Bone Deep

by Randy Wayne White

  So I covered the bucket and reached for my dive bag but then left it all, thinking, Do what you always do, Ford—make it up as you go.

  • • •

  WHEN I JOINED LELAND, he referenced the flowers piled where Owen had died, saying, “I’m not a particularly spiritual person, but I had hopes for him. You know? I wish you could have seen the way he stood up to Harris that day. He was . . . He reminded me so much of . . .” Leland cleared his throat, his hands shaking.

  I helped him out by mentioning his late wife, then let him talk for a while before asking, “Did you hear anything about what the helicopter spotted?”

  “Oh . . . the vultures.” He shook his head, then surprised me with an ironic smile. “Over the last few days, I’ve gotten to know the manager of the Elephant Rescue facility pretty well. Gwen. She’s very sharp but as baffled as me about what happened. And she sees a kind of weird humor in it. Three very old, very large Asiatic elephants disappear without a trace. Well”—he glanced toward the flowers—“that’s not entirely true.”

  He talked about the search still under way—that was the ironic aspect: helicopters and telemetry foiled by beasts from the Ice Age—then addressed a subject I couldn’t bring up. “I don’t have any hard feelings toward Toby. He was reacting to a situation—probably confused Owen with Harris. Or maybe Harris had already wounded him when Toby did what he did. I don’t know, I was still unconscious. Gwen has been working with elephants for years and we talked about it. She agrees.”

  I didn’t agree, so was relieved when he said, “There’s something I want to show you.” He looked at my feet. “Good. You’re wearing boots. We don’t have to take the road.”

  On the other side of the pond, the hill sloped downward into swamp, then flattened into a tractor path that cleaved through the trees. Harris and Owen, in the red Dodge, had disappeared into those trees before returning—and dying.

  Leland led me around the pond toward a backhoe, a pyramid of black dirt piled high beside it. On the way, he caught me off guard, saying, “Your Indian friend is a pretty nice fellow. Duncan—I didn’t feel comfortable calling him Dunk. He’s a little strange, but so what? I was disappointed you weren’t with him the other night.”

  I said, “He was here?” then amended, “Oh—that’s right. He and a woman I know spent a couple of nights in the area. Shelly Brown. I haven’t talked to him for a few days.”

  “I liked her, too. Monday late, he built a fire and did a little ceremony for the elephants. Gwen grew up in South Africa, so she’s more tolerant of that sort of thing. The twins were there to encourage him, of course.”

  “I heard that Duncan brought his drum,” I said.

  “Brought his what?” Leland was confused for a moment. “Oh. No, that would have been too much for me. I wandered off anyway, figured he would take the hint and leave. Nothing against Duncan—Owen’s funeral was yesterday, you know, and I wanted some time alone. But somehow he found me and we had a nice talk about . . . about various things.”

  Awkward, the silence that followed, me walking beside the man. Something was on his mind. He finally got to it by offering an apology that was a setup. “I have to admit I was wrong about him and your other friend Tomlinson. I made a snap judgment.” He slowed but didn’t turn. “Which makes me wonder if I was right about you, Ford.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m learning to be cautious. Thank Ava for that.”

  “If something’s on your mind, Leland, out with it.”

  The man was sweating and used a handkerchief before he replied, “Okay. For one thing, Duncan knew I tend to drink more than I need at night. I’m not the sort who lets strangers get close enough to smell my breath, and I hold my liquor pretty damn well. So it was more than a guess.”

  The insinuation that I had blabbed was offensive but I let it go. “Why not ask him?”

  “I did—but that part of our conversation is private. I’m more interested in the photos you took of the mastodon tusk. You did take them, didn’t you? You had part of our collection the whole time.”

  “Duncan said that?”

  “No, but it makes sense.”

  “I can’t tell you how it happened, but, yes, I had some things I believed were yours.”

  “Had to be. That’s why you thought I was being too hard on my father.” He didn’t wait for a response, kept talking. “Which might be true, but there’s something unusual about that tusk my father never bothered to notice. I don’t know how Tovar got it, but the fact my father parted with the thing sums up his whole . . . Sloppy, I guess is the word. His sloppy approach to life.” Now Leland did stop, eyed me for a moment. “Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  I said, “Your grandfather must have had a very good magnifying glass.”

  “Then you do know.”

  “That’s why you’re suspicious? Leland, ask yourself a simple question: Why did I give the damn thing back? I have photos of the petroglyph taken with an electronic microscope. I know what it’s worth.”

  An earnest look; a man who wanted to understand. “Then why didn’t you keep it? You could’ve made up a story or some damn thing.”

  I continued walking, let him follow me for a change. “Being arrested for grand theft ranks right up there. But the smart-ass answer is the most accurate: I didn’t trust myself. How would my conscience handle stealing a piece of history from the big puzzle? What’s my price? A million? Three million?” I glanced over. “I took the easy way out. Now it’s your problem.”

  The man responded, “I’ll be damned,” then took longer strides to catch up. “I had to ask. Especially after what I found this morning.”

  “While you were digging?” We were close enough to the backhoe that I could smell fresh earth piled high, sulfur and humic musk.

  “It was staring me in the face the whole time,” he replied—an odd response. “I couldn’t take photos because I don’t have a new phone yet. Then I decided it was better to get someone else’s opinion anyway.”

