The Weight of Night

by Christine Carbo

  “Your cough sounds bad and more frequent,” Monty said to Tara.

  In my pack I had the biohazard bag and suits, my camera, some water, and a shovel. Ray was hauling a large, folded army-green tarp that we would use to arrange the tools at the site and to eventually lay the skeleton out on before stowing the bones in bags. Monty was carrying the metal detector and the excavation case that I’d taken from the lab. It held containers for soil, picks and chisels of various sizes, brushes, and more. He was also carrying his own camera and wearing his tool belt. He held out his hand to take the folding shovel from her.

  “I’m fine,” Tara insisted. She almost looked like a child, hiding the spade behind her back. “Look, Harris, if I get any worse, I promise to go to the car. And,” she said, “I have my inhaler with me. Ventolin,” she added, as if the name made it more official.

  Monty glanced at me and I shrugged. It was his call, not mine. First, it was under Park Police jurisdiction, but since this part of the park was contained within Flathead County, we handled forensics and cooperated with Park Police.

  “Damn.” He sighed. “You’re like a stubborn child. But I’m dead serious—you begin wheezing again like you were earlier, you go immediately.”

  “Fair enough,” Tara said.

  When we reached the scene, I paused and took in the upturned heap of dirt about ten feet away from the fuel break line that had been dug. It looked like a murky patch of water that had been disturbed by something rising from the darkness underneath. Beyond it, the stretch of forest looked punished. Thankfully, the area we needed to work had been left alone as much as possible.

  A pile of bones lay before us in a mixture of dirt, brittle clumps of cheatgrass, and dried foliage. I could see the skull, slightly tilted to the left as if it were keeping an eye on the ridge, waiting to see if the fire could be corralled. One yellowed rib bone curved out of the soil and one smooth length of a femur protruded out of some shoveled ground. Sweat already ran hot and slick down my neck. I handed out gloves and biohazard suits to Monty and Tara. Ray had his own.

  “Okay.” I exhaled. I looked at my watch: 2:30. We need,” I called out, “to grab as many samples from each layer in each grid as possible and mark ’em all.”

  Monty and I began photographing the scene as we found it. After we determined this was only a single site—thank goodness—Monty asked about the parameters of the grid we needed to set up in order to screen dirt from each level within different areas of the site.

  “Do about a square meter,” I told him. “And alphabetize and record the layout.” Then I turned to Ray. “You’re in charge of setting out all the equipment and helping Monty with the grid. After, you’ll help me with the excavation.”

  Tara was unloading the plastic containers for the soil samples. “Thank you,” I said, “for getting on that so quickly. You’ll collect soil samples with the geologic sieves and document which grid you’ve collected them from. And Monty—” I turned back to him. He was already grabbing the plastic stakes and the twine to mark the outside perimeter of the area. “After you’re done with the grid, you’ll need to run a sweep with the metal detector and bag anything at all of interest.”

  Everyone went right to work, with only a few questions. I began taking additional photos while Ray and Monty set up the grid. We collected everything we could find on the surface to bag, label, and photograph, which wasn’t much except some rocks and a few pieces of old trash that probably had no connection to the actual time period that the body was buried. After getting numerous soil samples and performing a thorough sweep with the metal detector, we began the slow process of excavating.

  After several hours, I was kneeling down, examining the skull, measuring the total length of the skeleton and recording the terminal points of each measurement. Ash floated around me like a lazy snow. The muted sunlight, blocked by the smoke, tried to filter through and smudged everything a grayish yellow. I carefully brushed off the dirt on the apex of the skull. I was no expert, and I wasn’t positive, but it seemed that neither the sagittal nor the coronal suture had yet fused, and in the pit of my stomach I felt that this might be a relatively young person. Plus, there was a significant fracture along the temporal and frontal area that gave me pause. I removed one of my gloves for a moment and rubbed the back of my neck, stiffened from hunching over and looking down for so long.

