“Well, something really bad happened right before the explosion, only it wasn’t the kind of thing the cops would consider bad.” He hesitated a moment, then gave her a sharp look. “Can I ask you a question first? About your family?”

“Sure,” she said, wondering what had caused the look, but getting the feeling in her bones that he was about to tell her something very important. “I don’t see why not.”

“Is your grandfather the Talldeer that’s the Medicine Man?” Despite being fogged by drugs, he was watching her very closely—and the question startled her a little, and increased the feeling of urgency.

“Well, yes, actually.” She wondered where he’d heard of her grandfather, and if she should say anything else, but he said it for her.

“So you’re the Medicine Woman, the kid he’s been teaching—” He sighed and looked relieved. “Okay, you’ll understand, then. You know, if this had happened the day before the dozer suicided, I’d have been sure somebody had planted a bomb because of it—but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes before—”

He was rambling, possibly nerves, possibly the drugs, probably both. But in the ramblings, there were important clues. Suddenly, this wasn’t just an insurance job. She suddenly felt like a hunter who has just heard the warning caw of a crow. She stiffened. “So what did happen?” she prompted.

“We—we dug up bones.” He swallowed. “Old bones, pots, you know what I mean?”

“You’re saying you found a burial ground. I mean, one of our grounds,” she said, trying to control the feeling of danger that made her skin crawl. There it was. Out in the open. “Not just some old graveyard from around the Land Rush days.”

“Yeah, at least that’s what we all think.” He shook his head. “It really spooked us, even the white guys. The stuff looked like it might be real old. And you know what digging up sacred ground means.…”

He was getting more and more agitated the more he thought about it. “Yes,” she told him. “I do. Can I help?”

He brightened at that. “Yeah, if you get a chance, would you ask your grandfather to come do a cleansing on me? Not that I’m superstitious but—”

“But you’ve already had enough trouble; no problem,” she replied, mentally hitting a “reset” button and looking at the situation in a whole new light. Now it definitely was no longer just an insurance job. She had a real soul-stake in finding out what had happened, and too bad if the cops didn’t like her poking around. “So you—ah—disturbed relics. Then what happened?”