Free The Summoning God: Book II of the Anasazi Mysteries by W. Michael Gear, Kathleen O’Neal Gear Page B

curving walls that hemmed them. “About time.”
    “Got that right, massa.”
    Dusty’s mouth pursed distastefully. “Did I ever tell you how much I hate that?”
    “Don’ worry, boss. If’n I find myself offensive, I’ll report myself to the NAACP.” Steve grinned.
    Dusty said, “You know, a man with an IQ of one hundred and seventy-six, a GPA of four point three, who’s finishing his Ph.D. dissertation on an analysis of Chacoan religious philosophy within a Jungian context shouldn’t talk like Uncle Remus all the time.”
    “I’ll keep dat in mind.” Steve bent down and frowned at the ground. “Is that what I think it is?”
    “Roof beam, I’d say.” They were finally coming down on the bottom. Excavating kiva fill was one of the least favorite things in archaeological excavation. The only thing he anticipated with more dread was backfilling. Kivas, as a matter of course, were large holes in the ground. Gravity had a thing about holes; it spent all of its time filling them back up again. In this case, collapsed walls, wind-borne dust and sand, bits of twigs and seeds, and anything that seven hundred and fifty years of rain could wash in had collected over the collapsed roof, and the cultural level on the original kiva floor.
    Dusty surveyed the rock-stippled brown earth and the one broken section of charred beam. “I think this is going to be a son of a gun.”
    Steve nodded. “In the old days, they would have just chunked that stuff out.”
    “Yeah, well.” Dusty looked up at the shiny steel datum stake they’d driven into the ground. “We’d better get an elevation on that charred beam. If we do this right, we can have the rest of the fill out of here by quitting time.”
    Instead, it took until noon the next day before Dusty and Steve had removed the last of the wall rubble. Dusty crouched on one of the pilasters overlooking the floor and updated his notes while Steve used a flat shovel to begin scraping through the silty sand that had trickled down over the collapsed roof. Because they’d been burned, the heavy beams had been preserved, and the actual shape of the roof could be determined.
    “Whoa!” Steve laid his shovel aside and reached into his back pocket for his trowel. “I’ve got bone here, Dusty.”
    Dusty arched an eyebrow as he put the finishing touches on a sketch map of the kiva floor. A slight red discoloration of the soil was the only discernible feature beyond the scattered charcoal and root casts from long dead plants. “What kind?”
    Steve dropped to his hands and knees, his trowel ringing as he scraped away the surrounding soil. “Better come look; this is weird.”
    Dusty lowered himself from the pilaster and crowded next to Steve. Where the shovel edge had cut the bone surface, it gleamed oddly yellow against the dark, ash-filled soil.
    Dusty took a brush from his back pocket and whisked the dirt away. The bone had a mottled look. “Burned. Probably the same time the kiva went up. Small, though. Maybe a deer or antelope?”
    “I don’t think so.” Steve shifted to allow the slanting sunlight to shine on the bone. “Cortex isn’t thick enough for deer.”
    “Well, it’s not an adult.” Dusty had worked on burials not so long ago. He could imagine Maureen’s black eyes narrowing as she examined the bone, knowing with certainty what it was.
    Steve said, “I’m guessing this is a humerus, an arm bone. But it’s missing the condyle. Epiphyseal line hasn’t ossified.”
    “Right.” Dusty gave Steve a disgusted glance. “Sounds Greek to me.”
    “Very good, Mr. Principal Investigator, sir.” Steve turned it over in his hand. “But I can’t even guess as to age, sex, or any of that other stuff.”
    “It’s one bone,” Dusty said, straightening and clapping the dust from his hands. “Shoot it in, photograph it, record it, and let’s get on with life.”
    “Yassuh, massa.”
    “Quit that.”
    Steve saluted.
    Dusty climbed back up, balanced on the