by Karen Harper
Her heart was hammering so hard from his touch and her run up here and from her renewed fear that someone or something was still stalking them. They stood carefully on the mica ledge, peering down. “You know,” she said, “the forest—ravines, too—are usually the sites of lurking evil in primitive myths and more recent fairy tales.”
“Thank you, Professor Grimm. Would you quit talking like that? The dead Adena are not haunting you—or me—and we’ve got to find what living bastard is. Let’s go back to the house before it gets dark. But what just happened means you can’t excavate here or you might get hurt—or buried from above.”
Buried from above. The words snagged in her brain. Like the Adena dead nearby.
“Grant, please. I didn’t mean this should spook us—keep us away. I’ll ask Kaitlyn to bring another student or two, and we’ll set up a guard above us.”
He didn’t answer until they made their way back into the ravine. If she excavated only the mica seam here, would someone harass her? Considering what had happened to Paul and Todd, maybe this wasn’t even about her. That would mean Grant was the target.
* * *
Grant was shaken but also angry. The rockslide had missed them only because they’d jumped away, warned by the fine mica dust and chips before the larger rocks crashed down. Those could have broken bones—or caved in their skulls. All he needed was another nightmare that he was back in the death chamber, stealing from skeletons with crushed skulls. And, unlike Kate, who he thought was hearing things outside windows or even making that up, they had both heard someone scurry away above them, and it sure as heck wasn’t some Adena ghost or Beastmaster running amok in these woods.
But who would profit from his demise, or Kate’s? The same idiot who had shot at them up on Shadow Mountain? Surely not Brad or Lacey, though Brad was his heir in his will—and knew it. Grant couldn’t quite picture Carson Cantrell getting his hands dirty, though of course, like Kate, who had seemed fine with dirt and mica on her hands and under her fingernails this morning, Cantrell must excavate with the best of them. Or could Cantrell have seen him kissing Kate and her eager response? Who else hated his guts?
“I guess,” he told her as they trekked back toward the house, “you can check out the mica seam if you can get a couple of guards as well as Kaitlyn for company. Not Professor Cantrell, okay?”
“No, I’ll only use him to get permission for the others to come. He’s got a busy teaching and speaking schedule anyway and can’t get away much. I can’t thank you enough, Grant, really.”
“We were rudely interrupted back there,” he said, taking her hand in his as they neared the mound. He’d agreed she could research the mica only to keep her working on something Adena that wasn’t the mound itself. “Let’s remember the finder’s-fee payment continues daily if you’re so eager to dig.”
“It will keep me out of trouble during the day, right?”
“Except for getting in trouble with me at night, and—” He released her hand and ran toward the mound as they neared the house.
She saw what had upset him and chased after him. The hawthorn bushes guarding what she was certain was the opening to a horizontal entry shaft were not just sick and old, but very, very dead. He’d steered her away from the entrance on their way out to the mica seam, or they would have seen this earlier. It was almost dark, but he could see yellow leaves scattered under the brittle branches. Even the grass and moss at their base was brown and dead.
“I know those were old, but someone’s poured some kind of herbicide on the ground. You didn’t?” he muttered.
“No way! I wouldn’t. I swear it wasn’t me. When I get some help out here—just for the mica seam—I’ll have them take a sample of the moss or grass to the lab, see if we can find exactly what killed these bushes.”
He gripped her wrist as they stared at the entry area to the mound behind the skeletal hawthorns. She didn’t flinch, but, unspeaking, slid her hand up to entwine her fingers with his. He tried to stay strong, but he feared whoever had killed Paul and hurt Todd was now after him.
22
Kate was thrilled at how swiftly, for once, her Adena research plans came together. Finally, something was getting done! One call to Carson and the next afternoon she had Kaitlyn Blake and two other graduate students, both eager young men, released from their archaeology seminar to assist at the mica seam. It lifted her spirits. It was a step in the right direction.
