LC 02 - Questionable Remains (8 page)

"Sure."

Brian turned and led Lindsay a few feet to a cluster of
burials. "It's not all excavated yet," he said. "But it looks
like these individuals may all have been buried around the
same time."

The first group of burials had been photographed,
mapped, sketched, and notated. The diggers were removing
the bones, wrapping them in sheets of cotton and laying
them in numbered boxes, one skeleton per box. Some small
odd bones they were putting in separate numbered cartons.
Brian introduced Lindsay to Gerri Chapman, who stood,
wiped her hands on her jeans, and took Lindsay's hand. She was a short woman, about five feet four inches, with curly
red hair and freckles.

"I believe we met at the Southwestern Archaeology
Conference," Gerri said, and Lindsay remembered. She had
missed the paper Gerri gave but had met her at lunch.

"Yes. We did. Glad to see you again. You're a long way
from the southwest."

"Sure am. It's good to get variety. What do you think of
this site? Interesting, huh?"

"Indeed it is. Brian said you had some medieval battle
wounds."

"I believe so. Have a look."

Lindsay squatted down and examined a semiflexed skeleton on its side. Beside it was the skeleton of a child. Lindsay
wasn't sure at a glance, but the child looked to be about six or
seven. She leaned over and examined the adult skeleton
more closely. It was a woman, relatively small, with a graceful head. The excavator was taking up the bones of a hand
and dropping the small pieces onto cotton wadding in a carton. He cautiously lifted out the long bones of the arm and
handed them to Gerri who pointed out the cut marks on the
ulna where something had sliced into the bone at an angle.

Next Gerri showed Lindsay the scapula. It had a dorsal
cut that went deep into the spine of the scapula and became
more shallow as it extended diagonally across to the medial border.

"I'm guessing that the sixth and seventh thoracic vertebrae will show cuts as well," Lindsay said.

Gerri gave the scapula to the student wrapping the
bones. "It looks like first she held her arms up like this." She
demonstrated by holding her arms bent at the elbow and
crossed in front of her face in the classic pose of someone
warding off a blow. "Then it looks like she fell to her knees
and received the final blow to her back. She must have just
frozen and couldn't run."

Lindsay shook her head. "She was protecting her child. She defended herself against the first blow, which was a
surprise to her. Then she bent over her child in an effort to
save it."

"How do you know?" Gerri had a slightly defensive tone
to her voice, but still sounded friendly.

"Her child was there with her, and that's what mothers
do. That would be her final act."

"But you can't tell that from the bones," Gerri said. "The
child may have already been dead."

"That's possible, too," said Lindsay.

"Grim," said Sally.

"I thought battle wounds were most often on the legs,"
said Brian as they sat under a giant live oak tree, eating lunch.

"They are," said Lindsay, shooing a fly from her sandwich. "European armor was made to protect the torso, so
Spanish soldiers were trained to attack the legs and the
head of their enemy. When they fought with Indians, they
used the tactics they had learned to use against Europeans.
I suspect, when these bones are analyzed, you'll find plenty
of leg wounds."

"We have found several remains already with classic
femur cuts," said Gerri.

"This is going to be an intriguing site to piece together,"
Lindsay said.

Lindsay called Derrick from her car phone that evening
and was pleasantly surprised that she reached him.

"Hey, Lindsay. Where are you? At Brian's dig, I hope."

"Yep, I'm rooming with Sally," she said, leaning against
her Rover. The coming darkness and emerging stars gave
Lindsay a sense of privacy and intimacy as she spoke to
Derrick. "It's a nice dig. Brian is doing a good job of it. I also
came across something else rather fascinating before I got
here. It was why I was late." Lindsay gave Derrick a
detailed account of the find in the Lamberts' field.

"Well, what do you reckon?" he asked. "A lost conquistador?"

"There are historical accounts of Spaniards captured by
Indians and living with them for years. Perhaps the
Lamberts' burial is one of them. At any rate, it's curious."

Lindsay then called Susan to check on Mandrake and her
home.

"Everything is just fine here," she said, then hesitated.

"Is there something else?" asked Lindsay.

"There have been some phone calls. Some-uh-not so
much threatening as insulting. I made a list of their names
and numbers. I guess the idiots don't know about caller ID."

"What are they about?" asked Lindsay.

"That trial thing," Susan said.

"You mean Denny Ferguson's? What now? Have they
found him?"

"No, but his family's come on the local television station
saying they're tired of being harassed by the police and that
they don't know where he's got to. I think they're the ones
who're calling."

"I expect it will settle down after a while. It has before. If
you want, just let the machine pick up most of the calls."

"You've had some calls from reporters. I told them you're
on vacation."

"That's fine. I'm surprised this case keeps recycling to the
front burner of the news. I guess not much else is going on."

"I think what started it up again was a news story that the
police were holding Denny Ferguson in North Carolina, but
it turned out to be a false lead."

Lindsay walked the short distance from her Land Rover
to Sally's tent. Sally sat cross-legged on her cot, reading. Her
blonde hair hung forward, shading her face. "How are
things with Derrick?" she asked.

"Great," said Lindsay. "His site is going well. He's fine.
Some strange stuff going on at home, though. Susan has
been getting several unpleasant phone calls about Denny
Ferguson's trial."

Sally looked up from her book and wrinkled her brow.
"Still? I'll bet it's that Kelley person. She's sure a poor loser.
Did she and Ferguson have something going?"

"I don't think so." Lindsay shivered at the thought. "She
has a boyfriend-a doctor, pediatrician, to be exact-that
she seems fond of. Besides, Ferguson is hardly her type."

Sally went back to her book. "It'll be all blown over by the
time you get home at the end of summer."

"Probably." Lindsay dug in her book bag and pulled out
a mystery.