  Another pre-Columbian burial site—that was my guess, but let him explain why he’d chosen me. “Tricia is an emotional wreck, and I didn’t want to risk getting Esther’s hopes up. I could’ve brought my attorney out here, I suppose, but . . . Well, just in case I’m wrong, I want someone I trust on a personal level.” Leland placed his hand on the backhoe’s fender in a familiar way and faced me. “This is confidential, but you can tell Duncan. Also Tomlinson, I suppose. Otherwise, I want your word not to say anything until I decide how to handle this.”

  A man’s word means something. Leland had told me that.

  “You have it,” I replied, then reconsidered. “Wait—there’s a woman I’m dating—or was dating . . . Anyway, it’s a long story. I’m trying to be less secretive. Do you mind if I include her?”

  After a year with Ava, the cynic in Leland was amused. “If I refuse, are you saying you’re going to leave?”

  “We’re dating, not joined at the frontal lobe,” I answered. “It was a request.”

  He shrugged and used the handkerchief again, then led me to the hole he’d dug. It was the size of a swimming pool, but deeper; deep enough to pierce the water table, which explained the need for boots. The walls were earthen black, the rim fringed with sludge and fossilized oysters, the spoil heaped twice as high as my head.

  I said, “You dug this by yourself?”

  “I started before sunrise yesterday—I couldn’t sleep. Owen’s funeral, everything that’s happened, plus”—he balked for a moment—“And, to be honest, I stopped drinking two days ago, so sleeping’s not easy.”

  That explained a lot: his sopping shirt and shaking hands, and also the private conversation he had alluded to—Duncan had taken Leland aside to confront a fellow alcoholic. Stopping cold turkey, however, might be dangerous if he was the drink-in-the-morning type—an unknown.

  �
��You’re holding up pretty well,” I said. “A lot of people would need medical care. How are you feeling?”

  Leland, a man who had seldom received compliments, didn’t know how to handle that. “I just told myself, Stay busy. Why else would I be out here on a backhoe at three in the morning? And I worked until after midnight last night. But I had a good reason. All along, I’ve figured Toby is dead. Gwen thinks they all are. If not shot by Harris, dead from the trauma. The animals she lost were both damn-near sixty years old. So”—Leland gestured to the hole—“I decided to be ready when they found the bodies.”

  I said, “I didn’t get a good look at Toby, but, from what I saw . . . well, I don’t think he could have gotten very far. You chose a good spot—next to a graded road so a flatbed can get in.”

  “That’s exactly what Duncan told me. A low place where the ground is softer.”

  “He suggested it?”

  Leland, watching my reaction, nodded. “Being this close to the pond, Duncan said there was a spiritual aspect, which the twins appreciated. He used some odd wording—Ivory Pot. And there was another one: time tunnel. Then he mentioned your story about an elephant graveyard.”

  “That sounds like Dunk. But he was only repeating terms he’d heard from someone else,” I said. “The rest is part of what he calls his medicine man act.”

  “That’s what I figured. It all seemed rather strange at the time—until I found this.”

  “Found what?” I’d been peering down in the hole—nothing but water and muck—so I walked toward an incline created by the backhoe. “Am I missing something?”

  Leland stuck out his arm when I tried to slog past. “Take a good look at what’s sticking out of the water. But that’s not why I want your professional opinion.”

  It was a bright June afternoon, no clouds or shadows to play visual tricks. I didn’t have to clean my glasses but did before stepping back, shaking my head. “I’ll be damned, you’re right. When did you realize?”

  What I had assumed was tree stubble was, in fact, a midden of Ice Age ivory—sodden tusks, many of them shattered. They created a ragged blue reef on the bottom where brown water flowed, the stream seeking the bed of an ancient creek.

  “An elephant graveyard,” he said. “Last night, after the funeral, I worked here until almost one. If the backhoe had better lights, I would’ve known I hadn’t hit limestone. No telling how many tusks I ruined and how many are down there.”

  Smiling a strange smile, he turned, his face pale. “But this isn’t why I brought you. There—take a look at those.” He pointed a long finger at the incline where water slid over mud that was pocked with craters and ivory shards. “My grandfather could have explained them. But I can’t. Those weren’t here last night.”

  Responding to my blank expression, he edged closer so I could look down his arm, as if sighting over a rifle. I saw a mud plateau, water flowing a few inches deep over muddy craters, lots of them, the craters juxtaposed in a line, each hole the diameter of a telephone pole.

  “Elephant tracks,” Leland declared. “Fresh. Three sets. The largest has to be Toby’s.”

  Nervous laughter—my nervous laughter—while I stood and moved a step away. Then pretended to give each random crater my attention, aware that water would soon erode the holes. It was better, I decided, to bring him back later so he could see for himself.

  “Interesting,” I said. “I should take pictures—but first, there’s something in the truck I brought to show you.”

  The saber cat skull was my handy excuse. The man needed water and shade—and a doctor—but he pulled away when I tried to take his arm.

  “There’s nothing wrong with me. Ford . . . you still don’t understand. A time tunnel, Duncan called this spot, and it’s hard to argue with my own eyes.”

  Choosing my words carefully, I responded, “I understand most men would be in the hospital after what you’ve been through,” and, once again, tried to steer him away.

  “Those elephants were here last night,” Leland Albright insisted. Then reached for his handkerchief. Stood staring for a moment before turning to me, his eyes glassy, while a single tear streaked his face. “What I don’t understand is . . . all three sets of tracks lead into the hole—but, Doc—there are no tracks leading out.”