"I'd better help him," said Carl, following. "If the damn thing drops sudden it'll probably land on his head."

"Bag duty for me," said Ted, holding up a pile of burlap sacks with a grimace. "Gonna go in the woods and search for strays. Feel free to trade whenever you feel inclined."

"Gonna try and start matching pieces together, one stone to one coffin, one coffin to one body," Mike said, and went off to the shed.

The sun was bright and warm, good for drying out the earth but bad for what needed to be re-interred beneath it. They found their cologne-soaked handkerchiefs, tied them in place, and the work went on. There was no talk about the previous night.

Not until noon did something happened to put everything else on hold for a time.

It was Ted, out in the woods, who picked up on it first, and when he did he came running out from among the trees, waving his arms and ringing his hands. Everyone stopped and stared, and when he got close he called out, "There's a child in there! I can hear her crying!"

The search began immediately.

"No way anyone's in here," said Mike, turning to Ted as they picked their way among the trees. "You sure it wasn't a barn owl? They sound kinda like tikes when they're riled."

"Hey now, I know what I heard," Ted replied.

"It don't make no sense. The nearest farm----"

He was cut off by a wail the likes of which none of them had ever heard. It came from farther in the forest, but not too far, and worked its way into their bones until their footsteps slowed and they all grew still. It started high and ended low, but not low enough for an adult, and there could be no doubt it was a person. Ted was right. It sounded like a child, hurt and terrified.

"My God, that was it, that was the sound," Ted whispered, grasping Carl's arm.

"Leggo," Carl hissed. "Someone needs help." But for a long moment all they could do was stand in place looking toward the thickening cluster of pines that stood before them, and Ted held on.

The silence was deathly.

Then the cry went up again, the desolate wail of someone utterly lost and alone. "Mama!" that someone called. "Mama."

It was Hugh, of all people, who was stirred into action by the sound. He was a father and knew thatcall of duty when he heard it. "Come on now," he said, and trotted off toward the noise. As if waking from a dream, Carl tore free of Ted's grasp and followed Hugh. Mike and Ted kept pace behind him.

Hugh moved rapidly, trying to pinpoint the location of the sound before it died away again. He pushed through the dead lower branches of some pine trees just as the wail was fading away, and arrived at the source of the sound before the last echo died.

There could be no doubt who had made it. The sound had led them to her, and they had found her.

The little girl in the faded pink dress lay in a shallow mud puddle in the shade of the trees, but there was no need to help her up. She had been dead for a long, long time. The skin of her face stretched tightly over her skull, dehydrated and tanned by long years underground. Her long, blond hair rested in dusty, disintegrating braids across her chest. Her hands were clusters of brittle white twigs. Her hollow eye sockets stared vacantly.

Around her lay the shattered remains of a small, white coffin.

Hugh let loose a yell that sent blackbirds flying off in fright. Mike and Ted simultaneously turned and were sick. Carl leaned against a tree, swallowed his risen gorge, and shut his eyes. When he opened them again he looked up, and said, "The waters took her all this way. Guess it would be a good turn to take her back. Guess that's what she wants."

Like a funeral procession they filed slowly through the woods and back to the sun-struck graveyard, a small bundle in burlap carried between Carl and Mike. After depositing the bundle in the shed they went quickly back to Mike's house, trudged inside, and worked no more that day.

Later that night before they fell asleep in front of a cheery, popping hearth fire. Hugh snuck over to the door and latched it tight.

No one asked where he had gone when he came back.

~

By morning they had collected themselves enough to return to work, and for the next three days they labored diligently, ignoring flitting shadows and sheltering themselves at night by laughing too hard at jokes and sticking cotton in their ears when they slept. Although they remained on the property out of a sense of duty, they didn't keep watch on the grounds after dusk anymore.

They made fine progress. Soon all the "litter" was gone from the grounds and Mike began making a great many identifications, due in part to his own detective work, but mainly to a somewhat disturbing discovery he made one bright morning: during the night, someone had used a sharp stone, branch, or (here Mike shuddered, thinking of it) fingernail to scratch names onto all the coffins, and mud to write names on all the burlap sacks. Despite the issues this raised, it helped a great deal, and the four men figured that no matter how it had come to happen, the act was a gift.

One afternoon, after the reburials had begun in earnest, Carl was touching up a hole when he saw Mike sitting off by himself on a rock at the edge of the yard.

"Everything dandy?" Carl asked, but was taken aback by Mike's appearance. He looked sicker than any man he had ever seen. There was sweat on his forehead and upper lip, but Carl could tell it wasn't the good sweat of work, but the kind that comes with brain fever. He looked so pale the light seemed almost to shine through him, and his breathing was labored and loud.

"Lord a' mercy," Carl said, and put his hand out to touch Mike's shoulder. Mike shied away, and Carl withdrew with a raised eyebrow and a frown.

"You look sick, Mike. I don't know what to make of it, but I think you'd best get inside and lie down."

"I ain't sicksick," said Mike. "To be honest, right now I just want out of here for a bit. I want this over. I need time away."

"Well why don't you go, then?" Carl asked gently. "You've worked damn hard. No one can say different."

"Because if I leave now this job is history, and I need it bad. What with the Depression on and a score's score of people ready to take over if I up and run, I'd be a crazy to walk away."

"Depression?" Carl said. "I don't follow."

Mike gazed at him long and hard, then motioned for him to sit down beside him. This time he didn't shy away.

"I found something 'bout an hour ago," Mike said.

"Yeah?" said Carl.

"I found the updated chart of the cemetery."

"Oh yeah?" said Carl.

"Just sittin' there right as rain, a little stained but still readable, right on top of my desk like it had been there all along." He pulled out a folded sheaf of papers from the front pocket of his overalls. "Here it is."

"Well that's fine, Mike, just fine. Now we can know for certain if we're missing anybody. But I don't see----"

"It'd please me if you took a gander at it. 'Specially the bottom of the second page."

Carl took the list, flipped to the second page, scanned it, and stopped short.

He breathed in and out, long and deep.

"My, oh my," he said.

Mike swayed beside him, mopping his wet brow.

"Oh my," Carl continued. "Oh my, oh my."

~