Bones

gruesome burden, calmly using a key to unlock the one handcuff still attached to his wrist. It dropped away from him and hit the ground.

The air was still thick with smoke and the smell of scattered flesh and blood. Now there was a silence, as unsettling as the screams had been. Impossible, I thought wildly, to conceal my trembling from him in that silence — my fear would be felt across the meadow, telegraphed to him through the ground itself.

The smoke began to clear. The wind picked up, and he laughed into it, raising his arms to the darkening sky, shaking his fists triumphantly, as if calling on the gods to behold his victory.

He stopped and stared into the woods. I felt certain he could see us. Suddenly he started to run — right toward us. I felt Bingle’s hackles rise and whispered, “Quieto.” The dog remained silent.

Parrish kept coming closer, heading for the trees, and my mouth went dry. I reached into my daypack and pulled out my knife and opened it. Not much of a weapon against a loaded gun, but even being shot to death would be better than meeting Julia Sayre’s fate. But then I saw that Parrish was moving at an angle — veering away from us.

He was going to the camp.

I strained to hear his movements, fearing that at any moment he could double back behind me, attack from some unexpected direction. I would have to trust the dog to react to any approach by Parrish.

Before long Parrish was making plenty of noise in the camp, not bothering with any attempt at stealth.

It began to rain again.

I fought off a temptation to despair over this. Yes, the helicopter might have to wait for the weather to clear, but J.C. and Andy had probably made it out. You can make it out, too, I told myself. One way or another, someone will be coming back to this meadow. You just have to avoid him for a few hours. It’s not even raining hard — the helicopter might be able to fly in this weather. I had no sooner thought this than I heard the distant rumble of thunder.

I was still shaking. I told myself it was the damp.

I had my poncho with me, and I decided to risk making noise to pull it on. The poncho’s dark camouflage colors would blend better with the surrounding forest than the rest of my clothing.

The rain made it harder to hear Parrish, but from the sounds of pans clattering, I guessed that he was emptying the backpacks.

He could take what he wants, I thought. He could destroy the rest and leave me here in the woods, in the mountains to die with this dog.

Stop it.

My muscles were cramping, more from tension than the strain of staying still, and I was cold.

Too bad. It could be worse. These are signs of life, after all. You could have been lifting that body from that grave.

Knife in one hand, dog in the other.

Bingle’s head came up. He was clearly listening to something. He had stopped trembling. I heard the sound of someone moving through the woods. Toward me.

“Quieto,” I whispered again to Bingle. He looked into my face, then lowered his head. He was still listening, though, ears flicking. I was praying.

The footsteps paused somewhere in front of me. Bingle tensed.

Don’t growl, Bingle, please don’t growl.

The footsteps moved on.

Eventually I could see him; he was moving toward the ridge. He was carrying a backpack — and Duke’s rifle. He was hiking at a fast pace, not much less than a run. There was a little more distance between us now, and I was still hidden by the trees, so I moved to a more comfortable position. Bingle wanted to go out into the meadow; I did, too — harboring some slim-to-none hope that someone else might have survived, worried that someone might need my help. But we would easily be seen by Parrish if he turned back to survey his handiwork, and I was certain he would do so.

He didn’t disappoint me. I lost sight of him for a time, then caught a glimpse of him raising his fists in victory again, at the top of the ridge. Despite my heartfelt wishes, no lightning struck him.

Soon he moved over the ridge and out of sight.

Bingle and I set out together, hurrying through the rain toward the grave. Nothing but carnage awaited us there. The grave itself was now a larger, deeper, blackened hole. Bingle did no more than to peer nervously into it, then shied away. What sort of explosive device Parrish had planted there, I had no idea, except that lifting the weight of the body was apparently all that was needed to trigger it.

A quick look around the site confirmed what I had already suspected. The others were dead; there wasn’t much to find of those who had been bending over the grave. Bingle was whining now, anxiously moving from fragment to fragment. Later, perhaps, some forensic anthropologist would come to the scene, would study these fragments and be able to tell what had once been whom. I was only sure of one, a boot with the remnants of a foot in it, because Bingle began whining more loudly when he found it, then lay down next to it, head on paws, and wouldn’t leave.

I didn’t argue with him; I wasn’t sure how much longer I would be able to stand there. Some part of my mind had shut down — I knew what I was seeing, but at the same time refused to know it. I dropped his leash and kept walking, careful where I stepped, but still feeling the soles of my boots grow slippery. I moved mechanically, waiting to see something that could be comprehended.

A short distance away, I almost found it. I came across the bodies of Manton and Merrick, who had not been killed by the blast. Parrish had fired several bullets into each of their faces.

I must have made a sound when I saw them, because Bingle came over to me. With horror, I realized that he was carrying David’s boot.