it, and there wasn’t a sound except the crow gave a squawk, and then feathers everywhere. My cousin has an air pistol too, so I knew what happened.”
“Little spy.” His arm squeezed her shoulder with mock roughness. “Wasn’t spying,” Ginger protested, digging her chin into his shoulder. “I was walking up to help Dell chop tobacco.”
When Brandon remained silent, she spoke to break the rhythmic rasp of the porch swing. “What do you think of Dr Kenlaw?”
“A bit too pig-headed and pushy. They raise them that way up north.”
“That’s one, coming from a New Yorker! Or are you from New York originally? You have less accent than Dr Kenlaw.”
“Hard to say. I grew up in a foster home; I’ve lived a lot of places since.”
“Well, folks around here like you well enough. They don’t much like Dr Kenlaw.”
“I expect he’s too aggressive. Some of these obsessive researchers are like that.”
Ginger lined her freckles in a frown. “You’re a researcher. Is Dr Kenlaw?”
Brandon went tense beneath her cheek. “What do you mean? ”
“I mean, have you ever heard of him? If you’re both studying the same subjects pretty much...?”
“I don’t know his work, if that’s what you mean.” Brandon’s muscles remained steel-tight. “But then, he knows his subject well enough. Why?”
“He seems to be more interested in gold than in archeology,” Ginger told him. “At least, that’s the way his questions strike most folks he talks to.”
Brandon laughed and seemed to relax again. “Well, there’s more acclaim in discovering a tomb filled with gold relics than in uncovering a burial of rotted bones and broken pot shards, regardless of the relative value to archeological knowledge. That’s why King Tutankhamen’s tomb made headlines, while the discovery of a primitive man’s jawbone gets squeezed in with the used car ads.”
“There was a curse on King Tut’s tomb,” Ginger reminded him dourly.
“Even better, if you’re fighting for a grant.”
“Grants! ” Ginger sniffed. “Do you really mean to get that degree, or do you just plan to make a career of living off grants?”
“There’s worse ways to make a living,” Brandon assured her.
“Somehow I can’t see you tied down to some university job. That’s what you’ll do when you get your doctorate, isn’t it? Teach?”
“There’s a lot of PhDs out there looking for jobs once the grants dry up,” Brandon shrugged. “If there’s an opening somewhere, I suppose so.”
“There might be an opening at Western Carolina,” Ginger hinted.
“There might.”
“And why not? You like it down here— or else you wouldn’t keep coming back. And people like you. You seem to fit right in—not like most of these loud New York types.”
“It does feel like coming home again when I get back here,” Brandon acknowledged. “Guess I’ve never stayed in one place long enough to call it home. Would you like for me to set up shop in Cullowhee?”
“I just might.”
Brandon decided she had waited long enough for her kiss, and did something about it. Shadows crept together to form misty darkness, and the cool mountain breeze carried the breath of entwined clematis and freshly turned earth. The creak of the porch swing measured time like an arthritic grandfather’s clock, softened by the rustle of the river. A few cows still lowed, and somewhere a chuck-will’s-widow called to its mate. The quiet was dense enough so that they could hear Dan gnawing a bone in the yard below.
Ginger finally straightened, stretched cozily from her cramped position. “Mmm,” she purred; then: “Lord, what is that dog chewing on so! We didn’t have more than a plate of scraps for him after dinner.”
“Maybe Dan caught himself a rabbit. He’s always hunting.”
“Oh! Go see! He killed a mother rabbit last week, and I know her babies all starved.”
“Dan probably saw that they didn’t.” Brandon rose to go look. “What you got there, boy?”
Ginger saw him stiffen abruptly. “Oh, no! Not another mamma bunny!”
She darted past Brandon’s arm before he could stop her.
Dan thumped his tail foolishly and returned her stare. Between his paws was a child’s arm.
•V•
Olin Reynolds shifted his chaw reflectively. “I don’t wonder Ginger came to carry on such a fit,” he allowed. “What did you figure it was?”
“Certainly not a child’s arm,” Brandon said. “Soon as you got it into good light you could see it was nothing human. It had to have been some type of monkey, and the resemblance gave me a cold chill at first glance, too. Pink skin with just a frost of dirty white fur, and just like a little kid’s