  To me, the bones looked like they’d been buried for some time, at the very least five years, maybe for over a decade, but I wasn’t sure. Determining how long depended on many factors, including the soil’s moisture and acidity.

  I grabbed another glove, put it on, and continued to carefully log the measurements, then went to work on the remaining shreds of clothing by chiseling around them. I already knew not to, but Lucy had warned against using a brush or whisk broom on fabric since it might destroy fiber evidence. There was no remaining hair on the head, but I was careful to get thorough samples of the soil under the skull in case any minute hair fibers remained.

  Monty brought the metal detector over, and we ran it over the site again. As he neared the center of the grave, toward the pelvis, it beeped. Monty kneeled down and gently probed the soil where the signal had been. I also moved my gloved fingers carefully through the dirt, going a little deeper.

  “There’s something here,” Monty said, his finger scraping around a small object. After a little more work, he pulled out a flat, oval item the size of an egg. “Hmm,” he grunted, holding it before him and examining it like a surgeon. “Belt buckle?”

  “Let’s see.” Ray held out his gloved palm to take the object and brushed it lightly off. “I can’t make out any markings, but yeah, it looks to me like a belt buckle. They’ll be able to confirm in the lab under the right lights and with the right chemicals to remove the grime.”

  “There could be some interesting markings that might signify the time period,” I said, holding out my gloved palm to take a closer look. Ray set it in my hand. It felt light, unsubstantial, and perhaps cheap. I couldn’t make out any details either; too much grime and dirt coated it. Strands of a thick fabric still hung from the sides, and I could see that it was a woven cloth belt, not leather. I handed it back to Ray and he labeled it, put it in an envelope, and bagged the envelope in plastic.

  I turned back to my work, kneeling down and continuing to carefully scrape around the minute bones of each hand with a chisel. After what felt like forever, I cleared the soil away with a medium-size brush and removed and laid each set of hand bones on the tarp, labeling them left and right. We had already cleared the leg, feet, and arm bones, placing them in paper bags, marking them by numbers, and storing them in plastic containers. We had photographed and mapped all parts prior to pulling them out. It was a tedious process and the heat and smoke weren’t helping. The T-shirt and chinos I was wearing under my suit were drenched. My knees, shoulders, and back continued to ache from being in a kneeling position for so long, and a headache was shooting up the back of my skull.

  I looked at my watch: 6:40. It had already been over four hours. A smoke jumper flew over, and a stream of pink retardant the color of candy made a line through the shrouded sky and began to disperse over the dim ridge. They had been flying above us all afternoon, but I’d been in such deep concentration that this was the first time I’d taken note. I’d read somewhere that they’d recently changed the dye they put in the retardant from burgundy to bright pink so it was easier to see against the smoke.

  I glanced at Monty as he watched the plane circle back. I stood and stretched, pulling my shoulders wide when his radio crackled. I watched him hold it up to his mouth and talk to someone. There was something about the seriousness in his expression that made me nervous, made my skin, still damp from perspiration, begin to tingle and give me a slight tremor of chills in spite of the heat. I began to work faster, my lungs beginning to burn. I looked at Tara, putting away some samples. “You feeling okay?�
�� I called to her.

  “Yeah,” she said, but didn’t offer anything else, just looked back down to complete what she was doing.

  I looked at Monty. “How’s it going over there?”

  “Going well,” he said, putting plastic containers with sealed lids in a canvas duffel bag large enough to carry the containers out. “That was just Wilcox. They’re watching the ridge closely because the wind is supposed to change soon. If it hits the trigger points on either Dickey Creek or Java Creek, everyone has to get out. Tara and I are going to wrap up with the soil samples and all the labeling. If we have to get out of here quickly, I want to be ready.”

  I nodded, but was beginning to worry that we would have to clear out before we got the job done properly. The enormity of it was overwhelming. Patience and time were invaluable to the process. As a CSI, I was well schooled in the art of persistence, but this seemed like an entirely different beast, one that was much more complex than the typical crime scenes I usually worked. I couldn’t believe I was actually wishing for rain, something that would typically compromise an outdoor crime scene. But at least it would slow the fire’s progress, and we could cover the grid with a tarp to preserve the evidence. “Rain, damn it, rain,” I whispered under my breath.

