“Everyone keeps talking about that Monro-whatever. No one ever says what it is.”
Lionel missed a beat; his foot landed awkwardly and Harnett was there with both arms. Lionel fought free. “He doesn’t know?”
Harnett let go and dropped back. “No. But it’s time.”
Exhilaration filled my chest; I quickened my step, passed Harnett, and came almost even with Lionel.
“When Ken and Baby were your age,” Lionel explained, “and still my students, it became clear to me that Diggers were at a critical moment. Boundaries were custom, not law. Bellies were being dug only to find they were already harvested. There were ambushes, one Digger taking from another. Even Knox had almost wiped his hands of us. And then the inevitable happened. Well. Now I’ve forgotten his name.”
“Boxer,” Harnett called out. He had fallen even farther back.
“Boxer, that’s right, and he wasn’t one of the troublemakers, according to Knox.”
“What happened to him?” I asked.
“He was killed! By another Digger! Over what—territory, property, money, who knows. But tragedy so often brings with it rare opportunity. So I sent out through Knox the call to meet, all of us, just once, right out in the open, where together we would set down rules, laws, best practices. And out of it came the territories. It took days to finalize. Everything was taken into account. Geography, climate, types of soil, centers of population. Valuable assets, too: the Civil War graves of the South, the pioneer and Indian burials of the West. The lines were drawn with precision and care. And we called it the Monro-Barclay Pact. You remember why, Ken? Your father was always a good student. I bet you’re a good student, too.”
My voice was small but confident. “I am.”
Harnett had dropped so far behind his response was inaudible.
“I presume you know that Edinburgh, Scotland, was the front line for body snatchers. In 1818, two surgeons, Dr. Monro and Dr. Barclay, each of whom employed resurrection men to obtain cadavers, decided all the rough-and-tumble stuff out there was senseless and so decided to divide the local cemeteries between them. Our pact was in that spirit.” Lionel smiled to himself. “Of course, Monro and Barclay’s deal went south when Dr. Liston came to town. But that’s a story for another time.”
“Boggs said you banished him,” I said. “Like he wasn’t happy with the West Coast.”
Lionel wiped sweat from his face; I noticed that I wasn’t warm. “His predecessor did very well with it. I don’t know. I tried to be fair. To Baby especially, I’ve tried to be more than fair. He made all of us nervous with his—I guess you could call them innovations. The rest of the Diggers wanted him out, end of story. I couldn’t do that. So I gave him the West. I honestly believed he would thrive out there. And he has, at points. There are times when he does the work of ten of us. And other times …” Lionel paused and unstuck his cane from the mud. “I can’t help but feel I’ve failed him in some regard.”
Harnett shouted from behind. “We should be turning back.”
Lionel shook his head forcefully. “We keep going. I’ve got something important to show you.”
“It can wait. It’s getting dark.”
“It cannot wait.” Lionel struck a low-hanging branch with his cane. “Not this.”
So we walked. With each step, I gathered courage. “You knew my mother,” I said.
“Indeed. I consider it one of the rare pleasures of my life.”
“How did you know her?” I pleaded. “I don’t know any of it.”
“I will tell you,” he whispered.
Transferring his cane to his left hand, he pulled me closer and clamped his hand to my shoulder. I felt him give half of his weight to me—the price of his story.
“There is no handbook for what we do,” he began. “There is no university, no library. You cannot seek us out because we don’t exist. The trade is passed down, master to apprentice. That’s it. For all these reasons and more, finding a suitable trainee is nigh impossible.”
“I wasn’t that hard to find,” I said.
“You’re different. You’re blood of a Digger. And not just any Digger, but the Resurrectionist.”
“They don’t like it,” I said. “I could tell when I met them.”
His breaths were becoming shallower. A squiggly blue vein pulsed at his temple. “That was the real revelation of the Monro-Barclay meeting. We saw each other for what we really were. Not beasts, not phantoms. Just sad, lonely men. Men who knew, from the first time they took hold of their