Lovely In Her Bones

by Sharyn McCrumb

  CHAPTER THREE

  ALEX didn’t know she was there. His office door was open, but she had heard him in conference with a student, so she waited in the hall without announcing her presence. She didn’t mind waiting. It would give her time to decide what to say.

  Tessa Lerche studied the bulletin board beside the door of her husband’s office. It contained the usual end-of-term notices posted by undergrads: ride needed to D.C. area; apartment to sublet; textbooks for sale-cheap! Nothing ever changed except the phone numbers. The “Professional Typing-Reasonable Rates” looked like the cards she used to post when Alex was in grad school, the lean years when a few term-paper jobs meant the difference between peanut butter and hamburger. At the time those years had seemed a long prologue to what she had thought of as “real life.” Looking back now, she saw that time as a golden age. Alex had studied a great deal, but he had also talked to her about his work. She had typed his papers. Now his work was put on computers by one of his assistants, and he seldom discussed it. Perhaps she should have continued to go on digs with him as she had out west, but over the years her interest had decreased and she had been less willing to spend blazing summers in the desert. She was thirty-three now. Her looks wouldn’t stand the weeks of roughing it as they used to. Once you passed thirty, you couldn’t take your looks for granted. She jogged, and moisturized her skin regularly, and she watched her diet. Sometimes people still mistook her for an undergrad. Alex never seemed to notice, though. He came home for dinner; there was no nonsense about worrying where he was or with whom, but even when he was at home… he wasn’t. He’d eat his dinner in an abstracted way, making polite murmurs to her attempts at conversation, and he’d spend the rest of the evening at his desk in the den, hunched over a column of figures, while she read or watched television. When she asked him what was the matter, he’d shrug and say, “Nothing,” or that he was tired, or the work wasn’t going well. She had decided that their marriage was in a seven-year slump, a thing to be waited out as gracefully as possible-until this morning’s discovery had convinced her otherwise. She had been straightening up Alex’s desk-which he preferred her not to do-when she found the yellow legal pad he made notes on. Scribbled in the margins beside data on Paleo-Indian cultures were the words “Mary Clare” written over and over.

  “Excuse me, ma’am. Are you waiting to see the professor?”

  Tessa looked up, wondering what her expression had been. The man was not a student. He was tanned and wiry, nearing forty, with a head so bald that he must have shaved it. He had the sort of brown eyes that can express feelings, and at the moment his were radiating concern for this distraught stranger he’d found in the hallway. He might be one of Alex’s colleagues, Tessa realized. Whoever he was, he was waiting to see Alex, and he would be listening outside while she said whatever she was going to say to her husband.

  “You feeling all right?” he asked gently.

  She forced herself to meet the man’s eyes. “I-I got an F,” Tessa stammered, and fled.

  Alex Lerche blinked at the visitor who sat on the other side of his desk toying with a Sioux buffalo-jaw knife. People usually commented on the fur and beadwork on the hilt, but the bald man in the khaki jumpsuit was running his fingers along the iron blade with an expression of cheerful inquiry.

  “Wouldn’t be a bad hunting knife, but I’d hate to have to take it into combat.”

  “Combat?” Lerche considered it. “I don’t think the Sioux-”

  The visitor smiled. “I was talking about Nam. Spent a couple of years there in Special Forces. I was acquainted with a couple of Indians over there, and nary a one of us carried one of these.”

  “You’re interested in Indians, Mr… er…”

  “Comfrey Stecoah. Reckon I am interested in Indians, seeing as how I am one. I’m looking for Dr. Lurch. Might you be him?”

  “It’s pronounced Lair-ka,” the professor murmured. The correction was automatic. “It’s a Danish name. And you say you’re an Indian?”

  “Uh-huh,” he grinned, reading the thought on Lerche’s face. He did not look like most people’s conception of an Indian, and he knew it. He was tanned, but not as dark as many of the Southwestern Indians; his features included a nose too broad to fit the stereotype, and-since he was shaved bald-his hair was a matter for speculation. “I came to see you because I hear you’re an expert on Indian cultures.”

