The Bone Thief

1

Camp Quahog

South County, Rhode Island

Unceded Narragansett Land

August 2008

Someone is hunting me.

With each step I take on the dirt path, there is a distinct crunch behind me as if camouflaging their movements with mine. I drop against the stone wall I've been following and scan the path. There are only silhouettes of trees in these dark and unfamiliar woods. Silence except my erratic breath.

I could run back to my truck. Return to my quiet house. Slip into bed next to my sleeping wife, who has no idea I'm about to break the law.

The most pathetic lies are the ones we tell ourselves.

Remaining in the shadows may hide me, but it cannot keep me safe. This is more than being a woman alone in the woods, because my real enemy is time. More specifically, the imminent dawn. I gotta move.

Stepping as softly as I can, I approach the oversized iron gate until I confirm my fear: it's locked. A lone security light illuminates letters in a metal arc: camp quahog. A place I'd barely known existed until a few hours ago. Certainly not somewhere I was planning on breaking and entering.

I hurry toward a shape in the distance that could almost be open arms. But really, it's a maple tree. I don't wait to listen for advancing footsteps, instead I pull myself onto the lowest branch. The tree eases some tension, as if I'm hidden, and I climb higher, another branch, then another. At least ten feet in the air, I can see the top of the wall. I scan the ground, and whoever was hunting is quiet and still.

I adjust my weight as I reach toward the wall, but there's a crack under my boot and my whole center of gravity drops. My arms slam into the limb, and the bark cuts my skin as I cling tight despite the sharp pain.

Well, shit.

My legs flail as I search for another branch, but there's nothing but air between me and the ten-foot drop. I extend my shaking leg, and my foot barely smacks the edge of the wall before returning under me. I scoot and scrape along the branch to get a few inches closer. When I stretch my leg again, the toe of my boot reaches the top of the wall. I do the same with the other foot, using everything left to push off the branch and let go.

I nearly topple over, but manage to land on my ass, straddling the wall like a horse. I dig my fingers into the hard edge while forcing myself to breathe deeply.

I made it.

Grinning up at the stars, I'm relieved they're the only witnesses to what my wife would certainly call foolishness. My breath grows slower and finally steady, matching the calm night sounds of frogs and crickets.

Now what.

On the other side of the wall, there's at least a mile of clear-cut field. The dark shapes of buildings. No light, except the almost-full moon, which illuminates a long pathway in the center of the camp toward more dense forest. I wonder if that's the way to "the back of the camp" or if I'm just guessing because I'm desperate. To the east the darkness of night is shifting to purple.

Time to go.

I grip the top of the wall, and my left foot trails down until I find a jutting rock. Then another slightly lower step for the right. My luck runs out, so I stretch my legs as far as I can and let go. The slam into the ground knocks me onto my shoulder. I groan as I cradle my arm and blink up at stars.

In the cool dewy grass, I wait for pain to dull. There's only my breath and then a distant engine. A motorcycle or ATV. I pray the hunter is gone.

Standing with a grunt, I rotate my shoulder. The camp appears empty, only one car in the parking lot. A Google search said it opens tomorrow, so maybe I won't run into any teenagers sneaking out of their cabins or counselors doing the same.

Hurrying across the field, I glimpse over my shoulder for the hunter but see nothing. I rush along the path I'd spotted from the wall leading into the woods. My boots crunch against sticks and underbrush, and I'm not as quiet as I'd like. There are a few noises behind me the deeper I go, but nothing definitively human. I fast walk for another ten minutes before a sharp turn. As I round the corner, I freeze at a glow about twenty feet away.

I duck off the path and watch. Nothing crosses the light. I creep behind a tree, then a bush. Finally I'm close enough to see the light is an electric lantern resting on a tree stump. There is something lying beside it.

As I approach the stump, two trees loom over the area like a canopy. Next to the light is a book with a red cover. I crouch down and flip it open where a red ribbon marks the page. There's a faded cursive print, and I remove my flashlight to read the looping words.

