“And have somebody beat us to it? Those guys have been one step behind, if not a step ahead of us, the whole time. Besides, with Covilha’s grave being dug up, they’re likely to keep a closer eye on the place at night.”
“Right,” she said, “because no one in his right mind would rob a grave in broad daylight.”
He rolled his eyes and started digging.
Kaylin gave him a mock-frown, then turned and pretended to be writing something in her notebook.
Dane chopped at the ground with increasing vigor. He tore up thick clumps of sod before breaking through to the soft dirt beneath. He wished for a better digging implement, but, as his grandpa used to say, you make do with what you got. He made quite a bit of progress before Kaylin called out a warning.
“Here comes a car!” Her voice was calm, but he could sense tension in her tone.
He tossed the bar behind the little headstone, and knelt down over the trench he was digging, pretending to be reading the inscription. The car passed without the driver taking any apparent notice of them. They were interrupted two more times by passing motorists. Dane had exposed a foot-long by ten-inch wide section of what was obviously an old metal box. The surface was pitted with rust, but still solid.
“Cops!” Kaylin called, this time with a touch of alarm in her voice. “And he’s looking this way.”
Dane hastily repeated his ruse, tossing away his digging apparatus and kneeling over the hole, which was now starting to resemble a latrine. He hoped the cops didn’t take too close a look, as he could not think of any plausible explanation for digging up a grave.
A brown and tan sheriff’s department vehicle cruised by, slowing as the deputy in the passenger seat peered at them with undisguised distrust. Kaylin mimicked writing furiously in her notebook, while Dane joined in the charade by pretending to read the inscription aloud to her. The car slowed further, and the deputy rolled down his window. Dane’s heart pounded. He was not afraid of going to jail. He feared that if the deputies discovered what they were doing, the authorities would take possession of the sword, or worse, whoever was following them might somehow get hold of it. They had to get the sword now, or face the real possibility of losing it.
Kaylin pretended to have just noticed the patrol car. She smiled and waved. Dane waved as well. They held their breath as the car slowed to a near stop before the deputies nodded to them and accelerated around the bend and out of sight.
Dane let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding before returning to his digging. Kaylin looked like she was going to crumple to the ground. Instead, she knelt, found a flat rock that Dane’s digging had turned up, and joined in. While she worked, scraping away at the soft loam, she kept an eye on the road.
They attacked the ground with a fury. After a few minutes, the piles of dirt around the forming trench had grown too large to hide. Dane felt his adrenaline surge at the realization that this was it. They had to get the sword out before another vehicle passed by. Droplets of sweat beaded on his forehead and rolled off into the moist dirt in the trench. His shoulders ached from the awkward digging motion necessitated by the wrought iron bar. His hands stung, and blisters were forming on his palms. Beside him, Kaylin panted as she hacked at the soil. He did not know if it was out of fatigue or fear of discovery.
Inch by inch they exposed the box. It looked to be more than five feet long. When the entire top surface was exposed, he used the point of the bar to scrape the dirt from around the sides. He then placed the tip underneath the bottom end of the box, and gently pried it up. Slowly, the box broke free of the soil that had ensnared it for more than a century and a half. He soon raised the end of the box high enough to get his fingers underneath. Straining, he lifted it until he could get two hands under it. It was remarkably heavy. Kaylin lent a hand, and the two of them dragged the box free from its grave.
It reminded Dane of a large gift box. The top was slightly wider and longer than the bottom so that it fit neatly over the bottom half. The lid had been welded all the way around at the bottom edge.
“We can’t open it,” Kaylin complained, her face taut with tension and frustration.
“Not yet,” Dane said, “but in any case, we need to fill this hole in before we do anything else.”
They hastily kicked dirt and rocks back into the trench they had dug. With the box missing, there was not enough dirt to fill the hole back to ground level. Dane gathered a few stray rocks and sticks, tossing them into the hole, then patched the top with chunks of sod. It would not hide what they had done, but someone would have to be right on top of it before they noticed.
Dane took off his jacket and laid it across the box. Kaylin did the same. Together, they hefted the large metal container. Holding it at waist level, they stumbled down the hill to their car.
When they reached the wrought iron fence, Dane propped his end on the rail and vaulted over. He cautiously dragged it toward him, letting the fence support its weight, and held it while Kaylin clambered over.
As she topped the fence, she looked up the road, her eyes widening and her face pale.
“Maddock, it’s the cops again!”
Dane grabbed the box around the middle and lifted it with a grunt of pain. He stumbled to the car and heaved the box down on the ground next to the rear tire. He stood up in time to see the car rounding the bend in the road.
Kaylin calmly walked to the driver’s side door, trying to put herself in a position to prevent the deputies from seeing beneath the car. She fished in her pocket for the keys, not realizing they were in Dane’s jacket, which lay draped over the box.
The car rolled to a stop. The deputy rolled down the window and leaned as far forward as his wide-brimmed hat would allow.
“Afternoon,” he said. His words were friendlier than his expression. His hazel eyes gleamed with suspicion and his narrow face and thin lips were set in a firm manner that said he would brook no foolishness.
“Good afternoon,” Kaylin replied, smiling sweetly, leaning forward ever so slightly.
“You folks visiting a loved one?” He smiled as if that were some big joke, eyeing Kaylin with more interest now than suspicion.
Given that the cemetery had met its quota of residents more than a century ago, Dane supposed it qualified as a joke. He smiled and let Kaylin do the talking, as she seemed to have captured the deputy’s attention. Dane supposed that sometimes there were definite advantages to being female and attractive.
“We’re doing some genealogical work,” she said. “We were trying to find the grave of one of my ancestors.”
“Any luck?”
“No. We thought we had found it, but we were wrong.” She frowned and bit her lower lip as if she were about to cry. “We’re so close, too.”
“Sorry to hear that,” the deputy replied, though the words held little empathy. He looked down and frowned. “What’s in the box?”
Dane could have smacked the guy. He told the first lie he could think of.
“Art supplies: an easel, paint, brushes and such.” He nodded to Kaylin. “My girlfriend was thinking of painting the cemetery.”
“It’s quite lovely,” Kaylin agreed.
“So I guess you were drawing in that notebook when we drove by a while back?” The deputy acted as if Dane were not there.
Dane didn’t care if he was noticed or not. He only prayed that the man would not ask to see Kaylin’s sketches.
“Yes, just a few sketches,” Kaylin said, beginning to look nervous. “Would you like to see them?”
What was she doing?
“No thanks. I’ll warn you folks, though,” the deputy said, removing his hat and running his fingers through his short, brown hair. “There’ve been some strange goings-on around here. If you see anything out of the ordinary, call 911.”