cold war that existed between himself and Tessa. Surely he wanted to stay with Mary Clare-especially after last night. He shrugged. There was no point in worrying about that now. He would go back to campus for the disks, and sort out his feelings later.
Elizabeth appeared at the opening of the tent holding a cardboard box. “Excuse me,” she said with frosty politeness. “I wonder if you would have time to look at these now? I have done twenty already and no one has checked my work.”
Milo looked up from his column of figures. Alex had taken the van to go to the sheriff’s office in town, and then he was going to drive back to the university. Milo, in charge until Alex’s return, was feeling particularly harassed after listening to a recital of imagined illnesses by Victor, a request for more help in the third trench from Jake, and a cross-examination by Mary Clare on “what Alex said about his plans before he left.” Elizabeth’s chilling courtesy made it plain that there was trouble in that quarter as well.
Milo decided that he had better make time for this interview. “Look, Elizabeth, I know I’ve been cross lately, but-”
“Don’t bother to explain,” said Elizabeth coldly. “It spoils your image. Why don’t you just go and eat a village?”
Milo sighed. “I’m sorry.” He took the cardboard box from her with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. “Let’s see what you’ve found.”
Elizabeth brightened a little. “Okay. First I cleaned them off very carefully before taking any measurements.”
“That’s good. Those teeth are easy to lose.”
“Excuse me, Milo!” Mary Clare was peering into the tent with a worried frown. “Can you come out here?”
“Uh… is it important?”
“Yes! Somebody from the sheriff’s department is here about the computer. He wants to talk to the person in charge. I think it had better be you.”
With a sigh of resignation, Milo set down the box of skulls. “If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. We’ll have to do this later, Elizabeth.”
She managed a weak smile. “Sure, Milo.”
Near the first trench, a short, thin man in a khaki uniform was bent over the transit instrument, fiddling with the alignment.
Milo hurried toward him, intending to distract the man from the delicate instrument as politely as possible. “Hello there! May I help you? I’m Milo Gordon, the person in charge here.”
“Naw, you ain’t,” leered the man, turning as he spoke. “I’m in charge in these parts.”
Milo recognized him as the disrupter of Dr. Lerche’s slide presentation. “You wanted to see me?” asked Milo in tones of careful politeness and understated dislike.
“Depends.” The man shrugged. “I’m Deputy Sheriff Bevel Harkness, here on police business. Where’s your boss, boy?”
Milo’s mouth twitched with annoyance. “Dr. Lerche is gone for the day. I’m in charge now.”
“Okay. I hear you’uns got a crime to report. Would that be other than this one?” He nodded toward the excavation with a taunting smile.
Milo could see no point in embarking on a shouting match with the deputy. The chances of getting a competent investigation of the vandalism depended upon maintaining good relations with the investigators. He said: “Last night before eight o’clock, someone broke into the motel room we rented in Laurel Cove, and they damaged our computer and destroyed the disks.”
“Don’t that beat all?” Harkness remarked. “How do you reckon they got in?”
“Those doors didn’t look any too sturdy to me,” said Milo. “I expect a credit card would have jimmied the lock. Don’t you think you ought to investigate the scene instead of asking me?”
Harkness took the criticism calmly. “They sent me out to talk to you, being that you’re in Sarvice Valley, which is my section. Reckon the other stuff will get done as well. I got a form here.” He produced a notebook and pencil and proceeded to read off questions, most of which seemed to concern the complainant’s age, occupation, and permanent address. Milo answered them in tones of decreasing civility. “That ought to about do it,” Harkness said at last. “Will y’all be closing this thing down now?”
Milo grinned. “Oh, no, Mr. Harkness. We’ll be back in business by tomorrow.”
“Now, what do you want to go and do that for?” asked Harkness in a pained voice. “All those people want is to get themselves declared an Indian tribe so they can sit back and collect government benefits like a bunch of pet squirrels. And you folks are helping them get a free ride. It’s going to cost the taxpayers a bundle.”
“I thought you were a Cullowhee yourself.”
“Reckon so,” Harkness allowed. “But that don’t mean I want to get by without working. I don’t need no handouts.”
“The only thing these people seem concerned with is saving this valley from strip mining, Mr. Harkness.”
“Well, I can’t stand around here all day,” said Harkness, pocketing his notepad. “Y’all just watch out for that old Indian curse when you go disturbing the dead.”
“We will certainly watch out,” said Milo carefully.
Elizabeth spent most of the morning in the shade of an oak tree, rechecking measurements and recording her findings legibly in a spiral notebook. By now the skulls had become so familiar that they had lost their grotesqueness, and with it their ability to distract her. They had ceased to be “real” to her in the same way the money she once handled as a cashier had become green pieces of paper after a few days of familiarity. The money had no value because it was not hers to spend; likewise, the skulls had no power over her emotions because she had come to know them as objects and she had never known them as people. She was, therefore, just as surprised as Mary Clare when the latest addition to the collection reduced her to tears.
“Good Lord!” said Mary Clare, setting it carefully in the box. “What’s one more in this bunch? Why wouldn’t you pick it up?”
“It’s so small,” said Elizabeth faintly.
“Oh, that.”
“All the others had been just… specimens, I guess. And, look, they’re missing teeth, and they have hardly any suture closures, which means they were pretty old. But this one is a child.”
“Well… a hundred years ago.”
“I know. But there’s still something sad about a life that never had a chance to happen. Was it a boy or a girl?” Elizabeth looked closely at the tiny skull, trying to imagine a face for it.
“No one could tell you,” said Mary Clare softly. “I don’t know much about this myself, but I do remember Alex saying that if a child is younger than twelve, you can’t tell sex differences from skeletal remains. Basically there
“I wonder how it died.”
“Fever, most likely. Typhoid from bad water, or influenza. Cholera, maybe. Even an infected finger. It was easy to die back then.”
Elizabeth shuddered.
Mary Clare looked at her closely. She didn’t hold with catering to delicate people on a dig, but Elizabeth had been working hard. She wondered if this touch of nerves had been brought on by the skulls or by the situation with Milo.
“Look, Elizabeth, why don’t you take a break? In fact, I could use one myself-in case you’d like to talk.”
Elizabeth sighed. She wouldn’t have minded talking about Milo, but she didn’t think it would be appropriate to do so with one of his colleagues. “I’ll be all right, thanks,” she said, forcing a smile.
“Oh, sure you will,” said Mary Clare. “Milo’s all right. He just needs to get used to dealing with live people, that’s all. Just like you need to get used to dead ones.” She pointed to the box of skulls. “How are you liking your work?”
“Fine. It’s interesting and… you get used to it. I’m just not sure I’m doing it right. Milo doesn’t seem to have time to check my calculations. I don’t suppose you-”
