The Archaeologists

by Hal Niedzviecki

  lying here.

  He should have been back by now. He had a shift last night; they’ll fire him. And Clay will—

  —Carly—

  He’ll tell her everything. His dad, his mom, digging ghost lady, Clay’s unctuous assurances it’s all good there Timmy boy.

  Not all good. Not all good at all. He can’t leave. Not yet. Last night—what he saw—things are happening, signs and symbols, it’s like what that kid said. What did she call it? Vision quest. Fuck that old fuck. Let him choke and die.

  Last night—he saw—

  He’s close. He’s closer than he ever imagined he could be.

  He tries to sit up. His limbs are weightless and weak. His head throbs with the effort. Nevertheless, he forces himself.

  There, he thinks. Now I just need—just a little—

  He shouldn’t. But he needs something. To clear his mind. To help him think. He needs to—take the edge off.

  Jesus Carly, give me a friggin’ break here. I just need to—

  He fumbles around in his coat pocket. He feels the ring, cold metal. He lets it slip away back down into the bottom of his filthy pocket.

  Fuck him. Fuck him and his ring.

  He tries again. This time his hand closes around the vial of pills. He opens the small bottle and peers in. There are ten or so pills left. Hands shaking, he tips the bottle to his parched mouth. Then he lies back down on the cold ground and closes his eyes.

  Hey mister?

  Uh?

  Charlie stands over him.

  Are you okay mister?

  Huh?

  Mister?

  Uh…

  Mister? Can you hear me mister?

  Charlie’s looking down at him.

  Are you okay?

  Wooo. Dizzy. He jerks into a crouch, puts his palms on the ground seeking balance.

  Don’t try to get up.

  It’s that girl, Tim thinks. He can feel her hot hand on his shoulder.

  She crouches down next to him. You fainted, I think. We learned about this in first aid.

  No…I…

  You don’t look very good mister. Do you want something to eat?

  I…

  You better eat.

  Charlie produces a small package wrapped in tin foil. She puts the bundle in his hand. Tim feels the metal paper prickly on his fingers.

  Go ahead, the girl says. Eat it.

  Tim’s fingers, trembling.

  It’s good, she says. You’ll like it.

  He peels clumsily at the foil. Some kind of pastry, doughy skin flaking in his hands.

  Eat it. Go ahead. It’s good.

  Huh?

  Eat it. Charlie makes an eating motion, chews elaborately, her plump cheeks bulging. Tim takes a dutiful bite. The outer crust is soft, a tiny bit greasy. The middle is spicy, soft—potato, chickpea.

  It’s a paratha, Charlie says. My mother makes them.

  Para-wha?

  It’s Indian food.

  Tim nods, swallows.

  Here. Drink this. Charlie pops the cap off a jar of amber fluid. Tea.

  Tim feels the lukewarm liquid through glass. He feels the distance between him and the jar of tea. Increasing. Expanding. He’s alone. He’s a shadow. He wants to lie down. He wants to lean into the girl and disappear. He wants to hold on so he doesn’t—

  disappear.

  He drinks. The bitter-sweet warmth fills his throat, his stomach. It spills out of his mouth, over his chin.

  He gasps for air. Belches.

  Charlie giggles. Tim shivers suddenly, violently.

  Are you okay?

  Cold. I’m…

  Charlie looks at him, her eyes big with concern.

  Let’s…Tim’s teeth clicking…build…a fire.

  A fire? Here?

  I…used to…all…the…time.

  Won’t we get in trouble?

  Naw…who’ll?...You get…wood.

  Tim watches the girl scamper around the clearing, collecting twigs and brush. A bulky girl, but surprisingly agile. She works quickly, forms a large pile of dead branches.

  She stops in front of Tim, limply gazing in the direction of the river.

  You used to build fires here? she asks him.

  Arms wrapped around himself. He’s slowly warming. Sure I did. All the time. When I was your age.

  Didn’t anyone notice?

  Naw. Who’s going to notice?

  I guess. Charlie giggles. She jumps up and quickly returns, dragging a thick branch.

  I think we’ve got enough, Tim says.

  How will we light it? We don’t have any paper.

  Tim picks up a small log, points at the white mottled peeling skin covering it.

  What is it? Charlie asks.

