Bone by Bone

Henry Hobbs shook his head. No deal. He called out to the deputy, "For the last time-the bone didn't come from my garden!"

"We'll see." Triumphant, Dave Hardy raised a shovel high above his head. "Found it." He climbed down from the truck bed, turned toward the house-and turned to stone.

Ha

The deputy could only stare at him, but everyone stared at Oren Hobbs. It was not merely the good looks of her blue-eyed boy that drew this kind of attention-more like attraction with the pull of gravity. Twenty years ago, in Ha

Spell undone, Dave rolled back his shoulders and gripped the shovel in both hands. "Odd thing, Oren-that jawbone showing up the same time you do."

The judge rose from the porch steps and walked toward the deputy, eyes on the shovel. "You can't dig up my garden. Those bulbs will never bloom if you-"

"That's enough, old man." Dave freed up one hand to point at the porch. "Now go back and sit down. That's an order!"

The whites of Ha

Dave marched toward the far end of the flower bed and never saw his predictable demise in the eyes of Oren Hobbs, who descended the porch steps-slowly-angry and focused on the deputy.

Poor deputy.

Ha

And now he felt Ha

Ha

Dave looked up. The shovel hovered.

The housekeeper lowered her voice for the next salvo. "Don't you make me call your mother."

Run, Dave, run.

Apparently, the deputy's mother still held the office of town monster, a woman in the habit of publicly castrating her own son in ten words or less. Oren recalled that Mrs. Hardy had sometimes rhymed her lines, and, around town, she had been much admired as an obscene poet.

"I can have Mavis over here," said Ha

Once, it had been rumored that Dave's mother was a vessel of demonic possession. More rational townspeople had argued that, in any arrangement of that sort, Mavis Hardy would be the possessor and not the possessed. Dave dropped the shovel.

A jeep rounded a stand of trees by the driveway and parked in front of the house. The star of the County Sheriff 's Office was painted on the vehicle's door, and Cable Babitt was behind the wheel. The sheriff cut the engine and climbed out. He was grayer now, but still shaped like a pear with a moustache. He wore an amiable smile while he slammed the jeep's door-the only warning of things to come. In his quiet, almost genteel, ma

"No, sir." The deputy stood at attention, his back ramrod straight. "I picked up the call before I left the house this morning. I'm on the job."

"Out of uniform? I don't think so, Dave."

The younger lawman picked up his shovel, his proof of i

"No, no, no!" the judge called out from the porch steps. He was more his old self again when he shook one fist at the deputy. "There're no bones buried in my garden!"

Cable Babitt strolled over to the porch and tipped his hat to the retired judge, a greeting of friends, both local boys grown into old men, though Henry Hobbs was senior by twelve years. "Morning, Henry. What've you got here?" The sheriff picked up the jawbone and turned it over in his hand. He held it up high as a lure to draw his deputy closer. "Well, Dave, you're half right. There's no sign of exposure-lots of staining. This bone was buried all right, but not around here. You see this reddish coloring? It comes from iron-rich soil. That puts the burial site to the north and straight up." He pointed to the high mountainside of deep woods tapering to bald rock. "There's a streak of iron ore up there."

Iron ore?

Oren wondered how the sheriff had come by that bit of arcane knowledge. Coventry had its roots in a small mill town. There had never been a mining operation within a hundred miles of here, nor even a hint of iron deposits in this northern neighborhood of California.

Sheriff Babitt jerked one thumb toward the deputy's pickup truck, and this was enough to send Dave Hardy on his way.

When the truck had disappeared around the stand of trees, Oren stood toe-to-toe with the sheriff. "Iron ore? You knew about that jawbone before I called it in." This was more than an accusation; it was bait. He studied the older man's face, looking there for signs of a lie in the making. "Maybe you already had one of Josh's bones. You'd need a sample to get a soil analysis for-"

"That's enough, Oren. I've got a few questions for you."

Showdown-or maybe not.

Ha

Henry Hobbs, who was not deaf, nodded with some puzzlement. "No idea where the car keys are."

"I do," said Ha

Oren followed her inside and down the hall to a room with Dutch-blue walls and white cabinets. Like the rest of the house, the kitchen was unchanged except for a new refrigerator of stainless steel and a matching dishwasher. Apparently, the judge was a failure at patching up worn appliances, and here he had fallen short of his insane mission to stop time.

"You might've guessed-it's the same old car in the garage." Ha

The tiny woman rose up on her toes to reach a high shelf. After moving a few canisters out of her way, she pulled out a tea tin, extracted the car keys and handed them down to him. "It's still a one-drugstore town. You know the way."