had a pill handy. He could feel himself shaking, feel his hold on his emotions growing slicker by the moment.
“How’s the bike treating you?” Vince asked, not looking at him.
“Better than expected.”
“Case and I want to get everybody out for a group ride this weekend. Morning, because of Raina’s schedule. Probably Sunday, because of Miah’s.”
“In lieu of church?” Duncan asked, then thanked and paid Abilene when she set his glass before him.
Vince smirked. “You could say that. You’re welcome to come. Case said you’ve pretty much mastered the off-road stuff, and this would only be pavement.”
“‘Mastered’ is far too generous a word. And I’m not allowed outside town lines at the moment.”
“Shame.”
Duncan smiled, feeling cold and apart. An outsider. “I’m surprised to have garnered an invitation. I can only imagine you still feel beholden to me.”
“Not about feelings, Welch. I don’t hate you, don’t love you, either. But you’re with Raina, and she’s one of my best friends. Raina’d invite Kim along, whether they were friendly or not.”
“So I’m some kind of Desert-Dog-in-law, for as long as Raina and I are sharing a bed?”
He’d meant it as a joke, but Vince nodded. “Pretty much.”
Duncan couldn’t hide his exasperation—it rattled out of him in a weary sigh.
“Spill your guts, Welch.”
“What precisely would it take for me to actually earn your respect, Vince? I’ve lost a tooth for you, lost my job over you. Learned to ride a worthy vehicle, came to your brother’s aid.” He’d taken up this man’s obsession, for Christ’s sake, lost days of his life now, looking for those wretched bones. “Does one of you need a kidney, perhaps? Do I need to die for one of you fuckers?”
“Since when does a man like you care about the respect of a man like me?” Vince countered.
Since I fell in love with your friend. Because this man had saved her from something too heinous to imagine, something that could have broken the spirit he’d so come to admire. “Since I realized I respect you, Vince,” he said simply. “And I can’t stand feeling like the lesser man. So tell me what it would take so I can bloody get on with it.”
Vince’s smile was mild and a touch uncertain. “You’re gettin’ kind of emotional on me, Welch.”
“Don’t I know it . . . ?” He sighed, rubbed his face. Sipped his drink. Tried to surrender to the swirling clouds of discomfort gathered all around him. He studied the tattoo on Vince’s neck—the crow’s wing Raina had drawn there. More dark feathers all down the man’s arms. Rendered shiny and black, just like those malingerers Duncan had seen out by the ranch that afternoon, in the cemetery. A perfect match, he thought, those birds and Vince Grossier. Brash, shameless scavengers, born in this town and surely planning to die here—
“You in love with her?” Vince asked.
Duncan blinked, upended. “Why do you say that?”
“Because dead pets and new love are the only things I know of that make men lose their shit like you seem to be doing.”
“Well, my cat is alive and well, so make of that what you will.” He drained his glass with a wince. “Good night, Mr. Grossier.”
“I was Vince a minute ago. You regressing?”
Duncan ignored that. “Enjoy your evening.”
“Enjoy your identity crisis.”
“Indeed.” And with that, Duncan headed for the back stairs. Raina had wandered elsewhere, so there was no need to discover if his presence would go ignored a second time. But then he found his feet carrying him past the stairwell, through the hall to the rear door. Found his hand on the knob, then had the indigo sky above his head once more. He let his feet lead him past his sad car and around the building, right back to his bike. Right back to fixation, always his dearest friend when he felt lost in his own skin.
And something was growling in his belly. Something was tugging, but he couldn’t figure out what. He shut off the need for a why, and instead he let the hunger lead him.
What would John Dancer say? He conjured the man in his mind’s eye.
How would one man bury those bones?
With a shovel, obviously.
You’ve been to the building site. You think they dug those foundations with a fucking shovel?
No, not even with backhoes—with dynamite. But that was in the foothills. Elsewhere the ground was soft enough for one man to dig up, surely.
He rode down Station Street, then east. He passed the little clapboard church that marked the end of downtown, its steeple a fang stained yellow by the beam of a sallow spotlight.
Church. He frowned, feeling snagged on that word. Beside the building was a dead tree, the silhouette of its twisted branch looking like talons clawing the sky. Fangs and talons. Duncan had scavengers on the brain—coyotes and crows. Those crows that had shat on his car. The ones etched all over Vince’s skin. Church. Those crows that had loitered in the Churches’ lonely little cemetery way out in the ranch land that afternoon. Loitering . . . but with no obvious purpose. No evident prize, yet so much intent. Just like Duncan. All intent, no payoff.
Dancer’s voice cut through his jumbled thoughts. You think Jeremiah Church’s great-great-granddaddy dug graves with TNT?
Of course not. Some spots must be soft enough for shovels.
Soft enough for shovels. Designed for burying the dead.
Duncan frowned.
Quiet, remote spot, the voice taunted. But not too far from the road. All partitioned off with a pretty little fence and everything. Just needs a neon sign and a flashing arrow. BONES GO HERE.