Private Journal of the Warden, Year of our Lord 1675

We buried the Indian Queen under the three elms where her people would gather for prayer.

I frown at the word "Queen" because tribes do not have queens; the monarchy was a colonist import. While I'm curious about the journal, it's not a priority. I turn my flashlight to the ground, and there is a shovel.

This is the place. Thirty minutes until dawn.

I approach what looks like a shadow, but I'm certain it is not. I kneel at the edge with my flashlight where someone removed approximately three feet of earth. This is a dig pit for an excavation of human remains.

In a perfect circle of light, I find what I feared. My flashlight reveals the tip of a moccasin poking out of the dirt. The fragile scraps of leather with red beads in a strawberry pattern. The bones of a foot tucked neatly inside. I frown at the shovel that rests nearby, too large for this shallow dig. At least whatever remains beneath the soil is undisturbed.

I got here in time.

A beam of light bursts across my eyes, and I throw up my hands.

I can't see anything, but I hear a deep voice say, "You move, you die."

2

I keep my eyes shut against the light. Maybe I should be scared, but all I feel is anger.

"Who are you?" the deep voice asks.

"Who are you?" I snap.

Footsteps draw closer. "The one not trespassing."

"I'm not. Get that light out of my eyes, and I'll show you." The beam shifts lower, and I blink at a world of small pulsing lights in the darkness. "I need to get something. Out of my pocket."

"Hey!" he calls as if I'm pulling a gun, too.

"It's my phone." I put my flashlight away and motion toward my other pocket. "In here, okay?"

He moves his light over the lower half of my body. "Slowly."

I take out my work cell and dial into the messages. There is only one saved, and I put the phone on speaker: "Bud, after all these years, you were right. We found the remains at the back of the camp. Can you be here at first light?"

As my eyes adjust, I see a younger guy's sharply angular face, maybe early twenties, pale skin, and wavy red hair. He's not holding a gun, and I don't see anything that could be one. A bluff.

I wait for him to admit that's his voice, but instead he says, "How did you come to possess Bud's phone?"

"It's not his. It's BIA's." I stop there, not explaining that as an archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, it's rare for me to get calls on my work cell after hours, so I'd paid attention to this one.

Leave it, my old boss Bud Russell said when I took our shared work cell home with me. Where do you think the bones will go, Syd?

That's not a question I would answer, because our views differed on how to do this job.

"Do you need me to replay it?" I hold up the phone. "That's your voice, right?"

I don't explain that Bud had a map of Camp Quahog hanging on the wall of our office, if you can call it that. Basically a shed where we store the dig equipment. When I heard the message, I guessed this was the place.

He pulls a walkie-talkie off his belt. "This is Tad at Camp Quahog, over."

A crackle and then: "You've got FS security, over."

"Security?" I close my flip phone. "I'm an archeologist armed with a toothbrush, Tad." I swap the phone for the brush in my pocket to show him. "Literally."

Tad holds up his flashlight and takes several steps closer to me and the dig pit. I think of Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow and the glow from the Headless Horseman. "That does not preclude you from being a risk to what we're doing."

Interesting. "What exactly are you doing?"

He brings the walkie-talkie back to his mouth. "I need a security escort off the camp property."

"Roger, I was tracking," says the man's voice, and my hunter is revealed. "What's your location?"

"We're near Bud's Big Dig, over."

I frown at the use of my old boss's name. "Bud's what?"

The man's voice on the walkie-talkie responds, "Confirmed, I will be there in seven minutes, over."

Tad clicks the device back onto his belt. "Ample time for you to elucidate your possession of Bud's phone."

I almost roll my eyes at that one. Elucidate. Instead, I focus on what matters and turn toward the exposed remains in the dirt. A familiar feeling has arrived, as if these bones are in crisis, forced to reach toward me for help. Now I have less than seven minutes to convince Tad to see it that way. "It's not Bud's phone. It belongs to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is where I still work."

