The Lost Choice (6 page)

“Two?” Dorry's eyes were wide-open. “I just thought we might be able . . . I mean that you could . . . two weeks?”

Dylan smiled, stood up, and came around to Dorry's side of the desk. “Look”—he shrugged—“this kind of thing is not in my area of expertise. I've got some buddies though. We'll figure it out.”

Dorry stood and nodded. “Okay, thanks. That makes sense. I'm just sort of a ‘right now' person, you know. And I thought,
hey, he works in a museum . . .”

Dylan smiled.

After Dorry left, Dylan shut the door and went back to his desk. Sitting down, he began slowly swinging the chair back and forth with his foot. Dylan stared blankly at the map on the wall, not really taking it in, but lost in thought—only occasionally glancing at the object still in his hands.
So a kid finds this in his backyard,
Dylan thought.
Kinda weird, kinda not.

No one could ever know with certainty how any particular relic came to lie in a particular place—it was one of the enduring mysteries of his profession and purely guesswork. Origins,however,were easier to pinpoint. For instance, no one knew how the obsidian pottery with elaborate faces formed into the edges ended up in one hundred feet of water off the Pacific coast. Archaeologists were, however, able to determine that they were more than three thousand years old and came from Southeast Asia.

Moving the chair closer to his desk, Dylan shook his head sharply to clear the cobwebs and placed the object in his hand under the magnifying light. Mentally, he plodded through what he knew.
Almost certainly leaded bronze. A cast piece, no carving except the script. Script is clearly etched. No staining or corrosion evident. Is that unusual? I don't know.

For a full minute or more Dylan sat completely still, then he opened the drawer by his right knee. Carefully, he removed a small electronic scale and placed it next to the light on his desk. Plugging it into an adapter on the base of the lamp, he turned the scale on and placed the object onto its measuring pan. Dylan pressed the buttons “Clear” and “Zero,” then watched as the digital numbers 139.22 appeared in green.
Hmmm.Okay. A little more than 139 grams . . . almost five ounces.
He pulled a small tape measure from the drawer in front of him—
43.4 inches long and . . . 17.8 inches at its widest point.

Dylan leaned back in his chair, faced the map, and began moving back and forth again. He reviewed what he knew, which was not much.
I am an anthropologist, not an archaeologist.
Dylan smiled. Most people, he knew, did not know the difference. He had to explain it to his own mother every time he was home for a holiday. Archaeologists studied ancient civilizations, whereas he, an anthropologist, was concerned with the human beings themselves—their environment, social interaction, and culture.

Dylan's particular area of proficiency was directed toward the Plains Indians of the early 1800s.
Show me an arrowhead, I'll tell you what they ate for dinner.
He turned to look at the object on the scale.
But I don't know jack about this!
Suddenly he stood up, grabbed the object, and slipping it into his pants pocket, headed to the door.
I may not know anything,
he smiled to himself,
but I know some archys who do!

TWO WEEKS LATER, DORRY SAT IN TRAFFIC AS SHE left downtown Denver. She kept a wary eye on the sports car trying to ease in front of her as she fished the chirping cell phone from her purse. Seeing “HOME” on the display, she punched “Send” and answered. “Is this my big boy or my little boy?”

On the other end of the line, Mark chuckled. “This is your big boy. Why do you ask?”

“Because if it was my little boy,” Dorry said wryly, “I didn't want him to hear his mother screaming like a lunatic.” “Traffic?”

“Yep. I just might kill somebody in a couple of minutes.” “Don't tell me that. I'm a cop.”

Dorry laughed. “If I had known cops worked shifts and got off at three in the afternoon, I'd never have gone to journalism school. I'd have been running the obstacle course at the academy with you.”

“Yeah, well, you didn't think so much of the job when I was eleven-to-seven,” Mark replied. Changing the subject, he said, “Hey, what I called about . . . Dylan touched base earlier—Kendra's brother? The guy from the museum?”

“Really?” Dorry said, her mood changing instantly despite the traffic.“What did he say?”

“Nothing really,” Mark said.“He told me he was headed out our way tonight—I guess to see his sister—anyway, he said he had some info on the object and asked if it was okay to drop by. I told him just to plan on eating dinner with us.”There was silence on the phone.“Dorry?”

