Site Unseen

by Dana Cameron

  I marveled over the events that seemed, like fate, to lead me to this amazing site, but it was really the indirect cause of my acquaintance with Pauline to begin with. Grandpa Oscar had met Pauline during one of his searches for Native American sites in the area more than thirty years ago. The area was a strategic location for hunting and a center for politics and religion. When he approached Pauline about permission to survey her property, a situation that could easily have turned into a hostile encounter, their mutual interest in antiquity had sprung into lasting friendship.

  Last fall, a few years after Oscar’s death, I had been visiting Pauline at Greycliff, pacing restlessly in the living room, confiding to her my fears about the whole academic roller coaster over tea and sympathy.

  “There’s just so much at stake,” I remembered saying to her. “There’s so much other work to juggle before you can even think about doing your own research. I can’t afford to screw up, not in the least little way, not if I want to keep this job. And the landowner at the MacGuire farm has suddenly decided that he doesn’t like the idea of me working on his property this summer. So now I’m out of luck for this season.”

  Pauline just sat listening, watching me, waiting until I ran out of steam before she offered any advice.

  I went over to look at a picture of Oscar that resided among the collection of photos on the mantelpiece. He was with a group of Native American men, the only one in the photograph who had a beard. Pauline had an array of things on the mantel with the picture, and at first I’d taken it for granted that they were more costly souvenirs from her travels, small pieces of the art she loved so much. But it was a dirty piece of dull green-glazed pottery that caught my attention and forced me to examine them all more carefully. I picked one up and turned it over and over, not willing to believe what I was seeing. It couldn’t be…

  I looked at my friend in shock. “Paul, where did you get these?” They weren’t beautiful or expensive things at all; they were broken, dirty, and, to many eyes, nondescript.

  She rose and joined me at the mantel. “Oh, I’m glad you saw them. I’ve been meaning to ask you about them. I found them when that old pine down front finally uprooted last winter. These things came up in the roots. What are they?”

  “You found them here?” I asked excitedly. “Pauline, they’re about four hundred years old! They’re European, I think they’re English! What the hell are they doing here? Could they be—?”

  Pauline was silent a moment. “Everyone’s heard of Fort Providence, of course. There’s even been a number of attempts to locate the site of it—Oscar was mildly interested, but his first love was the Indian history around here. He believed that it was upriver, where Fort Archer is now. And I never thought that there was anything but the remains of the eighteenth-century farm around here, myself.” She laughed. “There were all sorts of stories about buried treasure—gold—in Fort Providence, and of course that’s what people always thought of, not that it was the first English settlement in New England.”

  “And no one’s ever found it,” I said, amazed. “No traces of it ever turned up?”

  “There were just a couple attempts in the sixties, but Oscar told me that because there were so few documents associated with it, it was practically impossible to locate the site. People knew it was on the Saugatuck River, but it’s a very long river with a very long history.”

  We exchanged a glance. “Do you really think they could be from Fort Providence?” she asked. “All the way from 1605?”

  I hardly dared to believe it was possible. “It could be. Why don’t you show me where you found them, and then, well, it’s worth a few test pits, that’s for sure.”

  And it was at that point that I began to believe that I could initiate a fresh search for the earliest English site on the American mainland.

  A seagull screeched overhead and I paused in my reflections to scan the site. To the south was the dirt road and a slight rise in back of Pauline’s house, which faced the river. To the east, a cluster of scrubby pines and oaks marked the edge of the property, as well as another edge of the land itself, and threatened to overwhelm an ancient barn that was standing more out of habit than structural integrity, but still saw use as our storage depot. The western boundary was proclaimed by a sparse line of silver birches, planted when the property was sold and the house constructed. A comparatively flat stretch of land lay below the slope on which the house sat. It had once been a field and probably an unproductive one for all of that, now roughly mown so that we could work. To the north of this field there was another slight slope, then the bluff dropped off to the river, literally and figuratively: It was eroding quickly. At the northeast corner was a staircase of disintegrating concrete steps with the rusting remains of a railing that led down to the water. An equally rusted iron ring remained at the base, once used for tying up dinghies. I just told the students to stay away from the whole crumbling mess. The excavation areas were in the field, to the west of the barn and pine trees.

  Now I had to get to work and prove to everyone else what I already suspected, that I was on the track of an extremely hot site. I tried not to think about how much I had riding on this work, emotionally and professionally. My whole future and my whole past.

  I sauntered down the hill and, nodding to Meg, who was finishing scraping the last bit of soil from a corner into a dustpan, squatted well away from the edge of the unit to prevent knocking anything into the unit she was working so hard to clean. Meg dumped the soil into a galvanized bucket and went to the sifter screen. Like everyone else, I noticed, she had uncovered the scorched layer yesterday, but was moving quickly this morning, just as Neal had indicated to me last night, and was nearly through that already. I looked at the unit, a one-by-two-meter oblong trench cut into the ground, nearly a half meter—or about a foot and a half—deep. If her walls were any indication, she had everything well under control: They were surgically clean, the corners were square, and the soil carefully sifted through a screen into a pile off to the right. In her artifact bucket, she had plastic bags marked with the state site designation number, ME343–1, the unit number, and the number of the level in which she was presently working, with the date and her initials at the bottom. Good; everything we’d need to keep track of where the artifacts had come from. This information would also be marked on the artifacts after we washed them.

