One Grave Less

worked hard and always did a good job, they would give her more responsibility in the household—and that was her power. She told Maria that her idea was to find a rich family, but that never happened. It was always families like the one she worked for at the village where she met Maria. They were well off in their own little corner of the world, but actually rather poor.
    The last family had her cook also for Julio and Patia, Maria’s kidnappers. That was how Rosetta came to know about the new woman prisoner. Rosetta always cooked the food for prisoners and she’d heard they had a woman named Diane Fallon. She had seen the person led in and knew she wasn’t her mother, but she also heard she was a bone woman from Georgia, United States. Rosetta had found someone who could take her home. She just needed a plan.
    Rosetta’s voice faded so that Maria could barely hear her words, but all her hopes and fears came through clearly in her narrative.
    “You are an amazing little girl,” said Maria. “Your mother is going to be so very proud of you.”
    “We’ll find her, won’t we?” she said.
    “Yes, we’ll find her,” said Maria. “I know where to find her.”
    “You have a plan for how to get us to her?” asked Rosetta.
    “I’m forming one,” she said.
    “Good. You go to sleep and I’ll listen for trouble.”
    Maria smiled and settled as comfortably as she could in the small cab of the truck. She listened to the jungle noise and thought about the things Rosetta had told her.
    Julio had called himself a trip wire. He had been on the lookout for a forensic anthropologist from Georgia—apparently they thought Diane Fallon was the only one. Maria supposed that Patia figured working at an archaeological dig was a good place to keep a lookout. And it had paid off—or so they thought.
    Patia and Julio were also looking out for anyone who asked about feathers and bones. Feathers and bones? What did that mean? What was it about feathers and bones? Bones she could guess—mass human burials, most likely, maybe—but feathers? Were those all the keywords that would trip the wire, or were there other things Julio and Patia were to look and listen for? And did any of this have anything to do with the massacre at the mission?
    Did current events have anything to do with what Diane Fallon had been investigating? Maria had heard rumors that Fallon was collecting evidence of atrocities by a dictator she was trying to expose, and it was he who massacred the people at the mission. But then if that were the case, Rosetta’s narrative didn’t quite track. There was something missing.
    It sounded like Father Joe discovered something so bad that he thought it would cost him his soul. Pretty tough thought for a priest.
    And what was going to happen on the third of May, tres de mayo ? Maria was sure that was what she had heard—the third of May.
    Was there really a danger of going to an embassy? Which embassy? British? People from the UK weren’t the only ones who spoke with a British accent.
    And speaking of accents, here they were, as nearly as she could tell, on the Brazilian side of the boarder with Peru, but everyone was speaking Spanish—no Portuguese. Was this some enclave of Spanish-speaking Brazilians? Some forgotten indigenous tribe? Or, perhaps, were they some group in exile? And who were these bad guys in make-shift uniforms? Bandits? The rag-tag remnants of a private army?
    Thoughts flowed back and forth through her brain, like panning for gold, as she eventually drifted off to sleep.
    The next awareness she had, it was late morning. She awoke to Rosetta patting her on the arm.
    “I thought you needed sleep,” said Rosetta. “I need to go. I’ll stay near the truck.” She hopped out.
    “I’m sure you were right about the sleep,” Maria called after her. “I feel better.”
    Maria stretched and sat up straight. She was stiff and sore but surprisingly rested—and optimistic. She had slept hardly at all after she was kidnapped and she had been terrified the entire time. Some of that terror had left, taken away by the sandman. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands and blinked until the blur of sleep left.
    “What do you say we eat something and get started?” she said, looking out the window. She decided to wait until after breakfast to try starting the truck. If she were to be disappointed, she wanted it to be on a full stomach.
    Her gaze rested on the huge mound of dirt and brush they