His face falls. "Bud doesn't?"

"He retired."

"Since when?"

"Six months ago." I keep myself from saying it felt like Bud was retired all five years I worked for him.

"You're lying."

I snicker. "Lying about my boss retiring?"

Tad watches me for a moment as if divining the truth. Finally, something shifts, and his shoulders droop as his flashlight's beam shines into the pit. "Bud should be here."

From his tone, I wonder if they were friends. If this information has hurt his feelings somehow. "There wasn't a party. He put in his papers and left."

"I hadn't heard from him since last summer." Tad runs his hands through this hair. "He's desultory-"

"I don't know that one," I interrupt. "Elucidate."

"It means Bud lacks foresight at times. Pinning him down was nearly impossible." Tad lets out a big sigh. "We have so many plans."

Bud mentioned helping with the camp during the summer. More time fishing on their private pond, I'd assumed, but never asked. He certainly didn't indicate there was an archeological connection.

Bud, you were right. We found the remains at the back of the camp. Can you be here at first light?

They were searching for these bones. Now that they've found them, what's next?

I put my hands in my pockets hoping Tad will accept my help. "Look, I know Bud's not here, but I am."

The light casts a shadow across Tad's downturned face. "Who are you?"

I sigh because I'm not going to lie, though maybe I should. The last thing I need is another issue on my record for BIA to investigate. "I'm Syd Walker. Bud was my boss for five years." I pause to smile a little, to communicate that I'm here to help. "At a glance, I'd say these remains are historical and tribal."

Tad's trance is broken, and he pulls up to his full height. "How old, do you think?"

"Based on the depth of this dig and location to the Great Swamp area, it's likely these remains are tied to King Philip's War. At least three hundred years."

"That's good, Syd." A smile of pleasure widens across his face. A strange reaction to my mentioning the bloodiest conflict on Rhode Island soil, when the colonists led an unprovoked attack against the Narragansett. "Very good."

"I'm happy to contact the tribe," I continue. "Their summer powwow starts this afternoon. I can speak to the tribal protection officer. We can ask for his-"

"No, Syd." He draws close, his eyes reflecting victory in the scattered light. "We aren't ready for that yet."

My rage is a small point of tension above my heart, an ember that spreads as my mind makes a connection to an injustice. "This is someone's ancestor," I say firmly, gesturing toward the large shovel resting in the dirt. "Not a fun project for campers."

"I'm not explaining our research program to you," he says as if our conversation is over. "If you have a problem, take it up with your new boss at BIA."

"Or the police?"

"On private land?" He chuckles. "Sure, call them. Local or state? The chief likes his martini on the rocks."

I tip my chin into where he's crowded my personal space. "How about the state archeologist. You make his drinks, too?"

"He knows we'll file the appropriate paperwork." Tad blinks down at me. "Not to put too fine a point on it, Syd, but what outcome do you envision? The archeology police storming the camp?"

He's not wrong that there's no enforcement, but this goes beyond the law. "How about because it's the right thing to do?"

There's a twitch under his eye as I've struck a nerve. "I studied anthropology at Yale. I'm aware of what's ethical."

Of course he went to Yale, a university with thousands of artifacts and the remains of hundreds of Indigenous people. Not the worst offender in the Ivies, but nothing to be proud of either. "Who's setting those ethical standards?" I ask. "Not anyone in the tribal community."

"I've watched Bud, who works for your employer, run sites since I was a boy at Camp Quahog. I can handle it."

I recoil at the truth: Bud has been digging at this place for decades.

In the distance is the motor from before. Panic rises in my chest, the dread of having to leave these bones in untrained and, frankly, uncaring hands.

I flinch at bright lights passing over us from some kind of four-wheeler until the engine cuts off. Tad heads back to the lantern and raises it into the air, calling out, "Over here, Les!"