Site Unseen

by Dana Cameron

  I remembered the famous criticism of a fictitious archaeologist and silently applied it to Alan Crabtree: The poor kid couldn’t dig his way out of a box of kitty litter. I sighed. I had done my patient best to remind him what was supposed to happen when he was working. Taking a deep breath, I tried again.

  “Hey, Alan? Looks like you’re getting a little low over on that side, by a couple of centimeters. You’d better bring everything else down level with that before you go any further. Then you can take the elevations and start a new level, if you have to, but it’s getting away from you now.”

  Alan sighed and looked down into the messy little ditch he was digging for himself. He’d heard it all before and it still wasn’t taking. He didn’t look at me, and I wondered whether he’d heard me.

  “Okay,” he said finally.

  “Just try to remember what we talked about last week—you dig a few centimeters down, evenly across the whole unit, you sift that, write about what you see. If you get that rhythm going, that will help keep track of what you’re finding.”

  “I know, I’ll try again.” He stood back and tried to see where to continue.

  “Great,” I said, ignoring his testy tone. “Why don’t you work on cleaning up that level, and then trim those balks back—don’t bother saving any of the artifacts out of the cleanup; they’re no good to us if we don’t know what level they came from”—I shouldn’t have to be telling him this; it was something a freshman would have mastered—“then I’ll come back and go over your notes with you.”

  “Okay, whatever.”

  Maybe because he was just sick of my pestering, he still refused to make eye contact. Tough, I thought.

  Alan took a deep breath and, holding it, began to follow my directions doggedly. He was still holding his breath as I walked away toward the other cluster of units that were positioned to identify what might have been in the fort’s interior.

  Not for the first time, I cursed the ego of a father who would keep his kid in a place where he had no talent. I wondered again what department Alan might have chosen if his father hadn’t been an anthropologist and determined to have a son follow in his footsteps. Rick made it plain that he thought I was trying to play Alan off him, but nothing could have been further from the truth: I would have given anything to keep myself out of the middle of their dysfunctional family mess.

  I continued down the slope, off to the east where Dian had abandoned her own unit to help Rob do some mapping. I could see their two heads close together and I hoped they were talking about the coordinates they were ostensibly taking.

  “Hey, Em, we’ve got some bad news for you,” Rob called out. “We’ve got a—”

  “If you found a skeleton,” I cut him off, “bury it and don’t tell me about it.” I was joking of course, but human remains required us to stop digging and notify local and state bureaucracies. They were a real nuisance, legally speaking, in spite of the wealth of data they represented.

  “No, nothing that bad,” he replied. “That feature we’ve been mapping so carefully?” He held up a small bluish bottle. “Nineteenth century.”

  “Well, it happens.” I looked at the bottle and its side seams. “Yep, that medicine bottle didn’t come over on The Endeavour in 1605.” I looked at the unit and said, “Well, it looks like you’ve still got a ways to go before you get down to where Meg is. You can still get some undisturbed seventeenth-century remains if that’s as deep as that little pit goes—what is it, a planting hole? I wasn’t real hopeful about that, though. It’s still a little high. Keep at it.”

  “Yes’m.”

  I eyed Dian. “I bet Rob can dig the rest of this by himself, if you’re done with the plan.”

  She smiled, pouting a little, knowing exactly what I was saying. “I’m done. I was just initialing the map, Em. I’m almost through the burn layer in my unit and I’m not getting much.” She retied her hair, preparing to get back into the dirt. “A little eighteenth-century stuff.”

  “That’s what Meg’s got. You guys go up and see what she’s up to, see if you’re getting the same sorts of soil changes down here as she is up there.”

  “You got it.”

  I looked around. “Where’s Neal?”

  “Over with Meg,” Dian said. Then, deadpanning, “Maybe he’s helping her map her unit.”

  I gave her a sour look. “I’ll be writing notes if anyone wants me. Back to work, you.”

