Rut and Root were the first to discover the body. Approaching from the bluff, they’d climbed down a well-worn trail, a drink from the nearby creek their goal. But at the bluff’s base, just steps from their trail, lay Zorg, a resident of the next hollow south. A large puddle of blood surrounded Zorg’s lifeless head.

“Go get Stoney,” Rut told Root.

“You go get Stoney,” Root grunted to Rut. “You’re not the boss of me!”

“Well, you’re not the boss of me!” Rut retorted.

This went on for several minutes until Daisy yelled from across the hollow, “Will you two shut yer gob holes? I’ll go get Stoney.”

No one questioned why it was Stoney who was always sent for in times of crisis.

It was fortunate that Stoney was just then returning from a successful morning of gathering corn. The ears weren’t quite ripe, but when the babies are hungry…. “Get me for what?” Stoney asked.

“Oh, Rut an’ Root are over there just beatin’ their jaws to pudding about somethin’. Who knows what.”

“Would you take half a’ these to Pat for me, Daisy? And keep the other half. I’ll go on over there.”

“Why sure, Stoney. And thank you. I was studying on what we’d eat today.”

Stoney didn’t have to ask what the fuss was about. He could see the corpse before he got within normal speaking range. “Who is it?” he asked.

“Zorg,” both said in unison.

Stoney stopped several feet away. “Y’all touched anything? Which footprints are yours? How long ago did you get here? Did you see anyone at all when you first arrived?”

Rut and Root just looked at each other, back to Stoney, and then back to one another.

“Well, that’s one way to shut ‘em up,” Stoney thought to himself. “Ask them to say something useful.”

“Okay, boys, just point to which footprints are yours.”

They did. Stoney carefully stepped toward the body and placed a small pebble in each footprint that they’d identified. That left only a few prints. Stoney would later attempt to eliminate those made by Zorg, the victim.

“You didn’t move anything at all?” Stoney asked. “A stick, a rock, anything?”

The two looked to one another quizzically, back to Stoney, and then back to each other shaking their heads. Stoney accepted their negative responses, thanking them and asking them to give him space, that they could step back.

Stoney carefully isolated the lone unobscured footprint that wasn’t Rut’s, Root’s, Zorg’s, or his own. The bits of dirt and tiny rock pieces in Zorg’s scalp at the injury site told Stoney that he’d been hit with a rock. The absence of a bloody rock nearby, and the position of the body, told him that it was murder.

Zorg had not fallen from the bluff. That was evident in that there was a tangle of vines on that particular slope and they were completely undisturbed. Also, there was no evidence on Zorg’s person indicating a tumble of any sort down the bluff face. Thirdly, the earth within the proximity of the body was impact-free. No, Zorg had one injury, the mashed-in spot over his left ear where a right-handed person would smash him with a crumbly rock. The missing rock.

As Stoney began a methodical search for the murder weapon, a crowd began to assemble, every one of them asking Stoney a dozen questions as they approached. Stoney raised his hands for quiet, waiting until a few stragglers arrived. “It’s Zorg,” Stoney said. “What we need to do is to search this entire area for a rock, a rock from about the size of an apple to a small melon. Now it’s gonna have blood on it and I need to see it before you go to handling it. So, real carefully come up where I am, and we’ll fan out so’s we can look over every inch and not step on it. We’ll go as far as a person might be able to throw it.”

Several mumbled and muttered about how far a person could throw an apple, arguing about who could throw one the furthest. Stoney let them sputter on. Everyone wanted in on the action. Once the first person hollered out that they’d found a rock, all the others followed suit. Stoney ran himself ragged skipping from one to the other, nixing their finds, and explaining what it should look like. It would be on top of the ground, not half buried, and that it would probably look a little out of place. Mostly though, it would have wet blood on it.

Before too long, the rock was found, smooth on one side, river-rock, rough on the other side. The rough side even bore a chunk of scalp with hair that matched Zorg’s. The rough side was crystalline, laden with bright quartz. It would have been pretty without all the gore.

Stoney refused to allow Zorg’s family to deal with his body until he’d finished his examination. They wanted to know who put him in charge, but backed off when Stoney asked whether or not they wanted to know who’d killed their kin.

As Zorg’s family muttered their way back home, Turnip appeared. “Hey, Stoney,” he said.

“Hey, Turnip. Zorg here got himself beaned pretty good. You’re just in time. You got time to help?”

“Sure,” Turnip replied, expecting to have to help carry Zorg, wondering why Stoney’d not used any of the men he’d seen walking away.

“I need to examine the body, and I don’t want anyone to see what I’m doin’.”

Turnip was confused, but nodded agreement.

“Just walk a perimeter and keep everybody away.”

