Free Strange Country by Deborah Coates Page A

the end?

 
    8
    They entered Prue Stalking Horse’s house through the side door, which was a relief. Not that Boyd wouldn’t have walked in the front, past the spot where Prue had lain on the hard porch floor and died. He’d have done it. He was a master at pushing things down and moving past. It was what he did.
    Some days, though, pushing things down and moving past was exhausting.
    The kitchen looked almost the same as it had the previous night. The gloomy winter sky outside cast shadows underneath the counters, but Boyd could see that on a sunny day, it would be warm and welcoming.
    They heard heavy footsteps, and a moment later, Ole emerged from the cellar. He nodded at them in greeting and crossed to a short counter near the door where he retrieved a big steel thermos. He poured coffee, still hot enough that Boyd could see steam rising, into a collapsible cup, then offered coffee to each of them in turn by the simple expedient of holding the thermos toward one and then the next in his large hand. He drained his cup in one long swallow, wiped a hand across his mouth, and said, “You better take a look.”
    He gestured for Boyd to go first, like he wanted his impressions of the cellar and whatever was down there without Ole or Agents Cross and Gerson interfering.
    The basement was really a cellar with dirt floors and stone walls, cold and damp even now as winter shifted over into spring. Light came from two naked bulbs, one directly at the bottom of the stairs and another just to the left of a big furnace that must have been at least fifty years old. The two bulbs cast weak yellow light on the dark walls and floor.
    Past the furnace and a small stack of old cardboard boxes darkened by age and probably by the dampness in the cellar was a single work light clamped to a floor joist, the white cord running down the wall and across the cellar to an outlet attached to another floor joist near the stairs. Boyd approached, noting that the floor was uneven beneath his boots.
    A pickax and a shovel were leaned up against the long wall. Someone had dug a shallow pit, maybe a foot deep at most. Inside, clearly though not completely exposed, were the remains of a human skeleton.
    Boyd looked at Ole, who was standing just behind him at the bottom of the stairs, Cross two steps up, and Gerson halfway down.
    “A body?”
    Ole still didn’t say anything, his mouth set in a grim line.
    Boyd stepped forward and crouched by the pit, taking a moment to study the exposed parts of the skeleton carefully—half the skull, the arc of a collarbone, the upper portion of the rib cage, the left ulna, bits of both the right and left hand, and what he took for the right femur. In the dirt just to the left of the lowest exposed rib, but also in the dug-out pit, was a disturbed bit of earth and what looked like chunks of newly mined coal, gray and dark. He almost reached out to brush the dirt from the area, but stopped himself. Instead, he got up, unclipped the work light from the overhead floor joist, squatted back down in a slightly different location for a better view. He tilted the light to shine on the spot he wanted to inspect. Something shone back at him. Three somethings, he realized as the lamplight shifted, spaced like an equilateral triangle. Not clumps of dirt or even coal, but something that reflected light, like glass or gemstones.
    “What—?” Before he could finish the sentence, there was a bright flash of light big enough to fill the cellar and momentarily blind him. As it faded, Boyd heard a rumble of thunder as if from a long way off. He stood, quick enough that he stumbled.
    Ole put a hand under his elbow. “Okay?” he said.
    Boyd blinked against the afterflash. His heart pounded like a roar in his ears. He wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t nervous. He wasn’t even breathing hard and he didn’t think his heart was beating too fast—just loud. It felt as if there was still something there, something unseeable in the cellar