The row of low spots in the earth seemed like the best place to start digging. Within half an hour they found bones, too small for an adult, and not intact. The skull was crushed and the feet were missing. They were less than two feet from the surface and there was no sign of a casket. Lovely backed everyone away and knelt beside the grave. Without touching the bones she held her hands over them, closed her eyes, and mumbled a prayer. She looked at the other indentations and said, “I remember now. The graves of the children, buried long before my time. Back when they didn’t use caskets.” She stood, looked around, and pointed. “Not long after Nalla died, a fever came to the island, killing most of the children. They buried them here, in a row, in shallow graves because they were in a hurry.” She pointed again and continued, “My people are over there, in that corner of the cemetery.”
Over there was a thicket packed with thorns and vines and certainly hiding snakes. The team put down their shovels and used their machetes, swing blades, and chain saws. For two hours they hacked at saplings and small oaks and dense brush and hauled it away to another corner, where, hopefully, they wouldn’t have to touch it again. When the ground was cleared and scraped they studied the dirt and discussed the lay of the land. In one place there was a slight unevenness that, upon closer examination and expert study, looked somewhat out of place. The shovels went to work. The sandy soil was soft and easy to dig, not necessarily a good thing. If they found human remains, they would most likely be a mess. Moisture led to a more rapid deterioration of a human body and decimated traces of DNA.
Three feet down a shovel hit something solid. It was wood. Four of them dug earnestly, but carefully, and soon found a corner to what they knew was a coffin. It was an old box for sure, and its top was rotted and its sides had caved in. When they had scraped away as much dirt as possible, they began to find bones resting haphazardly.
Leo’s storm surge on Camino Island was measured by experts at twenty-seven feet. Since Dark Isle had no inhabitants, the surge and winds were not measured there. The slight ridge where they were working was about twenty feet above sea level, and they had assumed that the entire island was under water during the storm. Judging from the mounds of rotting trees, it was not difficult to believe that a massive surge had swept through.
Poking through the skeletal remains, the archaeologists agreed that the floodwaters had inundated the casket.
Lovely hovered over the bones, chanted a prayer that was thoroughly indecipherable to the rest, and returned to the shade under the tarp. By noon, they were exhausted and hungry and decided to return to the camp. Lovely needed a nap.
The second and third graves were excavated. The caskets were rotted, the bones scattered about inside, and nothing of value or interest had been buried with the bodies. Lovely blessed them, then backed away as the team picked through the bones, scraping gently, examining fragments, searching for clues, filming and photographing everything. When the sun began to fade, they covered their work with more blue tarps and trekked back to camp.
The cemetery was an archaeologist’s dream. There was no shortage of graves with old caskets filled with skeletal remains, and it was tempting to lose sight of their mission — to link a bone or two to Lovely’s DNA. After three days of nonstop digging they realized it could go on for weeks.
Lovely was ready to leave. Everyone wanted a shower and a hot meal. When they finally agreed that they had enough clues, Dr. Sargent called for Ronnie and his pontoon.
Six days later, Steven took the call from the DNA testing lab in Austin. Of the eight samples — five bones and three teeth — taken from four different caskets, six contained insufficient tissues to compare to Lovely’s blood sample. The bones and teeth had been kept in conditions that were less than desirable and subjected to too much moisture and heat. Even though they had been resting approximately forty inches under the surface for decades, perhaps centuries, they had degraded. For the remaining two bones, both taken from jaws, there was sufficient tissue for a comparison.
The disheartening truth was that they did not match Lovely. If her ancestors were indeed buried on Dark Isle, there was no biological proof to offer in court.
