The Covenant by Jeff Crook

being the call-before-you-dig man, he worked with Deiter at Grant-Marks Paranormal Investigations, using his dowsing rods to detect ectoplasmic residues and buried cables. Despite my own unique abilities in this sphere, Trey and I were not kindred spirits. Something about me jammed his frequencies. He tucked his handkerchief away and looked back along the line he’d just finished spraying, probably wondering if he needed to check it again owing to my psychic interference.
    â€œI didn’t think the house had water or gas,” I said.
    â€œThey’s a big gas pipeline runs across this property.” He scrubbed his lips with the back of his hand and shoved his hat back on his head, revealing a stark, white forehead above the sunburn of his face. A couple of days’ worth of faint, blond stubble speckled his cheeks. “You working construction now?” he asked.
    â€œPhotography. I’m shooting the house.”
    â€œYou been inside it yet?”
    â€œOnce.”
    â€œNice place, huh?”
    Deacon returned from overseeing the unloading of the backhoe. “Everything OK?” he asked my friend.
    Trey spit past me, a black gob that cratered the dust next to one of his orange lines. He wiped his mouth and took up his dowsing rods. “I want to show y’all somethin’. Foller me, ’bout five paces back, if you don’t mind.” He started toward the house. After a moment’s hesitation, we followed like a pair of dutiful wives. We entered the woods and Trey angled toward a thicket that Deacon’s workers hadn’t begun to clear. As he slowed, his dowsing rods swung together in front of his chest.
    Deacon pulled his sunglasses from his face and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “Please don’t tell me the pipeline runs down here. The plans didn’t show anything in this area.”
    â€œPipeline’s back yonder. This here is a tunnel,” Trey said.
    Deacon opened his eyes and blinked. “A tunnel?”
    â€œRods don’t lie, man.” Trey spit again and scuffed it into the dirt with the toe of his boot. “Leads from the house off into the woods there. That’s how I know it’s a tunnel. Ain’t no gas, water, or sewer lines into that house, and the electricity used to come in on a pole. Only thing it could be is a tunnel.”
    I wondered if Trey’s employers knew he was using hillbilly magic to guarantee the safety of that gas pipeline. Deacon must have been thinking the same thing. “I thought you usually used some kind of machine to detect buried pipes.”
    â€œGot a Dynatel back in the truck. Already tried it. Won’t work on this hill.” He clicked the rods together. “I figured something was interfering, so I got out my rods. First thing I found was water. It’s all up under here.”
    Trey shifted his chew around in his jaw, his eyes wandering all over the house and the trees surrounding it. “Sometimes these old houses have their well down in the cellar. When this house was built, they probably still had trouble with Indians. I bet if you tore the walls down to the original timbers, you’d find loopholes for shooting.”
    Deacon’s face lit up at the thought of all that history, buried and hidden for who knew how many years. He slid his sunglasses back on to his nose to free his hands for talking. “The house was built in 1858. Legend says it was a dead end on the underground railroad. Escaped slaves would crawl into the cellar through ventilation holes in the back. But those who made it here never got any farther north. The strongest were disfigured and resold into slavery, the old murdered, but the women and children just disappeared.”
    â€œSeriously?” I asked.
    Deacon shrugged. “That’s the family legend. You know how legends are. Infant mortality was extremely high, and women died all the time while giving birth.