“Yes?” Her mood had changed again.“Mark, I won't be home till after seven o'clock! I have an article to write tonight . . . Dinner? What time is he coming?”

“Well, I told him . . . seven . . . -ish. Tell you what: Michael and I will cook. You won't have to do a thing.”

“Uh-huh,” Dorry said through clenched teeth. “696-8777.”

“What?” Mark asked.

“I said, 696-8777. It's the number for Domino's. Just get whatever.”

“Okay.”

“Mark?”

“Yes?

“No anchovies.”

AFTER DINNER THAT EVENING, MARK PRESIDED OVER Michael's bath and got him into bed while Dorry made coffee and engaged in small talk with Dylan. When at last they were all in the living room, Mark asked,“Well, is this gonna be good or did we waste your time?”

“Good, I think,” Dylan grinned.“Intriguing anyway. Are you ready?” Mark and Dorry nodded.“All right, here goes.” Dylan pulled the object out of a satchel he'd brought in and left on the couch earlier.

“Well . . . ,”Dylan began,“I gave it to an archy down the hall from me . . . an archaeologist,” he added, noting the quizzical expressions on the Chandlers' faces.“Her name is Abby. She's nice. Cute, which is a plus. And she said ‘yes' when I asked her out, which is another plus.” Dylan looked up and smiled before continuing. “She's new to Denver and the museum, like me, and being young, is anxious to prove her PhD is not a fluke.”

“So what did she say?” Dorry pushed.

“Hang on, I'm getting there,” Dylan answered. He pulled a palm-sized personal computer from his satchel, clicked a few buttons with a plastic pencil, and said,“Leaded bronze.” Dylan looked up. “You know, I thought it was leaded bronze, but this is really old stuff. I mean really old. Not Bronze Age exactly, but almost.”

Mark leaned forward.“Which means what? How old?” “Less than twenty-four hundred years old, but almost certainly older than eighteen hundred. Old.”

“You're kidding,” Dorry said.

“Nope. Could be only sixteen . . . seventeen hundred years, but Abby doubts it. She said the quality of the casting is not that great, which would skew it older. It's soft, she says, though it doesn't feel soft to me.”All three of them looked at the object on the coffee table. “
Soft
is a relative term with metals, I suppose.”

Dylan continued.“Bronze is an alloy—an amalgamation of metals—originally created by adding tin to copper. Copper was too brittle to use for anything other than ornamentation.”

Dylan looked at his computer again.“Lead was deliberately added to the mix during this period to lower the melting temperature and facilitate pouring and molding. When this was made”—Dylan bent forward and picked up the object from the table—“leaded bronze was mostly for statues, pots, some weapons. And—I thought this was interesting—leaded bronze coins were used by the Roman Empire during the same time period as the casting of this particular piece.”

“Wow!” Dorry exclaimed. “Did she know where it came from?”

Dylan scrunched up his face, closing one eye.“Hard to tell from the composition. Listen to the list of places that made this kind of thing during that time period.” He punched a button on the computer with his thumb.“Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia, China, Persia, and most of Europe.” Dylan smiled. “Tough to narrow anything down with that list . . . but you haven't asked about the script!”

Mark and Dorry unconsciously moved closer to Dylan. “Was she able to actually translate that?” Mark asked.

“Wait a minute,” Dylan chuckled. “The words are Aramaic.” Noting the frowns on the faces of his friends, Dylan explained. “Aramaic is actually a grouping or combination of languages known almost from the beginning of recorded history. It includes Arabic, Hebrew, and Ethiopic, as well as Akkadian from Babylonia and Syria. Our first glimpse of this written style appeared around 900 BC.

“Portions of the Bible and all of the Dead Sea Scrolls were written in Aramaic, and we have surviving doctrinal works from Sumaria in this same script. Believe it or not, Aramaic is still a spoken language in parts of Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Lebanon.” Dylan smiled broadly and held up the object.“So you see. It was not hard to translate.”

“So you
were
able to translate it!” Mark said.

“Well,Abby was able to,” Dylan responded.“You wanna know what it says?”

“Yes!” Mark and Dorry answered in unison.

