“I dinna think God had anything to do with this.” Grant crouched and tried to reach the pile of debris with the shovel. “Feckin’ handle is too short.” He stood and stared at the coffin, loathing the thought of jumping into the grave without knowing what awaited him.
“I’ll fetch a limb,” Malcolm said. “I brought me axe.”
Grant slowly walked around the burial site, studying the ground. Who could’ve done such a thing? It had to have been a person. No animal would’ve dug so deeply. But even though he searched closer than before, he still found no prints or tracks of any kind. An eerie chill washed across him, sending a shiver up his spine. He rolled his shoulders to shed it and marched back to the wagon. Even the horses seemed restless, stepping from side to side as if ready to take off at a mad gallop.
Malcolm emerged from the wood’s edge and strode across the clearing with a wooden pole in one hand and his axe in the other. When he reached Grant, he hefted the three meter limb before handing it over. “Good and solid. Do ye wish me to do it?”
“Nay. This is my obligation. Not yours.” Grant took the hefty length of wood. The sharp tang of pine filled his nostrils, forever binding the scent to the day’s memory. Now, whenever he smelled evergreen, he would think of this sordid task.
With the pole, he gingerly shifted through the debris. All that remained of Merideth’s corpse was the skull, part of a hand, and a length of spine with a few ribs still attached. “Animals most likely carted off the other bones.”
“There are no prints,” Malcolm said in a hushed tone.
“Probably washed away then by recent rains.” They both knew that for the poor lie it was. Grant moved away from the edge and dropped the length of wood beside it. The matter weighed so heavy on him, he could hardly bear the stench of it. “There’s naught to be done here but gather what remains and move it to a proper grave in the kirkyard.”
Malcolm squinted, peering down into the hole. “The coffin itself appears to be whole. I’ll get the ropes so we might lift it and whatever it holds.”
“Good idea.” Grant would just as soon not touch the bones.
The wind picked up, and clouds blotted out the sun. The air held a dampness and smelled of rain. A good drenching appeared to be unavoidable. Malcolm returned with a coil of rope in each hand and a pained expression. “Ye ken one of us will have to get down in there and secure the ropes around the box?”
“I would never ask ye to do that, my friend.” Grant took the ropes, returned to the edge of the grave, then lifted his face to the sky and sucked in a deep breath. He did this to save his family. This desecrated site had to be what unleashed the vengeful spirit.
Without further thought, he jumped down into the hole and landed at the foot of the coffin. He hurried to work a rope under that end of the box and secure it with a sturdy knot. As he sidled along, moving toward the head of the coffin, a nauseating chill washed across him.
“Ye wronged me,” the iciness whispered.
“I am making it right.” He forced himself to work the second rope underneath the widest part of the coffin, turning his face away from the skull’s empty eyes.
“It willna be right until she rots in the ground as I did.” An ill wind swept into the pit, swirling the debris into a choking cloud.
“Throw the lines to me!” Malcolm’s voice barely reached him over the roar of the rising storm inside the hole. “I am here on the right alongside ye! Hurry man!”
Grant hurled the ropes toward the sound of Malcolm’s voice, then clawed at the wall of loose earth, trying to climb out. “Help me, man!” The soft, damp ground laughed at his attempt to escape its clutches, swallowing him back down and holding him tight. A strong, calloused hand caught hold of his wrist and pulled. With all his might and Malcolm’s, too, he heaved himself free of the grave. “God bless ye, man,” he gasped.
Malcolm clapped him on the back. “Let us finish this, aye?”
“Aye.” Grant took the ropes and securely knotted them around the center of the sturdy pine pole. With Malcolm on one side of the grave and himself on the other, they lifted the wood and turned it, winding the ropes around it. The more they wound the ropes, the higher the coffin rose. Once it cleared the edge of the pit, they carried it to the back of the wagon, lifted it with the pole still holding the ropes taut, and set it in place with the pole balanced on the sides. They lashed both ends of the limb to the iron frame of the wagon to secure the load. After knotting an additional short rope around those holding the coffin to the pole, Grant gave Malcolm a nod.
“Well done on finding that limb. It served us well. Nothing should spill or slide now.”
One of the horses screamed and reared. The other joined it. Eyes rolling, foam frothing at their mouths, the animals were about to bolt or die trying. Grant launched himself up into the seat on one side, and Malcolm climbed the other. Feet braced, Grant released the lever braking the wagon and let the beasts take off at a barely controlled run.
“God protect us!” Malcolm hit Grant’s shoulder and jerked a thumb back at the site.
Grant stole a backward glance. “God protect us, indeed!” A darkness twisted and swirled up from the burial pit, sucking in soil and anything else loose enough to be lifted by the ill wind. He faced the front and urged the horses onward. The animals gladly obeyed, careening through the forest.
Heart pumping as if in the heat of battle, Grant leaned forward, clutching the reins and praying the dark devil cloud had not followed. He dared not glance back again, not at this speed. Instead, he elbowed Malcolm and bellowed, “Does it give chase?”
Malcolm crossed himself, then turned. With a shake of his head, he waved forward to keep the current speed. “Nay. But let us put more land between it and us before we slow.”
They kept the pace as long as Grant risked to push the horses. As they exited the woods, he slowed the team and steered them into a wide, shallow stream. With the sun high overhead and every storm cloud miraculously gone, the beasts calmed but needed rest and water before finishing the journey.
“Once they drink their fill, we’ll finish crossing, then let them rest a bit.” With the reins in one hand, he scrubbed the other across his face, unable to believe all they had just witnessed.
“I have never seen the like in all my life.” Malcolm closed his eyes and lifted his face to the sun.
“Nor I.” Even though he didn’t wish to, Grant twisted around and checked their cargo. Everything was still there, even though the bones had rattled to the far end of the coffin. “At least we didna lose what we came for.”