As she’d promised Grant, she had the two guys take turns atop the ridge, keeping an eye out as the others worked below. Bill Bosley and Sean Armstrong were eager to help. Bill took the first watch above, while Sean and Kaitlyn, under her guidance, cleared the rest of the ivy away. Standing on ladders, they started at the top of the seam with the long-handled soft brushes Kate had hoped to use in the mound. They cleared any clinging soil, cobwebs or dead leaves so they could discern patterns and shapes better.
“It was neat to see how the Adena are honored in this part of Ohio,” Sean said as Kate supervised. “I mean, we passed the Adena Regional Medical Center on the way here, and then there’s the Adena Mansion, but I haven’t seen that yet.”
“I have,” Kaitlyn chimed in from the other ladder. “It was built for Ohio’s Governor Worthington and is the site of early Adena remains, one of the first mounds excavated. The mansion was named Adena because that was the Hebrew word for delightful place. So that site gave the name to the ancient civilization, not the other way around. And you know what, Professor Lockwood?” the young woman asked, looking down the ladder at her. “Governor Worthington wouldn’t let anyone excavate his mound, either. It took someone else to own the property before they could dig.”
“I’d forgotten that,” Kate said, thinking she wasn’t going to share that tidbit with Grant.
“Read about that,” Sean said. “When the Ohio Historical Society finally got permission to dig, they found a bunch of bodies in that mound as well as precious artifacts.”
Kaitlyn, as if not to be outdone, continued the conversation. “What I think is way cool is the Adena Mansion was designed by Latrobe, the same man who designed the U.S. Capitol in Washington. If I hadn’t fallen in love with archaeology, I think I would have been an architect.”
“Maybe we should go to the Adena Mansion and you can give me a tour,” Sean said.
Kate could see Sean really had eyes for Kaitlyn, which reminded her of her graduate-school days. More than one student on early digs had wanted to date her, but she’d been enamored of Carson. And, sadly, Kaitlyn seemed to want to dominate others with her knowledge. Had she been like that when she was so young and naive? And had she mellowed and learned better? She’d better if she hoped to fit in here in Cold Creek.
“How’s it going up there, Bill?” Kate called to their watchman on the ledge above. “We’ll change around every hour. Sean’s turn next.”
“Fine. Great view. Believe me, I’ll yell if I see anybody. I really don’t think that rock fall could have been accidental—not the bigger rocks, anyway.”
Kate used a short-handled, soft brush to clear the lower face of the seam after the upper part was cleared. Then with a powerful headlight on her safety helmet—she’d made everyone wear one today—she scanned the face of the mica seam. Yes! She was certain this spot could have provided small pieces of mica to decorate garments or masks.
But she also discovered evidence that larger pieces had been removed. She thought she saw large shapes that could be ax heads and spear points, and historic tribes would not have used spears after bows and arrows were adapted in the area around 300 to 400 AD. Of course, the weather over the centuries could have made the pieces of chipped mica erode and widen. But artifacts in the mound would hold all the answers to her questions.
Eternally frustrated at not being able to excavate Mason Mound, she tried to rein in her excitement. She’d been taught not to jump
to conclusions, and she should take that to heart in the bigger mysteries she needed to solve. Who was hurting—even killing—Grant’s friends? Who had shot at them, thrown rocks at them? Bright Star and his lackeys, like Lee? Or worse, because it would devastate Grant—Brad, maybe with Lacey’s help?
“I think there’s something up here,” Kaitlyn called down. “It was protected from the elements by the overhang of the ledge. That ax head you sketched for us earlier—I swear there’s the shape of one here. You know, it’s a lot like the Toltecs and Aztecs used, too. Dr. Cantrell has been lecturing about how many smashed skulls are being unearthed near Mexico City and how that could be a link to the Adena mortuary practices.”
“A link in what way?” Kate demanded, appalled Carson could be teaching a Toltec-Aztec-Adena link theory, which would make all her Celtic-Adena work seem pointless. “The Aztec civilization came after the Adena rose and fell.”
