Looking at his normally taciturn face, now bright with anticipation, she finally admitted to herself why none of her colleagues had outbid her for this job. She’d thought it was because they could find better paying work elsewhere. Now, she knew deep-down that the real reason she’d won this bid was because nobody else wanted to work for Samuel.
He was still talking, and he still wasn’t making sense. “And the Langley Object? It’s a bas-relief carving of an actual flying saucer. Please tell me you’re getting it documented. That is the article you should be publishing.”
Faye opted to backpedal and tell the truth at the same time. “I’ve looked at all the items you mentioned under magnification and I’m still working on a literature review. I also sent photos of the Rosebower spear to an expert on ancient American weapons.”
She neglected to mention that this expert was her husband and that his opinion had been the same as Faye’s. The spear point didn’t deserve to be a focal point of this museum.
It wasn’t junk, no. It was an utterly beautiful work of art. But it was not rare and it was not nearly as old as Samuel wished it to be. In Faye’s professional opinion, it was a not particularly uncommon example of work done by Native Americans in the middle of the first millennium of the Common Era in the place that would be known as New York. Unfortunately, the huckster who sold it to Samuel told him that it was far older and that it was carved from stone only found in Europe, thus “proving” contact between the Old and New Worlds a thousand years before Columbus.
If Faye couldn’t get Samuel to listen to reason, she would have to waste his money on laboratory results that said what she already knew to be true. Faye hated to waste money, even if it wasn’t hers. Also, Samuel was not going to believe lab results he didn’t like, so why pay for testing?
As for Samuel’s fabulous “runestone,” Faye didn’t need Joe or a lab to tell her that it was a palm-sized sherd incised with decorations common to Iroquois pottery. It wasn’t rare, and it was exactly what she would have expected to find in the countryside surrounding Rosebower. Samuel, however, believed with all his heart that it was something more. To him, those incised figures were Nordic runes proving that northern Europeans were living in America long before Columbus got lost on his way to the Spice Islands.
Most ridiculous of all was the “spaceship” carving on the “Langley Object.” In this case, Samuel had been right to believe that he owned something that she wouldn’t have expected to find in western New York. It was a piece of stone about half the size of a sheet of notebook paper, but only an imagination the size of Samuel’s could see a spaceship in its stylized carving. It looked Mesoamerican to Faye, and she couldn’t argue that it had traveled a long way to New York from the Yucatan Peninsula, but she didn’t think it came to Rosebower by way of a flying saucer.
If she had to guess, she’d say one of Samuel’s nineteenth-century ancestors had bought it while traveling in Central America, brought it north, and stashed it in the museum. Whatever its origin, Faye was really skeptical that the round thing on the central figure’s head was anything more than a ceremonial headdress, but her client wanted it to be a spaceman’s helmet. He wanted it bad.
Samuel wanted Faye to drape the credibility of her Ph.D. over work that would be called pseudoarchaeology in polite circles. In impolite circles, it was known as “bullshit archaeology.”
Still dumping on the Armistead letter, one of the most significant finds of her career, Samuel asked, “Why are you wasting time on letters that passed between housewives? The Rosebower spear, the runestone, the Langley Object—these things could change the way we understand the world. And ourselves!”
Until this instant, when she finally understood the intensity of his misbegotten passions, Faye had not realized that she could give this client good service, yet still lose the job.
If she told Samuel what she thought about his “Runestone” now, she would soon be scurrying to read the fine print on her contract, because if it left Samuel the wiggle room to fire her, then he most certainly would. Since contracts generally favor the person who has the money, Faye was pretty sure that Samuel had retained some wiggle room.
Faye tried to examine her quandary dispassionately. She’d known Samuel had odd notions, but she hadn’t expected the situation to spiral so far out of control. It wouldn’t wreck her career if he forced her to leave this tiny, unimportant museum in a shambles. It would, however, hurt her professional pride.
Besides, the Virginia Armistead letter proved she could be walking away from truly significant things that ought to be preserved. American culture hadn’t always done a good job of recognizing women’s contributions. Here was her chance to help right that imbalance. Faye really wanted to salvage this situation.
Then Samuel put a toe over a line in the sand that Faye didn’t even know she’d drawn.
He said, “Don’t you see? My artifacts explain everything! There’s no way that the Indians were advanced enough to build huge mound complexes like Cahokia in Illinois, much less the pyramids in the Yucatan. First the aliens came. Then the Europeans came years earlier than we thought. They built the cultures that Columbus and the explorers after him discovered. It’s the only reasonable explanation.”
Faye felt herself grow unexpectedly calm. She’d been willing to make allowances for Samuel’s unorthodox ideas. She didn’t share them, but everybody was entitled to an opinion. This last pronouncement, though, had a distinctly racist tone.
So the indigenous Americans, the ancestors of her husband and son and, in small part, herself, were incapable of building complex civilizations? Only aliens from outer space and Europeans were capable of such a thing?
