The raked sunlight of early morning cast shadows that wouldn’t be there at noon. The surface of the land around the mound looked odd, unnatural, beneath the blanket of grass, brambles, and vines shorn off by Mr. Calhoun’s bush-hogger. Faye could have sworn the morning shadows revealed that the land on either side of the mound was raised ever-so-slightly above the natural ground surface. The raised areas swept out and back like wings. She twisted in Joe’s arms to get a look behind her. It was possible that a third berm stretched behind the mound like a vestigial tail. If she squinted, she could make out a low rise ahead of her, where the head of this winged beast should be.
Could this be an effigy mound, constructed in the image of a bird? Such monumental, animal-shaped earthworks were well-known in the Midwest, but there were no undisputed effigy mounds in the Southeast. Many thought that the largest mound at Poverty Point was made in the image of a bird. Oka Hofobi had thought this mound might date to the same period. A bird-shaped mound constructed by the Poverty Point culture would be a dream find. It was probably a good thing that Joe had Faye immobilized. Otherwise, she might have rushed Calhoun and dismantled his tractor single-handedly.
But what were the odds that an effigy mound was sitting, unnoticed, right here by the road? Faye guessed they were low, but maybe…
If the newly bush-hogged area on the flanks of the mound had been overgrown for many years, then an effigy wouldn’t have been visible on aerial photographs. If the berms that formed the wings and tail were low enough—and she’d guess that they were—then they wouldn’t show up on the geological survey’s topographic maps, which were usually plotted at five to ten feet of resolution. And if Mr. Calhoun’s ancestors had been as touchy about trespassers as he himself was, then Faye might be the first person outside his family to see this bird in many years.
From Faye’s odd vantage point, she could peer out from under Joe’s armpit down at the crowd. Across the road, she could see Mr. Nail. The bright morning sun left him no place to hide as he smoked his cigarette and watched the hullabaloo. The fact that he was staying out of this conflict was telling. Which side did he belong on? He was a farmer, born of a long line of farmers. Surely he wouldn’t want to see a man’s property rights abused. But he was a Choctaw, born of an even longer line of Choctaws. He couldn’t possibly feel comfortable about watching a monumental piece of Native American heritage destroyed.
A siren sounded. All motion stopped, momentarily keeping everyone safe from being trampled, and every head turned in the direction of three approaching cars, each of which was topped with flashing lights.
Two officers emerged from each car, five muscle-bound men and one slightly built woman. With their hands resting lightly on their sidearms, they moved as a unit toward the idling tractor.
The woman rapped on the cabin door. “This is nuts, Carroll. Come out and talk to me.”
There was no response from the man inside. The engine revved. The five deputies drew their weapons, but the woman merely twitched hers in its holster.
“I don’t think you paid extra to have bullet-proof glass installed in this thing. I’m telling you to come out and talk to me.”
The door opened, but Calhoun didn’t get out. “Your daddy’s farm is just down the road, Neely. This could happen to him, you know. Somebody could decide that a few arrowheads are worth bankrupting him.”
A murmur of voices rose behind Calhoun. There was fear in the sound. The woman raised a bullhorn. “Nobody’s getting bankrupted. Nobody’s taking Carroll’s land. Look at this thing,” she said, gesturing at the mound behind her. “He’s never even plowed it. There’s no harm in leaving it alone.”
A black man stepped forward. “I don’t care if he plows it or knocks it down or leaves it alone. It’s his business, not the government’s. Which means it’s not your business, Sheriff.”
She lowered her bullhorn to speak directly to him. “I don’t know that, Wade, and neither do you. I’m not real clear on whether Carroll’s free to knock this thing down, just because it’s on his property. This is not a point of law I deal with every day, but I’ve already got some lawyers looking into it. If Carroll will park his tractor and talk to me, we can work this thing out.”
Without closing the door, Calhoun let the tractor start moving forward again. “By the time your lawyers get this figured out, there won’t be nothing here but a flat piece of ground.”
The bullhorn hit the ground and the woman’s sidearm finally left its holster.
Calhoun blinked. “Neely! You would shoot me over this thing? When you don’t even know what the law says?”
“You may or may not be breaking any cultural protection laws, but you’re sure as hell disturbing the peace, and I know how to deal with that. You, sir, will come down out of that tractor. Right now.”
When Carroll Calhoun descended from the tractor of his own free will, Faye went weak with relief. It seemed that no one would die today. The restive crowd behind Calhoun looked eager to prove her wrong.