  “I have done some work with Plains Indian cultures,” said Lerche cautiously. “What would you like to know?”

  “It’s not a question of knowing. It’s a question of proving. I know your work involved the Indians out west, but you’re the closest thing we got to an expert in these parts, so you’ll have to do.”

  Lerche smiled in spite of himself. “What, exactly, will I have to do?”

  “My people want you to conduct an archaeological expedition on our land. Well, that is, it should be our land-to help us win our case.”

  Lerche sighed. “Could you start at the beginning before I get any more confused?”

  Stecoah grinned. “Sure. It’s like I said, my people-”

  “Stop right there! Now, start with that. Who are your people?”

  “The Cullowhees. We’re an Eastern Indian tribe up in the Appalachian Mountains. It’s a couple of hours’ drive from here. You ever heard tell of us?”

  Lerche hesitated. “I’ve heard of the Cherokees,” he offered.

  Stecoah sighed. “Who hasn’t? Well, we’re not them and they don’t need your help. They got their craft shop and their outdoor drama, and-oh, hell, who am I to knock that? I wish we had a deal like that.”

  “The-Cullowhees, did you say?”

  “Yeah, we’re a right small group. Less than a thousand folks, all living in the same little valley. But we don’t have any tribal recognition from the U.S. government, and we don’t have any tribal land. That’s where you come in. We need some help from an outside expert to help us get a land grant from old Uncle Sam.”

  Lerche tapped his fingertips together as he considered the matter. “I guess it could be done,” he said finally. “If you get me some tapes of your tribal language and some samples of your pottery and other artifacts, and we could-”

  “We can’t do it that way. We need you to do some digging to find evidence that this was our land. There’s a cemetery in the valley where our people have been buried for at least a hundred and twenty years that we know of. That ought to count for something with the government, shouldn’t it?”

  “I suppose so, but wouldn’t it be simpler to get someone to do a study of your cultural patterns and link you up with the Cherokee or the Iroquois, so that you can get tribal status by association?”

  “Wouldn’t work.”

  “I seem to remember it being done that way once.”

  “Yeah, but it wouldn’t work for us. We don’t do pots, ner tomahawks, ner any of that craft stuff. Never have. And the only tribal language we got is the one I’m a-talking right now.”

  Lerche digested the information. He had no experience with Eastern Indians, but his work in the Southwest had led him to expect some vestiges of original culture, regardless of the years of exposure to white customs. How could they have lost all of it and still keep together as a tribe? It had the makings of an interesting study.

  “Do you know anything about your origins?”

  Stecoah leaned forward and put the knife back on the desk. “Now personally, I don’t hold much with the origin stories,” he drawled. “I reckon it’s enough that we’re Native Americans without having to put on some kind of dog-and-pony show about where we came from. But I know that if we’re goin’ to run this one by the Department of the Interior, that’s the kind of damnfool thing people are going to be asking.”

  “I would imagine so,” Lerche agreed. He was listening to the man’s rounded vowel sounds, hoping for some sort of distinctive accent, but to Lerche’s unpracticed ear, Stecoah sounded just like the few Appalachian people he had met.

&nb
sp; “The trouble is can’t nobody agree on where we came from. Some people want to think we’re descended from the Indians and settlers of the Lost Colony, but I don’t believe it. That was all the way across North Carolina on the coast. We’re mountain people. My mother claims we’re descended from a tribe called the Unakas who intermarried with some Moravian missionaries from Salem. Then there’s folk who claim some of Daniel Boone’s people left the party around the Cumberland Gap, and that they moved in with the local tribe, and that we’re the descendants of that mixture. It don’t matter a hill of beans to me, as long as we get the land. Which story do you reckon they’ll like the best in Washington?”

  “I really couldn’t say,” murmured Lerche. “Perhaps I could recommend a qualified anthropologist who could study the matter for a few years and produce some kind of a theory based on more evidence.”

  The door swung open and Milo, shrugging off his white lab coat, shouldered his way into the room. “Hey, Alex, I don’t know what-” He looked up and noticed the visitor. “Sorry. I didn’t know you were in conference.”

