“What boy?” Washais asked, confused.
“Aunt,” Magpie said in that tone that told Hail she didn’t understand something. “The archaeologists can only dig where the ground is going to be disturbed by the weather station. This part of the site won’t be bothered.”
“This isn’t about sites,” Hail said. “This is about this sad boy.”
“Aunt,” Magpie said, “the Park Service has rules about where we can dig and where we can’t.”
“Then maybe you better get your boss down here and tell him this boy needs our help.”
Dusty ran his hand through his blond hair and said, “If you
want me to dig there, Elder, then I will. Can you tell me more about this boy?”
Hail shook her head, turned, and shuffled back for the camp, her steps wobbly. The pain had grown unbearable, clawing at her like a wildcat. Her ribs and backbone throbbed.
Magpie ran to hold Hail’s arm, supporting her. “Aunt Hail, are you all right?”
“Yes,” she panted. “I just—” her voice cracked. She took a moment to steady it, then finished, “I just need to sit down and drink something.”
The boy started wailing as she walked away, and the sound pierced Hail’s soul, mingling with the pain in her breast. She hadn’t expected that, the pitiful cries of a lonely little boy. Something was wrong here. Something that had gone wrong a long time ago.
Are you sure you’re the one who can fix it, old woman?
A chill breath blew from between the worlds, icing her souls.
Hail hurried for camp.
DUSTY SAT IN FRONT OF THE FIRE WITH A WARM GUINNESS in his hand and pondered his problem. He was working within a National Monument, administered by the National Park Service. You didn’t feed the bears or pet the buffalo in Yellowstone. You didn’t pick up rocks for your collection in Zion or pluck the flowers from the Grand Canyon. And, if you were an archaeologist working on a government contract, you didn’t so much as stick a pin flag in the ground outside of the designated impact area.
He glanced to his left at Maggie. She had a can of Coke in her hand and a bewildered look on her face. He could read her expression like an open book: half of her was frantic to stay within the rules, while the other half was just as desperate to follow her aunt’s instructions.
That was why he was going to shoot-in that grid tomorrow morning, and dig the pit.
What the hell. The contracting officer is in Washington, D.C. I’ll just claim I made a slight mistake. I was a few degrees off when I laid out the site boundaries. What can he do once the pit’s been dug?
He can jerk your Antiquities Permit, you fool.
Every archaeologist who worked on federally administered
lands had to be permitted. No permit. No work. Well, he’d worry about that later.
Maureen sat across the fire from him, her long legs crossed, quietly sipping coffee. A thoughtful expression creased her oval face. The black braid over her left shoulder fell to her waist. He hadn’t noticed before, but a few strands of silver had entered her hair; they glimmered in the firelight. She had enormous black eyes and full lips. If he didn’t know her, he’d think she was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. Unfortunately, he did know her.
A cool wind swirled around the camp, fanning the flames. Whirlwinds of sparks coiled into the dark star-strewn sky. Dusty watched them rise, and tried to picture Cole in a laboratory. How could anyone choose to spend her life under fluorescent lights, breathing recycled air? He lived for this, working all day with the scent of dirt in his nostrils, cooking meals over open fires, sitting around at night talking with people who shared his passion for understanding the past.
His parents had started him down this road. Ruth, his mother, had come to the southwest to study the Keres at Acoma. She’d met Samuel Stewart there, an archaeology graduate student under Dale Robertson’s guidance at the University of Arizona.
Dusty had been born fifteen miles shy of Tuba City, on the shoulder of US 160, when Ruth hadn’t quite made it to the tiny clinic for the delivery. Dusty had been five years old when his mother left for the Pacific Islands. By his sixth birthday, Dusty’s life had collapsed and he was living in Dale Robertson’s apartment, sleeping on the couch. By the time he turned ten, Dusty had seen every major archaeological site in the western United States, grown up on them, in fact. He’d lived with the Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, Apache, and Arapaho. He even spoke a smattering of their languages.