She noticed that he didn’t suggest American contact with ancient Egypt, so he probably figured that their civilization was built by aliens, too. Otherwise, he would have been forced to believe that the massive pyramids at Giza were built by Africans—Faye’s ancestors, and her son’s, and her daughter’s. More than likely, Samuel wouldn’t have credited Asians with any part in the globe-spanning cultural interchange of the deep dark past, either.
If, in her client’s mind, otherworldly aliens and Europeans were the only beings capable of building a civilization, why was he willing to work with not-very-European Faye?
“You understand, don’t you? When you find evidence of an advanced civilization, you have to look for early European contact. For so many years, we carried the rest of the world.”
We. He had said “we.” Samuel was standing right in front of Faye, yet he had no idea who she was.
Faye took a glance at the back of her hand. It was a distinctive pale brown. She was proud of her multiracial heritage. People who knew her were aware that her great-great-grandmother was a slave.
This man, who didn’t know her at all, was color-blind in a backward kind of way. He had hired a woman, sight unseen, whose résumé had signaled him to expect a contractor who was smart and competent. Based on his world view, the only option when he met dark-beige Faye was to presume that she was a white woman with a really good tan.
Faye was poised to quit the job and walk away…until she saw the glimmer of a possibility that Samuel might be taught a lesson.
Improvising as she spoke, she said, “My expertise is really in historic archaeology. I can hold my own with lithics and ceramics, but I think artifacts as…notable…as yours should be handled by an expert. Fortunately, I know just the person. It’ll cost you a plane ticket and a few days of this man’s time, but he’s really the best there is. I’m lucky that he’s willing to consult for me.”
They shook on it, leaving Faye eager to go wash her right hand. Then she returned to her computer to draw up a contract that Samuel would happily sign, because it would promise him a credentialed expert to look at his so-called “runestone.”
She still did not intend to do any bullshit archaeology, so he would not be happy with her
final report, but it would be prepared ethically and according to sound scientific principles. More importantly, every word of it would adhere to every last clause in the contract. She still might not get paid, but it would be entertaining to watch him try to wriggle out of her bill for writing it. If she decided to take him to court for breach-of-contract, she would have the pleasure of watching him try to convince a judge that Rosebower’s original settlers were intergalactic alien space invaders. And Europeans.
At this point, she no longer cared whether she got paid, anyway. She just wanted to see what would happen if Samuel continued to spout racist crap in the presence of the credentialed expert he was flying to New York—her intimidatingly large Creek husband.
***
Amande noticed that her mother had nothing to say when she returned from her talk with Samuel. Oh, she’d said hello and given Amande’s upper arm a playful squeeze. She had peered over her shoulder and pretended to inspect her work, but Faye knew Amande had done nothing all day but sort through old letters. Unlike yesterday’s find, today’s batch of letters had not been written by someone watching history be made.
Most of today’s letters had come from spoiled young people writing home to the late-Victorian parents who were paying for their grand tours of Europe. They were invariably some variant on this theme:
Dearest Mother and Father,
Our tour down the Rhine was most inspiring. The castles on the hilltops above us had their romantic aspects, but I am told that even those still inhabited are no longer kept in the grand style, due to the difficulty of finding menials who are willing to do the work needed to maintain such establishments. I also find German wines much inferior to those of France.
Amande always lost attention immediately after each insufferable letter-writer complained about non-French wine. She had tried to joke about these wine whines, but her mother had nodded and said, “Hmmm,” so Amande had gone back to sifting through the stacks of boring papers.
What could Samuel have said to upset Faye so?
After an hour of listening to her mother fidget, Amande wasn’t surprised to hear her say, “Time for a coffee break, but I’m not thirsty. Why don’t you go to the diner and get yourself some of that cappuccino you like? I’m going to make a phone call.”
Amande didn’t get the sense that this was going to be a business call. This was a call prompted by the worries that were making Faye squirm so much that she’d probably worn the varnish off her desk chair. Amande figured that it was a coin-flip as to whom her mother would call to hash out her problems. Either it would be her dad, or it would be Magda.
Amande wished she had a best friend like Faye’s. The one thing that Amande’s new life with Faye and Joe hadn’t given her was friends. She’d never had real friends while growing up. It hadn’t been her poverty that had set her apart, because there had been plenty of poverty to go around in south Louisiana.
Part of her isolation had been her doing, because she’d never known what to say to the other kids. They’d wasted their time on playground bickering, as if they didn’t know what real trouble was like. And they’d kept their distance from Amande, because they knew that she did.
She’d imagined that they were afraid to talk to her, for fear her bad luck would rub off. The combination of a runaway mother, deadbeat father, and weirdo grandmother was enough to render her socially untouchable. Worse, the almost-homeless existence of living on a houseboat was deeply scary to children who knew, at some level, that their own families might be one assistance check from an existence that was as tenuous.
Being adopted by Faye and Joe had been like having a fairy godmother drop down out of the sky with a pumpkin full of all Amande’s dreams. She was a little lonely. This was true. So what? She’d be going away to college in a year, and that would be way different from living on an island with a couple of adults and a toddler.
She looked out the window. Faye had her phone to her ear and she was hunched over with laughter, so Amande knew exactly who was on the other end of the call. That was a best-friend kind of laugh, so her mother had called Magda.