  Alex smiled. “Milo, Mr. Stecoah is a representative of the… ah… Cullowhee Indians.”

  Milo looked impressed. “Pleased to meet you, Chief.”

  “Thanks. I’m not a chief. We don’t go in for that stuff. I was a master sergeant in the Army, though.”

  “Mr. Stecoah wanted to consult us about a dig on his people’s land. He needs some authentication so that his group can apply for tribal status with the government, but I was telling him-”

  “You been stonewalling me,” Stecoah growled. “Talkin’ about some kind of fancy study taking a couple of years. We don’t have that kind of time. The government’s about to turn our land over to some damned coal company for strip mining! We need help in a hurry, or we’ll have us a Trail of Tears, just like the Cherokees.” He grinned. “I’d rather have an outdoor drama like their’n, if it’s all the same to you.”

  Alex Lerche hesitated. He was as ecology-minded as the next person, but he was uneasy about committing himself to such a project on short notice. He sighed. “Perhaps we could discuss this a bit further,” he offered. “Milo, do you have time to sit in?”

  “Sure. Class is over. This sounds like a great idea to me!” He caught Lerche’s warning glance and subsided into polite interest.

  “It might be a good idea for you to make some notes as we go along,” Lerche told him.

  Milo tilted his chair back toward the door and reached in his lab coat for his pen. “Oh! I almost forgot what I came in here for,” he said, withdrawing a piece of paper from the pocket. “I found this in the hall and recognized your handwriting.”

  Lerche took the piece of paper with the words “Mary Clare” scribbled all over the margins. It was the data sheet he’d left at home on his desk with the notes for his journal article. “Where-”

  “I bet that lady dropped it,” said Stecoah. “She was waiting to see you, but she looked mighty upset.”

  Alex stared at the sheet of paper and let the calamity sink in.

  He knew that Tessa had found the paper. That was the only way it could have appeared in the hall outside his office. The fact that she had brought it must mean that she had decided to have a confrontation. He wondered if she would believe the truth, and even more if he could bring himself to admit it. He would have to talk to Tessa, though, before she did anything drastic. Women, he thought ruefully. At the skeletal level, the only difference between women and men was a piece of bone the size of his hand, but-he smiled to himself-the antemortem differences were vast. Tessa was going to be difficult about this, just when he needed all his energy to work on the discriminate function chart. That was what was really important. Couldn’t she see that? He wished he could just get away.

  Silence. Lerche became aware that the two people whose existence he had forgotten were staring at him expectantly.

  “Er-what?” he asked uneasily.

  “The dig!” Milo prompted him. “What do you think? It would give you more data for the chart.”

  “Not to mention helping out some live folks,” Stecoah grunted.

  Alex blinked at them. “Yes, all right. We’ll go.”

  Mary Clare Gitlin, graduate teaching assistant in anthropology, had discovered that she could grade multiple-choice tests to the beat of almost any song played on the local country radio station. “It wasn’t God” (mark one wrong) “who made honk-” (mark one wrong) “y-tonk angels” (no mistake). She didn’t care whether this was a coincidence or a revelation of some major truth about human behavior. It relieved the monotony of grading a hundred freshman quizzes. The rest of the graduate assistantship was proving most enjoyable, she thought. Alex Lerche was certainly a nice man to work with. She was lucky she hadn’t been assigned to Dr. Ziffel, an irritable pedant nearing retirement after a mediocre career, who resented every talented student in the department. The few times she had encountered him, he had made a point of imitating her East Tennessee accent, his derision masked as a social smile.