  She smiled again, showing all her teeth. I liked Dian but didn’t fancy Rob’s chances if she decided to respond to his advances.

  On my way upslope, however, I paused, noticing that the black car I’d seen earlier had returned and was now idling in the road above the driveway. I could see the driver this time—or more of him, at any rate—a tangle of light hair, baseball cap, a mustache. He seemed familiar to me, but just before I could dig up the identifying memory, he roared off again. Car needs a tune-up, I thought, frowning. Still unable to place the driver’s face, I decided that if he was really interested in the dig, he’d get out and ask a few questions.

  At last I was finally able to settle down to take my opening notes. Near the top of the slope, I had set up a card table between the barn and the bulk of the excavation units to keep my maps and notes on. We’d collected beach cobbles the first day, just to weigh down the papers that were constantly threatened by the wind off the river. It was a little up to the north of all of the work areas, where I could have a decent view of everyone and keep an ear and eye open while I sorted out my thoughts. The notes were inevitably, at this stage, a jumble of observations, reflections, memos to myself, even personal impressions of morale and activity. Already I was able to start making connections between finds and stratigraphy across the site, even a few tentative correlations between the court documents that were generated by the legal proceedings at the expedition’s demise. By the end of the month I had in the field, I might be able to determine whether we actually had sufficient evidence of the location of the site. And much later, during the long, cold winter that would be spent in my lab at Caldwell College, all those notes would trigger my memories of the site and aid in the interpretation of it all, continuing to compare with what others at other sites had been able to piece together before me.

  I finished, then watched Neal looking over Meg’s shoulder, thinking I might be able to figure out what the problem was between those two. I kept my head down over my notes and kept my ears wide open. I make no apologies for eavesdropping. For one thing, it was my site, and that meant I was god of my small universe and therefore got to be omniscient when I chose. The other thing was that a good half of directing came down to personnel management.

  My worktable was a little too conveniently placed at the moment; I could see and hear everything that was going on in Meg’s unit. That was not a coincidence—I had no idea how much of an eye I’d have to keep on this newest student, but as it turned out, her excavating ability wasn’t a problem at all. Quite the opposite. But considering Neal’s vehemence last night, I thought I’d better pay heed.

  “What you got there?” I heard Neal ask. “It looks like it’s shaping up into a posthole.”

  “It is and I just got a piece of shot,” Meg said excitedly. “I think it’s early enough to be from Fort Providence! I’m just getting ready to take it out now.”

  I almost started out of my seat when I heard that. If the lead ball was the size used in muskets of the early seventeenth century, then this would be the first artifact we found in situ that was associated with the site! The first one that might confirm the early, sustained presence of the English in New England before the Pilgrims! I managed to get control of myself, however, because Meg should have the pleasure of getting to call me over to see her find. I wondered if she’d be the type to yell it out, once she was sure, or come over quietly and get me. In either case, it was her right. I also wanted her to be certain, just in case it was another later feature and not part of the fort. That was also her right, so I sat as tigh
t as I could, under the circumstances.

  “Check it out!” she said a moment later. “It sure looks okay!”

  “Wow.” Neal was appropriately awed. I saw her beaming at him and his faraway look at the realization of what she might have found. And then the pleasant tableau was shattered when Neal shook himself and then reached over into her unit.

  “Look, I’ll just clean this up for you and you go tell Emma.”

  His words hit me just a nanosecond before they sunk in for Meg. Oh Neal, don’t! I thought. Don’t rob her of this moment, her moment, with your obsessiveness.

  As Meg realized what Neal was going to do, the smile faded from her face and she put her hand on his arm before he could touch anything. “You don’t need to clean anything up.” She spoke quickly, deliberately casual. “It’s fine the way it is.”

  I watched as Neal furrowed his brow in the face of this unexpected resistance, and I prayed he’d just let Meg alone. “There’s a lot of loose dirt,” he insisted, trying to be helpful. “I’ll help you take care of it.” He reached forward again and Meg stepped in front of him.

