“Well, what’s fine to you and what’s fine to me are two different things.” Nolan glared at him. “Of course, it’s only an artifact to you, a curiosity. To me, it’s my history and my heritage. It’s sacred. And if you can’t take proper care of it, you ought to return it to the people who can—the tribe.”
“What tribe?” Rumford’s voice was contemptuous. “There are no Metinnicuts left. There is no tribe. And that’s what I’m going to tell the feds.”
Nolan’s face flushed purple and he made a move toward Rumford. His hands were clenched, he seemed ready to take a swing at the professor.
Rumford’s face was also flushed and he seemed ready to chuck the boxes he was holding in order to defend himself.
Lucy stepped toward him, staggering and causing her boxes to slip. The professor reflexively braced himself, allowing her to steady herself.
“How clumsy of me,” she said, chuckling nervously. “We’d better get these things safely in the van.”
“Of course,” said Rumford, turning and setting his boxes on the curb. Slowly, with shaking hands, he took the keys out of his pocket and unlocked the back door, pulling it open.
“How’s your dog?” Lucy had turned to face Nolan and spotted Kadjo, sitting patiently in the cab of Nolan’s pickup truck. “Is he staying out of trouble?”
Nolan didn’t answer, but stood for a moment glaring at Rumford. He suddenly turned and stalked off, stopping to pick up the rake he had thrown on the grass and tossing it into the bed of his truck. He jumped in the cab beside his dog and drove off, leaving rubber.
“Thanks,” said Rumford. “I really didn’t want to tangle with him.”
“He’s not so bad,” said Lucy, carefully taking the box with the war club from Zoe and handing it to Rumford. “Emotions are running high these days. The Metinnicuts have a lot at stake.” She smiled. “He might have a point, you know. Didn’t the Smithsonian recently return some Indian artifacts?”
Rumford’s face hardened. “If they get recognition as a tribe, and that’s a big if, then we’ll have to reconsider.” He snorted. “If you ask me, it’s just a big bluff. They don’t care about the war club or anything else. They only want to be a tribe so they can have a casino.” He paused and looked at her. “I mean, if they care so much, how come they’ve never protested when the football team uses the club at their pep rally every year? I care about that club a hell of a lot more than any of these so-called Metinnicuts—that’s for sure. I make the team captain sign a paper saying he understands how valuable it is and that he accepts liability if anything happens to it, but believe me, I’m not happy until the club is safely back in its case.”
Lucy nodded. “I understand how you feel,” she said. Then she smiled. “But if I were you, I’d smoke a peace pipe with Curt Nolan. I think you have more in common than you think, and he’s not somebody you want to have for an enemy.”
Rumford shrugged in response and got in his van, giving her a nod as he drove off. As Lucy watched him go, she doubted he’d follow her advice, and maybe he was right. Curt Nolan didn’t seem eager to make peace with anyone.
CHAPTER 6
Sometimes controversy was a good thing, thought Lucy, as she pulled her cleaning supplies out from beneath the kitchen sink. Thanks to the fact that the Metinnicuts’ petition was so controversial, the selectmen’s meeting had been scheduled for Tuesday evening, instead of the usual afternoon time, so more people could attend. That meant Lucy had all day to get the house in shape for Toby’s homecoming.
Cleaning was never her favorite activity, but today she really didn’t mind. She wanted everything to be perfect for Toby and his roommate Matt—or at least as perfect as it could be considering the house was over a hundred years old and occupied by an active family.
Oh, she loved the old farmhouse that she and Bill had worked so hard to restore, but she had to admit the years had taken their toll. As she went from room to room with her dustrag and vacuum, she noticed the woodwork was smudged with fingerprints, the paint on the back stairway was scuffed, and the wallpaper in the downstairs powder room was peeling. In the family room, the sectional sofa was looking awfully worn and the rug was past cleaning—it needed to be replaced. She sighed. There wasn’t any hope of getting new carpet anytime soon; Toby’s college bills made that out of the question. She went into the dining room to cheer herself up. There, the ceiling was freshly plastered and new wallpaper had been hung last spring.
As she polished the sideboard with lemon oil, she wondered about Matt, Toby’s roommate. What kind of home did he come from? Coburn University had a smattering of scholarship students like Toby, but most of the students came from families that had plenty of money and didn’t even qualify for financial aid. Did Matt come from a home like that? Would he expect a guest room with a private bath when all she could offer him was the trundle bed in Toby’s room? And that was if she could convince Elizabeth to move back to her old bed in the room she used to share with the other girls—a big if.
All of a sudden the room she had been so proud of didn’t look that great after all. The furniture didn’t match; she’d found the big mahogany table at an estate sale but the chairs came from an unfinished furniture warehouse and she’d stained and varnished them herself. The rug was a cheap copy of an Oriental and the sideboard’s only value was sentimental because it had come from her grandmother’s house.
She flicked the dustcloth over a framed photo montage that hung
