“I lost a girlfriend,” Clive said. “Fiancée, actually. Pancreatic cancer. Caught too late, as it so often is. In two months she was gone.”

“How terrible. I’m so sorry.”

“You grow up thinking everything’s fine and bad things happen to other people, and then, out of the blue, life drops a piano on you. I couldn’t believe the pain. And the surprise.”

She nodded. He had been through it, too. And yet he seemed to be getting over it. “When did that happen?”

“Two years ago. It feels like yesterday. But we move forward, right? We do what we have to do to continue our lives.”

Again she nodded. He was still holding her hand. After a long period of quiet, he gave it a friendly squeeze and released it. “Nora,” he said. “I’m ready. I’d love to have my own grid to work on.”

She hadn’t expected the conversation to take this sudden turn. “Clive, I’m not sure—”

“You taught me a lot last night, and I’ve learned more just from watching you today.”

“A couple hours of observation might not be enough—”

“I promise I’ll be slow. And super careful. And if I find anything, I’ll immediately let you know.”

Nora mulled this over.

“Look. My own ancestors, the Breens, were on this mountain. Patrick and Peggy Breen had seven children, ages one to fourteen. They overcame their scruples for their children’s sake and fed them human flesh. They were the only family that didn’t have a death, and forever after they were marked: Those are the kids who lived on human flesh. It seems horrible, I know, but if their son Edward hadn’t resorted to cannibalism, I wouldn’t be here. He was my great-great-great grandfather.” He took a deep breath. “Now that we’ve found these remains, I…well, I find I just want to delve in, be part of this, get my paisley shirt really, really dirty.”

Nora couldn’t help smiling. She knew exactly how he felt. Even so, she wasn’t going to take too big a chance. She consulted her iPad. Perhaps she could assign him a square in the most distant quadrant of the meadow, closest to the woods, where he was least likely to find anything of significance—or, for that matter, do any damage. E10 would be a good place for him to start—the proton magnetometer had registered something in this area, but it was faint and far from the main scene of action.

“Okay,” she said. “If you promise to take it slow. No deeper than ten inches, please. And stop to notify me the moment you find anything. Even so much as a pebble.”

“I promise.”

“You can take grid E10.” Nora put her iPad aside. “Come on—get a mask and gloves, and I’ll show you where it is.”

19

THE DISCOVERIES WERE so exciting, and coming so thick and fast, that nobody wanted to stop for lunch, so Nora just let them keep going while the afternoon lengthened. At first, she checked on Clive every half hour, but when it was clear he was doing a slow and painstakingly methodical job, she decided he could be left to his own devices. Thanks to the joint efforts of Salazar and Adelsky, the midden heap was yielding up more and more artifacts: not only a third skull and numerous other human bones, but scraps of clothes, buttons, lockets, and jewelry. Everything was carefully tagged and logged and situated using the suite of powerful archaeological software on their tablets. Salazar pointed out that here and there the midden heap showed signs of animal disturbance, but it looked old—probably dating back to the tragedy—and after a brief conference they came to the conclusion that these were most likely the result of brief scavenging attempts after the first spring thaw. Nora knew there would not be many animals at this altitude, and in any case what bones remained would have been covered in dust, dirt, and grass soon enough.

It was around three thirty—with a gorgeous afternoon just beginning to settle toward evening, the sun hanging low over the snowy mountains and bathing them in light—when Clive came over to the square that Nora was carefully photographing.

“Have you got a minute?” he asked. “I’d like to show you something.” His voice was calm, but there was a curious expression on his face that she hadn’t seen before.

“Sure.” She slung the camera around her neck and followed him over to the far end of the dig site, away from the others. Here, in these grids farthest from the main camp, the ground was already under the shadow of the pine trees. A late breeze swept through the meadow, rippling the fresh grass and bringing with it the scent of flowers.

Nora saw that Clive had excavated the square she’d assigned him, E10, down to ten inches and—finding nothing, having secured and documented it in the manner she’d demonstrated—he had moved on to the adjoining square, E9. It was toward this that he pointed.

Nora knelt for a closer look. Clive had carefully removed the carpet of grass in a single section, and excavated down no more than two inches. Something wrinkled and rough was protruding from the soil. At first, Nora thought it might be a saddle or the hide of some animal, but a closer look revealed it was the rotting remains of an old boot. Peering even more closely, she could see toe bones peeking out from within.

“It was so near the surface,” he explained, “that I barely did more than remove the grass. A few whisks of the broom, and the earth just fell away.”

Nora examined it from various angles. “Might be a burial,” she said. “Or it might have just been left where it—where the man—died. The boot leather is the one thing nobody would have eaten: even a starving person knew it was madness to eat the only thing protecting you from the cold and snow.”

“Makes sense. But that’s not what I brought you here to see.” He knelt down beside her. “This is.” And, taking up a paintbrush, he turned to a small mound of disturbed dirt at one side of the ancient boot.

Nora watched as the first whisk of the brush exposed a small leather bag, bound with a thong and crumbling into dust. A second gentle whisk revealed where the bag had rotted and split. It revealed the glint of gold.

For a minute, Nora just stared at it. Then she looked at Clive.

“Once I discovered what it was, I covered it back up,” he explained. “I wanted you to see it before…before anyone else did.”

Nora glanced over her shoulder. Salazar and Jason were on the far side of the old camp, busy with the midden. She looked at Clive. Normally one didn’t cover something back up unless it was at the conclusion of the dig, but in this case she nodded her approval.

“What we need to do next is figure out exactly what you’ve discovered,” she said. “And get it out of the ground and under lock and key.”

Taking over from Clive, she gently excavated the rest of the square. The earth was just as soft and yielding as Clive had said it was, and within half an hour she’d exposed the lower legs, feet, and crumbling leather boots of what appeared to be two adult men lying side by side, positioned away from the gridded area. Neither the foot bones, the tibias, nor the fibulas showed any sign of dismemberment or cannibalism. In the boots, each man had hidden a pouch of coins. After carefully photographing and recording them in situ, Nora removed the two pouches and placed them on a small conservator’s tarp nearby.