With Me Now

by Heather Hambel Curley

  Liam looked from her to Mike. “Did you know about this?”

  Mike shrugged, scraping dirt away from the edge of the gum blanket. “She knew about Cam. She…ah…she said Cam doesn’t blame me for what happened.”

  Liam glanced back at Madison, his jaw set in a straight line. “And you think these are his remains.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “I don’t know.” Madison scooped out a handful of loose dirt and set it aside. Something didn’t feel right, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. “It makes sense it would be him. I just feel like he’s been pushing me to this spot since I got here. The sifter practically landed on this spot last week and every time I’m back here, I’m cold. I can always feel him, sometimes hear him.”

  “All right then. I’m skeptical, but I’ll believe you.” Liam leaned back and retrieved a small pick and toothbrush. “If I were you, I wouldn’t mention this to Brad.”

  “There’s a better chance of me discussing my last gynecologist visit with him.”

  Mike stood and held his cell phone over the test pit, taking a picture with the camera. He then crouched down to take a closer picture of the gum blanket. “He’s going to be pissed he missed out on this.”

  “Probably, but what’s he going to do? Fire us all for doing our jobs?” Liam picked at the earth with the back end of the toothbrush. “Get mad because he was too busy humping a blonde windbag?”

  “That’s exactly what he’s going to do.” Mike sank down into the dirt next to Madison. “I have a buddy who’s a law enforcement ranger here. I wonder if I should call him and have him come out and take a look at this.”

  “Maybe he should be here in case Brad pops a gasket.” Liam laughed. “Remember that time in Baltimore when the tow company came to take his car? I thought we were all going to end up arrested.”

  Mike chuckled. “I remember him waving his cell phone in the air. ‘Do you have any idea who I am? I’m going to call my lawyer and have him come down here and explain it to you’. Oh, God, it was out of control.”

  “You guys make him sound like this hideous ogre of a man that’s going to crush my bones and make soup out of my spleen or something.” Madison brushed loose dirt off a section of gum blanket. So much seemed intact, it didn’t seem possible. “I’m starting to get worried.”

  “He’s all bark and no bite.” Liam leaned back on his heels and drew his arm across his forehead, wiping away the sheen of sweat. “You’ve got Mikey anyway now, bitch. I’m the only one of the three of us currently residing alone. Because, you know, I get this distinct feeling he’s only going to show up again to get clean clothes.”

  Mike’s lips twitched in a suppressed smile, but he didn’t look up at either Liam or Madison. “Let’s change the subject.”

  “So, here’s my question.” Madison scooped another handful of dirt free from the pit. “I’m finding a lot of this blanket intact. My guess is because of the makeup of the rubber?”

  “It’s synthetic, so more than likely parts of it will never decompose,” Liam said. “That’s why landfill tires are going to destroy the planet. They’ll take thousands and thousands of years to disintegrate and, frankly, that’s just disgusting.”

  “Please don’t get him started on ecology and saving stray cats and dogs.” Mike snickered. “That’ll last longer than a tire will in the dirt.”

  “Make sure you only buy free range chickens.” Liam pursed his lips together. “And grass fed beef. Always local. Never shipped.”

  Madison bit back a smile, instead focusing on the edge of the gum blanket. They were close, so damn close. Now it was only a matter of time.

  * * * *

  The entire section of excavated gum blanket was over nearly five feet in length. It was sparse in places, have partially decomposed, and the entire bottom portion had rotted away completely—or, had been cut off by the original owner. The width of the blanket was hard to estimate. It seemed to be tucked down into the earth on one side. With careful excavation, they’d managed to loosen the opposite side and, theoretically, would peel that back to reveal what was underneath.

  Mike’s phone started ringing.

  “Jesus Christ.” Mike dragged his finger over the face of the phone, leaving a trail of dirt across it. “It’s about damned time. Seriously, Brad? Where are you?”