Sensing that Gerri was indeed sensitive about the burials,
Lindsay stayed away from them and confined her work to
helping Sally excavate a refuse pit filled with animal bones.
The excavation was done in six-inch vertical layers. She drew
the bones in situ, then called Brian to photograph them, after
which they removed them and placed them in carefully
labeled boxes. Sally had been working on the pit for two days
and had gone two layers-twelve inches-into the pit. By the
end of Lindsay's first day, she and Sally had excavated another two levels and had reached the bottom of the pit.

Lindsay made a cursory inventory of the bones as she
excavated and quickly identified deer, rabbit, fish, and
turkey mingled in the dark soil with what looked to be
many more species.

"They had a pretty good diet," commented Sally.

"Seems so. How does this oldest layer compare with the
most recent?" asked Lindsay.

"I haven't noticed much difference, maybe more fish in
the first level, but I'm not sure. . . ." Sally stopped talking.
Lindsay watched her gaze follow a green pickup truck
pulling into the parking lot of the site. Then Brian, followed
by Gerri, headed toward the lot.

"Uh-oh," whispered Sally. "Brian may need your help.
Gerri's not the most diplomatic person in the world."

"What-?" Lindsay began, but she saw the Native
Americans get out of the truck, and she guessed. "I'll see what I can do." She rose and walked across the site, her eyes on the
parking lot. There were three of them, an elder, a woman
about Lindsay's age, and a man who looked to be in his thirties. All of them had long hair, black, except for the elder,
whose hair had turned gray. They wore jeans; the woman had
on a white blouse, the men, short-sleeved, plaid shirts.

As Lindsay grew closer she heard Brian interrupting
Gerri, no doubt trying to be a buffer for what Sally referred
to as Gerri's lack of diplomacy. Lindsay introduced herself
and shook hands with their visitors. Brian looked relieved
that she was there. The elder introduced himself as George
West. The younger man was his son, John West. The woman
was his daughter, Emily West.

The elder looked Lindsay in the eye. "We object to what
you are doing here," he said quietly.

"I told them that there is simply no proof that the inhabitants of this site were the ancestors of these people . . . ,"
began Gerri, then stopped suddenly. Out of the corner of
her eye Lindsay saw Brian grip Gerri's upper arm and step
back with her.

Lindsay looked back at the elder. "I know. And we are
sorry. We mean no disrespect. We take great care in the way
we handle all the remains."

"You mean no disrespect," said John West, "but you give
it by digging up our ancestors' bones."

The woman as yet said nothing, but merely scrutinized
Lindsay. "You look familiar," she said finally.

Lindsay raised her eyebrows. "Do I?"

"Your picture has been on the TV," said John. "Something
about giving bogus evidence."

"Oh. The Denny Ferguson trial. I didn't," she said simply.

"We object to this," said George West again. "We would
like you to listen to our views."

"This is getting us nowhere," Lindsay heard Gerri say.

"We will listen, of course," said Lindsay. "We would like
you to listen to us, too."

"We know what you will say," said John, and his father
raised a hand.

"He is right, but we will listen anyway," said the elder.

"She's just a visitor here," cried Gerri.

They looked at Lindsay with suspicion. Emily West started to speak, but her father interrupted. "A visitor with influence, I would imagine."

"Yes," said Brian. "The only seat we have to offer is the
ground beneath the tree."

"That will be fine," said George.

PIAQUAY SAT UNDER the grove of live oaks. The man
Roberto Lacayo was teaching him the language of the devils who
had invaded his world and brought most of it, at least for him, to
an end. His gaze rested on the gentle mounds of dirt that covered
the people he loved, and he clenched his teeth in anger. As he listened to Roberto droning the names of the things around them, he
scooped up a handful of acorns and poured them from hand to
hand. He looked down at the nuts in his palm, and it reminded
him of the irritating way Roberto kept fingering his beads and
whispering in a language that was not even the one he spoke.
Piaquay threw the acorns in disgust. Roberto looked over at the
chief and fell silent, wondering what had angered him. Piaquay
motioned for him to continue. This time Piaquay listened closely
and repeated what he heard.

A woman from the tribe approached them and motioned for
Roberto to leave. As the Spaniard rose and walked away, they
watched him until he was under the vigilant eye of Piaquay's
brother, Tesca.

"What is this I hear?" she asked.

Piaquay looked into her black eyes and softly lined face. "It's
not your concern."

"I should say it is," she responded, sitting down in front of him.

"It is not your concern until I say it there." He pointed to the
lodge on top of the large mound.

"Tell me what's in your mind," she insisted. "Why are you
handing the title of chief to me?"

"It's right."

"How is it right? What are you going to do? Why do you learn
the language of the enemy?"

"I'm going to kill the man who did this. The man who takes
young children and women from their homes, the man who takes
everything we have and when it is not enough, kills anyway.
What kind of heart kills women, kills children? I'm going to rid
this land of him and run out the other devils."

Cacheci shook her head. "You cannot. They are too strong. "

"They're not strong. They're cowards. They don't even know
how to keep the insects from biting them, they can't get food for
themselves, they lose heart in battle when they have to stand on
the ground and face us. It is the beasts that carry them that are
strong and brave. The beasts can do all those things for themselves
that the devils cannot do. Without the beasts, the devils are weak."
Piaquay looked around as though the Spaniards might be listening. "Take the beasts, and they can be defeated."

"We all grieve. We all want the devils to be gone. But we must
live; we must take care of our children."

"You know that. It's why it is right for you to be chief. I am too
filled with hatred and revenge."

"You can't do this by yourself, and you can't take all the men."

"I will take only my brother and two more."

"I cannot dissuade you from this?"

Piaquay looked at the gathering clouds in the blue sky. A storm
was coming. "No. I am changed. This is what I am now."