Blood Ties (7 page)

What troubled Forest was that he'd never married
and had no son to continue the tradition. Soon, he'd
have to find someone to take over his role. Will would
have been a candidate-not in his wild youth, but
now, if he hadn't been too old. No, the duty had to pass to someone younger ... someone smart and honest ... perhaps somebody like Daniel Catlin.

"The fund has worked for us for a long time," Will
said. "Kept my kin from hard times during the Great
Depression. But once outsiders move onto Tawes, the
system would fall by the wayside."

"True enough."

"Some folks start thinking about what they want, instead of what they need."

"You're right. It's one of the things that makes me
want to stop Onicox Realty from getting a foothold on
the island."

"I could go into court," Will suggested, "swear to
what I was told about Tom Sherwood's granddad being a tenant farmer, but I've got a criminal record.
Who would pay heed to what I said?"

"You won't have that record for long. I expect a full
pardon from the governor for you in another few
months."

Will scowled. "If I was as pure as Adam's well water,
what my granddad and uncles told me forty years ago is
nothing but hearsay. Itwon't hold dirt in a courtroom."

"Let me see what I can manage before you do anything crazy."

"All right. Try it your way." Will propped his feet up
on a tackle box and settled back into the deck chair.

"I need you to keep a rein on the hotheads. People
respect you."

"They're scared of me, you mean." Will swirled the
whiskey in his cup and stared off over the bay." "'Spect
we'll get that rain."

"I need your word that you'll be patient."

"I'll hold off as long as I can. But if you can't keep
these pirates off our land, there's some will fall back
on island justice."

Waves of fog seeped up from earth and water after the
storm, drifting over the wetland and woods, filtering
through the rain-soaked mass of leaves, vines, and intertwined marsh grass. From somewhere inland, a
screech owl shrieked, the eerie cry drifting over the
misty swamp, adding to the cacophony of night birds'
calls, a rabbit's high-pitched death scream, the flutter
of wings, and the ceaseless croaking of frogs.

Its ears raised and nostrils flared to catch the scent
of danger, a doe stepped out of the phragmites. Behind her trailed twin fawns, young enough to bear
spots still. The deer snatched a mouthful of grass and
took a half-dozen steps, then froze as she caught a
glimpse of movement in the trees. Her pupils expanded as a formless shadow emerged from the gloom
and glided down the slope toward her. With a frantic
bleat, the doe reared on hind legs and plunged into
the rippling salt grass. The fawns darted after her, leaving swaying fronds in their wake.

Oblivious of the deer's flight, the shadowy figure
moved among the trees, bow and arrow gripped
tightly in his hands. On nights like this, he roamed
this marsh, guarding the old graves, listening for the
drums and the whispers of those long dead, feeling
the damp mist on his face and the wet ground soaking
through the soles of his deerskin moccasins.

Rage churned in his bowels, and hot, salt tears
blurred his vision and streaked his weathered cheeks
as he found the spot and dropped to his knees on the
sand. The bow and arrow fell from his clenched fingers, and he hugged himself, rocking back and forth
in mute agony until he could bear it no longer. With
head thrown back, an inhuman wail of grief issued
from his distended throat and echoed through the
night.

Sunrise exploded over the silver-gray surface of the
bay in fluorescent shades of orange, orchid, gold, and
vermilion, and Buck Davis had a front-row seat
through the windshield of Abbie's aircraft. "Sort of
takes your breath away, doesn't it?" he said.

Abbie manipulated the cyclic stick and brought the
Beta II around to hover over Bailey's narrow strip of
beach. The helicopter was high enough to avoid the
treetops, but still low enough to give them a bird's-eye
view of the eighteenth-century house and outbuildings. "Nice," she replied. "Very nice."

"Never the same. The sunrise."

"Breathtaking." She glanced down at her control
panel before guiding the aircraft out over the edge of
the bay. Below, the water sparkled and she could see
crab pots bobbing on the waves. "Have you seen the
sun come up over the Grand Canyon?" She wasn't
wearing a helmet, and both headsets were voiceactivated so that carrying on a normal conversation
was easy.

"Nope. Never been to the Southwest. Always
thought I'd like to."

"The mesa country-around the Four Corners,
where Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico
meet. Different from this, but still magnificent." She
circled over the dock and river and rotated away from
the farmstead.

Buck pointed. "Over there is a big field where you
can land, if you've a mind to. It was recently mowed.
Bailey uses it for pasture, but the horses are grazing in
the south meadow for the summer."

Abbie surveyed the open area. "Looks good. I'm
anxious to take a look at the dig site. From the air."

"Hang a left. Not far as the crow flies."

"So much green. Reminds me of the British Isles."

"What made you decide to fly one of these?" Buck glanced around the interior of the aircraft. "Pretty
fancy."

Abbie chuckled. "Dad saw the Beta II at an air show.
Had to have one. It's reliable and convenient. Cruises
at one-hundred-and-ten mph. And quiet-as helicopters go."

"What's the range?"

"Three hundred miles. Dad has a lot of ranch to
oversee."

"I've been up in the Delaware State Police helicopters, but I'm no pilot. How much weight can you carry?"

"About four hundred pounds with a full tank of
fuel."

"You're used to traveling light?"

She nodded. "A backpack. Books. And my camera."

