"Don't learn much from their own history and don't learn doodley-squat from us."
"I don't care. I care about Harry, but since there's nothing I can do for the rest of them, they'll hang on their own hook."
"It's strange to love an animal that's so stupid, isn't it?" Owen stopped, lifting his nose. "Mmm."
"Could be deer. Far away" Tucker, too, inhaled the faint, very faint, sweet odor of decay.
The cats joined them as Mrs. Murphy, feeling full of herself, dashed along, zigzagging, leaning over anything in her path, sending ground-nester birds and little finches in bushes skyward.
Pewter, not to be outdone, also hurried down the slopes. She jumped over the rivulet and bounded up the steep side of the ravine.
Within minutes the four animals reached the top.
Tucker lifted her head, her nose skyward, then dropped it, facing southeast. "Down there."
Owen repeated his sister's motions. "Stronger now."
Pewter hesitated a moment, looked at Mrs. Murphy, who giggled at her. Without one peep, she followed the dogs. Damned if she was going to be called a wimp.
The two humans lagged a quarter of a mile behind, the rough terrain more difficult for them to negotiate. Both women sweated although the mercury clung to twenty-eight degrees in the ravines, nudging upward on the ridges as the sun was climbing. The eastern horizon was a flare of pink, peach, and scarlet, quickly fanning out westward. The colors of sunrise never seemed to linger as did those of sunset, or so Harry thought.
As Harry and Susan reached the top of the ridge, they heard the two dogs barking. Startled buzzards flew overhead.
"Hope no one hears that," Susan fretted.
"We're far enough away from the monastery," Harry reassured her. "And they're in services, so hopefully they'll be chanting or singing or doing whatever monks do." Harry swept her eyes along the line of the ridge, then down. The sight of Tucker and Owen gleefully pulling on a dismembered arm stopped her cold. "Susan, you might want to stay up here."
Susan, reaching her, saw the same spectacle. "No."
"Mine!" Tucker raced with Brother Thomas's arm, which she'd found behind a large boulder.
"You didn't find it, I did." Owen raced after her, both dogs enjoying the game, oblivious to how awful this appeared to the humans. The cats didn't much like it, either.
"One arm. Where's the rest of him?" Pewter asked.
"Mmm." Mrs. Murphy sat, watching the dogs carry on, one at each end of the arm now. Tucker had the hand; Owen, growling, pulled on the bone sticking out from the other end where the forearm once connected to the elbow.
"Coyote?" Pewter noticed that what remained of the flesh was gray.
"Or dogs. Wild or domestic. Chances are they've torn poor old Brother Thomas all to hell. Buzzards got at him, too. We'll be picking up pieces until the cows come home."
"Be funny if someone's beloved golden retriever brought home a foot, wouldn't it? That's one human who would pass out." Pewter couldn't resist thinking of the shocked person.
"Best foot forward." Mrs. Murphy trotted past the dogs, who continued to tug at the arm. "Come on, Pewter. Let's keep moving. We'll find more of him."
As Harry reached the dogs she sharply said, "Leave it!"
Obediently, Tucker dropped her end. "Spoilsport."
Hearing Susan shout at him, Owen also dropped the arm. "I was only playing."
"Don't touch it, Susan. No prints." Harry was glad the morning had proved so cold. The arm, thawed and frozen a few times during the last days, would become more pungent once the temperature climbed.
"I won't. I suppose it's my great-uncle's arm, but I can't say for sure." She wasn't as disgusted by the sight as she thought she would be. At least not yet.
"Over here," Mrs. Murphy yowled as she pushed down into a large boulder crevice where Brother Thomas's head and most of his torso had been stuffed. Coyotes or dogs had pulled off the limbs, but whoever wedged the old man in the crevice jammed him in there, placing large stones on the torso.
Harry reached the body first. "Goddammit!" she exploded.
Birds had plucked out Brother Thomas's eyes. They'd also been pulling at his hair, for birds like long hair—human, horsehair, the hair from the end of a cow's tail—to weave into their nests.
Susan stopped. She could take seeing her great-uncle's arm, but this was pretty bad. "Oh, Harry."
"Don't look. It's him, all right."
"We found him." Pewter puffed out her gray chest, although she was disgusted at the sight.
"Why not leave him in his pine box?" Tucker joined the cats.
"Because someone was smart enough not to take the chance he'd be exhumed. Obviously, Tucker, there's something to find in the body," Mrs. Murphy replied.
Owen, leaving the treasure, walked over to the cats. "So tasty."
"Whoever is behind this knows something about bodies. If the corpse is exposed, maybe the method of murder will evaporate. I don't know. The coroner has his work cut out for him, but there has to be a reason why Brother Thomas wasn't left in his box. Think about it." Mrs. Murphy ignored the "so tasty" remark.
"I am. I don't like any of this, and I really don't like that Harry's smack in the middle of it." Pewter wanted to go home now.
"She's not patient. She acts on impulse," Tucker observed, wanting to tug at Brother Thomas's remains. "She thinks about these things. She gets part of the answer, but she rushes in, you know?"
"They're both in it." Owen's big brown eyes looked at Susan, who was white as a sheet.
"You going to puke?" Harry also noticed Susan's pallor.
"No," Susan snapped. "It's horrible. For God's sake, Harry, how can you be so cold-blooded?"
Harry backed away from the body, going to her friend and putting her arm around Susan's shoulders. "The soul is with his Maker. This isn't really your great-uncle. It's like an old corn husk, Susan. We attach importance to it, but Thomas is gone."
A light lingering scent lured Tucker and Owen to the back of the large boulders. They sniffed around where coyotes had marked.
"They'll be back." Owen hated coyotes.
"Yes, but we'll be out of here and so will what's left of the human." Tucker, like Mrs. Murphy, was trying to think things through. ".And when whoever is behind this learns that we've found the body, it will be dangerous." The strong, small dog sat down. "I'm trying to put the pieces together, no pun intended."
Owen chuckled. "Some of these pieces aren't going to be found. They're in coyote and buzzard bellies."
"Can't talk to the coyotes, even if we found the ones that did this." Tucker watched as Harry punched numbers on her cell phone.
"If all four of us were together we might could." Mrs. Murphy used the old Southern expression.
"Only way I'm talking to a coyote is if I'm high up in a tree." Pewter spit out the word "coyote."
"You've got a point there, Pewter. They'd kill us the minute we turned our backs." Mrs. Murphy hated the marauders as much as her gray feline companion did.
"Can't get a signal. Susan, I'll try from the top of the ridge. Come on with me. We aren't going to forget this site."
Once on the ridge, Harry reached Cynthia Cooper, who told Harry to mark a trail but to get out of there.
"Why?"
"Because neither you nor Susan is armed. Because you're probably safe, but what if whoever dumped Brother Thomas were to come back? It's a long shot, but I want you and Susan out of there. You've got your pocketknife on you, don't you?"
"Always do," Harry answered.
"Make slash marks where you can, bend twigs. We'll meet you at the parking lot. I mean it, Harry."