  Birch bark.

  The Natives used to make birch canoes!

  Yeah? Well it burns real good. The bark. It’s better than paper.

  Tim peels it off, his shaking fingers settling. Here. Put it under those twigs there. Good. You wanna light it? Tim extends his Che Guevera lighter.

  Okay. Charlie giggles nervously. She crouches low and flicks the lighter. Metal grates her thumb. She tries again. She keeps trying. Finally, a thin blue flame. Fire flickers and creeps.

  There, you see? Tim warms his hands. He closes his eyes then opens them. Hey, thanks. For before. That…ah….snack thing. I really needed that.

  You fainted.

  Yeah. Naw. I musta…I just…

  Are you still on your vision quest?

  Uh…Yeah.

  What are you trying to see?

  Oh. Uh. Nothing…really.

  Charlie frowns. But that’s not the way you’re supposed to do it! You’re already supposed to know what you’re trying to see!

  Weird kid. Tim’s head hurts. He wishes she would leave so he could—

  No you aren’t.

  You are too! Charlie spits a little in her excitement. Like you have to decide if you want to see like an animal or…or…an ancient ancestor… or a spirit that can make it rain or something. You don’t just—

  Hey kid, you know what? I did see something, okay?

  You did? What did you see?

  Tim pokes the fire with a stick. Red sparks flame out. It was… it’s…hard to explain.

  Was it an animal spirit?

  Uh…kinda.

  It was?

  Not…really.

  It wasn’t?

  Tim closes his eyes again. He can feel the pressure building again, in his temples. He has to—Hey kid. I can’t really talk about it.

  Oh, she says, frowning.

  Listen kid. Giving in, Tim pulls the works from his jacket pocket. Starts rolling a joint. When I know, you’ll be the first to know, okay?

  Charlie has big brown irises, dark, almost black, like pools of night. Tim feels them tracking him as the girl watches in fascination.

  Hey, how old are you anyway?

  Thirteen, Charlie says defensively.

  Thirteen, huh? Tim’s fingers, working on their own volition, finish tapering the joint. He taps it into his mouth and raises Che’s flame to his lips. Want some? he asks out of the side of his mouth.

  They move through the woods. Charlie leads, clambering her way into the bush surefooted. She’s not graceful, more like stoutly capable.

  The light changes. The timbre of the gully. Green refraction turning brackish, as if they’re descending.

  Charlie stumbles, giggles. She’s high. Weird girl, Tim thinks. He shouldn’t have gotten her—

  Why not though? He’s sold to high school; he’s sold to junior high, trios of nervous kohl-eyed anorexic mini-skirt fourteen-year-olds waiting for him in the alley behind the pub. I could get in big trouble for this, he lies to them, as if anyone cares. He charges them extra. Danger fee, he says. For his worst crap, of course.

  Charlie smoked the good stuff with him. So it’s not exactly a shock that she couldn’t sit still. Coughing, fidgeting, giggling. She kept asking him about his quest, what h
e saw, when he would tell her. Finally she jumped to her feet and said she had to show him something.

  What?

  Something.

  What?

  You’ll see.

  Tim follows her through the woods. He’s high too, mellow and limp, relieved to be just doing something, going somewhere, not particularly worrying about what will happen next. So Tim jerks along, trying to keep up with Charlie, who moves swiftly, her strong legs pumping, muscles bulging against a pair of too-tight camouflage-pattern denims—not a good look, Tim thinks lazily. Something her mother brought home from the mall under the clueless impression that it’ll help her daughter fit in.

  They move further and deeper, the trees getting closer together, their sharp branches and quills more abrasive. Brambly bushes open to Charlie’s insistent gait then close as Tim stumbles through.

  Ouch. Fuck.

  Charlie giggles. Come on!

  They’re moving upstream, away from the stores and the church and the car. Away from the thin part of the woods Tim likes to think he knows. Here the cliff is higher, the space between the escarpment and the river wider and denser.

  Tim’s breathing hard, sweating. Hey kid. Can we—

  C’mon!

