Mighty Old Bones

by Mary Saums

  At first, I concentrated on the textures of rock and crevice, imagined how a knife made of sharpened chert or limestone cut into the hard surface. Perhaps the writer tried many types of arrowhead edges before the one that cut best was used to finish the sentence. For it was, it appeared to me, something like a eulogy carved into a natural tombstone.

  I let the figures run together as I scanned them left to right, over and over. It would be such a lovely adventure to hunt each down in Cal’s books. I had barely scratched the surface in studying them. I gave a slow perusal of them once more and closed my eyes to see how many I could remember.

  I managed four in the correct order, jumbled a few others. Once more, I slowly studied the lines in the dusk. Something about them struck a familiar chord. I didn’t know why. With eyes shut, I imagined them again, lingering on each image rather than hurriedly trying to remember the next. I willed them to turn, as if three-dimensional, in the soft yellow-orange glow of the sunset against a backdrop of black.

  One by one, the symbols paraded before me as I contemplated the wonder of their making, of the person buried here, of those who mourned. Again, a familiarity tugged at my memory. My thoughts drifted to the surrounding area, of forest and beyond to the low mountains in the east, to my dear little town. Yes, I realized, I thought of it as mine now, even after such a short time of living here. It had been in my heart, in my dreams for many years before I even knew it existed.

  My mental movie traveled back from the town toward the forest again, with trees and plants moving past me as if I watched from a car window. The camera’s eye stopped at me, slowing, examining, first myself as I sat, then Homer a few feet away, then sped up once again as it careened deeper into woods, circling and returning. It hovered just in front of me over the rock where a swirl of blue mist settled in a roughly cylindrical shape and slowly spread across the breadth of the rock.

  It sparkled there with an indefinable movement in its center. It rose a few inches above the rock and, emulating my previous mental exercise with the symbols, it turned for me, slowly, as if it too were three-dimensional, as if it were showing off, smiling perhaps, joyful, beautiful, very old. Though I was aware this was merely a sort of hallucination or dream state, it felt as if I were witnessing a real object. No, not an object, a being. Not exactly that, either. A personality made of earth and rock.

  While this fancy played, another train of thought moved along another path, like a soundtrack accompanying film. It didn’t move through the forest, but through time, backward, passing swiftly to before my arrival, before my house was built, before the arrivals of tribe after tribe who passed, camped, and lived here. Such beautiful feelings swept over me as I watched each era pass by. Yet even as they warmed me, a growing sense of dread crept in.

  Much goodness has been in this place, kind people filling the air and soil with their purity and goodwill. Even so, evil found its way here. I remembered reading about the death of a young child, found murdered over eighty years earlier near my property.

  Suddenly, the blue swirling image stopped turning and I heard, felt, a great whump, a mixture of pressure and sound that reverberated through the forest as if a great bass drum had been struck.

  With a jolt, I opened my eyes. I sat in complete darkness. The sound had not been only in my imagination. All night noises stopped abruptly as birds, insects, all living things within the forest listened, waited, to consider the intrusive and possibly dangerous sound. Something rustled to my left then Homer pressed his muzzle against my hand. I patted his head, let my hand drape over his solid back.

  As my eyes adjusted to our surroundings again, I blinked, trying to understand what was in front of us. The sun was well set, but the carved symbols were visible through a light blue mist or aura that illuminated the entire rock surface, above and below to the ground. It stretched across to enclose the circle of ground where the bones lay exposed and a large area around them on the forest floor. Homer and I sat perhaps an hour or more longer, just watching the sky, the flood of light from an almost full moon, listening to the woods’ night song.

  That night I dreamt of black stars, burnt into a sky that was in relief, suggesting a great void rather than a universe full of wonders. Charred trunks of trees stuck up like the jagged edges of serrated knives, across an expanse of dead ashes that was once fertile land. All burned. No birds or animals moved about on the barren landscape, only a cold relentless wind.

  Sixteen

  Jane Gets a Gift, a Call, and a Visitor

  The next day, I donned my running clothes, tied on my shoes, and went downstairs to meet the new morning. I had much on my mind.

  Phoebe had something planned for me. Her excitement over the library’s annual Halloween haunted house seemed to be contagious. In spite of my disinterest in the holiday and my reluctance to participate in whatever silly schemes Phoebe had concocted, I found myself agreeing to help. Phoebe, I had learned, is a strong force. Once pulled into her orbit, the objects of her intent rarely escape whatever fate she has in mind for them.

  She had not revealed my part, only that I was essential and that it would delight and horrify the little ones of Tullulah to such a degree they would be speaking of it for years, if not decades, to their own children.

  “Jane, it’s going to be big,” she told me, waving her arms out like a movie director who was trying to convey the big picture.

  “What, exactly, do you have in mind, as far as my part is concerned?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I haven’t figured it all out. I’m still cogitating.”

  So, with a shrug, I left it at that with the small hope I would be written out of the script by the time she finished hatching the plot.

  The sun was just a sliver behind the far hills when Homer and I returned from our morning run. My tai chi routine cooled me down and left me invigorated.