Nonsense.
But even nonsense seemed worth pursuing, when the alternative was to give up entirely.
Duncan was beyond racing the sunset—the dark had already swallowed all but the white buildings and lit windows. No matter. No matter that the bike’s headlamp was completely inadequate, because once he left the town proper, the roads were deserted. Past Three C’s arch, and he began to question what he’d even seen, the rutted dirt access road appearing miles later than he’d expected. He took a right, the world becoming deep blue above, black below the horizon. He stopped long enough to pull out the powerful LED flashlight Vince had left in the bike’s cargo box. He gripped it and the handlebar in one hand, making an already awkward ride all the worse. In three days, he’d tipped over or fallen perhaps ten times. In the next three miles, he wrecked an additional four. Slowly, harmlessly, but still. If he couldn’t find that bloody graveyard, he’d be—
In the glare of the beam, four glowing discs. Eyes.
Coyotes, but more important, the bright gray glow of limestone slabs. He skidded into yet another graceless dismount, his surely already black-and-blue leg earning fresh bruises.
No matter. He felt no pain, only purpose. He was on his feet, beam illuminating the two scrappy scavengers. Tu
cking his flashlight in his armpit, he stole a trick he’d seen Vince use once, clapping and bellowing until the animals slunk off into the blackness beyond the artificial aura.
He walked to the cemetery, no more than fifty paces from the road . . . but five miles or more from the nearest streetlight. Discreet, but distinct. And first the crows had made a curiosity of it, now the coyotes.
And me.
What did they smell that he couldn’t? he wondered. The cemetery wasn’t suspicious, though, merely eerie. He stepped over the low fence, mentally apologizing to Miah’s dead relatives. No X marks the spot, just coyote tracks in the dirt. He followed them to where the earth turned powdery, churned up by coyotes. A large, thick headstone lay flat on the ground—intentionally or because it had been overturned, Duncan couldn’t guess. EUGENE E. CHURCH was carved into it, the letters softened in the decades since it had been carved—DIED 1932. And there was a gutter framing the fallen marker, a rut carved in the dirt by scrabbling paws. A deep one.
Suddenly the headstones all shifted in unison, approaching headlights washing the scene in added dimension, the shadows of the stones and fence and grass blades sliding across the ground. Duncan squinted to the road, but it was impossible to see who’d arrived with their high beams trained in his direction.
He heard a door slam, and shouted, “Hello,” as he got to his feet.
Not Miah. Please not Miah. The man had never trusted Duncan, so finding him on his property, poking around the graves of his dead relatives . . . ? Yeah, if ever he was going to earn that fistfight, now would be it.
“Welch?” Shit, he knew that voice, and that body as Miah’s long silhouette started toward him, rifle in hand. He said, “To me,” and in a breath his dog was trotting at his side. And that dog had never looked quite so intimidating.
“I realize this doesn’t look very good,” Duncan said.
Cowboy boots crunched over the dry earth. “You know this is private property?”
“I suspected as much. Apologies. My ride took me rather far off the beaten track.”
Miah stepped over the fence, stopping mere feet from Duncan. He rested the rifle on his shoulder, posture taut and leering. His black hair had grown long of late and his beard was nearly full, and Duncan had to remind himself he had about four years and three inches on him. Miah moved and spoke with the inherent, egoless confidence of a man who broke horses and roped cattle, and had probably shed stoic, manly tears over the bodies of animals he was forced to euthanize. With his rifle. At sundown.
Trimming Astrid’s claws is no trip to the malt shop, either, Duncan assured himself.
“You wanna tell me what the fuck you think you’re doing on my land? In my family’s fucking cemetery?”
“It won’t happen again.” Though if Duncan’s intuition did indeed work, before the night was over, there could be quite a party out here in the middle of nowhere. He glanced to the side, to that overturned headstone.
“No, it goddamn will not happen again. But you tell me why right now or God help me, I will fuck you up before I even bother getting your ass arrested.”
“I thought I saw something strange here this afternoon, when I was out riding.”
Miah’s chin cocked with the force of a shotgun. “Saw what?”
“There’s a large headstone just there, lying on its back. Eugene Church.”
He frowned. “What do you mean, on its back? Show me.”
Duncan aimed the beam on it. Miah snatched the flashlight from him. “Son of a bitch.”
“I take it it’s not usually like that.”
“And what’s with all the tracks? Did the coyotes dig it loose, or some drunk asshole?”
“I’m not certain it was either,” Duncan said, then eyed Miah’s dog. “Does he have a keen sense of smell?” he asked, pointing.
“She’s a dog, so yeah.”
“Would you indulge me for two minutes?”
“Why in the fuck would I do that?”
“Please. Just let your dog sniff around, just there. I was riding earlier today and I saw a load of crows gathered here. And when I first came tonight, two coyotes.”
Miah frowned. “They’re probably smelling blood from a dead animal.”
“A dead animal, tucked beneath a fifty-pound slab of limestone? Please, Mr. Church. Two minutes of your time.”