  He paused, rolling his eyes at whatever the excuse was coming from the opposite end of the connection. “Yeah, well, this is huge. You need to fucking get down here. Maddy found something. So far we’ve got around five feet by two feet of infantry gum blanket excavated. Madison. Yeah, well, I fucking called you three hours ago and you’re just now calling back? Bull shit. Bull fucking shit. Anyway, look, something’s under the gum blanket. We’re not sure.”

  Liam elbowed Madison and handed her a cold bottle of water. “He’s so hot when he gets angry.”

  “I know, right?” Madison cracked open the cap and took a swig of water. “He’s pretty hot when he sleeps, too.”

  “Have I mentioned how much I hate you?”

  Mike’s forehead was creased in a frown. “Yeah, I know. Okay. We’ll see you then. Yeah, dude, just get here, okay?” He hung up the phone and looked at them. “He wanted to know why we didn’t call him when we first found something.”

  “He’s an asshat.” Liam studied his fingernails. “I assume he’s bringing the princess with him?”

  “He said they’d be in here in less than ten minutes.” Mike sighed. “He said not to do anything else until he gets here. Because, you know, at this point his reputation is on the line.”

  “Was he pissed?” Madison grimaced, not sure she really wanted to know.

  “No, he was cocky.” Mike rolled his eyes and accepted a bottle of water from Liam, “Like I owed him some kind of explanation. Meanwhile, back here in the real world we had a dig to work. He forgets that our worlds don’t revolve around him, like Cianna’s does.”

  “Oh, things are going to get interesting.” Liam tipped his head back and finished his water. “Let’s just peek under the blanket now and get it over with before he gets here.”

  “I wish.” Mike sank to the ground next to Madison and nudged her with his elbow. “Hey, cutie.”

  “Hey yourself. Are we having fun yet?”

  “So much fun you won’t have to rock me to sleep tonight.” He closed his eyes and sighed deeply. “Wake me up when he gets here.”

  “I’m sure you’ll hear him coming.” Liam snorted. “It’ll be like a sonic boom. The horror of the whole thing will consume us all. The horror being the whore, that is.”

  As he’d estimated, Brad arrived at the farm in less than ten minutes. The pickup truck roared down the dirt lane, throwing rocks and dust into the air like a windstorm. Madison felt her stomach churn in ugly anticipation. As much as she wanted to see what was underneath the gum blanket, she didn’t want to share the moment with Brad and Cianna.

  Mike seemed to sense her trepidation. He squeezed her thigh as he crawled to his feet. “Ah, the sweet sound of the executioner arriving.”

  Madison wrinkled up her nose. “You’re hilarious.”

  “I’ll make it up to you later.”

  “You’d better.”

  Brad charged across the field like a runner on the way to the finish line, his body at full tilt. Cianna, on the other hand, trudged behind him with her arms folded across her chest, clearly unhappy to have been pulled away from her private day with the dig leader. Even from the distance she was at, Madison could tell the blonde didn’t want to be there.

  Fingertips trailed across her neck. She looked up for Mike, but he’d already headed toward Brad. There was no one beside her. No one she could see; she knew who was with her. She could feel his presence.

  Madison…please…don’t let….

  “Hey team!” Brad’s smile was a little too broad. “So, tell me what’s going on. What did we find?”

  “Well, Madison found a gum blanket.” Mike nodded toward the excavated
pit. “She was right about here and ran into the outer edge. It’s smaller than the standard issue blankets were, but it’s logical to assume it either rotted away or was cut.”

  Brad looked taken aback. “When you said you found a blanket, I thought you meant it was folded. That’s why I couldn’t figure out why you said you had a five by two section dug out. Why would it be spread out like this?”

  “That’s what we thought.” Mike hesitated, glancing at Madison. “We think it’s covering something.”

  “So you said earlier. Why do you think that?”

  “We can see something down at this end.” Mike cocked his head toward one end of the blanket. “We…ah…we think it’s a bone.”

  “I doubt that.” Brad looked over the blanket, the smile spreading across his face again. “This is fantastic! Look at this, you guys! Madison, what a great job. Seriously, you are phenomenal.”

  “Well, thank you.” She felt her cheeks flush. “I’m interested to see what’s underneath it.”