"There." He peered out through the left door window and indicated the wetlands that flowed into
marshland, interspersed with pools and meandering
waterways that spilled into the edges of the bay.
"There's some high ground with old hardwood forest.
But the hill places are being nibbled away by rising
water."

Below, a deer started up out of the carpet of tall
grass and leaped away. Abbie saw flocks of ducks and
shore birds and a pair of Canada geese. "Looks almost
primeval."

"Mainlanders assume there's nothing there, but the
marsh is full of life. Turtles, fish, frogs, snakes. Birds of
every kind. Deer, fox."

"Is that what I am? A mainlander?"

He laughed. "I barely escaped being one myself
even though I was born on this island. My folks have
lived here since the 1700s. Philadelphia's Main Line
has nothing over Tawes when it comes to exclusivity."
He pointed again. "Down there. Just beyond those
cedars. That's where Sean Gilbert was digging in the Indian burial ground. See that rise? With the oak
grove? Swing around to get a look at the far side. Closest to the beach. That's where Matthew's Irish stuff
came from."

"You know about that?"

Buck grinned. "This is Tawes. Not many secrets
here. You'd have to be blind and deaf not to be privy
to Matthew's hoard of Irish treasure. I must have been
about seven the first time I got a good look at it."

Abbie stared at the wooded slope. With the heavy
ground cover of vines, bushes, and saplings, there
wasn't much to see. But the scenario fit. If a bronzeage Irishman had been buried here thousands of years
ago, flooding could have exposed the grave. If ... She
cautioned herself against building theories on af. All
that mattered in archaeology was scientific proof.

Sunlight glinted on something farther back in the
marsh, and she leaned forward to get a better view.
Two figures were making their way along a narrow
path through the reeds. "Unless I miss my guess,
there's my mother now. And Reverend Catlin."

"Ambitious lady. They must have started before first
light."

"Once my mother gets the scent of a new find, she's
worse than a bloodhound. Chances of discovering a
bronze-age grave site are slim. About six million to
one. She didn't get to bed last night until after two.
She and Emma were out on the porch for hours.
Emma says the site is haunted by the ghost of an Indian medicine man."

"Lots of stories about this marsh. They say a Yankee
patrol went in there searching for a deserter. He never
came out, and neither did the soldiers chasing him.
Never found hide nor hair of them. I suppose they
could have stumbled into quicksand. Easy to get
turned around in that swamp, and there are low spots with quick sand. Even hunters and trappers tend to
stay clear."

"Apparently not Matthew and his amateur archaeologists."

"Lots of folks think Matthew's fey."

"Fey?"

He tapped his forehead. "Touched. Not entirely
sound of mind."

"What you're telling me is that we've come to track
down the tall tale of a man who's mentally challenged?"

"No, not exactly crazy, just a tad off plumb."

"And you? Do you believe in things that go bump in
the night?"

"When I settle on an answer, I'll let you know."

Karen and Matthew waved up at the helicopter, and
Abbie waved back. "If you don't mind, I'll cut our tour
short. Take you back to town and come back out here.
Anati's expecting me to bring some of her equipment
for the preliminary test pits."

"Fair enough. Drop me in Aunt Birdy's field and
land at Bailey's, if you want. The walk's shorter from
there. Bailey can show you the way." He smiled at her.
"Thanks for the ride."

"My pleasure."

"I could show you more of the island after supper, if
you've a mind."

"Will I need a swimsuit this time?"

"Can't say," Buck replied. "Depends on what strikes
your fancy."

"Entertainmentwise?"

"Exactly. I aim to please."

"Good," she said. "And I hope for your sake, you're
not promising more than you can deliver."

"Emma tells me that the locals are afraid of this place."
Karen gave the wooden peg a final blow and laid her hammer on the grass beside her backpack. She removed a roll of string and proceeded to stake out a
six-by-eight-foot rectangle. "Some tale about a vengeful shaman?"

"Superstitious nonsense." Matthew squatted down
on a dry section of sand and handed her a much-folded
and creased hand-drawn map. "You can see here the areas that we've dug. Over there"-he indicated a low
spot about ten yards from the shoreline-"there was a
lot of shell on top. We excavated that pit two summers
ago. We found hearth features, a nice hand ax, a jacks;
Reef Corner notched point, and several flint triangular
arrowheads-all late Woodland era."

"Mmm." Karen shook out a canvas drop cloth and
spread it on the ground. Next she removed a small
folding stand and topped it with a framed mesh screen.
"According to your map, you've never dug here?"

"Correct. Most of our excavation was several hundred yards in that direction. That's where I have reason to believe the graves were concentrated. One was
indicative of a flexed burial. We didn't find bone, but
there was a nearly intact pot with a lovely pressed corncob design, and a steatite amulet. The cord was long
gone, of course, but the hole for stringing the amulet
was perfectly drilled and polished."

"You documented the artifacts?"

"Absolutely. One of our volunteers actually dug up
the ax, and he kept it, but the amulet is at the church.
I'd be happy to show it to you."

"I take it you don't believe in ghosts or in long-dead
medicine men?"

"I'm a man of God," Matthew answered stiffly.
"Many of our parishioners are backward people, superstitious, but you wouldn't expect me to accept or
condone such claptrap."

"I don't expect anything. I've excavated hallowed places all over North America, and I try not to make
assumptions about finds or people."