Distracted by Magda’s jokes, there was no way that Faye would have noticed the foot traffic on the sidewalk across the street behind her. If Amande hadn’t been watching, no one would have seen Ennis walk by and then, five minutes later, walk past again. Amande guessed that he was hoping her mother would leave so he could come inside and pay Amande another visit.
If she took her mother’s suggestion and walked to the diner for a cappuccino, she had no doubt that he’d follow her there. She thought maybe she’d skip the coffee. Or maybe she’d go for a walk and let him chase her.
Sometimes Ennis weirded her out. But sometimes…Well, sometimes, she thought he might be nothing worse than lonely and bored. Just like her.
Faye was still talking ninety-miles-a-minute to her cell phone, gesturing with her free hand as if Magda could see her. Amande wondered how long they’d been friends. She should ask Faye.
Her mother knew she was lonely. She kept talking about getting Amande a job in Sopchoppy or Panacea when they got home, so that she could spend time with people her age. Amande was very good at real-world math, and she knew that the fuel costs to get her ashore to that job would eat up every last dime of a minimum wage paycheck. Faye seemed to think she should do it anyway.
Amande knew she could have friendships like the one Faye shared with Magda, once she ventured off the island and put some effort into meeting people. Right now, however, she was a little scared of the big bad world. She thought she might hide out on Joyeuse Island for an extra year or so.
Chapter Eighteen
Faye could laugh and joke all she liked. Even on the other end of a cell phone connection, Magda Stockard-McKenzie could tell when her friend was stressed past her limits. The laughs came a little too quick, and the jokes fell a little too flat. Faye had not placed this call just to hear Magda’s harsh and crow-like voice, but that was okay. Best friends didn’t have to say what they were thinking, not until they were ready to say it.
The best friend code required Magda to pretend that Faye had really called to talk about work. No-nonsense Magda could play make-believe, when necessary, so she asked a work-related question. “So your client believes he’s got a picture of an alien and he believes he’s got a medieval Scandinavian shopping list proving that Columbus wasn’t here first?”
“Yes, he does believe those things. I’ve held that stupid ‘Runestone’ in my own two hands. Oh, and by the way, Columbus wasn’t here first. Keep talking like that, Madame Archaeologist, and I’m going to see about getting your Ph.D. revoked.”
Magda liked to hear that familiar cocky attitude. If Faye could still make her laugh by insulting her, then things couldn’t be all that bad. “I know Columbus wasn’t first. Not two hours ago, I got an eye full of your gorgeous husband, and I am completely aware that his ancestors were waiting on the beach to tell the Europeans hello. Just think. If Columbus hadn’t come over here and messed things up, this country would still be full of men who look like Joe.”
“Yeah, but then your people would’ve stayed in England, so you wouldn’t be here to goggle at Joe’s.”
“I’m sure we would have had an embassy with the Creeks. I could’ve gotten a job there, where I’d be surrounded by Joe clones. Trust me. I’d have found a way to get to this side of the Atlantic.”
“I’m going to tell your husband.”
“Mike knows that I love every hair on his…arms. Despite the fact that there aren’t many left on his head and they’re all gray.”
These things were true, but the retired sheriff still walked and talked like the forty-year-old man he had been when he took responsibility for the safety of the citizens of Micco County, Florida. If the words “peace officer” had ever been true of anyone, they were true of Sheriff Mike. Magda loved the old coot for just those things.
&nbs
p; She listened to Faye mentally backpedal through the conversation. “Wait. You said you’d just seen my husband. Did he come ashore for no reason other than to visit? Don’t tell me he got lonely enough to admit it.”
It had taken Faye long enough to ask that question. Magda decided that she really must be stressed. Everyone in Joe’s world knew that he generally only left Joyeuse Island for work and for unavoidable errands, like grocery shopping. His hunting, fishing, and gardening kept their grocery bill to a minimum, but the Longchamp-Mantooth family liked milk. And ice cream. They were all big on ice cream. Short of learning to milk a deer, the island-dwellers’ only choice was to come ashore from time to time.
“I happen to know that my husband bought groceries not two days ago. What was he doing in town today?”
“He got lonely,” she said. “Imagine being alone on an island with a two-year-old for days and days.”
The phone was silent while Faye took a moment to do that. Finally, she said, “Poor Joe.”
“Yes. And he’s never going to get over that emergency room trip with Michael.”
“Did you get a look at his stitches? Do you think he’s in pain? Does he even still have stitches?”
Magda interrupted Faye before she could embarrass herself with another question. “Hush. The child is fine. The stitches are still in. The cut looks good. Joe is a meticulous man, you know that. He cleans the wound and uses antibiotic ointment three times a day, like clockwork, just like the doctor told him. I watched him do it yesterday, after school.”
“School? Yesterday? Joe was in town three days in a row?”
“When I saw him at the grocery store on Tuesday, I could see that the man was at the end of his rope. He was the sweet, calm, loving, and perfect dad that he always is, but he was at the end of his rope, nevertheless. Two-year-olds are…”
“Two.”
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