  She disappears into a grove of tall firs. Angry fuckers, Tim thinks. The trees are thin and angular, their short branches cramped and mean, pressing against each other. He scrapes through, too. They’re in the wide bit of gully now, where the river thins and runs down in a white foamy rapid of protruding rock. Here the forest takes over, is thicker, emboldened. And it’s steep. We’re going up, Tim thinks. Climbing. Tim feels his calves stretch as his feet search for footing. The girl artlessly crests rocky outcroppings. Like some kind of hyperactive hobbit, Tim thinks.

  Charlie stops in a bit of a clearing, a stunted knoll dwarfed by the sheer cliff side, the mean prickly trees, the river loud and irresistible, near and absent.

  Hey, Tim gasps. Where are we going?

  Behind them is the descent back to the flatter part of the gully. In front, the climb continues, the ground rocky now, the trees ferocious and crowded. Tim stumbles onto the cramped plateau rise. The girl next to him.

  Is this where we’re—?

  Look, Charlie says. That’s my house. She giggles like it’s hilarious. Her house looms at the edge of the cliff, a sprawling white domicile with pillars and huge bay windows.

  Wow. Tim says stupidly. It’s pretty big.

  Yeah, it’s big, Charlie says matter-of-factly. I have my own bathroom.

  Your parents must be loaded.

  My parents are doctors.

  Really? Both of them?

  Charlie nods, smiling dreamily, her pupils huge.

  Like…your mom too?

  Uh-huh.

  Wow.

  They stare up. House on the ridge. Vast and empty looking.

  How do you get up there?

  I made a path, Charlie says proudly. It’s really steep.

  What about your parents?

  They don’t know. I go out my window and climb down that tree there.

  Wow.

  Most of the time they’re not home anyway.

  They’re not?

  They’re always working.

  My dad, Tim says haltingly, when I was a kid…he was like that…

  Charlie looks past Tim into the thicker part of the woods.

  Are you ready? she asks. Without waiting for an answer, she’s off again. Blue-white camouflage pattern thighs merging with the disappeared sky. Tim plunges after her, sharp boughs slapping his face.

  They hike. Tim looks down, sees his legs, long stretchy gummy things. The high is springy, bouncy. He feels not so much energetic as weightless. He bounds through the woods, finally catching up to Charlie. She’s stopped, is waiting for him. They stand close to each other in an awkward space between bitter twisted trees.

  We’re almost there, she says.

  He gulps, too winded to reply. She’s breathing hard under a puffed out red jacket. Tim thinks she looks like a refugee sporting randomly donated western fashions. She smiles at him.

  Are you okay?

  I’m…fine…Tim gasping for breath. Just…a…little…

  We’re almost there!

  She steps between two large squarish rocks. A dark gap forms a chasm. Charlie squirms in and disappears. Tim quickly follows to keep up. He doesn’t want to be left behind. It’s a cool damp descent. They’re going down now. Tim’s confused. Where’s the river? You can hear it, a distant rumble muted by the fissure between gigantic boulders that is now their path.

  These are from the ice age, Charlie yells back at him.

  Tim traces a hand along lichen-covered grey stone. He expects it to be cold or something.

  C’mon!

  Charlie pumps her legs, she’s practically running now.

  They spill out into a clearing. Trees surround the depressed area. Inside the clearing it’s all rocks and bare soil, stunted vegetation, moss, and creeper bushes hugging the fringes. Tim stands there, his chest heaving, sweat oozing off him. He feels alien from himself, alert and impassive, unencumbered by his pounding heart, his gasping gangly body. A few large boulders jut out of the ground, otherwise, not much to look at. Charlie marches to the far end of the depression. She stops in front of a bulge in the ground, like the protruding sloping ceiling of a sunken igloo.

  C’mon! she calls, looking back at him.

  But Tim doesn’t move. He doesn’t like this place. That aloof feeling of impartial detached observation has gone up in a puff of smoke, replaced by a more familiar sense of paranoia—Why did he waste it on the girl? She’s a kid, she’ll tell somebody; he’ll get busted. Where the hell are we? He shouldn’t be here. He needs to—

  C’mon! This is it!

  What? This? Pointing to the bulge in the ground, the sloped hill of dark menacing dirt.

  The Natives built it.

  Who? Tim looks around suspiciously.

  Not now! It’s old! Like a long time ago.

  Huh.

  C’mon! I’ll show you!!

