Page 6 of Long Pig
“We had a little excitement,” he said. “Daisy spotted a rattler.” He twisted and gave Daisy a firm pat on the head. His smile widened, showing a sun-darkened complexion with a little red on his high cheekbones and grooves in the skin around his eyes from squinting into the sun. And most likely from the exhilaration over killing the snake.
Willow sucked in air, then let it out as it registered that he was okay. Curiosity made her move closer. “You said we had rattlesnakes, but I wasn’t sure I believed you,” she said a little breathlessly. “Did you need to kill it?”
“Yes. They don’t travel far, and with it this close to the house, it was a danger to us and the dogs. If I spotted it while hiking, I’d have left it alone. Most of the snakes I see are harmless bull snakes, but I heard the rattle. You really think I would tell you to stay clear of rattlers if we didn’t have them?” he asked incredulously.
She shrugged. “Not really; I just hadn’t seen one.” She stopped speaking and looked off toward the canyon she’d just climbed out of. “We might have a problem,” she said.
“Is it one we can discuss over a glass of iced tea?” he asked. “I’ll put the snake in my fridge and meet you inside,” he said after she gave a nod.
The bones weren’t going anywhere, and iced tea sounded good. It would give her a chance to calm her racing heart. She pulled two tall glasses from the cabinet. Dale had shown her how to make sun tea, and it had quickly become the only cold tea she drank. It was wonderful on hot days. She filled the glasses with ice, glanced at the water bowl for the dogs to be sure it was full, then poured the tea.
She enjoyed waiting on Dale. He grumbled in the beginning, but she told him she would have done it for her grandmother, and he could just put up with it. She owed him so much, but if she tried to thank him, he would grumble even more.
He waited in the big reclining chair he’d claimed as his own. She handed him the glass, then sat on the couch facing him. They both took a long swallow of tea.
“So, what’s this problem we might have?” Dale asked.
“Max uncovered some bones. At first, I thought they were a wild animal or another goat. Then I saw what I’m pretty sure is a human skull,” she said the words in a rush.
Dale blinked. Took another swallow of his tea and blinked again. “You think it was a human skull?”
“Yes. Kind of like the rattlesnake. I didn’t expect what I saw.”
“What made you think it was human?”
“The eye sockets,” she replied.
He set the glass down and rested his elbows on his knees. “Were you on this property?”
“I’m pretty sure. I was looking for the fourth land marker. The bones are in a gully close by the location my grandmother had marked on the map.”
“But it could have been BLM land?” He asked.
“Doubtful, but possible.”
Dale stood. “I’m going to take a look,” he said. “It’s not that I don’t believe you, but if I call the sheriff and it’s something other than human, it will be the whole ‘cry wolf’ thing, and they won’t rush out here for a real emergency.”
Dale had little faith in the department he retired from. Willow wasn’t fond of cops and shared his opinion. Her grandmother hadn’t liked them either, and Willow heard stories each time Joan visited her in prison.
Dale still blamed himself for her grandmother’s death, though he no longer said it out loud. He’d been given information by a drug task force agent that the Hogg family, complete pieces of shit, were cooking methamphetamines. He’d kept the information to himself and not told Joan. She made endless complaints against the Hogg family, and Dale didn’t want to rile her up. Willow didn’t think it would have changed anything, but she still saw the sadness in Dale’s eyes and the clench of his jaw when the Hogg name was mentioned. It went far past dislike. All in all, Dale didn’t like the way the department treated what they called cedar rats who lived on the ranch. The area had once been a cattle ranch but the owner died and the kids divided it into forty-acre parcels though Willow’s was the largest at eighty acres.
“I’ll go with you,” Willow said. “Rattlesnakes and bones are not a good combo, and I don’t want to stay here alone.”
“The sun will be down within a couple of hours, so we had better get moving,” Dale said. “Do you mind grabbing me a water bottle?” He leaned over, lifted his tea, and drank the rest.
It took them an hour to reach the gully. Max seemed to know where they were headed and led the way, Daisy a foot behind Max’s nub tail.
When they approached the bones, Dale removed a pair of rubber gloves from the backpack he’d grabbed from the trailer.
“Yeah, this is human,” he said before he even crouched beside the bones. “Been dead for a while, but it’s slightly strange. Bodies out here tend to mummify.”
“Mummify?” Willow asked blankly.
“The heat and low humidity here cause a body's soft tissues to dry out and harden before insects and bacteria have a chance to break them down. Mummification can preserve a body for a very long time. The skin becomes leathery, and the body essentially fossilizes in place.” He tipped his hat back and crouched. “I’ve found two bodies in the area, not close to here, but on the ranch. They had signs of mummification, and the pathologist explained why they both had dark, leathery skin and weren’t as decayed as someone would expect.”
“There’s no skin,” Willow said, crouching beside Dale.
“Look here,” he pointed to one of the longer bones a few feet from the skull. “This looks like a clean cut. Here’s the other section with the same cut.”