  “Ready for breakfast, dear?” I asked Homer. He answered by licking his lips and quickly setting off for the kitchen.

  Rather than follow me to the refrigerator and sit nearby, he turned away and sniffed the air. He went slowly and carefully away from me, in the other direction, straight to the center of the room, just as he had done when Boo left the little blue flower. His nose worked furiously as he neared something on the kitchen floor, something that had not been there the night before.

  I stopped in place. After a moment of staring, I moved as well. I set the towel down from wiping my hands and walked toward Homer with a bit of a flutter in my chest.

  He circled the object before he stopped and sat facing me. He gave me a meaningful look then returned his attention to the object, hard-looking and colored red and brown, about four inches long and a half-inch thick, with flat areas on both sides.

  He dipped his face down until the very tip of his nose touched it ever so slightly before he jerked his head back with a start. He reached out a paw, gave it a test tap, then another with a bit more force. It skidded a few inches, whirling slowly to a stop.

  I bent down beside Homer as we both considered it. The coat of green moss and mud on the alleged rock’s uneven surface considered us in return and, like the two of us, remained mute.

  After some moments of silence, Homer whispered a breathy woof, though never breaking his intense concentration on the rock until I spoke.

  “What has he left us this time?”

  He blinked. I tugged his ear. “Well then, it appears to mean us no harm. Once our breakfast is done, we shall contemplate it further.”

  Homer stayed with the rock at first, dividing his attention between it and my movements. The opening of the refrigerator door, however, proved to be too much of an enticement. He trotted over to me, and we resumed our usual morning routine.

  Once the kettle was on, he followed me to the den, where I turned on my computer to listen to the BBC, usually Radio 4. I find it gets the day going properly. So, after I’d set our breakfasts down and taken my first sip of tea, Homer and I listened to the latest installment of an Ag
atha Raisin abridgement. We sat and thought, both of us staring at the rock that should not be there but most assuredly was.

  Though the trek through the woods later that morning was still muddy on the paths and slippery on the leaf-strewn hillocks and clearings, my spirits lifted with each step as I neared the bones. The lightning tree, as I had come to think of it, had kept coming to my mind in flashes. Now, as I crested the edge of the last rise, I slowed and stopped there to look at the great felled tree.

  It looked like a giant in repose. I took out my notebook to jot down a few questions and random observations that began to stir and surface.

  First, why was this spot chosen for a burial? According to Cal’s notebooks, most native burials have been discovered in the mounds found near rivers. Yet, Dr. Jenkins mentioned that he had seen native burials similar to this one, with nearby rock engravings. I made a note to research burial methods in Cal’s book collection.

  Was this place chosen for this particular tree perhaps? If so, why this one out of the hundreds of thousands that surround it? Or was it due to the cave overhang? Again, why? I suspected many more shelters similar to this one must dot the land here from what I had heard so far. Or was there some other reason, something more personal and simple, like this was where he lived? Were other family members also buried here?

  That thought gave me a bit of a jolt. Until then, I hadn’t seriously considered Phoebe’s earlier suggestions, that this might be a cemetery. I reminded myself I must take great care in all I do here.

  The tarp covering the bones looked undisturbed, the rocks I’d placed around its edges unmoved. Nevertheless, I moved them aside on one end and pulled back the bright blue sheet to satisfy myself that the skeleton was still there.

  A bit of research the previous night reminded me to bring a few extra tools along this time. I reached into my work belt for a tape measure and set about recording data of what was visible. It took great willpower to keep myself from clawing into the earth to reveal the complete skull from which I might make a few preliminary determinations. Any disturbance must wait until after Dr. Norwood gave her approval.

  All I could surmise from the small area that lay exposed was that it was the head of an adult of fairly advanced age, for the cranial fissures were almost completely gone. What little I could see of the hand and arm that protruded from the grave gave me no further information. But what wonders would be found below? I began feeling more anxious that the coroner would get back in touch soon. Another feeling came that surprised me, a certain giddiness at the prospect of seeing my old friend Michael very soon.

  Now that I’d given the site another look, my earlier misgivings about the coincidences of box, storm, tree, and dreams had vanished. This was the site described by Cal in detail in his notes, of that I had no doubt. The drawings and maps, and the three odd articles in the box had been collected here.

  Precisely how they would fit into the larger story of this place remained to be seen. However, I knew they would fit and that they would reveal their purposes in their own time. After living here hardly a month, already I’d learned that what might be considered spectacularly unlikely, wildly improbable, or even impossible in other places, might be considered an everyday occurrence here.

  When Homer and I returned home, he went out for a prowl. The phone rang while I swept the front porch, trying to tidy up a bit before Michael arrived. I leaned my broom beside the door and stepped inside, expecting to hear Phoebe on the line.

  Static greeted me instead. A tiny shiver ran up my neck before my caller spoke. “Miz Jane? This here is Dad Burn. You doing all right?”

  “Yes, Mr. Burn. Quite well. And you?” I immediately chastised myself for it occurred to me that asking after one’s health might be insensitive if the person in question is deceased. Dad, being the kind soul he is, allayed my concern.

  “Oh, I’m doing very well, thank you. We have a better connection this time.”

