Free The Bog by Michael Talbot Page A

up beside him, and together they watched as Tuck vanished into the living room. “He worships you, you know.”
    “I’m pretty fond of him too,” David said. He kissed Melanie one last time and then left.
    The digs were about two and a half miles from the hunter’s cottage, and he had agreed to travel the distance on foot so that Melanie could have the car for errands. As in his trip here to see the body Brad had discovered, there was a nip in the air, and a pall of early morning fog still hung over the moors. He walked briskly, but to his surprise it still took him about half an hour to reach the campsite.
    He arrived to find Brad already hard at work, continuing to enlarge the pit containing the body of the young woman.
    “Good morning,” David greeted him.
    “Good morning,” Brad returned with an air of excitement. “This is just amazing. I’ve just about uncovered ill of her body, and she’s one of the most perfectly preserved specimens I’ve ever seen.”
    David too felt a crackle of excitement as he looked down at the body. Her legs, her feet, everything except for the slight decomposition around the neck was in perfect condition.
    “Any sign of how she died yet?”
    Brad shook his head. “Nothing. I just can’t figure it out. There are rope marks here on her wrists, so at least we know that she was tied before she was killed, but that doesn’t tell us all that much. And even though part of her neck is covered, I’ve removed the peat from the side here and there’s no sign that she was strangled. There are also no knife wounds, no visible contusions or fractures. As I say, unless her wounds are concealed under her body we have a real puzzle on our hands.”
    David crouched down beside the pit and stroked his chin. “You know, I’ve been thinking about this. From the expression on her face and the rope marks on her wrists it seems clear that she didn’t die of illness or natural causes. She had to have been murdered in some way. However, if she had been murdered because of adultery or some other social crime, her head would have been shaved. That was the Celtic custom. And if she had been accused of being a witch or possessed or something, she would have been weighted down with rocks or oak palings to prevent her spirit from returning and once again walking the earth. By process of elimination, although we have yet to determine the precise cause of death, the only thing I can come up with is that she was a sacrificial victim of some sort.”
    Brad grunted from exertion. “That’s exactly the same conclusion I arrived at.”
    David chuckled. “Sorry, Brad. I keep forgetting, you hardly need these lectures. Don’t worry, I’ll learn.” Brad looked up at him and smiled, and it struck David that the slight tension between them had dissipated.
    “I just wish we could figure out the cause of death,” Brad said.
    “Don’t worry,” David returned. “As soon as we begin to get the sludge off of her I think we’ll find that out.” For the next several hours David took over the digging, and by midafternoon they had expanded the pit enough so that they could fit a large sheet of plywood under the body lengthwise. Only then could they lift the body out plank and all, and thus avoid the risk of breakage. Finally they began the long and arduous task of separating the body and the sheet of plywood from the sticky and tenacious peat beneath it. Then, together, and with their boots sinking deep into the peat at the bottom of the pit, they lifted the body out.
    David looked up at the campsite. While he had been busy packing and moving his family, Brad had also been busy setting up a second tent, much larger than the one he slept in, and filling it with all of the equipment, barrels of solvents, tables, and the portable generator they would need to operate their field laboratory. They climbed out of the pit and carried the body up the hill to the tent.
    After they had placed it on the examining table,