Site Unseen

by Dana Cameron

  He nodded, still red.

  “Not everyone would have seen that transition right at the top like that. Most folks would have gone down a bit before they picked up on it.”

  Neal shrugged.

  “I mean, I think we can be more confident about her.” I stopped and caught Neal’s eye. “Which is good, you know, because that frees you up for your work and for watching out for Alan, right? Everybody wins.”

  He nodded. “Gotcha, Em.”

  “Good. Back in a bit.”

  Congratulating myself on handling things so effectively, I went up to the house. I found Pauline working steadily in the front flower beds, pulling weeds and deadheading faded blooms.

  “Hey Paul,” I hailed her. “Got a minute?”

  She smiled. “Of course.” After she carefully wiped off her shears, we sat on the steps leading to the big wraparound porch. I told her about Meg’s find of the lead ball and the posthole, but she was curiously unmoved by these discoveries. She sat leaning against one of the porch posts, watching the terns wheel against the backdrop of the opposite shore, her eyes half closed.

  I began to get worried; surely she wasn’t ill? “You see? It’s possible we’ve got the first hard, in-ground evidence for the fort.”

  Her eyes were closed completely now. “I do see. It’s great news, isn’t it?”

  I put my hand on her arm. “Paul, forgive me for saying so, but you don’t seem, well, excited,” I said. “Are you okay? You should come over, have a look at Meg’s feature.”

  “I’ll stop by later, as usual,” she said unhurriedly. Pauline picked up on my concern, however, and opened her eyes again. “I’m thrilled, of course,” she explained. “But if I’m not capering, it’s because I thoroughly expected you to find the fort, dear. It was only a matter of time.”

  I stared at her. “It wasn’t just a matter of time, we had practically nothing—we still don’t even know if that’s what we’ve got!”

  “You’ve got it, don’t worry.”

  I chewed my lip. “I wish I could be as sure as you are.”

  Pauline laughed. “Relax, Emma. Oscar taught you well.”

  I frowned; the posthole’s appearance had nothing to do with Grandpa. I decided to change the subject. “Oscar would have loved this, wouldn’t he?”

  “He would have indeed,” she replied, nodding. Her gaze was still dreamy, though. “Oscar would have been right in his element watching you work and it would have meant more to him than all those professional accolades he accumulated.” She turned to me now and cocked her head thoughtfully.

  I had never asked about her precise relationship with Grandpa. Grandma Ida had died only two years before Oscar, and he and Pauline had been friends for more than thirty years. I found myself wondering again if they had been lovers, and immediately reprimanded myself. I hated falling into the prurient trap of automatically assuming such a thing. It didn’t matter, anyway.

  “I can see a little of him in you, Emma, about the eyes, the chin.”

  “Do you?” was all I asked. I didn’t dare hope.

  “Yes, particularly when I see you directing the crew, you move like him.” She patted my arm. “Though Oscar was a bit more brusque about it—”

  “Oscar was an ogre to his students and they worshipped him,” I broke in, “though not always at the same time!” I sat back down, able to recall many occasions of bellowing and roaring with stuttering replies. “But Bucky’s the one who looks like Oscar.”

  “Your sister certainly resembles him,” she agreed, “but you got his soul, Emma.”

  I didn’t quite know what to make of that. It was unlike Pauline to dwell on such abstractions—she was so full of life, so devoted to doing rather than wondering, that I was a little concerned. But she didn’t seem gloomy at all, just contemplative and content. I pulled myself off the stairs reluctantly, brushed off the seat of my pants, and let out a piercing whistle, the kind you can only make with both pinkies. Down the slope, I could see students looking up from their lunches.

  “Whaddya lying around for?” I belted out. “Meg’s only been out here a week and already she’s found the fort! The rest of you waiting for an invitation or something?”

  That’s one of the things I love about Pauline; when she laughs, she doesn’t mess around with ladylike titters. With her, it’s belly laughs or nothing.