“We won’t stand for it,” somebody yelled. “We’ll tear this thing down ourselves.”
An older Choctaw woman stepped out of the crowd and cried, “You’ll have to come through us first.” Faye feared for her. The colorfully appliquéd dress she was wearing would make her an easy target.
The sheriff snatched her bullhorn off the ground and charged the mound. Standing firm, legs apart, high above the crowd, she told them, “We’re not doing this, folks. If the law says Carroll can tear this thing down, then more power to him. If the law says he has to preserve it, then that’s what he’s going to do. But we’re not going to kill each other over it.”
An elderly white man called up to her, “Neely Rutland. When we elected you sheriff, we expected you to look after your own people.”
“That’s what I’m doing, John. Except maybe my list of ‘my own people’ is a little bit longer than your list.”
Faye noticed that John did not look pleased by this observation.
The bullhorn sounded again. “I was elected to look after all the people in this county. You know what? I was born here in Neshoba County in 1970—years after evil and stupid people killed those civil rights workers and buried them in a dam. But when I tell people from outside the county where I come from, I feel like I’ve got a tattoo on my forehead that says ‘Racist.’ I refuse to wake up tomorrow and find out that every headline in the country reads
RACIAL CONFLICT IN NESHOBA COUNTY LEAVES FIVE PEOPLE DEAD
.” Pointing to the damaged mound at her feet, she said, “I’ll do everything I can to protect this thing, including sitting in a chair up here all night long. But my first priority is to keep the peace. If I decide there’s no other way to keep everybody alive, I’ll crank that bulldozer and tear the damned mound down myself. Why don’t you people go home?”
And they did.
“My, Chuck, you were quite the hero out there,” Faye said, digging around in the shed until she found a first-aid kit.
Chuck gave a sheepish grunt and fished a bottle of ibuprofen out of the box. “I’m fine, except my head hurts. I think I hurt our fearless leader, though.”
“Damn near twisted my hand off. Give me some of that.” Dr. Mailer grabbed the ibuprofen out of Chuck’s hand. “You could at least pretend to be hurt,” he groused in Joe’s general direction. “It would make an old man feel better.”
“I’m pretty sure one of you bruised me a little bit. Somewhere.” He didn’t reach for the ibuprofen, so Faye figured he was lying. She noticed that he was holding his right arm at an odd angle, though he wasn’t palpating the muscles and the joints like someone who was injured. He just held it out there, studying it now and then, occasionally brushing his fingers lightly over the skin.
Their work day was interminable, even for those workers not nursing cuts and bruises. As they measured and marked the area to be excavated, they were aware of the law enforcement presence just across the road. It was obvious every time a car roared up, then slowed to a crawl as it passed within sight of the mound. Were those cars full of rubberneckers hoping to see what the fuss was all about? Were they driven by Choctaws cruising past to make sure no one had desecrated their heritage? Some of the drivers honked as they passed, so maybe they were Calhoun’s friends wanting to let the man know he had their support.
“Why aren’t these people at work on a Friday?”
Joe, who had a tendency to answer Faye’s rhetorical grumbles, said, “Well, the ones that are farmers work their own hours.”
Oka Hofobi, who seemed an awful lot like Joe considering that he had a Ph.D. and Joe was hoping to earn his high school equivalency diploma any day now, chimed in to help him answer the question Faye hadn’t really asked. “The casinos are open whenever people have time to throw their money away, so plenty of Choctaws work at night. Besides, lots of people around here took vacation time this week for the Fair.”
“Wasn’t that a couple of weeks ago?” Bodie asked. “I was wishing I’d gotten here early enough to go. They say nobody dances like the Choctaws. And I’d love to see a modern-day stickball game. Any chance they would let us play?”
“You’re talking about the Choctaw Indian Fair, and it’s too bad you missed it,” Oka Hofobi said. “It’s usually a week or two before the Neshoba County Fair. We’ve got sense enough not to compete with Mississippi’s Giant House Party.”
“Why do they call it a house party? I thought it was a fair. You know…Ferris wheels. Bumper cars. Deep-fried ice cream. Cotton candy.” Toneisha’s voice took on a dreamy quality. Faye, who had a deep affinity for fair food, recognized a kindred spirit.
