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She started toward it

A jerk on her ankle ators didn’t usually travel out into the depths of the river--they preferred the bayou and the shallows But it would be quite ridiculous if she were to be consumed by a natural predator she knew and respected in the hunt for a huator; it was Jake He frowned at her, indicating that she wasn’t to take off without him

She nodded and pointed Then, of course, her bea, but he nodded and followed her doard

They were in an area of soft packed ht she had ilitter in the water It was dark, and with the current, once thean even darker brown haze

Then she felt Jake squeeze her hand, and he indicated thethere

They had tobrowner by the second There was nothing easy about ht the current hard But Jake was digging in the mud, and she did the same

There, beneath one of the plumes Jake had just started

She saw it

It was still in excellent shape; it looked as if it had just been set down on the river bottom The 1853 Enfield rifle that shot a Burton-Minie ball still had its bayonet, which had surely glittered in the glow of her flashlight, soundly attached

It was the weapon that had been carried not just by the defenders, but by all of the federals on the day of the skirmish that had taken place in 1861 It would have a thirty-nine-inch barrel with three grooves, and the stock had three metal bands, so that it was sometimes called the popular "three-banded" rifle Reproductions of the rifle were carried by all the reenactors At the beginning of the war, it had been quite typical, appreciated on both sides of the great conflict

She pointed; Jake reached down a hand and collected the weapon by the stock He nodded to Ashley and indicated that they head toward the riverbank

They e up the ela had been true to her word and was there leaning against Jake’s car down by the public ra toward the in her hand, which turned out to be a large plastic bag of soela, apparently, had had faith in their findings, while Ashley had to admit she hadn’t expected that the four of the in the Mississippi Of course, this teaain…

She had been the one to spot the weapon

"You found it!" Angela cried, wrinkling her nose as she stepped into a deep pit and struggled to free her foot

"Ashley actually made the discovery--without a ela opened the bag

"Wait!" Ashley said

They both paused, staring at her

She studied the weapon

The ood They could replicate weapons to a T

But there was so about this one

She didn’t touch it, but she moved closer Mud encrusted the weapon, and there was no choice She delicately took a finger protected by her diver glove and dusted aside a speck of the ed into the stock near the barrel, there were initials

She looked up at Jake and Angela, chilled to the bone

"This weapon is real I ed to Marshall Donegal You can see his initials right there, MPD He carved theal"

Interlude

He watched it again There she was, that blasted reporter, talking to Jake Mallory

Mallory, so cool and sole at all

They didn’t have good new footage to show; so far, none of the reporters or their crews had been allowed on the property, and thus they had nothing new to say Of course, the world no that Charles Osgood was dead, and everyone everywhere was deliberating It was absolutely a to discover just how host had committed the crime

Or even a Yankee Hell, four Yankees had "died" on the property that day