Prologue—A
Skeleton Arm, 2013
Excerpt from Low Water Crossing
by Dana Glossbrenner
Junior lurches in his cab and kills the engine. He pushes
back his cap and stares at what dangles from the scoop of dirt—a skeletal arm
dressed in tattered plaid, waving its bone fingers in the stiff West Texas
breeze. My sweet sense of peace at the prospect of easy money evaporates.
“Oh, hell!” I jump from my truck, and Junior slams from his
cab, both of us mouthing curses, our minds locked on the sight of that decaying
piece of a human. He saws his arms to catch the attention of the dozer
operators and truck drivers. He whistles to his father, Tuna, the foreman. When
I signed the contract with their company to sell rock, I joked about their
names—Junior and Tuna Berger. But now, they remind me of how ludicrous it was
to hope for a hands-off source of income on the Cheadham ranch. No oil wells.
No wind turbines. Is it too much to ask to have a gravel pit without a
skeleton?
Tuna inspects the chugging gravel sorter. He straightens at
Junior’s whistle and fixes his eyes on the scoop, dangling the arm. Big trucks,
other excavators and dozers—they all stop. Men climb from their cabs and jog to
join me and Junior. In the sudden quiet, we stare at the limp arm. Tuna mutters
as he reaches for his phone. He starts toward us as he makes a call.
“This is bad, Wayne.” He barely looks at me as he meets us
and puts his phone in its belt case. “Looks like we’re gonna have ta suspend
work awhile. We’ve found human remains.”
“Have you ever seen the likes of this?” I remind myself
it’s not like we’ll lose the ranch if the gravel pit doesn’t pan out. After
all, this is somebody’s unofficial grave. We walk to the hole left by Junior’s
excavator scoop.
“Nope. I’ve dug up
all kinds of stuff in my days, but I ain’t never found no skeleton. Oh, man,
look there.” A skull grins up at us from a layer of rock.
“Damn. Could it be Indian remains?” I forget the shreds of
plaid shirt and ponder for a moment. The Smithsonian might be interested, a desperate
wish. Better an archaeological dig than a crime scene.
Tuna’s quick to disabuse me of the idea. “Naw. It’s not
that old. We have to notify law enforcement, which is what I done. Sheriff
Sparks is on his way.”
“Oh, great.” I try not to look too irritated.
We stand around and try to change the subject to weather,
sports, anything but speculation about the skeleton. If we’d simply heard about
it, we’d be all over the subject, but standing over a deal like this, we don’t
have much to say. Within minutes, the cruiser bumps through the cattle guard
and stops inside the fence. I turn away and shoot some bull with Junior. “This
is an odd day of work, isn’t it?”
“Oh yeah. Some find.” He cuts his eyes at the skeleton arm.
I wonder for a moment if he’s about to cross himself.
“How’d you manage to stop so quick?” I ask.
Before he can answer, L.B. strides into our group, hitching
his belt and resting his hands on his gear. His hat brim’s as wide as his
skinny shoulders.
“Howdy, Sheriff.” Tuna offers his hand.
“It was hard to miss, Wayne,” Junior says. “I looked up and
saw a dried-up arm dangling. When you see something like that, you stop what
you’re doing purdy durn fast.”
L.B. takes over. “So, there’s been no other disturbance?”
“Naw,” Junior says.
The sheriff looks down at the skull. “We’ll have to get
some investigators from Austin in here. And y’all have to stop digging.”
“How long ya think it’ll take, L.B?” I ask.
“Looks like somebody intended to bury a body, so it’ll be a
homicide investigation. Might take a month or two.”
“Aw, shit!” I slap my cap on my leg. The oil deposits are
too deep in hard rock for drilling to make a profit, and a big wind farm butts
up to my east property line. Damn and double damn. No oil, no wind turbines.
And now this. A month-long shutdown will probably put me out of the gravel
business. Tuna will have to relocate. He’ll lose money, too.
“I’ll have all this taped off, so don’t tamper with
anything, Wayne.” L.B. steps toward me but rocks back like he intended to shift
his weight. I walk to my truck and head off before I say something I’ll regret,
or maybe push L.B. in with the skeleton and kick in some dirt after him.