  Alex was a little too serious, but she preferred that to Ziffel’s bitter humor. Alex was dedicated. He had a trick of leaning forward when he talked to you, and of using his hands with the fluid grace of a mime, painting his meaning with an economy of perfect gestures. To Mary Clare’s way of thinking, he looked like a scientist, while the rest of the department looked like a bunch of bureaucrats. They went to class in suits and ties and pretended their first names were Doctor, but Alex seemed oblivious to the trappings of academia. He showed up for class in corduroy jeans and a white shirt rolled up to the elbows, with his white blond hair combed in a wave across his forehead. Every now and then he’d come in wearing a suit jacket and tie-and you knew that she’d picked out his clothes that morning-but by ten o’clock he’d look the same as always and be engrossed in the puzzle of an old bone, like a happy bloodhound. Mary Clare smiled to herself. He was a nice man and a good scientist. It seemed a waste to have him cooped up in a classroom teaching general anthro when he could be doing important fieldwork. Someone with Alex’s skill and knowledge should be out there making discoveries all the time, not just on occasional field trips for the undergrads’ benefit. Mary Clare circled the F she had written on the top of a quiz. What a waste! Still, in fairness to Alex, she didn’t think the university job had been his idea. The person who wanted a secure income, faculty prestige, and a fancy house instead of a campsite-that wasn’t Alex. It was her. Mary Clare sighed. Best not to speculate on what doesn’t concern you, but it was a pitiful shame just the same.

  Tessa applied the wire whisk to the bowl of eggs with more force than necessary, making a yellow and white maelstrom in the mixing bowl. Tonight was quiche night, since this had been her afternoon for volunteer work at the Crisis Center and she had her aerobics class at seven. Alex would be home soon. From her worktable by the kitchen window she could see the driveway, and she found herself watching for the car with increasing apprehension. It was not dread so much as a last trace of stage fright before the beginning of a performance.

  She had talked about it that afternoon with Ginny at the Crisis Center, and they had decided that she was overreacting. A name on a piece of paper was hardly evidence of adultery, Ginny had pointed out, but she conceded that the situation would bear watching. The important thing was to remain calm and keep the lines of communication open. She told Tessa to remember that although the male libido was an emotional form of pond scum, men did not really want to leave their wives. Infatuations were simply passages in ego gratification; infantile, of course, but what else could you expect? She advised Tessa to behave just as usual, only more loving, more attentive, and more understanding. Finally she had given her a photocopied article on “Advanced Degrees as Community Property” and enrolled her in the center’s divorce law seminar. It never hurt to be prepared.

  Tessa was sliding the quiche pan into the oven when she heard the car door slam, ending an imagined series of conversations between her and Alex. (“O
f course you’re not having an affair with her, dear. You wrote her name on your notes because you have discovered the missing link and are thinking of naming it after her!”) Should she walk to the front door to meet him, or would that seem too artificial? What should she say?

  She decided to stay where she was for the sake of the psychological advantage (the kitchen was her sphere; besides, she had to get supper out of the way in order to be on time for her class). When Alex came in, she was setting the table.

  “Dinner’s nearly ready,” she told him. “I have to rush off to my class, but if you’ll leave the dishes on the countertop, I’ll do them when I get back.”

  “I always do the dishes on your class night.”

  “It’s all right. I don’t mind doing them later. Want some coffee?” I sound manic, she thought. I sound like a stewardess. Trying to act normal is the most unnatural behavior of all.

  “Coffee would be fine,” said Alex warily. “If it isn’t any trouble.”

  “Not at all.” Tessa began measuring coffee for the percolator. “And how was your day?”

  “Oh, fine. Got an interesting case today.”

  “Alex-” Tessa started to say that she didn’t like to hear about his gruesome cases before dinner, but remembering Ginny’s advice, she amended this to: “That’s nice. Tell me all about it.”

  “I don’t know much about it yet,” Alex admitted. “A group of Indians up in the mountains wants me to do an exploratory dig to help them get tribal recognition from the government.”

  “Maybe I’ll have tea. I’ve been drinking that awful instant stuff all day at the Crisis Center, and I can already feel the caffeine on my nerves.”

  “Tea will be fine, then, Tessa.”

  “No. You have coffee. I’ve already started the percolator.”

  “Whatever. Uh, anyway, this tribe wants me to find some evidence that the land they’re on is traditional tribal land. Apparently there’s some question of their losing it to a strip-mining operation.”