  Brad didn’t respond to her. “Did you document everything?”

  “I took pictures with my phone,” — Mike slid his finger across the phone face and pulled up the picture reel — “and I have it documented in the binder. Times, strata, color, everything.”

  “Excellent.” Brad flipped through the pictures. “Guys, this is huge.”

  “We’d really like to see what’s underneath the blanket.” Mike reached across Brad and searched for a picture. “Here, this is what we could see from the bottom.”

  “It’s a stick, Mike.”

  “No, it’s definitely not a stick. Liam and I checked it out as well and we both think it’s a bone. Obviously we can’t tell if it’s human or animal…which is why we need to get under there.”

  Brad looked at the picture, resizing it with the tips of his fingers. “Well, I mean, anything’s possible I guess. We need to get this up and out of here. Did you bring the trays and the bags down?”

  “They’re right over there.”

  Brad squatted down in the dirt and examined the edge nearest him. “This goes down deeper. We need to get down to the edge so we don’t damage it further. It could crumble at any minute; the rubber’s still here, but I bet the canvas is long gone.”

  “We’d really like to see what’s under it.” Mike shoved his phone in his pocket. “Who would have left something like this laid out flat? There’s no logical explanation for it, other than it was used to cover something up.”

  “Or set something on.” Brad straightened and stepped back from the pit. “Someone could have been resting on it and had to leave in a hurry. It’s not out of the question.”

  “I can’t imagine someone just leaving this here because they didn’t have time to pick it up.”

  “Mike.” Brad pushed past Cianna to retrieve a spade; she looked crushed. “We dig.”

  With four of them digging—Cianna sat in the shade of a tree and “took notes”—they were able to dig out the edge of the blanket in less than forty minutes. Brad dragged a metal artifact tray to the edge of the pit and lined it up with the top of the blanket. “If we fold it back on itself, we can slide it onto the tray and carry it out. We’ll use its weight to help support it when we lift. We go slow and we go on three. Only take it back on itself, no further. Ready?”

  Liam and Madison took one end of the blanket, while Mike and Brad took the other. Brad looked down the line and nodded. “Just like folding a blanket. Well…I guess it is a blanket. Okay, everyone move together. One. Two. Three.”

  They eased the blanket backwards, the rubber stubborn to move from its stretched, flat position. It felt so delicate beneath her fingertips that Madison was at first afraid it would crumble to pieces before it was folded back. It didn’t. It moved as Brad hoped it would, folding back like a blanket. “Don’t crease it back, let’s get the tray.”

  No one responded.

  Madison looked down to the squat, square of earth they’d uncovered. Bones. Two rows of light white bones, easily identifiable as tibia, fibula, and femur, stretched upward toward the curved remains of a pelvic bone. She could see the edge of a spinal column disappearing underneath the gum blanket. “Shit.”

  She glanced at Mike. He smiled at her, his face lighting up. “You were right, Maddy baby. You were right.”

  “We have to call this in.” Brad gaped at the remains and slowly shook his head. “We have to get someone down here. Do you know how huge this is? We…this is really happening. My god, this is actually happening.”

  “I believe you now, Madison.” Liam stared into the pit, his words barely more than a mumble.

  “Mike, is your buddy in LE still around?” Brad dug his phone out of his pocket. “I’m calling park headquarters to get someone down here. You get LE on the phone and get a ranger down here now.”

  “Got it.”

  “Cianna, you start photographing this. I want every inch of this documented.” He pressed the phone to his ear as he walked away. “Hi, Jim? Brad Emerson, down here at the Spangler Farm. My team found something. You’re not going to believe this.”

  “It’s okay, Brad, we’ll just standby.” Liam rolled his eyes. “Bitch, do you know what this is going to do for your career?”

  “Not just mine.” She shook her head. “We did this together.”

  “You found it first.”

  “Like it or not, you helped.”

  Mike touched her elbow as he passed. “Drew’s on his way down. Why, I’m not entirely sure. I’m assuming it’s because we need to get this checked out and make sure this isn’t a more recent burial site. Not that Drew can do that.”

