“And Native American artists depend on that for their livelihood,” he said.
“The art they produce is contemporary and obviously completely legal to buy and sell, and there are even legal artifacts to be possessed too, but this is where it gets murky because of provenance.”
“You mean, where did the items originate from?”
“Yes. And was it from public or private land? Was it taken from a gravesite? Or created from an endangered species?”
“Things have changed in the last two decades. Aunt Nadine used to take me out to collect arrowheads.”
“And that’s perfectly fine if the arrowheads are found on private land, and again, they aren’t pilfered from a gravesite or a site of historic significance. But she would know that.” Aunt Nadine probably wasn’t breaking the law, Terra hoped, but many broke the laws without realizing they were doing so, especially since those laws had changed.
“There’s even a law, NAGPRA—the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act—that outlines how museums and federal agencies should return Native American objects to the original tribes. Again, complicated.”
Jack chugged from his bottled water.
“There’s also NHPA—the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966—but that’s mostly to do with someone trying to bulldoze land or build a pipeline that comes across an archaeological site. As for my job as a forest service special agent, I’m more concerned about ARPA, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act.”
“My head is spinning already. Dumb it down for me, okay? I’m only a meager county detective.” He grinned.
“ARPA basically says you can’t loot on historic sites or dig up graves, collect or deface historic sites. This is what the forest service special agents investigate. Forest service law enforcement officers protect the resources, and if there are violations and no one has been apprehended, those cases are then reported to criminal investigators—special agents like me so we can dig deeper. So far on my job here, I haven’t had an archaeological case, but with my past experience, that’s more my specialty.”
Jack’s eyes filled with appreciation when she’d expected them to glaze over like most people’s did. Terra averted her eyes, hoping he didn’t see her blush under his stare. The two of them had come a long way. They were both different people now, yet so much about her remained the same. It seemed that was true for Jack as well.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s say we get the warrant and get into the cabin. You’re calling the items artifacts, but they could be made by contemporary Native Americans and not artifacts at all.”
The pots still had dirt on them, as if someone had recently dug them up. “Maybe, but what I saw . . . I’m leaning artifact. The Montana tribes, the Crow tribe for instance, followed the bison. They were considered Plains tribes and didn’t spend much time making pottery. These pots look more Hopi anyway.” Even stranger.
“Hopi?”
“A nonmigratory tribe in the four corners. The Hopi are the descendants of the Anasazi.” What were you up to, Jim Raymond?
“How do we find out what we’re dealing with—stolen or illegal or perfectly fine?”
“A museum or a qualified appraiser could assess them. In our case, a forest service archaeologist could make the determination, and if the items are illegal, they would be held in a repository until they could be returned to the rightful tribe.”
“If they are determined to be illegal items, they would be held as evidence.” He crossed his arms.
“Or repatriated to the tribe they belong to. So, you see, it gets complicated.”
He sighed. “First, we need to get into the cabin.”
His cell rang. “Speak of the—” He answered, “Tanner here . . . Yep. We’ll go in first. Send an evidence tech.”
“You got it?”
He nodded. “We’re good to go.”
They each donned latex gloves. Jack held the door for Terra.
She remained at the entrance along with Jack, taking in the room.
Shelves lined the walls, most of them empty. Jim had furnished the two-room cabin with the basics for staying in the woods. The living space had two old plush sofas and a chair. A small kitchen in the corner. A double sleeping cot in another corner. But the shelves had drawn Terra’s attention, and she peered at the two pots closely, noting the cracks.
“I don’t see any obvious footprints, but let’s limit our tracks and evidence contamination.”
“Got it.” She took pictures with her phone.
On closer examination, she noticed some staining, as though someone had tried to clean at least one of the pots with regular soap, and that confirmed her suspicions. “We’ll leave these here for the evidence techs to see—maybe they can grab fingerprints, but I need them for the archaeologist.”
“Fine. What else are you thinking?”
“All these shelves. What are they for?”
“I don’t know. Books?”
She shook her head. “No. They’ve been wiped clean. But these two items were left behind, or they were added later. Recently. Maybe Jim brought them up here, and that’s why he came to the cabin. Then he was killed.”
“If that’s true, was he killed because of what lined these shelves? And why keep what we’re assuming is contraband here? It would be a chore to hike up here and stash the artifacts. And also risky if someone hiking in the woods decided to break in,” Jack said.
Terra continued walking the cabin, looking for anything else that could give them more information.
“Honestly, I think if he was moving illegal artifacts, then this isolated cabin that only he had legitimate access to is a brilliant idea. And if someone were to break in, they would most likely do so to get out of the elements because they were lost. They probably wouldn’t think twice about the Native American art on the shelves. Jim could have come often enough to check the cabin.”
She held his gaze.
He nodded. “I’ll have them look deeper into the tracking data to see how often
