Burial Ground

by Shuman, Malcolm

  Briney frowned. “ ’Course I do. It was a big dumb coon-ass named Dugas. Always mouthing off. I was just a regular guard, then. It was about the time all those guys cut their heels. See, I wasn’t sure up until then. But when I saw how they was trying to get out of work, how far they’d go, my mind was made up. Yeah. Clint Dugas.” He walked over to a spot about midway in the boneyard. “Old Clint would be about here, I reckon.” He squinted up at me. “Why?”

  “Just curious.”

  “Well, enough curiosity. Just march up to the bluff, okay? Don’t make it any harder than it’s got to be.”

  Pepper shot me a look from the corner of her eye and I tried to think of some way to delay the inevitable.

  “Go on,” he said, poking the rifle at me, “or I’ll have to shoot you both right here. Starting with her.”

  My legs wobbled and I wondered if I’d be able to make it the whole twenty yards. There had to be something I could do, some way to stop him. We passed the graves of the two convicts and I shuddered. Soon our graves would look the same way, and years from now, if we were lucky, somebody would dig up our bones. Lucky?

  We came to Ben’s body and I halted.

  “Mr. Briney …”

  The gun barrel poked me in the back. “Keep going.”

  I took a step but then I realized Pepper hadn’t moved.

  “I’m not going another step,” she said. “You’re just going to have to shoot me here.”

  I turned in time to see the gun barrel shift away, toward her.

  “If that’s what you want,” Briney said softly and cocked the hammer.

  That was when Ben groaned.

  “What in hell?” Briney’s head jerked around. Without thinking, I rushed him, pushing him backward. He tripped over the wounded man and lost his footing. The rifle went off and the bullet flew past my head. I grabbed the barrel and pushed it to the side, away from us. But Briney kicked out, his boot catching me in the groin. I doubled in agony and felt myself crumpling to the ground. Briney disentangled himself from Ben, grabbed the rifle, and for an eternal instant I stared down the barrel.

  Then there was a sound like a gong being struck and I saw the weapon fall away as its owner toppled to the ground. I looked up through tears to see Pepper standing over him with a shovel.

  “A man shouldn’t leave his tools lying around,” she said. “It could be dangerous.”

  I tried to grin between clenched teeth.

  “Take your time,” she said. “I’ve got the rifle now. And if there’s any permanent damage I may just shoot him where he lies.”

  She turned toward me, reaching out to help me up. And didn’t see Briney rising to his knees behind her. I yelled but it didn’t matter, because he was on his feet then, swaying, and before she could level the rifle he toppled backward and disappeared over the edge.

  EPILOGUE

  It was two days later and I was sitting in the shade of a red oak with David Goldman, watching the excavation crew sweat in the afternoon sun. It wasn’t my crew, but a group from the forensic anthropology program at the university, and I was just as glad. Frank LeMoine, the official representative of the Tunica-Biloxis, had been hovering all day, to make sure that the wrong bones weren’t disturbed. Not to be out-hovered, Bertha Bomberg, from the Corps of Engineers, had taken the forensic team aside and lectured them on proper archaeological method. The coroner, a thin little man named Potts, had come out in the morning, taken one look at the confusion, and prudently driven back to St. Francisville and his medical practice. No mixing in bureaucratic snafus for him.

  By two o’clock the sun was at its zenith and Frank decided the spirits of the dead did not require that their descendants suffer sunstroke, so he drifted over to the hickory tree on the other side of the clearing and pulled the bill of his cap down over his face. From the corner of my eye I saw Bertha heave a sigh of relief and sneak over to her government carryall.

  “So how did you figure it out?” David asked finally, waving away a fly. “I mean, that real Indian burials were there, too?”

  “I saw a lot of bones,” I said. “More than any twenty-five or thirty graves. I asked Briney where the first person he killed was buried. He pointed to a spot right in the middle. I’d looked at the ones on either side. There was a jawbone on the surface, just left of the Dugas grave. It didn’t have any fillings.”

  “Son-of-a-bitch,” David breathed. “You’re smarter than you look.”

  “Tell P. E. Courtney,” I said, my eyes fixed on one of the female diggers, who was at that moment on all fours in the boiling sun, probing the earth with a tiny dental pick.

  David shook his head. “Women.”

  Oddly, I felt sorry for her. She’d come south looking for her brother and so far she hadn’t had any luck. I wondered if she’d stay, and I felt a perverse wish that she would.

  “Anyway,” I went on, “I think Briney stumbled onto the lost village and its cemetery. I don’t know if he realized it was the lost village or not, but he knew it would be a good place to bury his victims. If he just redistributed the beads and bells and other artifacts a little, a careless glance would make anybody who wasn’t an expert figure they were part of the Indian burial ground, too.”