  “They’ll have to call an osteo-archeologist or forensic anthropologist.” Liam crossed his arms. “As big as this park is, do you think they’ve got one on staff?”

  “If not, Washington’s just right down the road.”

  Madison cracked the knuckles in her fingers, individually moving from one finger to the next. She wanted to throw her arms around Mike, to celebrate what they’d found, but something still didn’t feel right. Something was wrong. What was it?

  Brad returned to the test pit. “The park superintendent is coming down himself. He’s down at the visitor’s center right now, but will be here in about ten minutes. Mike, did you get ahold of LE?”

  “He’ll be here any minute. He was down near East Cavalry Battlefield.”

  “Good, okay.” He rubbed his hands together. “I’m thinking they’ll call in forensics, just to make sure these remains date back to the war. We can’t do that on our own.”

  Madison glanced at Liam. He mouthed the words, Told you.

  “Then what?” Cianna spoke for the first time since she’d gotten to the site. “Are they going to call in National Geographic or something?”

  “They might.” Brad brushed his hair away from his face. “Even Roger Frye said this was huge. They haven’t found remains on the field in over fifteen years. This is almost intact. That’s…that’s beyond incredible.”

  Madison shuddered. The remains were once a person; they all seemed to be forgetting that fact.

  Flashing lights coming down the road caught her eye. A green and white park service SUV pulled into the parking lot, slowing to a stop almost in the grass, and a ranger hopped out. He plopped his hat on his head and began making his way across the field toward them.

  “There’s Drew.” Mike cupped his hand close to his mouth. “Hey, Carson!”

  “Hey, Lieutenant!” the ranger called back. “Are you still causing trouble?”

  “You didn’t tell me the LE was an old Army buddy.” Liam looked intrigued. “And I thought we were friends.”

  The ranger was young, probably Mike’s age, with a square jaw and a beefy upper body that was indicative of a man who lifted weights like it was a profession. He extended his hand to shake Mike’s. “Glad you called me. You’ve got some remains?”

  “Roger Frye’s on his way down.” Mike nodded toward Madison. “She’s the one wh
o found them. This is Madison Monroe. Maddy, this is Drew Carson. We served together in Iraq back in 2003.”

  “So, you’re Madison.” Drew smiled sheepishly. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

  “Ah, thanks. I think.” She glanced at Mike. He shrugged innocently, but she didn’t believe it for a second.

  Brad pushed his way over. “Thanks for coming out, Drew. I wanted to make sure the site was secure. We’re just waiting on Superintendent Frye to get down here to decide what to do next. There are protocols for this, of course.”

  “Of course.” Drew peered into the pit. “They’re intact. I didn’t expect that.”

  “Neither did we.”

  Drew rested his hands on his belt and stepped back to the group. “We’ll see what Frye wants to do, but we can get someone posted down here if he wants. Get them on a rotation or something, that won’t be a problem.”

  “Thanks, Drew. I appreciate it.” Brad brushed his hands on his jeans and straightened the collar of his shirt. “I’m going to head down to the lot and meet the superintendent when he gets here. Brief him on what we’ve got. Cianna, make sure everything is photographed and documented. We’ll need to turn all the books over to him.”

  “But I thought maybe I could come with you.”

  “Nope, just get everything together in case he wants to check our records from last week.” Brad headed back across the field, not once looking at Cianna.

  Madison glanced at the blonde. The hurt was etched across her face, but she seemed to soak it in, instead turning back to the pit with her camera. Poor thing—she was being used. And she knew it.

  “Is that guy for real?” Drew spoke softly. “Lieutenant, I can’t imagine you putting up with that kind of shit.”

  “I’m a different kind of guy these days. More laid back, you know?”

  “Still, do you really think I need to be here? Don’t get me wrong, I love sitting at East Cav Field as much as the next guy, but I don’t think we’re going to have fight any looters or pillagers today.”

  “The day’s still young.” Mike winked at Madison. “This one’s trouble, anyway.”