It had been a long, hard road to this campfire, and the decision to excavate a unit outside of the authorized impact area. But he’d always been a maverick.
Maggie shifted and drew his attention. Her white shirt, tan shorts, and black tennis shoes bore a thick coating of dirt.
Dusty glanced behind her at the red nylon tent Maggie had set up for her great-aunt. Something was wrong. He felt it in his gut. Hail Walking Hawk had barely made it back to camp. She’d
collapsed into a chair, and started rocking back and forth, murmuring softly to herself. He did not know the Keres language—a curious language isolate, not related to anything else in the world—but he knew from the tone that the words expressed fear. Was she ill? Maggie had been unusually silent.
Dusty sipped his stout and worked at peeling off the black-and-gold label. He had known Maggie for five years. As a National Park Service ranger, she routinely endured a lot of stress, but he’d never seen her like this. She hunched forward in her chair with her elbows propped on her knees, staring into the fire as though she could see the future there, and it wrenched her heart. Her round face, short black hair, and tight eyes had an orange tint. If Dusty were a guessing man, he’d say she’d just seen a ghost, and didn’t know what to do about it. Given her family history, that possibility was real.
Sylvia, who sat to Dusty’s right, popped the top on another Coors Light. She wore a faded pair of Levi’s, and a sky-blue T-shirt that proclaimed: BUFFALO! THE MEAT OF THE FUTURE! She had a lean face, with a pointed nose, and freckles. Her green eyes maintained a perpetual squint—like every archaeologist who worked for hours on end in blinding sunlight.
Sylvia took several swallows from her can and said, “Anybody heard from Dale? Did we ever find out what kind of family emergency he’s having?”
Dusty replied, “I called his number from my cell phone on the way in. He left me a message on his machine. It said: ‘Give Maureen my finest regards. I’ll see you on Friday night.’”
“Oh, all right,” Sylvia said with a grin. She shook brown hair away from her eyes. “It’s Tuesday. We have three days of freedom.”
“Freedom?” Dusty said. “I’m going to work your buns off. I’m assigning you to Dr. Cole. You’re going to finish digging unit 8N 4E by yourself, while I open Elder Walking Hawk’s unit.”
Sylvia looked across the fire at Maureen and lifted her beer. “Here’s to women ruling the world. We’ll have fun.”
A faint smile tugged at the corners of Maureen’s lips. “Well, maybe. But you should know that your commander in chief has nicknamed me ‘Mary the Hun.’”
Sylvia lowered her beer. “Wow. Sounds like the heroine of a porno flick.”
Dusty took a long drink of his Guinness and let out a satisfied sigh. As he added another piece of greasewood to the fire, he said, “Dr. Cole provoked me.”
“I did no such thing,” Maureen defended.
“You did so.”
“How?”
Greasewood burned fast and hot. Sparks filled the space between him and Maureen. Dusty leaned forward to see her better through the haze. “I said you were a cross between Mary Baker Eddy and Attila the Hun. You said I’d better delete the ‘Baker Eddy’ part because you were Catholic. So—” He made a sweeping gesture—“Mary the Hun.”
Sylvia finished her beer, crushed the Coors Light can in one hand, and dropped it with a flourish. “You could have called her
‘Mary Attila.’”
“It didn’t have the same ring.”
“Yeah, guess not,” Sylvia replied. “Nobody remembers who Attila was, but everybody knows what a ‘Hun’ is.”
“Right,” Dusty said. “‘Hon,’ as in honey, eh, Sylvia?”
Sylvia made a face, and responded, “No, stupid. Hun as in ‘anal retentive.’”
Maureen’s perfectly etched brows drew down over her straight nose. “I beg your pardon?”
“You know?” Sylvia insisted. “Haven’t you ever heard that phrase?”
“What phrase?”
“You know, like, ‘she’s an anal retentive Hun.’”
Maureen’s mouth pursed with distaste. “I’m sure I have
not
heard that phrase.”
Dusty tore off another piece of his label, and said, “It isn’t her fault, Sylvia. Canadians have no sense of humor.” He put a finger under his nose and tipped it up, demonstrating “uppity,” then flared his nostrils for effect.