“In Neshoba County, the fairgrounds are full of cabins. Whole neighborhoods of them. I think there’s maybe six hundred or so. And there’s a family reunion going on in every one of them, all week long,” Oka Hofobi explained. “People who are lucky enough to own them—and they’re insanely expensive, if you can even find one to buy—just move in for the week. Whole branches of families don’t speak to each other because they’re unhappy about who inherited Mama’s cabin. They’re not much to look at, but people are willing to put up with anything just to be where the action is.”
“What kind of action? Roller coasters?” Toneisha sounded like she really wanted to know.
“It depends on what you’re into. If you’re into socializing, you’ve got fifty thousand people walking right past your front door. The population of Neshoba County practically doubles during the Fair. If you’re into politics, you can stroll over to the Pavilion and hear your senator or the governor or, in an election year, maybe even a presidential candidate. If you like music, you can hear any big-name act you like, as long as it’s country and western. Plus all the usual rides and livestock exhibits. And the Miss Neshoba County pageant. There’s something for pretty much everybody.”
Everybody agreed that they’d enjoy a visit to the fair, maybe that very evening, but their enthusiasm had fizzled by the time Chuck locked the shed for the day. Surviving a hostile confrontation before noon will do that to a person.
Faye couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel room she shared with Toneisha. They had unusually posh accommodations for a field assignment, thanks to the fact that their Choctaw-owned casino hotel had made Dr. Mailer an extended-stay discount that he couldn’t refuse. Faye wished she had enough energy to enjoy the sauna, which was weird because she’d spent the day outdoors where the temperature and the relative humidity were both well in the nineties. Somehow, though she couldn’t explain why, sitting in a quiet room that smelled like cedar and letting the dry heat penetrate into her aching bones sounded really good. It was just too bad that her bones were too achy and tired to carry her all the way downstairs to the sauna.
She was in bed before her roommate finished the first step of her four-part nightly skin care regimen. Being a soap-and-water kind of girl offered its own rewards, but being in bed early didn’t ensure sleep.
Faye lay under the sheets and thought of what she’d seen as she hurried to the car that took her here to this comfortable bed. The setting sun had thrown harsh shadows across the disputed mound, and Sheriff Rutland’s deputies were arrayed around it, their sidearms holstered but ready. The sheriff herself sat alone in a lawn chair high atop the mound. There would be no trouble tonight, not if Neely Rutland could help it.
Joe had refused a ride back to the hotel, setting off on foot instead. Faye had watched him vanish into the trees surrounding Mr. Calhoun’s mound. Even a half-dozen armed law enforcement officers wouldn’t see or hear Joe hiding out there. Not unless he wanted to be seen or heard.
Faye figured Joe was armed with something ancient and sharp and made of rock. Sheriff Rutland might not know he was out there, but she would be measurably safer tonight with Joe watching over her.
The Story of Nanih Waiya Cave
As told by Mrs. Frances Nail
Everybody around here knows about Nanih Waiya. They know that she is the Mother Mound and that we were born there. Trouble is, when people tell that story, they’re not real sure
which
Nanih Waiya is our true mother. There are two of them. One of them stands, big and flat-topped, right beside the road. Some people call it the “temple mound.” The other one hides deep in the woods. Inside it, there hides a cave, so most people just call it the “cave mound.” I think it is a place of secrets, and the cave is only one of them.
I was always told that there used to be a big hole in the top of the temple mound. That hole was like a navel. It was a place of birth. It was customary to leave a portion of fresh-killed meat in that hole as an offering to our mother. That’s what they taught us in school, anyway.
There’s another story floating around that says we came out of the cave mound. And maybe we did. I don’t know. I do know this: When I was a young woman, I went into the cave, and it did not feel like home to me. It was cold and hard and dark like death.
Atop the temple mound, I feel close to heaven. Beneath the cave mound, I felt death plucking at my sleeve.
My grandmother used to say that the Devil lived in Nanih Waiya Cave. She said that, in the old times, he became angry with the Choctaws. Now, when you think about it, it’s a good thing to make the Devil mad at you. It means that you’re living right, and that you’re teaching your family to live right, so that the good ways will survive.
The Devil knew just the right way to strike the Choctaws directly in the heart. He lured their children into the woods, promising them sweets made out of berries and honey, and he trapped them in his cave. He walled up the entrance so that they couldn’t get out and their parents couldn’t find them.
Maybe he didn’t mean for them to die. Maybe he meant to scare their parents into seeing things his way. Who knows? But children need to breathe, even if Devils don’t. My grandmother said that their bones are still sealed in an airless chamber deep under the mound. I have been there and I have smelled the fear in the cave’s stale air. I believe her.