The men stepped out of the woods, triumph on their faces.
They raised their rifles in unison.
With a deep, bellowing grunt of utter fury and despair, an old boar lowered his long, deadly husks and ran directly at the man most responsible for this travesty: the sheriff.
The sheriff had been expecting such a charge. But he was not expecting such speed. The massive boar came at him, low and impossibly fast, his muscular legs churning up the forest floor, his tusks long and sharp. For a crazy moment, their eyes met and the sheriff could swear it was a pig of the past, coming for him.
Yelping in fear, he sprung instinctually to one side, lowering his rifle to take aim—and the boar went thundering past.
The other pigs, seeing a break in the line, went running toward freedom, too. The men, in a fury, fired at them as they ran. Several pigs fell, including the lead sow. Her body jerked as it was mutilated by the bullets she had feared, and she died at their feet.
A few pig survivors raced off into the forest. The men were left looking at the ones they had killed. The sheriff, breathing hard, used the tip of his boot, now wet with blood, to push at the pulsating flesh of the sow.
“This one was the leader, I bet,” he said to the other men, who were holding their rifles and looking upset.
“Naw. I think it was that big old boar. You let him get away, Jim.”
“I know. Would rather live to fight another day than have that asshole skewer me.”
“You should have shot him.”
The sheriff gave the man a dirty look. He was still the sheriff—he could deny the guy a hunting tag or pull him over forty times in a week if he wanted. The man blanched.
“I guess if it had been me, I might have stepped aside, too.”
“We’ll come back, get the rest.”
Somehow, they all knew that wouldn’t happen. What had occurred that day in the forest seemed to make sense, but it did not. They would not join the sheriff for another pig hunt. They had a bad feeling about him. Maybe they always had.
38.
Her name was Cordelia Dubois, and she had sent in the DNA sample after reading an article inTimemagazine about the lab and Ruby and Delaney’s work there. Ruby had asked not to be named in the article. She didn’t want fame. She wanted to do the work. Delaney had been more than happy to pose, giving the camera a big thumbs-up and telling Ruby to get over herself.
“I consider myself the family historian,” Cordelia told Ruby, after welcoming her into her cozy home outside Atlanta the following morning. “Betty not being found bothered me. I thought, what if someone finds her bones somewhere and don’t know what they mean? Like a hunter. So I sent your friend—she’s your friend, you say?—a sample. Spit in the tube just like her new website told me to. That way if anyone ever does find Betty, I’ll know about it.”
The living room was crowded with family pictures, including a large portrait of a civil war soldier hanging over the mantel. Ruby was surprised to see that it was a Union soldier. Usually, white people in the South claimed to be Confederates, even if it wasn’t true.
“That’s my great-great-grandfather Eldridge Dubois,” the woman said, proudly. “Now,” she said, patting the crochet-covered couch, “you have a seat right there. I’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
Ruby sat, waiting.
Cordelia was soon back, carrying a silver tray holding two cloudy glasses of iced tea and a plate of store-bought cookies. Her feathered mules almost caught the edge of the rug, and she lowered the traycarefully. “Don’t get as many visitors anymore,” she said, smiling. She had clearly readied for Ruby after getting her call.
“I’m not much of a cook,” Cordelia said. “Around here that’s bad as admitting your great-great-grandfather snuck down to Tennessee to fight with the Union. There were only a few thousand of them—the white soldiers from the South, I mean. He led a Black unit.” She bit into a cookie, and took a dainty sip of her tea.
“What made him do that?” Ruby asked, drinking her own tea. It was very cold, very sweet, and delicious.
“Not everyone in Hammock County believed in slavery. My great-great-grandmother was a fixture on the Underground Railroad. She was a Quaker.”
“I thought Quakers didn’t fight,” Ruby said.
“These ones do.”
It was quite comfortable in the house. It felt like the home of the grandmother Ruby had never had. She could curl up on this couch and nap the day away, watched over by the ancestors on the wall.
“So,” Cordelia said. “The execution is tomorrow.”
“It is,” Ruby said. “Were you planning on attending?”
