She turned her back even as he barked questions. The girl knelt beside her partner and lifted the first rock to cover him again; Neels surged to spin her around to face him, to answer him. She snarled and slapped at him, coiling against the corpse. LB slid a hand inside Neels’s elbow to tug him back. Neels fought him off but stepped away, boiling mad. LB knelt with the girl. As before, they stacked stones over Wophule. LB closed the boy’s tunic across the grisly hole where Neels had reached into his chest. Wally and Karskie stayed back. Neels walked a growling circle. LB set a heavy stone in place. “Did you do it?” Without breaking her labor, the girl nodded. The mound over Wophule grew. The boy faded once more beneath dirt and rock, his pained face the last to disappear under cupped handfuls of dirt. LB struggled to stay silent, to not ask in whispers, Why? What about your oath, to the rangers, your partner, the Kruger? How could you break it? For what? Money? LB could imagine but could not understand.