  “And old Absalom found it on his own, years later.”

  “That’s how I make it. He was scrounging artifacts from the burials. The same burials Briney was borrowing artifacts from to deck out his own victims when he buried them alongside the dead Tunicas. That’s why Briney had to get rid of him. He wasn’t too much of a danger at first, but once people started asking Absalom to show them where it was, well …”

  “And it wasn’t on T-Joe’s land or Carter Wascom’s, either.”

  “No. Carter will just have to go on living with the ghost of Eulalia and worrying about the scum in the bayou.”

  “Any idea where it’s coming from?”

  I shrugged. “Somebody may have dumped some barrels illegally. Or it may be some other industry upstream, like a sawmill.”

  There was the sound of an engine behind us and I turned my head in time to see a white car with the Public Safety and Corrections logo struggling up the incline. It gave up halfway there, its tires spitting dirt, and finally the driver shut off the engine. The doors opened and Warden Goodeau and two men I didn’t know got out. One of them had the air-brushed good looks of a politician and the other was younger and carried a camera. Goodeau puffed uphill toward us, and I heard a car door slam on the other side of the clearing. Bertha had seen them and was taking the short way, dodging through the diggers, determined to be first. But Frank was no slouch. At the first sound he’d jumped to his feet and had a good ten yards on her. Levi Goodeau stopped when he got to David and me and shook hands.

  “How’s it going?” he asked.

  “You’ll have to ask them,” I said, shaking his hand. “We’re just observers.”

  “And glad of it,” David mumbled, forcing himself up despite his cast.

  “This is Mr. Cromwell,” Goodeau said. “Secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections.”

  Cromwell stuck out a hand and gave us the old “vote for me” smile. “Glad to meetcha,” he said. “You fellas did a fine job.”

  The administration that employed him had only been in office two years, so he could afford to congratulate us.

  “This is Bud Wiley from the newspaper. He wants to take a few pictures.”

  By that time Frank LeMoine had reached us. “You aren’t going to photograph the dead?” he demanded.

  Before anyone could answer, Bertha had shoved past him:

  “I’m with the Corps of Engineers, in charge here. Can I help you gentlemen?”

  “I don’t want them taking pictures of our people’s dead bodies,” Frank said flatly.

  “Well, could we just get a shot of the crew digging?” Cromwell asked.

  “The Corps of Engineers has to give permission for any photographs not taken as part of the official archaeological
investigation,” Bertha declared.

  Cromwell put his arms over each of their shoulders and the trio walked into the sun, the photographer trailing. I saw them whispering to one another, saw Frank start to pull away, saw Cromwell nod, then Bertha raise an arm in indignation.

  “What a train wreck,” David muttered. “Everybody’s got to be in charge.”

  Warden Goodeau gave a little chuckle. “Human nature, I guess.” Then his face lit with his optimist’s smile. “But it could’ve turned out worse. I mean, the Indian boy is going to be all right. I visited him in the hospital this morning.”

  “There’s that,” I said.

  “But it doesn’t do much for the image of the prison. Granted, it happened before I was there and before Mr. Cromwell was secretary. But people won’t remember who was who. All they’ll remember is that Angola was the place where all those inmates were killed.” He shook his head. “It’ll take a long time to live down.”

  I nodded silently. He was right.

  “Well, we’ll see they get a decent burial,” he said. “That’s the least we can do. I guess they’re just going to leave the Indians there?”

  “That’s the plan for now,” I said. But I knew, as we all did, that the river was slowly eating away the base of the bluff, and that before much longer all the bones would be in the river. “The Tunica will probably decide to rebury them. There’s a special state commission that makes those kinds of decisions.”

  “Right,” David snorted. “If they can get a quorum together.”

  Actually, I thought, Marvin Ghecko had done a fairly good job of wending his way between the Scylla and Charybdis of Native American sensitivities and bureaucratic red tape, so that the forensic team could unearth the recent victims while a member of the tribe was on hand to see that the true ancients were not disturbed.

  “Briney…” Goodeau breathed, and I knew what he was thinking: The man had vanished. We all assumed he was dead but who could say?

  The photographer was backing off from the excavators now, his camera to his eye, and it was with a shock that I realized he was backing toward the spot from which Briney had fallen. Well, no one said journalism was risk-free. I relaxed and waited to see what would happen. I saw that Mr. Cromwell had taken a pose among the forensic team, presumably as titular head of the State Police, and, while Bomberg and LeMoine were beside him, I had a feeling the camera would somehow cut them out

  Then one of the excavators got up from her hands and knees and started toward us, and I saw Cromwell’s head turn toward her in disbelief.