“But the Aztecs are descended from the Toltecs, so they had a lot in common, and the Toltecs and their ancestors could be forebearers of the Adena. Dr. Cantrell says the Toltecs started out as hunter-wanderers, so they or their ancestors could have wandered clear up into this area in prehistoric times.”
Kate was stunned. Carson had never once suggested that to her.
“Fascinating and creepy,” Sean said. “Skulls from human sacrifices, thirty-four of them found so far in Mexico City, possibly dedicated to their sun god that required human blood. Dr. Cantrell says that there have to be stronger laws everywhere to prosecute and punish tomb robbers.”
“Well, he’s right about that,” Kate admitted, trying to compose herself and not wanting to berate these students for just passing on what they’d heard from Carson-on-high. Perhaps he had been promoting the Toltec idea just to make them think broadly. “Kaitlyn, let me take a look at what you found.”
Kate steadied the ladder, and Kaitlyn climbed down. The young woman heaved a huge sigh. “The professor’s right about most everything. But I think he’s still undecided about whether this mysterious come-and-go advanced Adena civilization was really the Celts of Europe or a Toltec-type migration from the area of modern-day Mexico.”
As excited as Kate was to get up the ladder, she almost missed the first rung. Had Kaitlyn read her thoughts and was trying to comfort her? Or had Carson told her not to get Kate too upset so that she’d quit her work here?
Sean jumped in. “It’s just that he theorizes a long trek from there is more probable than a Celtic sea voyage from Europe and then a trek inland from the East Coast—until someone—maybe you, Dr. Lockwood—can prove different.”
She clung to the ladder carefully as she went up. She was excited to see what Kaitlyn had pointed out, but devastated that Carson had not told her, despite all her work with the Celts, that he might be shifting his theory to the Toltec tribes. She had to talk to him face-to-face. And she had to get inside Mason Mound and find some link to the Celts.
Going up the ladder, she called down to the students. “I can’t recall if the Toltec-Aztecs have oversize artifacts in their tombs.”
“Yes, with weapon heads,” Kaitlyn said.
Sean would not be outdone. “Yeah, but those are sacrificial, ceremonial or mortuary ones,” he explained. “Cantrell said that just last week, at his lecture, Kaitlyn, remember?”
Kate kept climbing. Whom could she trust? Maybe not even these eager young students. What if Carson had sent them to urge her on, make her move faster, even do something rash? The article he’d sent about the thefts in tombs in Italy, now this. Was it all to force her hand, get her to go around Grant? She wanted to trust Grant, but could she? Sometimes she was sure Grant knew more about the mound than he was saying. And she admitted that going behind his back to talk to Jason about his big ax-head drawing meant Grant couldn’t completely trust her.
Kaitlyn interrupted her thoughts. “See? Over there to your right a little more.”
Kate directed her headlamp up, over. Suddenly, in stark relief, the silhouette of an ancient ax head stood out. She drew in a silent, hard breath. First a water source nearby, now this. The ancient Adena had been up here, had chipped an ax head out of this mica seam eons ago. And, perhaps, had killed their own sacrifices with it and left it to honor their gods or their dead in Mason Mound.
* * *
That evening, after her dig team had gone back to Columbus, Kate prepared supper and waited for Grant. He’d called to tell her he’d be late, and she’d filled him in on their finds in the mica seam. She’d also told him Kaitlyn had taken a sample of the poisoned grass and a limb of a hawthorn by the mound entry to have it tested. But he was still later than late, and she was worried. Had something happened at the mill? Had he and Brad argued again? Or something worse?
She took dinner out of the oven and put it in the microwave, where she could reheat it. Why didn’t he call? She hated to act like a nervous wife and call his cell if he was in a meeting or with Brad. She’d hoped to take him out to see their work—and the silhouette of the ax head—after they ate but soon it would be dark.
She saw a truck on the road but it didn’t turn in. She walked clear out to the road. The truck looked like the one Grant was driving while his was being repaired. It had pulled off at a spot down the road, along the fringe of the woods. Was he going to check on the mica seam on his own, so he could discuss it with her at dinner? She’d told him she’d left one ladder out there. Was he going to judge what they’d done and then tell her she couldn’t—or could—use a team to excavate Mason Mound?