Miah shook his head, but his sigh was limp with surrender. To the dog he said, “That’ll do, King.” It relaxed visibly—posture softening, tongue appearing—then left them momentarily, its main concern seeming to be its bladder.
“So your female dog is named King?” Duncan asked.
“You can go fuck your small talk, Welch.”
“As you wish.”
The second the dog was done with its business, it returned to the cemetery at a trot. Then it changed course abruptly, snuffling around the fallen stone.
“Because of the coyotes,” Miah said. “King.”
The dog ignored its master, now sniffing madly at the ground all around the stone. Its tail was frantic, paws scrabbling at the rock’s edge, then pacing, digging, pacing, digging, whining.
“Whoa— Hey! King, here to me.”
The dog abandoned its frenzy to stand by Miah’s side. “Jesus, she never cries. Load up,” he ordered, and the dog took off toward the truck.
“There’s something under there,” Duncan said.
“No lie. And dead animals don’t bury themselves, tucked up all cozy under gravestones.” Miah eyed him. “If you know what the fuck this is about, tell me now, Welch.”
Duncan swallowed. “I’ve a strong suspicion I do.”
“And?”
Duncan looked to the ground, lit up like an alien landscape before them. “And I think this is where Tremblay hid them. The bones your friend was murdered over.”
Chapter 23
For half a minute, Miah just stared back at Duncan, black eyes wide.
“Bones?” he finally asked.
Duncan nodded.
“Like the ones from whoever got burned up in that mine?”
“I don’t know for sure. I don’t know anything. It’s just what I suspect.”
“Based on?”
“Three days’ exhaustive riding, a few scavengers, a gut feeling. Some logic.” Though not nearly enough for his comfort.
Miah looked to the stone, and took a deep breath. “If it’s nothing, and we move this thing, no harm done. If you’re fucking right, we could be contaminating a crime scene.”
“We’d sound like idiots if we called the feds to do it for us and then found nothing, so I vote we move it.”
“All right, then.” Miah leaned the rifle against the fence and got in position, and Duncan set the flashlight down and did the same.
“On three. One. Two. Three.” Fifty pounds? Try a hundred. Duncan pulled so hard his bad elbow screamed, but nothing.
“Again,” Miah said. “One, two, three.”
And after a moment, the stone lifted. Just an inch or two, but with the next heave they managed to tip it up onto its edge, then eased it onto its face, exposing the ground it had been covering.
Miah murmured, “Sorry, Great-great-grandpa.”
Duncan grabbed the light. The earth he shone it on didn’t look like anything special—more pebbles, more dried grass. He got to his knees and began drawing dirt aside, flashlight clamped between his cheek and shoulder. Miah followed suit. Duncan’s already thumping heart raced, as clods of dry roots came away too easily, as though they’d been wrenched from the dirt already. Someone buried something here, was all he could think, the realization of it a frenzied mantra after all this blind speculation. Someone buried someone here.
“Whoa.” Miah froze, and Duncan could see why. A black stone as big as a plum, amid the rusty red and sandy brown.
Not a stone.<
br />
“Your sleeve,” he said to Miah.
Miah had a long thermal shirt on, and he understood. He wrapped his hand in his cuff and began clearing the dirt from around the unmoving black shape. Not a stone, no. A knob of bone, the tip of a femur.
“Fuck—fuck—fuck—fuck—fuck.” Miah was on his feet in a blink, slapping his dirty sleeve against his jeans as though it were on fire. “Fuck. Jesus. This is fucked. Call the fucking feds.”
Duncan stood, heart pounding with fear and triumph at once, adrenaline coursing like a narcotic. He pulled out his phone and found Flores’s number, hit CALL, but nothing—zero signal. “Goddamn it. My carrier’s useless out here.”
Miah offered his own phone, hand shaking visibly. Duncan cued up the digits, and after four rings—
“Flores.”
“It’s Duncan Welch. If you’re not dressed, I suggest you remedy that.”
“What is it, Welch?”
He took a single rattling, intoxicated breath and said, “I’ve found the bones.”
A pause, miles long. “You found the bones.”
“Correct. I’m just going to wait until you and your people show up.”
“Where are you?”
“If you head east past the Three C ranch’s main gate and take the dirt access road about four miles farther, you’ll see my motorcycle and Jeremiah Church’s pickup perhaps another two miles down the road.”
“Don’t move, you hear me?” The sounds of a frantic man were layered behind his stern voice—keys jingling, clothes rustling. “And don’t fucking touch anything. What phone are you calling from?”
“Church’s cell. Do you need the number?”
“It’s in my call log. Just stay right where you fucking are,” Flores ordered, and the line went dead.
Duncan handed the phone back. “Now we wait, I suppose.” The chemicals were already bleeding out of him, manic energy giving way to a softer persuasion of shock. And a tidal wave of uncertainty—it wasn’t as though Duncan’s achievement didn’t reek of wild coincidence. Of outrageous convenience.
Miah shook his head and stared skyward, into an ever-expanding sea of stars.