  “Enough of that crap,” Pepper said, joining us in the shade. “He can get his own stooges for PR shots.”

  David’s head gave a little jerk in her direction, and I realized she’d taken on new stature in his eyes.

  “How you feeling?” she asked me.

  “A little sore,” I said.

  She nodded. “I imagine so, where he hit you.”

  I coughed.

  “I’ve been meaning to tell you how well I think you handled things,” she said suddenly. “Everything from Ben to Briney himself.”

  “Ben’s just a crazy kid,” I said. “As for Briney, I was scared to death.”

  “Yeah, but you’d been scared before, so you had practice.” She saw my frown. “You know, from Vietnam.”

  “I wasn’t in Nam,” I said. “I just said that to make my point with Ben. Truth is, I couldn’t think of anything else to say.”

  Pepper’s mouth came partway open, then closed.

  “You’re full of surprises,” she said.

  “I try,” I said modestly.

  We were still staring at each other when we heard an outcry from the direction of the excavation. Pepper turned and Goodeau shaded his eyes with a hand. The photographer was on his hands and knees now, on the edge of the precipice, and for a minute I had the absurd notion that he was polishing Cromwell’s shoes. By now the diggers had risen from their holes, and even Bomberg and LeMoine had gone to the edge of the bluff.

  Goodeau started forward, Pepper at his side, and even David hobbled after them on his crutch, but I didn’t want to go, because I had a premonition and it did funny things to my stomach. As I got to the excavations, I saw Bomberg turn away from the edge, a strange, green tint to her face.

  “Oh, my God,” she mumbled and headed for the bushes.

  “I just dropped my lens cap,” the photographer sputtered. “I was looking for it in the dirt when I saw it, I didn’t know, I mean, it was an accident…” He seemed to think I deserved an explanation but I ignored him. Ahead of me, Cromwell was wiping his handsome face with a handkerchief, and I thought I saw his hand shaking.

  “Need a boat,” Frank LeMoine pronounced, walking away. “Can’t do anything from here but fall in with him.”

  And I knew my premonition was correct.

  Goodeau and Pepper were both staring down when I reached them.

  “Better not get too close,” I said.

  Goodeau nodded and stepped back, but Pepper stayed rooted.

  “Alan, look, down there.” Her hand came out and grabbed my arm, as if I were a lifeline. “It’s him.”

  I didn’t have to look down, but I did, anyway, and what I saw was a man’s body, caught in the roots of an upended tree, turning and bobbing with the current. The fish and turtles had eaten away part of the flesh, so that the white of his skull showed where his face had been, but the clothes told the story: It was Marcus Briney.

  I stared for a long time, until I felt her grip relax, and then we turned away together.

  “Well, I’ll call for a boat,” Warden Goodeau said under his breath. Frank LeMoine had gone back to sit under the tree and I knew what he was thinking: This one isn’t one of ours. It’s one of theirs. And it’s the one who did the damage, so the case has come full circle, and now the old ones can sleep.

  Sleep. Suddenly it sounded pretty good to me, too.

  “Alan, are you all right?”

  I jerked my head up at her voice.

  “Me? I’m fine.”

  “That’s good. Because all at once I’m so tired I can hardly stand up.”

  “I could take you back,” I said.

  She nodded slowly. “I think I’d like that. If you wouldn’t mind.”

  We started down the slope together to where I was parked.

  “David can catch a ride back with some of the crew,” I said. “I’ll go tell him.” She nodded.

  I told David I was taking her home. At first he protested, then gave a shrug. “Why not? The fresh air feels good after all that time in the hospital.”

  I nodded and we started toward the car. So I’d handled it well. An accolade. From P. E. Courtney, Ph.D., no less. My limbs already felt lighter, and some of the fatigue of the last few days began to lift.

  “Look,” I said, just before we got to the Blazer. “About what you said up there after Briney hit me, about if I had permanent damage—”

  She gave me a blank look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I let her open her own door and then I got in and drove her home.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The author wishes to thank his agent, Peter Rubie, for his tireless efforts, and his editor, Coates Bateman, for his conscientious attempts to make this the best book possible.

  Finally, he is grateful to the staff of the Louisiana Division of Archaeology, whose professionalism has contributed so much to preserving the state’s heritage.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

&nbs
p; Copyright © 1998 by Malcolm K. Shuman

  Cover design by Michel Vrana

  ISBN: 978-1-4976-5025-1

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