  Much later that afternoon Pauline did stop by to visit the progress in each of the units. Although no one else had yet found another posthole or uncovered the top of the seventeenth-century layer, excitement and morale were running high with the eagerness to find that next clue. I was just kneeling to show her Meg’s posthole when a shadow fell over me. The sudden cool shade from the sun made me shiver, and for an instant I feared that Grahame Tichnor had returned. But then, with a sinking heart, I suddenly recalled what I should have been planning all day.

  “Hey, Emma, Professor Markham’s here!” Neal called belatedly.

  I looked up, squinting into the sunlight, and hastily rose, dusting myself off, but all in vain. As hard as I’d tried to keep myself presentable, I was sweaty and covered with a noticeable film of dirt. It didn’t help that I had broken into a cold sweat immediately after my encounter with Grahame Tichnor; I was now caked with grime. This was definitely not the image I had in mind for my meeting with my august colleague.

  Tony, on the other hand, was immaculately outfitted in the traditional khakis and blue oxford cloth shirt so beloved by the men of my academic tribe, and seemed to be immune to the heat of the day. His close-cropped beard and hair were meticulously groomed, a little remaining brown overtaken by white. I got the impression that he was the kind of archaeologist who could go into the field wearing white and come out spotless at the end of the day. He didn’t come off as prissy or fastidious, though; it just added to his charisma. Me, I’d seen garbage men look less disheveled than I did after work.

  “Hello, Tony. Sorry, I lost track of time, what with all the excitement around here. Pauline, this is Dr. Anthony Markham, a colleague from the Caldwell College Anthropology Department. Tony, this is my friend Pauline Westlake. This is Pauline’s property.”

  Pauline smiled graciously. “How do you do, Dr. Markham?”

  “Tony, please,” he said, smiling back, Southern charm instantly activated by Pauline’s regal bearing.

  “I don’t know whether you’ve met Meg Garrity, who’ll be starting with us this fall?”

  “Oh, I had a chance to talk with Miss Garrity before she joined you here,” Tony said, his words full of irony. I wondered if Meg had impressed him as she’d impressed me.

  “Hi, Tony,” Meg said, looking up from her note taking.

  “Emma, I need to get ready for this evening,” Pauline excused herself. “A pleasure, Tony.”

  “Ms. Westlake.” Tony watched Pauline return to her house. “Wonderful old place,” he commented.

  “There was a building boom in the nineteenth century,” I said, “when seaside touring was the vogue. A lot of nice places were built then, which is kind of ironic when you think how impoverished it was around here before the price of real estate shot up.”

  “And this all looks very impressive,” he said, gesturing to the units all around me.

  I suppressed a triumphant smile. “Let me show you around a bit—”

  Meg interrupted. “Sorry, Emma, but what time are we expected at the sheriff’s department?”

  I couldn’t tell for sure, but I thought I detected a note of humor in her voice. It was not, I had to concede, a question one asked every day.

  Cursing to myself, I checked my watch and realized not only that had I forgotten my promise to the sheriff, but also that it was time for the crew to start cleaning up for the day.

  Tony was too polite to ask, but a raised eyebrow indicated his curiosity.

  “I had a nasty run-in with an armed pothunter today,” I hastened to explain, “and I did tell the sheriff I would stop by and look at some photos, you know, to
identify the guy.”

  Tony looked startled. “Goodness.”

  I checked my watch. “Excuse me, Tony. Hey guys,” I called to the crew through cupped hands. “Time to wrap it up.” I turned back to Tony, trying to figure out how I could salvage as much of this botched opportunity as possible. “Well, I’ve got about twenty minutes to show you around, and then I’ve got to get to the sheriff’s department. I’m so sorry about this—”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Tony said. He thought a moment. “Will that take long?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t imagine so.”

  “Well, by all means, I’ll follow you there,” Tony drawled. “And after I’ll buy you a drink and we can chat.”

  I brightened. “Sure, if you don’t mind the wait.”

  “Not a bit. I’ve never been to a mug shot party before.”

  “Then, if you’ll just let me get the crew sorted out, I’ll give you the Cook’s tour. Hey Neal,” I yelled.