She locked the house as she went out the back door. If Grant wasn’t headed in a roundabout way for the mica, maybe he wanted to check the mound entrance without letting her know.
Looking for him, she walked into the forest, past the mound, heading for the mica seam. Maybe he’d heard something about intruders out here again and thought the tree thieves might have returned for more timber.
He wasn’t near the mica, either, so she turned around to head back toward the house. But there, through the trees, she saw a blur of his light blue shirt. Grant was heading for the stone cairn where Brad had buried his dog.
She stopped where she was and crouched behind a tree. He was kneeling over that little mound of stones as if he’d come to pray there. He took out a piece of paper. Leaving Brad a note, telling him he’d found the grave?
He scribbled something on the paper and put it on the ground, then proceeded to remove the stones from the pyramid, placing them on the ground one by one. Surely, he wasn’t going to dig up a dead dog. Or did he think Brad had also hidden something else in that grave?
Hating herself for being the spy when she had worried someone was watching her from the forest, she saw Grant produce a trowel from his back pocket. He started to dig. Not far down he pulled up a small box, not a dog’s skeleton for sure. Maybe Brad had his pet cremated and only buried its ashes.
He fiddled with the box then finally opened it. Though she couldn’t see his facial expression, she knew he was upset. He bobbed his head once sharply, as if he’d cursed.
She watched him put the box back, push soil back on it, then, consulting his paper, pile the stones, evidently just the way they’d been before. He stuck his trowel in his back pocket, clapped soil off his hands and jogged back in the direction he’d come.
As soon as he was out of sight, Kate ran back toward the house. Brad had something hidden there, maybe on top of the dog’s skeleton. So now, not only was she going behind Grant’s back to talk to Jason about his ax-head drawing, but she was going to dig up that box under the stones.
* * *
That evening, Grant was obviously in a bad mood. He didn’t talk much at dinner, excused himself and went to his room, where he banged around and, Kate thought, made phone calls. He raised his voice a couple of times, but she couldn’t tell what he was saying. She had the feeling he might be talking to Bra
d.
He eventually reappeared. He looked relieved when she told him that the grad students weren’t coming back until the weekend. He said nothing about digging up Brad’s box, and she certainly didn’t tell him she’d followed him. If Grant could keep secrets—though she knew this could just be a private matter between two brothers—she could, too. Tomorrow morning, as soon as Grant cleared that door, she was going to get answers. She wouldn’t give up until the pieces of a puzzle came together. But where would she even find the pieces? Not by asking Grant, for sure, as he was hardly talking and finally disappeared to go to bed. No kiss, nothing, after all that enticing talk and touching Monday night. She hoped he didn’t think she’d poisoned the hawthorns at the entrance to the mound, though she was grateful to whoever did.
“So where has Brad been staying?” she asked him at breakfast the next morning. “Is he still doing okay at the mill?”
“With Lacey. Her parents are still up at their cabin, and he’s with her at their house in town. He says they don’t know, that they think he’s still living here. For sure, they’ll find out, so I told him I wouldn’t lie for him if it came to that.”
So maybe that’s what they were arguing about on the phone last night, she thought. If he was talking to Brad.
“Good move,” she said. “Lies only create eventual disasters.”
Grant leveled such a strange look at her that she trembled. Resentment? Anger? Worse, hatred? He got up from the table. “You’re right about that,” he said. Maybe she’d misread him. “As for Brad’s work at the mill, the same. Helpful, supportive, yada yada. Gotta go, Kate. You have plans for the day? You promised you wouldn’t go back out to the mica seam alone, and I’m holding you to that. Or out in the woods.”
“‘Beware of the woods’ sounds like good advice for Little Red Riding Hood, but I hear you, master of the manor,” she said, aware she was stalling for time to decide how to answer. If Grant could go behind her back...maybe lie to her, then...