  Ray and I continued scraping at the lower ribs, which were still buried, when I heard Monty’s radio crackle again, setting my nerves on edge. He had walked away from the site, and answered as he headed toward a birch tree with its papery white bark and its mixture of dried yellow and green leaves still clinging to life. Normally there would be a demarcation of shade, but not today, not in this smoke. Nodding and talking, wearing that white suit, Monty looked like an apparition in the dim light.

  Beyond him, in the distant forest, I noticed some beige shapes meandering through the trees. The crew, I thought, hiking through, perhaps making their way to another spot or to the parking lot. I could hear Tara take a puff of her inhaler, and suddenly realized, save the sound of the steady roar of the fire two ridges over, how it had gotten quieter—the drone of the equipment no longer present.

  Monty came back over, being careful of the markers we’d set up to designate the entry and exit point to the site.

  “Gretchen,” he said.

  I stayed kneeling, bent over the grave, but turned my head to look up at him.

  “Wilcox just said that the airport reading says the wind’s beginning to shift and Ole has reached Trigger Point A. That’s the signal for us to vacate. He’s called his men back. Wants us to wrap it up and get back to the vehicles.”

  “How much more time?”

  “Ten minutes,” Monty said from behind his face mask. “More like eight now.”

  “Eight?” I looked up at him in shock. That was hardly enough time to wrap up any crime scene, much less an anthropologic dig. He was still holding his radio. I stood up to face him. “No way.”

  “No choice,” he said. He hooked the receiver back on his tool belt, turned away, and quickly began to pack up the chisels and picks. He ordered Tara and Ray to get the rest of the bones that were already laid out on the tarp into the bags.

  “Wait, we haven’t even—”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Monty said. “Get the rest of the bones in the bags.”

  My heart began to hammer in my chest. “But we haven’t even gotten the ribs free yet—”

  “Get them however you can. Wilcox says we need to clear out. We can’t chance it.”

  I turned back to what was left of the skeleton before me. The ribs were the hardest, the lower side of the cage surrounded by dirt and roots from thistle, cheatgrass, and kudzu that had grown into the soil over the years. The upper side of the cage was pronounced, but the lower ribs had begun to decay a little faster, I suspected from moister, more acidic soil lower down. Thin, arched bones lay fragile in the dirt.

  Tara began to hack violently again, bending at the waist. I could hear her wheezing as she tried to suck in air between coughs. She pulled out her inhaler and took another hit. “That’s like your fifth hit,” Monty said to her. “I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to take that much. Clearly it’s not working.”

  Tara didn’t answer him, or couldn’t answer him. She plunged further into a coughing fit, wheezing loudly. She held up her finger to say something, but couldn’t. She collapsed onto one knee, removing her face mask to try to take in more air. Her skin looked wan, but then again, everything surrounding us, including the air, looked sallow.

  Monty went to her and helped her up, setting a hand on her back. “Ray,” he said firmly, “would you please get Tara out of here now? I’ll help Gretchen get the rest packed up. There should be a medic back at the rendezvous site not far down the road at the fire camp. Take her there. They’ll have oxygen. We’ll meet you there.”

  Ray looked at Monty with a mixture of curiosity and doubt, as if he wasn’t sure whether to take orders from Park Police and not a county officer and didn’t necessarily want to leave me out here.

  “Do as he says.” I nodded to Ray. I didn’t bother to remind him that we were on Park Police jurisdiction as well as Flathead County’s, and short of the sheriff being here, it was Monty’s call. “Monty and I will get this packed up. We’ll be fine.”

  I continued to work frantically, trying to dig the last of the dirt away from the rib cage so it could be lifted intact from the ground. Monty set two paper bags by our side after he packed up the soil samples and tools. “Put them right in the bags.” He looked at me as he rolled up the tarp.