  He ambled over. “I can get everything closed up for the night, Em, don’t worry.”

  Sure enough, students were already pulling blue plastic tarps over the units to protect them for the night.

  “Excellent, thanks. Meg and I are going to the sheriff’s department, then I’m going to get a drink with Professor Markham. The beer’s on me tonight—” I rummaged in my pockets and handed him a couple of crumpled bills, but Neal was already thinking ahead.

  “So how’s Meg going to get back?”

  I thought about it for a minute; there were two other vehicles, but not enough room in just one of them for all the rest of the crew. I surely didn’t want Meg tagging along while I spoke with Tony…

  But then a solution presented itself in the unlikely form of Alan, who had joined us. “Emma, I could wait and go back with Meg. That’ll leave enough room in the other truck, and I’ve got a little bit more to finish here anyway,” he offered eagerly.

  I realized that whatever antipathy he’d developed toward me was secondary to anything that might allow him a little alone time with the object of his desire. It was a solution, however. “Great, Alan, thanks. If you don’t mind a trip to the sheriff’s, that’ll work fine.”

  I saw Meg roll her eyes at the thought of the long ride home with Alan, but to her credit, she did it so he couldn’t see.

  “Then we’re all set. Shall we?” I turned to Tony and led the way to the bottom of the site, so I could orient him. “Did you have any trouble finding the site?”

  Dr. Markham waved off my inquiry. “Just a little, the fort on the map I had was the wrong one. I thought you meant the historic site.”

  “That’s Fort Archer. Easy mistake, you just went past us, too far upriver. I took the students over there for a field trip. It’s a neat site, dates to the mid-eighteenth century.” I grinned. “But all that’s nothing compared to this.”

  I took a deep breath. “Welcome to Fort Providence.” I began walking and giving my patented spiel, hitting on the terrible weather, the dismal relations with the Indians, and the lack of funds that all ultimately contributed to the downfall of the installation.

  “Imagine a particularly bad Maine winter without benefit of L. L. Bean, central heating—”

  Tony scowled. “I’m from Georgia. Give me the Yucatán every time.”

  I nodded. “Most of the information that was sent back about Virginia—yes, even this far up was Virginia in those days, Northern Virginia—was real propaganda. The early tracts promised temperate weather and fruit, vegetables, and gold for the taking, along with benevolent natives. None of which turned out to be true; the settlers who stayed didn’t have enough supplies to last the winter, there were no sources of gold or gems to be found, and relations with the native people soon disintegrated, most stories say because of the bad behavior of the English. In any case, virtually no descriptions of the fort or site remain, and I have to rely on comparanda from other sites to guess at what might be here.”

  Interest lit Tony’s face. “What sort of buildings do you expect?”

  I stopped to think. “If Fort Providence was anything like the forts drawn by the English military cartographers, probably a storehouse, a couple of barracks for the soldiers, maybe a chapel or kitchen house. Other than that, we’re hoping to recover part of the ditch or other fortifications—we’re expecting they’d follow the contour of the land. That’s what I’m basing my testing design on.”

  “Have you found anything yet?” Tony seemed to be captivated by the site, staring out to the river. I couldn’t blame him; I was working in one of the most beautiful spots on earth.

  I stopped by Meg’s unit. “How kind of you to ask. Just today, Meg Garrity found a posthole. It was beneath the known late eighteenth-century level, the earliest time for which we definitely know there was an Anglo site here. And since we know that the English built many of their buildings by setting huge posts in the ground instead of using foundations, we’re hoping it’s early enough to be from Fort Providence. And to top it off…” Here I paused to pull the tarp back. “We found a piece of lead shot that dates to the correct period. I’m keeping my fingers crossed, but it looks really good.”

  Tony stood a moment, taking it all in. “But if what you say is correct, this is a find of the utmost importance! A scientifically recovered site that is earlier than…?”

  I couldn’t conceal a wide grin. “You got it!”

  My colleague’s brow furrowed. “How come no one ever thought to look for it before? Why wasn’t it known before this? I beg your pardon, Emma, but I do try to keep up on other aspects of the discipline outside my own—why haven’t I heard about this?”