  The sound of the dirt rasping on the screen stopped momentarily, and I watched as Meg examined what had not passed through the mesh. She was maybe four inches shorter than I, maybe five-four or so, and well muscled; I could tell that she had spent a lot of time in the gym. Her hair was cut short and spiked and was bleached almost to a platinum. A row of earrings lined each ear, giving her a tribal appearance. Her every move seemed to bespeak aggression, or maybe confidence was the better word.

  Systematically Meg began at the top of the screen and scanned back and forth, occasionally stopping to look more closely at something that caught her attention. The student used her trowel to flick at some clusters of pebbles, checking for artifacts that might be mixed in with them. After she’d collected everything she could see, she gave the screen one more shake, took another quick look at the contents, and then, satisfied that she had missed nothing, turned the screen over, dumping out the pebbles and other non-artifactual detritus. I watched as she knocked the overturned screen to loosen anything that might have stuck between the mesh and the wood frame and then cast a glance at what had knocked out onto the top of the spoils heap. Perfect technique.

  “Nice stuff,” I said, returning the artifacts I’d been looking at to her bucket. “A little local redware, a piece of English creamware, nails and such. Just not a lot of it.”

  “I think I’m coming to the end of the eighteenth-century level,” Meg said. She started sorting her finds from the screen. “What was going on back then?”

  “Not much, down here, at any rate. The farmstead had been abandoned, burned in the 1770s or so—that was off a ways to the
west. This area’s always been a strategic location. There’s probably a few shipwrecks to be found out there too, what with all the river traffic.”

  Meg hesitated, then, a little embarrassed, came out with her next question. “When I told folks at Caldwell that I was going to work out here, everyone kept saying that there was supposed to be treasure out this way.”

  I nodded; it was a common rumor, one that seemed to dog every site. “Yeah, those legends seem to be particularly thick around here, don’t they? I haven’t tried to trace the source of the legend yet, but I’m willing to bet that it’s probably just something that the local nineteenth-century hotel operators came up with, to attract interest.”

  I cast a glance in her artifact bucket. “I noticed you’ve already divided the artifacts into smaller bags by type,” I remarked. “That’s nice, but I usually wait until we’re in the lab for that. Saves the bags for use in the field, so we don’t need to go running around looking for sandwich baggies to substitute when we run out in the middle of the dig.”

  Meg looked put out and arched an unbleached eyebrow at me. “Sorry. That’s how we used to do it for Schoss back in Colorado.” She didn’t sound sorry and just continued sorting her artifacts.

  “Ah, but Professor Schoss had the finances of the National Geographic Society filling his pockets, and we, alas, do not,” I said. “Looks like you’ve got a change of soil coming up there.” I pointed to the corner. “You uncovering a little feature there, or is it just the light? Looks like the soil is a little lighter, a little more mottled in color.”

  Again Meg looked at me impatiently.

  Oh kiddo, I thought, if you can’t take a little cooperative observation, what’s going to happen when I really have to criticize you? A little knife between the shoulder blades? I’m on your side, really.

  Finally she dropped the last of her artifacts into the bags and turned to look where I was pointing. “I think you’re right,” she said, after a minute. “I wasn’t sure. I’ll start a feature sheet along with the new level.”

  And that was that, or would have been, but I wasn’t about to be psyched out of checking her record sheets just because she had a chip on her shoulder. “Mind if I go over your notes? Just to make sure I can read them.” I am the big dog here, I thought, and I have just as much attitude as you do. And if you aren’t up to snuff, I’m going to let you know. In the nicest way possible, of course.

  “Here you go.” She handed me the clipboard.

  I flipped through the sheets, checking her descriptions and observations. “Good, good. Lots of nice, precise adjectives. Your mapping looks right on, just add the scale, okay? Excellent work.” I smiled at Meg, who seemed surprised.

  “Thanks.” A pause. “I’ll draw a plan showing that feature when it’s a bit better defined.” She hazarded a smile as I returned her notes.

  I hunkered down in a squat and took out my creased little notebook so I could write down my own impressions while they were still fresh in my mind. “You know,” I said as I scribbled, “one of the things I love about fieldwork is that everyone gets to own it. I mean, everyone contributes and everyone gets to take some pride in it. The community of a project gives it its identity and we’ve got a good one going here. Give and take, everyone working toward the same goals. A group effort, know what I mean?”

  Meg’s brow was furrowed in concentration. She stopped trying to define the edge of the stain with her trowel to look at me. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

  “I’ve got to get some stuff together for Tony. Let me know if that stain turns into anything.”

  “Sure. Hey, Emma? Who’s that?”

  The student pointed down the slope. I saw someone coming up the stairs at the edge of the site. That in itself was unusual enough to alarm me, but my heart nigh on stopped when I saw the stranger fiddling with a metal detector. I realized that he was a pothunter, a looter. Whatever you wanted to call him, I wasn’t about to let him steal anything from my site.