Maureen stared at him with a quizzical expression, then said, “You’ve either discovered astronomy, which is unlikely given your
abhorrence of science, or the amount you’ve ‘retented’ is even getting to you.”
Dusty lowered his hand. A comeback did not immediately spring to mind, which meant she’d certainly earned points.
“Oh, hey.” Sylvia nodded in admiration. “Can I borrow that? I’ve always wanted to know a genteel way of telling people they were full of shit.”
“Be my guest.” Maureen reached for the coffeepot, which sat on one of the hearthstones, tested the handle, and filled her cup. Steam rose in a firelit veil. She added, “Besides, I’ll probably never have the opportunity to use it again. Physical anthropologists aren’t nearly as obsessed with excrement as archaeologists.”
Sylvia’s green eyes widened. “Yeah, but you have to admit, some feces are
fascinating.
I heard they found a coprolite in Colorado that was three feet long, and had a whole packrat skull in it. Can you imagine that? Dang. That wasn’t just any old floater. I—”
“Sylvia,” Dusty interrupted, seeing Maureen’s expression turn sour, “hand me another stout. It’s in the ice chest behind you.”
“Oh, sure.” Sylvia turned, opened the lid, and rummaged through what sounded like an ocean of melting ice. When she pulled out the Guinness, water poured from her hand. The puckered label hung sideways.
Dusty reached for it, found the church key in his pocket, and flipped the cap off. Rich creamy foam boiled up. He clamped his mouth over the top so he wouldn’t lose any. It tasted heavenly. After several swallows, he eased back, studied the bottle, then smiled and wiped his mouth on his green T-shirt sleeve. “Now, that’s beer.”
“Yuck,” Sylvia replied, and turned to Maureen. “Have you ever tasted that vile stuff? It’s just like the scum from a burned peat bog.”
Maureen took a sip of coffee, and sighed, “Oh, yes. I’ve tasted it. Magnificent stuff.” She closed her eyes as if tasting it again and a look of utter joy came over her.
Dusty’s bottle halted in front of his lips. “You liar. You told me you were the founder of the Teetotalism Movement in Canada.”
She opened her eyes, and they caught the firelight, reflecting it like huge black mirrors. “That’s now. Not then.”
“When was then?”
“Then.”
The tone told Dusty the discussion had ended. He rotated his bottle in his hands, and calmly peeled off the bottom of the label. Perhaps, he’d misjudged her. Anyone who truly appreciated Guinness had to be all right in her heart. Of course, it didn’t make up for her personality.
Sylvia leaned her head back and gazed at the glistening night sky. “God, look at all those stars. You think there’s life on any of them?”
Dusty glanced sideways at her, then examined the infinite well of star-spotted indigo. “Well, let me see, the average star burns at about five jillion degrees. That would mean it could only support a vaporous life form. Or maybe—”
“You mean,” Sylvia interrupted, “something that floats around aimlessly? With no mind? No purpose?”
“Well. Yeah.”
“Wow,” she said in true awe. “The stars could be filled with government employees.”
Dusty peeled off the rest of his label and tossed it into fire; it sizzled and spat, before shriveling up.
Sylvia suddenly sat up straight, and looked at Maggie. “Oh, hey, Magpie, I didn’t mean to include you in that crack. You know, Park Service people are different.”
Maggie started, as if hearing her name for the first time. “What?” She focused her eyes. “Did you call me?”
Sylvia said, “Yeah, but forget it. If you didn’t hear it, you can’t get mad at me.”
Maggie gazed around the fire. “I’m sorry. I’m not very good company tonight, am I?”
Dusty frowned down at his bottle. Puebloan peoples cherished privacy. A person who inadvertently violated that privacy might never get the opportunity to make amends. He wanted to ask about her aunt’s health, but he couldn’t do it straight out. Not right away. Instead, he began, “This afternoon your aunt said something I didn’t quite understand. Right after you asked her what she’d found?”