  Naw, Charlie, I’m just gonna—

  She drops to her hands and knees and squirms through.

  Charlie?

  He’s alone now. He’ll turn around and go back. Get in his car and drive to the city, to Carly, to—

  Which way is the way back? The emptiness of this small clearing reminds him of something abandoned, something left behind that nobody else was ever supposed to find. The wind through the scraggly branches. He won’t go in. He doesn’t have to go in. But he kneels, inspects the tunnel hole. Charlie? he calls feebly. There’s a crazed calm about her. Something solid. She reminds him of—Naw she’s nothing like—

  But she is. It’s like she knows something, something he doesn’t.

  What if she’s not coming back? Trap door secret passageway to—where? The tunnel hole. Portent darkness. Tim contemplates the exterior of it. Some earthy bunker. Indians built it. So what? What makes her think I’m so freakin’ interested in Indians? Tim peers suspiciously into the tunnel. Last night, the deepening hole—a still limpid darkness.

  Charlie?

  Muffled yell. Come ooooon!

  Tim sniffs. It smells musty, smoky, familiar. Like our apartment, he thinks. Carly snuggling up to him, joint burning, incense, candles, dusty air settling. Tim falls to his hands and knees. He flattens himself into the tunnel and begins to inch along. This is it, he thinks. After this I’m done. He’ll go back. He’ll go back and hug Carly for dear life and tell her he’s sorry; he’s so sorry. It’s true, what she says: he can’t be trusted. He stole her car. He stole her car and just—without even—

  Daylight recedes behind him. His knees and elbows sink into the loose powdery earth as he crawls, his fingers digging. The ground feels strange: dusty, soft. Ash or fine sand.

  And it’s weirdly warm, getting warmer. Swollen drops of sweat swell on his chin, splattering onto the soft soot beneath him. Tim crawls. He blinks feverish
ly, trying to see what’s up ahead.

  Charlie?

  Over here, she whispers.

  Where?

  Over here, Charlie giggles quietly. I’m over here.

  He creeps toward her voice, bumps his head on her.

  Hey, she laughs. He feels the slick of her parka against his cheek. Watch where you’re going!

  Tim feels something soft shifting. Sorry, he murmurs.

  Give me your lighter, Charlie says. Tim stretches an arm back. He pats his pocket. On all fours, his stomach so low it’s grazing ground, he twists around.

  Here, he says. Charlie fumbles for it, her fingers against his palm. He can smell her, an earthen sweaty kid smell. He lies there, his belly and pelvis against the strange warm surface. The ground emanates a gentle heat.

  The lighter clicks. Ouch, Charlie mutters. She tries again, producing a jittering flame in a tiny dance. Charlie lights candles arranged in points all around the enclosure. The dim light reveals a sloped ceiling made of some kind of clay. The ceiling is higher than Tim thought. He can sit. Half stand, even. They’re crowded near the back of the dugout. The smell is old smoke, dried up sweat. Tim hoists himself into a sitting position. The rounded hard walls are dark with soot. Tim drags a hand down the wall; it’s gritty, bits flaking off, but still smoother than he thought, and less impermanent. He pulls his palm off; it’s smeared black.

  Charlie is cross-legged in front of a makeshift mantle. Around variously sized candles sit a semi-circle of objects, their details shrouded in flickering flame. And behind the shrine, a kind of hearth, the stone walls of a fireplace and chimney. Tim whiffs fire, dust, ash—

  bone, he thinks.

  He shifts closer to Charlie.

  So, she whispers. What do you think? She’s smiling, her face beatific, glowing. I found it. I come here sometimes. I think it used to be a sweat lodge.

  Huh. So…they…uh…

  It’s where they did their ceremonies.

  So, he says cruelly, annoyed, now, by her know-it-all tone, you bring your friends here?

  Charlie doesn’t answer. She looks down at her hands in her lap.

  Hey, Tim says gently. It’s cool. I get it…sweat lodge, right?

  Yeah, like a sauna, Charlie says excitedly. The men would come in here. They’d be all…naked…and the fire would make it really really hot. They’d smoke their pipes and chant and pray and stuff.

  Huh.

  Charlie is next to him, all coiled energy. She’s never brought anyone else here, Tim thinks. I’m the first.