Birthright

when work would start up again, with his wife worrying every day and every night about the money he’d already sunk into the development.
    He walked quietly toward one of the squares, glancing at the trailer, then at the trees, when he thought he heard a rustling.
    The sudden screech of an owl had him dropping the bag, then laughing at himself. Imagine, an old hand like him being spooked in the dark. Why, he’d hunted the woods around here since he was a boy.
    Not these woods, of course, he thought with another nervous glance at the deep shadows in the silent trees. Most tended to steer clear of the woods at Simon’s Hole. Not that he believed in ghosts. But there were plenty of places to hunt, to camp, to walk, besides a place that made the hair stand up on a man’s neck at night.
    It would be good when the development was done, he told himself as he kept a wary eye on the woods and picked up his bag of bones. Good to have people mowing their lawns and kids playing in the yards. Cookouts and card games, dinner on the stove and the evening news on the TV.
    Life, he thought, and swiped at the sweat beading over his top lip as those shadows seemed to sway, to gather, to move closer.
    His hand trembled as he reached in the bag, closed his hand over a cool, damp bone.
    But he didn’t want to go down into the hole. It was like a grave, he realized. What kind of people spent their time in holes digging for bones like ghouls?
    He’d get one of the shovels, that’s what he’d do. He’dget one of the shovels and bury the bones around the holes and the piles of dirt. That was just as good.
    He heard the sounds again—a plop in the water, a shifting of brush. This time he whirled, shining his narrow beam toward the trees, toward the pond where a young boy named Simon had drowned before Dolan was born.
    “Who’s out there?” His voice was low, shaky, and the beam bobbled as it zigzagged through the dark. “You got no right to be creeping around out here. This is my land. I’ve got a gun, and I’m not afraid to use it.”
    He wanted a shovel now, as much for a weapon as for a tool. He darted toward a tarp, caught the toe of his shoe in one of the line ropes. He went down hard, skinning the heels of his hands as he threw them out to break his fall. The penlight went flying.
    He cursed himself, shoved to his knees. Nobody there, he told himself. Of course there was nobody out there at goddamn one in the morning. Just being a fool, jumping at shadows.
    But when the shadow fell across him, he didn’t have time to scream. The bright pain from the blow to the back of his head lasted seconds only.
    When his body was dragged to the pond, rolled into the dark water, Dolan was as dead as Simon.

PART II
    The Dig
    Why seek ye the living among the dead?
    LUKE 24:5
----

Eleven
    D igger was soaking wet and smoking the Marlboro he’d bummed from one of the sheriff’s deputies in great, sucking drags.
    He’d ditched cigarettes two years, three months and twenty-four days before. But finding a dead body when he’d gone out to relieve his bladder in the misty dawn had seemed like the perfect reason to start again.
    “I just jumped right in. Didn’t think, just went. Had him half up on the bank there before I saw how his skull was crushed. No point in mouth-to-mouth. Ha. No point in it then.”
    “You did what you could.” Callie put an arm around his skinny shoulders. “You should go get some dry clothes.”
    “They said they’d have to talk to me again.” His hair hung in tangled wet ropes around his face. The hand that brought the cigarette to his mouth shook. “Never did like talking to cops.”
    “Who does?”
    “Searching my trailer.”
    She winced as she glanced over her shoulder to the grimy trailer. “You got any pot in there? Anything that’s going to get you in trouble?”
    “No. I gave up grass, mostly, about the same time I quit tobacco.” He managed a wan smile at the Marlboro he’d smoked almost to the filter. “Maybe I’ll pick both habits back up again. Jesus, Cal, the fuckers think maybe I did it.” The thought of it rattled around in his belly like greasy dice.
    “They just have to check things out. But if you’re really worried, we’ll call a lawyer. I can call Lana Campbell.”
    He puffed, shook his head. “No, let them look. Let them go on and look. Nothing in there has anything to do with this. If I was going to kill somebody, I’d be better at it. Didn’t even know the son of a