Her phone buzzed as she entered Dunphy Hall. With a free hand, she fished her phone out of her jacket pocket and saw there was a text from Reinhardt. She swiped open the lock screen and read the message.
CHECK IT OUT ☹.
There was a link to a Sotheby’s auction web page. Sophia tapped it with her thumb and brought up an image of the aquatic-man pot Paul had returned to Wïiatsiweap. She scrolled and read the text:
NATIVE AMERICAN POTTERY, POLYCHROME POTTERY BOWL, CIRCA 1520, WITH MONSTER AND WATER GLYPH, #642
NATIVE AMERICAN
PUEBLOAN POTTERY
CONDITION: EXCELLENT FOR AGE AND USE
DIMENSION: 9” × 9.5”
ORIGIN: NORTHERN ARIZONA, PRIVATE COLLECTION
She slumped against the wall and kicked it twice. She did not read any further. Students flowed around her. When the halls cleared, she closed her eyes and let her head drop.
“Dr. Shepard, are you okay?” a student asked.
Sophia opened her eyes. It was one of her students. “I’m okay, Terrah. I just got some stupid news.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Tell everyone I’ll be right there. If you could get the discussion going, people can start by sharing their reading responses.”
When the student left, Sophia’s phone buzzed again. It was a phone call from Paul. She answered.
“I just saw Reinhardt’s text. Are you okay?” he asked.
“Despondent.”
“I’m a total idiot—”
“I won’t argue with you about that.”
“What I mean is I could have saved you some grief if I told you the pot on that website is a fake,” Paul said.
“What?” Sophia pushed off the wall and started pacing. “How is that even—”
“When you told us about Frangos, it gave me an idea. Dreamweaver and I made—”
“Nope. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
“Do you want to know where I put the original?”
“Seriously, I’m late to class—”
“Sophia, I took it through the water to the other side.”
“Does Reinhardt know?”
“Of course he does. It was his idea. He started talking to me about the ultimate boon, being the master of two worlds, and all of that.”
“Of course he did,” Sophia said.
“I told him to keep his mouth shut,” Paul said. “Just remember, we stopped them. The monument is intact. Your testimony did it.”
“I’ve got class. I’m going to have to call you back,” Sophia said.
She hung up, took a deep breath, and walked into the classroom.
There was no discussion under way. Everyone was deep into their phones. “Okay, people,” she announced. “Put those things away. Let’s forget the syllabus today and go in an entirely different direction. I’d like to talk about the problem of authenticity.”
Acknowledgments
We say this novel is set on the Utah-Arizona border and that the action unfolds across many jurisdictions. But this story takes place on Native land. So much of American fiction does.
___
Thanks to my agent, Nat Sobel, who saw a certain criminality in my writing and encouraged me to explore it. My editor Jennifer Alton’s work and insights transformed this book. This perfect cover comes from Donna Cheng. Thanks to Megan Fishmann, Lena Moses-Schmitt, Katherine Boland, Rachel Fershleiser, Jack Shoemaker, Jordan Koluch, and everyone at Counterpoint Press. They are the champions. And thank you, Dallin Jay Bundy, for being one of my first and best readers.
Before there was a story, there were hundreds of conversations with rangers, American Indian people, archeologists, geologists, biologists, cartographers, morticians, librarians, police officers, historians, curators, writers, adventurers, neighbors, colleagues, students, acquaintances, and friends. Thank you for sharing your time, expertise, and insights. Many thanks to Southern Utah University special collections librarian Paula Mitchell for her inspired assistance. I am also indebted to Dr. Johnny MacLean for checking my stratigraphy over and over.
I would like to express my thanks to Southern Utah University for their generous support. A faculty development grant helped me travel to gather the first details of this book, and a semester sabbatical gave me the time to revise the manuscript.
Finally, I want to thank my wife, Alisa, for letting me tell her the unformed bits and pieces of this story one hundred million times until they finally came together.
© Sam Davis
TODD ROBERT PETERSEN grew up in Portland, Oregon, and now teaches film studies and creative writing at Southern Utah University. Petersen’s previous books include Long After Dark, Rift, and It Needs to Look Like We Tried. He and his family live in Cedar City, Utah, on the western edge of the Markagunt Plateau. Find out more at toddrobertpetersen.com.
Picnic in the Ruins Page 36