Chapter 36: Ancestral Rites

Calling it a field of untended graves would not have been an exaggeration. An entire hillside lay studded with burial mounds, large and small. Some had headstones, some only a wooden grave marker with a name carved into it, and some were nothing more than a low hump of earth. Mckenzie Looske led Nixon Walker through the tangle of paths to the far corner, where a wooden marker stood on a mound. The carving read: Leo Reed. "This is the kids' dad's grave. Clear the weeds, then take Ophelia with you....