  “Not yet, the ribs still aren’t free. They might break, and they have to be labeled one by one.”

  “Just grab what you can and I’ll label ’em.” He held up the manila tags. “Right and left side. I’ll get them on, but we don’t have time to dig anymore.”

  I stuck my gloved hands under the set of them and pried, but they wouldn’t budge. I grabbed the chisel and furiously scratched around the edges. I tried again, this time able to lift two of the ribs, but not the others. I continued to scrape.

  “Gretchen.” Monty grabbed my shoulder, his head tilted in earnest. “Do you know how fast a fire moves once it goes?”

  I didn’t answer, just kept frantically working.

  “It will blow through here in seconds if the line doesn’t hold. We can’t chance it.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said, frustrated. I’d been called in for this dig that should have really gone to an FA, and now I didn’t have the time to do the damn thing properly. I was cursing myself for agreeing to do a job I knew I wasn’t completely comfortable with. “Shit,” I said. Sweat poured down my stomach and back.

  Wilcox’s voice came over Monty’s radio. “Are you out of there?”

  Monty grabbed his radio again. “Not yet. Almost.”

  “Get out. Now.” Wilcox’s voice boomed firmly through the receiver. “And I mean it.”

  I grabbed for the ribs again, this time pulling harder. I heard a snap. “Shit,” I yelled.

  “Just get them,” Monty said.

  I pulled again. Another snap. I wanted to cry. I was decimating the bones. Another snap. Lucy would be mortified. I was already thinking about attorneys in court having a field day with a testimony I might need to deliver at some point.

  “Grab those last two,” I yelled. Monty jerked the rest out and jammed them into the bag. I was still attempting to label when Monty started yelling.

  “Gretchen, you heard him. Now. Throw it in the container and let’s go!” He had thrown his pack over his shoulder and was holding the case of chisels, the rolled-up tarp, and small shovels. Suddenly he put down the tarp, lifted his face up, and removed the white face mask as if trying to feel the wind on his cheek like an animal checking for a scent.

  I watched him as if time had slowed—as if I had the luxury to do such a thing. Because of the smoky air and the muted sunlight, the whole scene was taking on a
sepia autumnal tone, as if we were locked in an old war photograph, aliens in dirty white hazmat suits glowing eerily in the gloomy light.

  Monty stood right above me, his cheekbone glistening with sweat. The leaves of a birch we’d passed on the way in seemed to stir, and I thought I heard a faint, dulled chime. The angles of his face looked sharp and stunning even in the dimness, like a statue of some hero. In spite of the fire’s distant roar, a strange, watchful silence hung over the scene as if we were waiting to see an image or a sign emerge from the smoke and the ash. Monty turned to me, his dark eyes stern. “It’s shifting and it’s definitely blowing harder.”

  I nodded and swallowed, my throat parched and burning. I glanced up at the dense gloom above. Rain, I wished again. I looked down to finish labeling the bag when I felt Monty’s hand on my arm, grabbing with force. He threw the case holding the chisels, picks, and brushes on the ground, grabbed the duffel bag, yanked me up, and began rushing me out.

  “Okay, okay. I get it.” I shook my arm away. I was furious for ­reasons I couldn’t explain. I know he was only trying to be safe, but this was my job. My job. And nobody, not even trusted Monty Harris, had the right to pull me away from it. I hated that I was being sloppy, but I also hated that I was feeling like that young Norwegian girl again—­hopeless, needing to be corralled away from her own dangerous self like the forest needing to be felled of its own hazardous fuel.

  Right then, I had a split-second vision of cross-country skiing with my older brother Per, of him gliding ahead of me across the fjord and me not being able to get my ski boots laced up. He was screaming at me to hurry—skynde deg—red-faced and angry with me for being so slow while I sat with my butt freezing in the snow, a thick coat of ice above a dark sea, cold and black.

  Monty dropped his grip. “Look.” He motioned behind me with one of his gloved hands—flashes of white nitrile like a dove amid the dingy smoke—as if to say, Don’t you get it? “We’ve got to go.”