  “Yes. I hear you much more clearly.”

  “Good, good. Listen, there’s a couple of things I need to tell you. It’s about that tree…”

  Dad and I had spoken on only one other occasion, at which time it became clear he was privy to things related to another odd set of experiences. Dad Burn, you see, is on the other side. The other side of precisely what, I couldn’t say. In our previous conversation, he called in order to pass on information he thought would be helpful. He was right. I wondered what he or his fellow dearly-departees wished to relay this time.

  “Excellent! What can you tell me about it?” I asked.

  “Ain’t it a beauty? Or was. Actually, there’s two things, but mainly the scar.”

  My first thought was of the bones, that he meant me to look for a scar on them, perhaps indicating foul play from a knife wound.

  “No,” he said, though I hadn’t voiced my thoughts. “The scars on the tree. Where the lightning hit. Cal says to look in those Indian books about lightning.”

  “Cal is there with you? Could I speak to him?”

  After a bout of loud static and a moment or two of silence, Dad said, “No, I reckon that’s not going to work. Sorry. I don’t rightly understand why.”

  “No apology necessary. It’s lovely speaking with you.”

  “You, too, Miz Jane. You’re sure enough a peach. And while I’m thinking of it, everybody over here wants to say thank you for what all you and that firecracker Phoebe did. Lord have mercy, what a sight that was.”

  While he laughed, I cringed at the thought that Phoebe and I inadvertently had an otherworldly audience during our grand adventure several weeks earlier. It made me feel a bit like a Roman slave at the Coliseum, there to provide entertainment that might or might not be fatal.

  “But that scar,” he continued. “Cal says it’s important, so read in his books, and then he says to go see Ruby and tell her about it. She’ll know what to do.” The static increased in volume once again, as if the power that made Dad Burn’s call possible were fading. “Anyway, it sounds like my time is about up. For some reason, I can’t last very long on the phone, seems like. So, I’ll let you go.”

  “Wait. You said you had two things to tell me.”

  “I did? Oh, right. I sure did. Sorry about that. I wish I’d died younger so I’d still have my memory. The second thing is that Reese has some things connected to that tree and that box Cal left you, so you need to go see him when you see Ruby.”

  His words suddenly sounded distant, as if he turned his head away from the phone receiver to talk to Cal, because he said, “All right, all right, I’m getting there. I’m a’ fixin’ to tell her right now. Keep your drawers on, for pete’s sake.

  “All right,” he said in full voice to me. “He says when it’s all over, go look in Reese’s barn.”

  “But, Dad, who are Ruby and Reese? How do I go about finding them?”

  “They live farther out the county road, past your place. Phoebe knows. Take her with you. For crying out loud, Cal, what is it, now?”

  Another bout of static came over the line. Then silence. “We seem to be losing signal,” I said. He didn’t answer. “Dad, if you can hear me, I’ll say good-bye then. Perhaps we can talk later. Thank you very much indeed for the call. Please call again. Anytime.”

  “He says…” The static was now even louder. “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Faintly but I hear you.”

  After a pause, he said, “Cal says be sure and take…” His voice was progressively weaker.

  “Take what?”

  “…be sure and keep your rifle with you. All the time.” The line buzzed a moment longer, then went dead.

  I headed straight away for the nearest chair to collapse. Even friendly encounters with the other side left me in need of a bit of rest. One thing was certain. I could have done without that last bit. However, the incident gave me an idea I should have thought of before. I made one more phone call.

  “Riley? This is Jane Thistle.”

  Ril
ey Gardner hunts ghosts. He and two of his friends, all young people in their twenties, come out to my place on occasional nights in the hopes of finding proof of spirits.

  “I may have a hunting tip for you,” I said. “The next time you and the girls are in the area, come into my backyard to the old shed, if you like. Homer and I heard noises there the other night. And I…” I caught myself before I told him I had actually seen a ghostly figure as well. That would not do. The less others knew about my affliction, the better.

  “That is, Homer and I felt something, a presence, if you like.”

  “You got vaaahhbes?” he said with hushed fervor.

  “Yes, vibes, I suppose you could say, or something like that. I thought I heard crying.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. We’ll check that for you, sure thing. Thank you.”

  Such a nice boy. It made no difference to me if his team found anything or not. I was glad to have something to offer them, something they might enjoy doing since they were such lovely kids. For them, the thrill was in the hunt, in the hope of finding something magical. Not so very different from myself, I suppose.

  Later that afternoon, I was well into a nice weight-lifting routine when Homer barked outside. He came into view on the other side of my Florida room’s mostly glass wall. At first, my arms automatically continued their rhythm. He must have barked several times before it registered with me what an unusual occurrence this was, for he rarely made a sound.

  He never barked, certainly not more and more loudly as he was then. I set the dumbbell in its stand. While I wiped my towel across my face, I walked through from the sunroom to the living room to look out the window.

  A car had rolled to a stop in my drive. I didn’t recognize it or its driver, a man in his forties, I thought, dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved Native American–print shirt. A string of terra cotta beads hung from his neck. He was a tall man with deep red hair that hung in strings around his ears.