LC 02 - Questionable Remains (7 page)

They stared at each other silently for a moment. Finally
Kelley spoke.

"I didn't come out here to retry the case. I came for my
aunt. She is a very nice, sensitive woman who loved her
brother dearly. We all did. He was a bit of a rogue, but a fun
guy and a good uncle. Grace is in denial about his death, a
natural process of grieving, but she needs to get on with her
life. I don't want her hurt."

"I understand that. Your aunt and uncle asked me to do
something for them, and I agreed. There is very little evidence, no bones to examine, only pictures of clothed skeletons. I will do my best for them, but I told them that there is
little that I can do."

"Aunt Grace has pictures? That must be horrible for her."
Kelley looked at the house and wrinkled her brow. "I'll talk
to Uncle Miles."

"I don't think she's looked at them," said Lindsay. "She
averted her eyes when Miles showed them to me."

Kelley looked back at Lindsay. This time she had a softer expression and her eyes weren't like glittering daggers.
"Can't you see what this is doing to her?"

"I think she needs a closure she can deal with. Perhaps if
I see what the authorities in Tennessee have and I can tell
her it was only an accident, she can go on."

"Perhaps you're right." Kelley rubbed her eyes with the
tips of her fingers. "What's the story on the guy in the field;
how did he get there?"

Lindsay smiled. "I don't know. It's a mystery at the
moment. I told your uncle I'd like to send some archaeology students to look around to see if they can find anything
else. It won't take long. They'll try not to interrupt his planting."

Kelley shook her head. "It's so late for planting, I suppose
he was just plowing under the field. It's been so dry lately, I
think he lost the last planting."

Kelley seemed almost friendly. Lindsay hoped she had
lost some of her hostility.

Joshua came out of the house holding his package. Grace
and Marilee followed with Miles and Dr. Tim. Lindsay gave
Joshua a receipt for the object, and she promised to keep
them informed about the progress with the remains and
with Joshua's knife.

As Lindsay drove off, she saw Kelley holding Marilee's
hand. She felt a pang of envy. She shook her head and
reached for her map to the first stop on her trip: Brian
Parker's sixteenth-century Indian village.

PIAQUAY ORDERED HIS men to set down the heavy ransom.
He stood, grim faced, and waited for the devils. Concealed beneath
deerskins on litters were the most treasured objects in his chiefdom. He heard the sounds, like birds: the calls of his scouts warning of the arrival. They were coming; marching the stolen women
and children, they were coming.

Esteban Calderon licked his lips when he saw the litters laden
with treasure. He wanted to savor the moment he removed the
hides, revealing the silver, gold, and diamonds. He was moments
away from being wealthy, a few short weeks away from returning
to Spain a prosperous man. He pictured himself riding down the
streets of Madrid lined with cheering throngs of people, the iron
shoes of his horse announcing his presence with every step, banners flying. Already he was thinking how he was going to keep it
to himself. He watched his men, tired, gaunt, and as hungry for
gold as they were hungry for food, hot in their armor, bitten unrelentingly by the insects of this sweltering world with its dark shadowy forests. And there was that stupid Pardo to outmaneuver.
Calderon would have to exercise care if he was to keep his treasure.

Calderon sat astride his horse, looking down at Piaquay, who
was naked except for the doeskin wrap that hung like a skirt from
his waist to his thighs. He stood with arms folded over a smooth,
hairless chest, his dark skin tattooed with intricate dark blue and red designs, snakelike down his arms, around his neck, and on his
chest like a sunburst. There were bands, like flowers, around his
legs and pointed designs along his abdomen. His black hair,
streaked with gray, flowed down his back, except for one lock,
which was tied in a topknot like a horse's tail atop his head. The
chief's only jewelry was copper spools in his ears. Calderon dreaded dismounting and facing the chief,• he would have to look up to
him because the Indian was a good head taller than Calderon. He
simply would not. He would stay on his horse and make the
Indian reveal the ransom to him, treasure by treasure, as if he were
Calderon the King.

Pia quay saw his family and the families of his villagers tied
together and led like beasts by the devils. His sister was holding
on to her son's hand. His wife, beside her, holding their young
daughter in her arms. Both stood still, like trees in the eye of a
storm. Soon he would be rid of these foreign devils, if they kept
their word.

Calderon called for the interpreters. Three of them. It was a nuisance, but there was no alternative. The savages had too many
languages. He told the first to tell the chief to bring the treasure
before him and show him the bounty. The first interpreter told the
second, who told the third, who relayed the message to the chief.

Piaquay stepped forward and motioned for his men to bring the
litters. When the litters were sitting on the ground before the
devil, Piaquay removed the hides, revealing the ransom: twenty
sheets of mica, thirty sheets of copper, five clay pots filled with
freshwater pearls, five baskets of flint, ten baskets of conch shells,
fifty beaver hides, twenty bear hides. To Piaquay it was an enormous wealth, but worth the return of his family. His chiefdom
once had a thousand times the wealth represented on these litters,
but in a mere ten seasons the sickness, the precursor to the appearance of the devils, had decimated his chiefdom to only one village.
What manner of power had they that they could send out invisible warriors to weaken his people so before they arrived? While his
braves revealed the treasure, Piaquay looked for the first time into
the face of the devil sitting on his beast before him.

Esteban Calderon stared at the treasure in front of him, eyes
wide, his brain trying to make the copper turn into gold, the mica
into sheets of silver, the flint into silver ore. There was nothing of
value here. Damn them, damn this place. Calderon raised his
sword in a rage to cut down Piaquay. The chief evaded the attack
and suffered a glancing blow to his back.