  “Don’t.” Meg ran a hand over her forehead and through her hair, leaving a dirty stain in the sweat that looked like war paint. “Look. The floor is pristine, nice and level. If it wasn’t I’d fix it.” She shrugged.

  I thought about going over, but realized they needed to have this out. Neal was not used to being challenged, and was getting flustered. “What is your problem? I’ve told you before, I’m trying to help you!”

  “Like I said yesterday, I don’t need help, and I don’t want you to mess with my work without asking.” She paused, obviously struggling with her temper. “It’s rude. It’s unnecessary.”

  “I’m rude? I’m rude? You’re whacked!” Neal was almost shouting. As interesting as I found his unusual display of temper, I knew that name calling was my cue to get in there and referee. They weren’t going to sort this out on their own.

  “Hey, guys—” I began in an authoritative way, but I was interrupted by a loud clanging from down south of us. It was Dian signaling noontime by bashing her trowel against her metal dustpan. Meg and Neal looked at me expectantly and guiltily, aware that they’d been caught fighting.

  “Lunchtime,” I called out brightly.

  Chapter 4

  NEAL SHOT MEG A LAST DIRTY LOOK. “WE CAN DISCUSS this later.”

  “I’ll be here.” We both watched as he stalked off for the cooler.

  There’s the bell, head back to your corners, I thought. I ambled over to where Meg was. “Something up?”

  I watched, amused, as she struggled to remember what had occasioned the disagreement and her face suddenly lit up again. She held her prize out to me. “Yeah, piece of ordnance. I think it’s the right size for Fort Providence. And”—she stepped out of the way so I could see better—“it came out of this area. It looks like a posthole.” This was all done with the immense, jaded cool of the self-satisfied. But then she raised her eyebrows and smiled at me in triumph. “Right where you saw that soil change.”

  I was taken aback and pleased; I didn’t expect her to be so gracious. “Well, you found it and defined it quickly enough. Good job, first rate.” I looked at the piece of lead, holding my breath. “Yep, it’s looking like Fort Providence all right. Way to go.” I smiled back at her and then cupped my hands into a megaphone. “Hey guys!” I called to the rest of the crew. “C’mere a second!”

  I handed the piece of lead back to Meg while the others gathered around.

  “The clock’s ticking, Em, it’s lunchtime!” Rob protested.

  “I think you’ll want to see this. Meg?”

  She held up the piece of shot for everyone to see. In his eagerness, Alan stepped a little too closely to the side of the unit and caved some loose dirt onto the immaculate surface. “Hey, c’mon, man!” she protested. “You’re killing me here.” She let out a sigh of impatience; Alan had been following her around like a lost stray for the past week.

  Rob grabbed Alan by the scruff of the T-shirt and yanked him out of the way. “Dork.” He said it almost lovingly, as though this was all that could be expected of Alan. The two students wrestled for a moment, and Alan almost succeeded in pulling Rob’s shirt off. He was breathing heavily, his reaction a little too aggressive for mere play.

  “Hey, now!” I admonished.

  “Enough foreplay, you guys,” Neal said. “You’re missing the point. Look.”

  The crew quieted until they realized the significance of what they were looking at.

  “A posthole!”

  “No way! The ball came from there?!”

  “Is that right, Emma?”

  “Sure is,” I said. “Meg’s got it, it looks like.”

  “All right Meg!” Dian cheered. “Woman!”

  The others followed with congratulations, slapping Meg on the back and rubbing her head until her blond spikes looked even more barbaric than usual. “Hey, all right, all right,” she said. But she looked really pleased with herself.

  “So keep your eyes open—that’s what other postholes will look like here, and there’s a good chance we could hit another one any minute,” I cautioned them. “So move it, faster, deeper! We want to confirm that these are really seventeenth century. But for now, get eating.”