Stoney went to work. First, he thoroughly examined Zorg’s head for an additional injury that might not have broken the skin. Then he looked at Zorg’s hands, checking for recent cuts, nicks, or anything unusual, especially under the fingernails. The head was clean of additional hurt and all he found on Zorg’s hands that might tell him anything were the three strands of long, jet black hair stuck in a broken fingernail.

Stoney proceeded to remove Zorg’s clothing, starting with his tunic. Turnip saw what was happening and nervously picked up his guarding pace, confused as to what Stoney was doing, and concerned that anyone might see and come to wrong conclusions. Afraid of the answer, but trusting his friend, Turnip paced with greater vigilance, not even glancing toward Stoney and Zorg.

Finding nothing noteworthy on Zorg’s upper torso, Stoney went south where he immediately saw that Zorg’s stones were swollen and the slightest bit blue, black and blue. He’d seen what he needed to and tidied Zorg back to the condition he’d found him.

“Okay, Turnip,” we can let Zorg’s people have ‘im.”

Turnip sighed with relief. “What now, Stoney?”

“We go home and eat corn. Tomorrow’s soon enough to solve this case. No one’s in any danger tonight.”

Turnip didn’t know how Stoney could know that, but went along with Stoney toward their caves.

Stoney didn’t wait for Pat to ask, but filled her in on everything that happened, and what he’d discovered.

"So, you think someone kicked him, and then beaned him when he bent over?" Pat asked.

"A woman with jet black hair," Stoney replied. “Someone who didn’t want to be taken.”

“And someone who likes shiny quartz,” Pat added.

“And has Zorg’s pouch. Remember, I said his pouch was missing?”

“It would’ve had the same thing every man carries,” Pat said. “A hook, a cutting stone, Patbe an arrowhead…”

“And a talisman. I’ll find out tomorrow from his family whether his was unique enough to help at all.”

“You don’t think simple robbery…” Pat asked, surprised that Stoney would consider it.

“No, but trickery is a possibility.”

“A ruse?”

Stoney nodded. “Throw everybody off track.”

“Motive, means…”

“And opportunity,” Stoney finished, seeing that Pat had hit a snag.

The next day, after learning that Zorg carried a small jasper stone, one with a hole bored through its middle by water current, Stoney and Pat trekked the hollow making inquiries. Most everyone had the means. Motive was more than likely limited to females, but not necessarily. The murderer could be a male protecting a female. It was highly unlikely that anyone killed Zorg for his pouch. The questioning centered on females who could not account for the hour in question: midafternoon, halfway between noon and sunset.

Unless the pouch was found in someone’s possession, the real physical evidence was the footprint, a print of a thin-hided animal, or a moccasin nearly worn out, one that allowed toe impressions. Also, the print was a size roughly the same as Stoney’s, just slightly smaller – a smallish man, or a large-footed woman. The footprint and the strands of hair.

Stoney and Pat started with opportunity.

They were nearly to the falls at the head of the hollow. Stoney noticed the familiar footprint as they approached the last cave before the falls. The hair was a match for the family, but that had been true for almost everyone interviewed. All their time was accounted for. The oldest daughter’s name was Missy. Jet black hair, large feet for a girl, and her moccasins were deer hide. Stoney didn’t need to inspect further to know that they would match. He had quickly ascertained that she was right-handed.

“I was right here,” Missy said a little too quickly. One hand flew to the side of her head, as she answered. Her mother’s head snapped toward her daughter at the answer, but she didn’t say anything.

“Except for just a tiny while. I went over there to the falls to wash up,” Missy amended. Her mother’s brow furrowed, but still she remained silent.

“You like shiny rocks?” Stoney asked, looking around at the collection around the cave.

“Don’t ever’body?” Missy’s mother snapped.

“River rocks with holes in them. Jasper, maybe?”

Missy’s head snapped toward her pallet.

“Zorg was kicked in his stones,” Stoney said out of the blue. “Hard.”

Missy’s mother turned to stare at her daughter.

Pat stepped up. “Missy, a woman has a right to choose who drags her into his cave.” Pat turned to look at me. “At least she ought to have.”

Before Pat finished, Missy ran to her mother’s arms weeping.

“I taught her to kick,” her mother admitted quietly.

Somberly, Stoney spoke directly to Missy. “There will be a trial. You can stay here, with your mother and father, but you must not leave the hollow. It would be best to stay close to home. Zorg’s people will want the trial in their hollow. That will not be. We will probably have to concede half the council to their members, though.”

Pat walked to Missy’s pallet and retrieved the jasper stone from a leather pouch.

“We will have women on this council,” Pat declared, in what could have sounded like a dare for Stoney to say otherwise.

Instead, Stoney nodded to Pat. To Missy’s parents, Stoney encouraged them to speak with every woman in the hollow, to not only attend, but to speak out at the council. “Pat and I will right now cross over this ridge and encourage as many women of Zorg’s community as will to come to the trial. Looking directly at Pat, Stoney repeated her words, “Women should have a say in who drags them into a cave.”