“Okay. It doesn't make much sense, but it's kinda interesting. In any case, it translates as ‘By your hand, the people shall live.'”

For a moment, all three were silent. Dylan put the object back on the coffee table. Mark picked it up.“Huh. By your hand, the people shall live.”

Dorry held out her hand and waggled her fingers at Mark. “Let me see it.” Mark gave it to her. “What's that mean?” she asked Dylan.

He shrugged.“Don't know. And we probably never will. It is an enigma that belongs in the same category as how it ended up in your backyard.”

As they talked, Dylan told stories of the ancient finds that had been made over the years on the North American continent. Coins from the Roman Empire had shown up in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Alabama, and an Egyptian-minted Gallenius coin was found by geology students in a streambed near Black Mountain, North Carolina. A Chinese ship found in thirty feet of clay near Sacramento was carbon-dated over one thousand years old. A cave discovered in southern Illinois in 1982 yielded stones engraved with ancient Semitic script and portraits of Egyptians, Romans, and Hebrews. “And no one has any idea how any of this stuff got here,” Dylan said.

It was almost ten o'clock when Dorry grudgingly announced the end of their evening. Explaining her work situation and the article to be written by morning, she and Mark walked Dylan to the door.“Thanks so much, Dylan. We really appreciate your time on this,” she said. “And please thank Abby too.”

“No problem,” he answered, “and I will thank Abby. By the way, I forgot to mention this. The thing is hollow.”

“What?” Mark asked.

“Yeah, no big deal really. But she ran a scope on it— radio waves, direct light-beam attachments—and it's hollow! Anyway, thanks for the pizza, and keep in touch, okay?”They assured him that they would.

Within the hour, Dorry was writing, Mark was asleep, and the object of the evening's discussion lay on the coffee table—a unique souvenir, a conversation piece . . . a relic from the ditch.

FOUR

DENVER, COLORADO—OCTOBER

MARK, DORRY, AND MICHAEL HAD EATEN BRUNCH earlier than usual. Scrambled eggs, bacon
and
sausage, real waffles (not the kind from the freezer) with blueberries, orange juice, and coffee. It was the same menu Mark prepared every Saturday. The only wild card was the fruit that went into the waffles. Sometimes strawberries or bananas, but blueberries were Michael's favorite, so most times they ate blueberries.

Mark sat at the breakfast table scanning the newspaper while Dorry cleaned the kitchen and drank her fourth cup of coffee. This, too,was a Saturday tradition. Mark cooked the food; Dorry cleaned up the mess. Michael was in the recliner watching cartoons,but Mark always stayed in the kitchen and read to his wife.“Do you have anything in here today?”

“Uh-huh,”Dorry said as she rinsed a plate and placed it in the dishwasher. “It should be in the first section.”

“And it is about . . . ?” Mark turned the pages quickly, searching for his wife's byline.

City council voting on sign restrictions for small businesses and the redistricting of school board members. I'm sure you'll want to cut it out and frame it.”

“Here it is.” Mark spread out the paper on the table. “Page fourteen—Dorry Chandler. Do I have to read it?”

“No, but if you'll let
me
read it, I'll be able to go back to sleep.”

“Boring, huh?”

“Unbelievably.”

“It sounds boring.”

“You're very perceptive,” Dorry said as she closed the dishwasher and pressed the START button. She poured another cup of coffee and sat down across from Mark. “What else is in there? Read to me.”

“Okay . . .,” Mark said.“Let's see . . .what should we read? Sports? Hard news? Sports? International news? Lifestyles? Or . . . sports?”

“Anything but sports,” Dorry said, taking a sip of her coffee.

“The Broncos' offensive coordinator is upset about the turf conditions for tomorrow's game.”

“Tragic. Next.”

“The Rockies and the Braves are talking about an off-season trade.”

“A trade?! I know
my
life will change. Excuse me,” Dorry said banging her spoon on the side of her coffee cup.“Excuse me, Marky, but was it someone else to whom I made the request ‘anything but sports'?”

Mark tried to suppress a smile. “What? Oh! I'm sorry, dear. You're right. Let me find some dull, humdrum, mind-numbing articles we can enjoy together!” He grabbed another section with a flourish.

“Sheesh! Here's a picture of a woman who is 104 years old.” “No way!”