"We got a body," I said, indicating the bones.

"That's him," Asa insisted. "Look. He's still wearing his rings. And that's his belt buckle and sword and knives." But a shadow of doubt lingered in his voice. He was coming around to my way.

And I still wondered why the nice new ship had not been claimed.

"Hagop. Hunt around for signs somebody went off in another direction. Asa. You said you lit out as soon as you saw what was happening?"

"Yeah."

"So. Let's quit worrying about that and try to figure what happened here. Just to look at it, this dead man had something that became that." I indicated the lump. I was surprised I had so little trouble ignoring it. I guess you can get used to anything. I'd paraded around the big one in Juniper till I'd lost that cold dread that had moved me for a while. I mean, if men can get used to slaughterhouses, or my business-soldier or surgeon-they can get used to anything.

"Asa, you hung around with Raven. Shed, he lived at your place for a couple years, and you were his partner. What did he bring from Juniper that could have come to life and become that?"

They shook their heads and stared at the bones. I told them, "Think harder. Shed, it had to be something he had when you knew him. He stopped going up the hill a long time before he headed south."

A minute or two passed. Hagop had begun working his way along the edge of the clearing. I had little hope he would find traces this long after the fact. I was no woodsman, but I knew Raven.

Asa suddenly gasped.

"What?" I snapped.

"Everything is here. You know, all the metal. Even his buttons and stuff. But one thing."

"Well?"

"This necklace he wore. I only seen it a couple times. . . . What's the matter, Shed?"

I turned. Shed was gripping his chest over his heart. His face was marble white. He gobbled for words that would not come. He started trying to rip his shirt.

I thought he was having an attack. But as I reached him, to help, he opened his shirt and grabbed something he was wearing around his neck. Something on a chain. He tried to get it off by main force. The chain would not break.

I forced him to take it off over his head, pried it out of stiff fingers, held it out to Asa.

Asa looked a little pale. "Yeah. That's it."

"Silver," One-Eye said, and looked at Hagop meaningfully.

He would think that way. And he might be right. "Hagop! Come here."

One-Eye took the thing, held it to the light. "Some craftsmanship," he mused. . . . Then flung it down and dived like a frog off his lily pad. As he arced through the air, he barked like a jackal.