Everything erupted into a raging storm. The conquistadores,
enraged by the paltry treasure and their dashed dreams, began to
cut down the hostages where they stood. Piaquay and his braves
tried to save them, but they were no match for the mounted enemy.
When it was over, Piaquay had lost half his braves and threefourths of the hostages. Calderon lost but five men and was driven
off only when he himself received an arrow through his face, piercing him cheek to cheek.

Piaquay found his family among the dead. His wife and his
daughter, his sister, his nephew. He cradled them each in turn,
trying to wipe the blood from their faces with his bare hands.

His brother lifted his own new wife in his arms. "What displeased them?" he asked, to no one in particular. There was no
answer.

A man, one of the devils, moaned. He was the first interpreter,
lying wounded. Piaquay raised a spear to kill him.

"Please, no. Please don't kill me, please. I just want to go
home." Piaquay did not understand him, but he stayed his hand.
He was one of the devils, but he had the adornments of one from
this world. Perhaps he could use him; perhaps he knew what kind
of men they were that everything his tribe had was not enough for
them.

Piaquay and the remainder of the tribe took their dead to the village on the bend of the river and buried them. He also dug a pit
and buried the treasure.

Lindsay drove through the hills of the upper Piedmont,
winding through dark green forests of oak and pine. The rock revealed by the roadcuts changed from granite to
metamorphic as the terrain became more mountainous. The
number of pine trees decreased, replaced by hickory with a
generous scattering of dogwood. Lindsay arrived at Brian's
dig, which was in a cleared area of hardwood forest in the
bend of Bigtree Creek, a small branch flowing into the
Chattahoochee River. Sally met her in a small dirt area adjacent to the site used for parking. Lindsay guessed that the
parking area would become considerably muddy after a
rain. She waited until the dust settled before she climbed
out of her vehicle.

"I'm glad you're here," Sally said. "Brian has some skeletons he wants you to look at. He thinks they may have
European battle wounds on them."

"Interesting," said Lindsay, as they carried her things
from the Land Rover to the tent she would share with Sally.
"I hope you have plenty of work for me to do."

"Are you kidding?" said Sally. "Since this is a relatively
small site, we have a small crew-a little too small. How
long can you stay? By the way, did you have a good trip?"

"A few days. I'm kind of playing it by ear. And, yes, the
ride up here was restful."

Lindsay looked at the view of the site from Sally's tent.
She saw that about an eighth of an acre had been uncovered.
Two test trenches intersected each other: one north-south
and the other running east-west. The part of the site that
was uncovered revealed a smooth brown surface with
stakes and string creating a five-by-five grid. Several burials, two structures, and several pits were in the process of
being excavated.

"It used to have a mound," said Sally, pointing to the left
of the clearing, "but that was bulldozed by a landowner
years ago. He thought it was a good source of dirt. It's a nice
little site, though."

"I'm looking forward to seeing the bones you've found,"
said Lindsay.

Lindsay stowed her gear on the cot opposite Sally's. Sally
followed her into the tent and sat down on her own cot.

"You're going to have to kind of tiptoe around Gerri
Chapman."

Lindsay raised her eyebrows. "Who's he?"

"She. She's a Ph.D. student from Arizona and she thinks
she's the last word on human skeletal remains and has kind
of a bad attitude."

"Really?" Lindsay smiled. "I've had a lot of practice lately with hostility."

"I'll bet. Seen any more of the lawyer person?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. And in the strangest place. I'll
tell you about it over lunch."

Sally took Lindsay across to where digging was underway. They didn't have a laboratory at the site, so everything
found was bagged and stored. At the end of each week
Brian or another student took the week's findings to the lab
at the University of Georgia.

Brian was squatting by a pit. Lindsay had been on several digs with Brian-Sally, too-but she hadn't seen him in
several months. He looked good, deeply tanned, his blond
hair already bleached by the sun. He looked up when they
approached.

"Lindsay." He jumped up and gave her a hug. "Glad
you're finally here. We've got some interesting things."

"Looks like it." In the pit that was being excavated she
saw the shiny surfaces of large mica sheets glistening in the
sun. From all the greenish substance in the dirt, there
appeared to be a sizable cache of copper. To the side, a clay
pot was being uncovered, revealing a fill of small round
nodules that appeared to be freshwater pearls.

"Is this a burial?" she asked Brian.

"If it is, then this has to be the chief of the whole continent. I've never seen so many grave goods. Funny, it didn't
look like a burial outline; it was a little too large and round.
I guess we'll just have to see if there's bone under all this stuff." He turned to the diggers. "Be careful with the copper.
There might be fragile wood or something adhered to it."

"Quite a find," said Lindsay.

"I'll say," said Brian. "There's lots of history in this site.
The test trenches show several layers of habitation. Early
on, it looks like this was a pretty wealthy place. That structure," he pointed to a gridded section of the site, "is one of
the earliest, judging from the style of pot sherds in it. It's full
of artifacts. We've found a few early burials, too, with a
wealth of grave goods. The later burials have fewer goods
in them. Gerri says the later burials look like a younger population, too. The very latest burials have a disproportionate
number of women and children."

"Sounds like disease followed by conquest," said Lindsay.

Brian nodded. "Then we find this pit. From the design of
the pot, it looks contemporaneous with the last habitations."

"Have you been able to connect this site with any historical descriptions?" Lindsay asked him.

Brian shook his head. "No. But I'm still looking. To date
we haven't found any European artifacts, but we did find a
cluster of burials that appear to have battle wounds. Like I
said, a lot of them are women and children. This is the first
sign of hostility we've seen here. I'd like you to have a look
at the bones."