  “Emma, should you—” Meg began, but I was already tearing off down the slope.

  I gasped and began to run when I saw the stranger lean over and pull out one of the nails that held the strings that delineated the nearest of our units to the stairs. The nail out of his way, he made another pass with the metal detector and then tried a few more adjustments.

  “Hey, leave that alone!” I shouted as I approached. It didn’t matter that we’d already abandoned that unit. “This is private property—”

  The stranger, a man, looked my way expressionlessly and then turned away again to play with the knobs on the metal detector. Call it intuition, call it pheromones, but I instantly knew this guy wasn’t just some tourist with no clue. He was nothing but trouble. Tall and thin, he wore a greasy pair of jeans, a light blue windbreaker, and a pair of badly worn black leather cowboy boots. His eyes were concealed behind a pair of wire-rimmed aviator-style sunglasses. His face was lean and tan and weather-beaten, and his mouth was busily working a piece of gum. I was pretty sure that he was no younger than forty, and nearly positive he wasn’t any older than sixty, but beyond that, I couldn’t be certain of his age. His hair was yellowing white and shoulder length; it blew about in the wind, and he made no move to remove the strands that caught across his sunglasses as he turned his attention back to me.

  I said with more authority, “You’re trespassing. This is private property and you’re interfering with my research. I’m asking you to leave. Now.”

  The stranger giggled, as if I were doing something naughty, and then shook his head regretfully. “Don’t ever take that tone with me, sweetie,” he admonished, enunciating carefully. His voice was like a dry cornfield crawling with locusts. “You have no idea what kind of trouble smart talk will get you. You want to end up like Augie Brooks?” He bowed his head back over the controls he was studying.

  I couldn’t believe he’d just said what he’d said. Surely I must have heard wrong…I couldn’t believe any of this was happening. End up like Augie? Hostility was coming off this guy in waves. It was a good thing I was so mad; it let me ignore how much I was shaking. My only concern now was to get him away from the site, away from Pauline’s house, as soon as I could. “Like I said before, this is private property. You’re not welcome. Leave!”

  The stranger didn’t even bother to look up at me. “Why don’t you just fuck off and mind your own business?” He stepped forward, clearly intending to use the detector.

  I stepped directly into his path. Look at me, you maggot, I thought.

  Realizing that I was not going to move out of his way, the stranger sighed, and placed one hand on his hip, as though trying to summon up patience. His eyes did not move from the ground near my feet. He removed the headphones, letting them rest around his neck. The wind fanned his white hair into a demonic halo.

  “Sweetheart,” he said, “there are people in this world that you do not fuck with. I am one of them. And you are starting to bug me.”

  He finally lifted his head and removed his sunglasses impatiently, then fixed me with a pair of icy gray eyes so pale that they almost looked white. With the shades off, there was no way of hiding their intense malignancy, as systematic and uncaring as a virus.

  “Why don’t you just save yourself a lot of trouble and take a hike?” I said. “You’re not going to use that thing around here.”

  He smiled foully, showing sharp canine teeth. He was savoring the confrontation. I was shaking from indignation mixed with fear.

  The stranger cocked his head, considering the situation. “I should just break your kneecaps, bitch,” he said regretfully.

  He’s out of his mind, I thought in a panic. I mustn’t let him know he’s scaring me. I locked eyes with him, willing myself not to look away. Not to run away.

  The stranger held my gaze for another moment. “Baby, this is probably the biggest mistake of your life.” With another sigh, he reached under his windbreaker and drew out a large pistol, which he aimed carefully at my head.
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br />   I felt my face freeze into a blank mask that concealed my fear. It was a curious sensation, maintaining that kind of control while you are feeling just the opposite. With the weapon no more than a meter from my face, my mind churned over a thousand thoughts at once. I prayed that Meg would stay still and not do anything to make this nut pull the trigger. I hoped that my knees would not buckle. Anger at the absolute wrongness of the situation and the stranger bewildered me. At the same time, I foolishly wanted to shush the seagulls, squabbling overhead with no concern for my predicament, so that I could think without distraction.

  The wind whipped his hair around crazily and billowed my shirttails, lending frenzied motion to an otherwise static tableau. All the while the arctic wastes behind those pale eyes froze me to the marrow.

  “It would be so easy for me just to blow your whole fucking head off right this minute. Her too.” His words were filled with awe at the simplicity, the efficiency of his solution. The stranger gestured with the pistol at where Meg was standing, stock still, by her unit; I couldn’t help but follow his gesture. “Wouldn’t take but another second.”

  I remained rooted to the ground, never letting my eyes move away from his. Another moment passed.

  “I’m getting bored,” the stranger said irritably. “You act snotty, you get in the way of my livelihood, my living. Now you’re fucking with me, and I told you, I am one of those people you do not f—”

  Pretty limited vocabulary, I thought hysterically, blocking out the last of his words. Pretty repetitive. The gun looked heavy and very deadly. A giggle almost broke the surface, and yet I knew my face was still impassive. But I was very close to the edge and could feel my reserve giving way.

  There’s nothing I can say, I thought, as the stranger returned my stare. That gun’s too close, he can’t miss. There’s nowhere to run.