  “Just one of those things,” I said. “An accident of history. The settlement failed after less than a year—we both know how little can be left behind on a site after such a short duration—and naturally, better-known sites took precedence once they were found. There was a little interest in the site in the nineteenth century, with the colonial revival movement, but since no one knew precisely where it was, everyone tended to focus on the Revolutionary War history in the area. You see, there are so many points and coves along this river, it could have been anywhere. There has always a bit of local interest, and even Oscar—” But here I clammed up.

  Tony pounced on my slip, however. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. Your grandfather, pardon me for asking, but he was the Oscar Fielding, wasn’t he?”

  I paused a little too long, phrasing a polite answer.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry,” Tony said, but it was clear he was still curious. “Let me give you a hand with these tarps. You’ve got to get to the sheriff’s department.”

  “Thanks, you’re right. We’d better get going.”

  Since Tony drove his own car and Alan and Meg were following mine, I was left alone with my thoughts as I led the winding way back to Fordham, the county seat, and the sheriff’s department after we closed up the site. The exterior had not changed since the first time I’d seen the chunky gothic building, about thirteen years ago, but the soot of the ages had been cleaned from the red sandstone recently and the building looked pretty spruce, comfortable and stolid, like a longtime citizen with old-fashioned values. Inside, more substantial changes had taken place, and recently too. I remembered that the interior had been a dim cave of old linoleum and cobwebs when I’d seen it years ago. Now, however, the lighting was new and bright, the floors had been replaced with, well, cleaner, uncracked linoleum—it wouldn’t have made sense to put carpet in, I supposed. There was a nice little waiting area, with a rubber tree, even, off to one side.

  After I gave my name to a deputy at the desk, Tony and I sat on a chrome and faux leather couch waiting for my turn in the sheriff’s department. Alan sat across from us, trying to avoid my glance while watching but not daring to follow Meg as she poked around the corridors. Just as I was casting about for some reason to call her back, a gangly deputy politely asked her to stay in the area. I was just wondering what sort o
f chitchat one made with eminent colleagues and students while in the sheriff’s department, when a curious distraction presented itself.

  We didn’t even need to strain to hear what was transpiring. Two voices were coming down the hallway; a man’s voice, low tones and moderately paced, frequently interrupted by an insistent woman’s, or what I assumed was a woman’s because of its higher pitch. That second one was an odd voice, not exactly whiny but sounding like machinery that’s been left in the rain; grating, rusting, resentful. Before I even realized I was eavesdropping, I was fascinated by that voice, wheedling but at the same time shot through with the threat of too much interest, curiosity that boded no good for anyone under her scrutiny. It took me a moment to get the hang of her accent underneath the oddness of her voice. I noticed that Tony’s brow was furrowed, Alan wasn’t paying attention, and Meg just looked plain delighted.

  “—but those bruises were classic defensive wounds,” the woman’s voice persisted, and I realized with growing horror that I was listening to an addict’s pleading, though I didn’t know what the source of that desperation could be.

  The man’s voice responded firmly: I recognized it as belonging to the sheriff. “Yes, defensive wounds from the fight earlier in the evening—”

  “They might indicate that it was no accident he ended up in the water—”

  “But there’s no way of telling when the two incidents were less than twenty-four hours apart and there’s clear tissue alteration due to the period of immersion, and—Terry, are you listening?—even if we were inclined to fly in all the face of this evidence and suggest foul play, our best suspect was also our guest in lockup number two last night. Can’t really argue with that now, can we? Occam’s razor, Terry.”

  The woman’s response was indiscernible and unhappy, but I caught the last few words. “—watch out you don’t cut yourself with it, smartypants.”

  “Do you know what I think?” said the sheriff.

  There was no answer and the sheriff continued.

  “I think that you’re stretching some fairly dubious possibilities into something they’re not because you’re bored. Don’t worry, I’m still looking into it all, but in the meantime, do a crossword puzzle, for Pete’s sake. Don’t go looking for trouble.”