Deeper Than the Grave by Tina Whittle Read Free Book Online Page A

and fifty years. We got a peculiar kind of clay down by the ravine. Striated, Evie calls it.”
    The old man made a noise and pulled his hat down low. “Or red from being cursed. Best leave him in the clay, I say.”
    Richard didn’t look up from the map. “Nobody asked you, Joe Ben.”
    But Joe Ben was on a roll. His dentures didn’t fit properly, giving him an odd lisp. I could smell the chewing tobacco on him, and saw the corner of a Red Man pouch peeking out from his overall bib. His eyes were pewter-gray and nail-sharp.
    â€œThe mountain wants those bones, and we’d best not interfere lest we pay the price too. It’s eye for an eye out here.”
    Richard’s voice grew taut. “This ain’t the End of Days. Our job is to find those bones, repair the tomb—”
    â€œThe mountain don’t want no tomb. You mark my words—”
    â€œDo your job, Joe Ben, or I’ll find somebody who will. Now go get a radio and start hunting. And if you see Rose first, keep your mouth shut. I need to be the one to tell her about this.”
    Joe Ben spat a thin stream of tobacco juice to the side, then headed for the chapel. He moved without hurry, as slowly as he could get away with without provoking Richard further.
    Richard watched him, then turned to me, shaking his head. “Old men and their stories.”
    â€œStories sometimes have truth for a backbone, you know that.”
    â€œI got real backbones to worry about.” He jutted his chin toward his pickup truck. “You ready to get started?”
    ***
    Richard set Trey and me up with handheld radios. The plan was a simple quadrant search—clear one square, then move on to the next. Like a crime scene zone search, Trey had explained, although tornadoes didn’t play by the same rules as human perpetrators. Humans tended to drop things in concentric circles. Tornadoes, however, had a peculiar logic all their own.
    Trey stopped at the edge of the woods. “Richard said he needed a point person, so I’m staying here and coordinating.”
    I pocketed the radio. “Where’d he go?”
    â€œOne of his men called and said he’d found something.”
    â€œThe bones?”
    â€œHe thought it was a piece of the coffin, but he needed Richard to make sure.” Trey hooked his own radio to his belt. “Call off when you’ve cleared an area, and I’ll keep track on the main grid.”
    I hoisted the metal detector and the accessory bag. “Got it.”
    â€œGood. Channel nine. Keep to your quadrant.” He tilted his head, examined me thoroughly. “And be careful.”
    ***
    The woods were dark this morning, and deep. I paced off the coordinates Trey had given me, which took me from the edge of the cemetery to a small ravine. Here, the anemic light grew thin and gray as dishwater. I was glad I’d worn heavy work boots. The red clay mud sucked at the soles like something from a horror movie.
    I pulled the headphones from my pocket and plugged them into the detector. I also had a small trowel and handheld probe, but didn’t expect I’d be needing them. Tornadoes flung things around, but they didn’t bury them too deeply. The detector penetrated to three feet, definitely enough for this particular mission.
    The detector wouldn’t find bones. That would require a sharp eye, especially since I knew Private Amberdecker’s might not be the only remains around, thanks to the nearby battlefield. The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain had claimed over four thousand Confederate and Union casualties, including hundreds of men missing in action, like the Private. And although the Piedmont soil of the Kennesaw area wasn’t especially conducive to preserving body parts, the Amberdecker lands created an exception. With loamy soil and red clay deposits veining the earth, this particular landscape coddled bones like a cradle. It was private land, off-limits