  The others went back to the tree line where the cooler was, chattering excitedly about the find. I turned to Meg, who was still beaming, and handed her an empty film canister from my pocket. I watched as she marked the canister with the provenience and decided to bring up her argument with Neal. She’d had her moment, the others were gone, now was as good a time as any.

  “You seemed to be disagreeing with Neal back there,” I said calmly, as she handed me the find. “Things a little tense, huh?”

  Her smile faded and something of the icy shell returned. After a moment she said, “I thought he was getting pushy.”

  “Well, it is his job to keep an eye on things.” I waited a moment, looking thoughtfully at the piece of lead shot. “He sometimes gets a little overeager, but he’s got high standards.”

  “Well, my standards are pretty high too,” Meg said in a huff, then she caught my eye.

  I looked at her hard for a moment, letting her know that she could make this better right now. She took the hint and swallowed.

  “Maybe I won’t take it so personally, seeing as he’s got control issues.”

  I shrugged. “That could work. I’ll suggest that he can afford to refocus his energies as well.” The lesson was over. “Come on,” I said. “I’m starving. And I want to recheck the maps.”

  But I couldn’t stay away. As much as I love the scant moments I allotted for lunch, a moment to let my subconscious sort things out, I couldn’t leave that posthole alone. So I scarfed down my lunch, heartily sick of sandwiches but unwilling to go hungry. It was a relief to get away from the antics at lunch today. For whatever reason, Alan moved away almost immediately after I sat down near him. He barely touched his stingy half sandwich, making me wonder if he wasn’t anorexic. In any case, it was kind of heartbreaking to watch Alan traipse after Meg, laughing too loudly at her jokes. I didn’t worry about Rob or Dian; they would be fine if things didn’t work out between them. But Alan was hollow all the way through, with no core and no reserves.

  I went back to my table with the maps, not that it did any good. Without the faintest idea of the construction of the fort or the buildings inside, the location of one posthole—if it was indeed early seventeenth century—didn’t really clarify things. One point does not extrapolate to a wall, until you find its fellows. If they had also survived. Too many unknowns, I thought, putting the maps away, there’s nothing to see here, yet. So I went and stared at the dirt for a while.

  Tapping my pen against my teeth, I looked at the floor of the unit. It was just a circle of differently colored soil, mottled yellow and red sand, framed within the uniform brown of the surrounding level. It was definitely a feature, most likely a posth
ole, maybe dating to the seventeenth century, possibly as early as the Jacobean fort. Way too many unknowns, and there was nothing else to do but wait and see if others like it showed up.

  Wait and see. The idea was not as easy as it sounded. Never mind that it might be the beginning of the fort, never mind that it might be the best evidence yet for this history-shattering discovery, never mind that it could make my career, I thought. I had to wait and I was pretty sure the suspense was going to kill me.

  I realized that now I was chewing the pen cap, gnawing hard on the plastic. I carefully replaced the pen in my back pocket before I could break it or a tooth. As I turned, I noticed that Neal had joined me.

  “Pretty neat,” he said, nodding at the feature.

  “Yep. It could be it.” The thought alone made me long for my pen cap.

  “What’s the plan, then?” he asked.

  “Well, I’m going up to tell Pauline about this. Give the others ten more minutes to finish up—we started late—and then get an elevation on this. The others need to know when things might start happening in their units. After that, we keep digging.”

  Neal was silent for a moment then said, “It seems like we should be able to do more, once we’ve got this.”

  “We’re doing what needs to be done,” I said. “You’re right though, just carrying on seems like so little. Oh,” I continued, as if with an afterthought. “There seems to be a little tension between you and Meg. That what you were telling me about last night?”

  The crew chief immediately flushed red.

  “I had a word with Meg. I think she’ll be a little more open to suggestion in the future.” We walked up the slope a bit together. “Her work looks pretty good, don’t you think?”