LC 02 - Questionable Remains

by Beverly Connor

  "I'll have a look. Who found this site?"

  "That's fascinating, too. Gil Harris was the one who actu ally discovered that there may be something of interest here. Come over this way."

  Jane had that smile on her face again as she led Lindsay into the cool, dark rock shelter. She picked up a flashlight lying beside her excavation and pointed it up at the gray ceiling of the shelter. Lindsay saw that over the years, people had marked their visitation with graffiti: their names, the dates they graduated from high school, who they loved, their philosophy of life in a sentence.

  "Look closely up here." Jane pointed to an area with the flashlight. "It's overwritten with the name Tully Murdock."

  Lindsay examined the area, squinting her eyes, then she saw faded dark letters. "Is that it? Is it written with smoke?"

  Jane grinned. "Yes. It says: Diego Vazquez 1567. Neat, huh? Diego Vazquez was one of the conquistadores who was with Juan Pardo's expeditions."

  Lindsay smiled broadly and examined the roof. The longer she stared at the gray ceiling, the more letters she could make out. "This is a nice surprise," she said. "You never mentioned anything about it in your letter."

  "Then it wouldn't have been a surprise," said Jane. "We photographed it, then Alan digitized the picture and did some stuff with the computer to bring it out."

  "I suppose you're searching the Spanish archives to look for information on this guy?" Lindsay asked.

  Jane turned off the flashlight and they walked out of the shelter. "We've e-mailed Frank in France. He's going over to Spain when he can and have a look for us. We already know a little from Bandera's narrative."

  "I can't wait to hear all about it. By the way, I met Gil Harris on the way up. He thought I was a trespasser and almost threw me out."

  "Yeah, Gil's kind of territorial, but he's okay. Alan met him when they were both at UNC before Alan transferred to UGA. Gil's gone to get us some supplies. We use insect repellent around here like it was water or beer."

  "How'd Gil come to find the site?" asked Lindsay.

  "He's interested in caves and rock shelters. He's explored a lot of them."

  Lindsay looked around at all the faces. "Where is Alan?"

  Jane grimaced. "Jim took him to town to see a doctor. We're afraid he may have Lyme disease. He got that bull'seye rash. We're infested with deer ticks. Which reminds me, you had better spray yourself down if you haven't already."

  Jane took Lindsay to their camping ground, fifty yards or so from the rock shelter. "You guys are really roughing it, I see," Lindsay said, indicating the pup tents erected in a clearing.

  "Sure are," said Jane, smiling. "It's sponge baths most days, unless you want to bathe in the creek a quarter mile away. We do that about once a week, the girls one day and the guys another."

  Lindsay laid her sleeping bag in the supply tent. After making a hasty examination of herself for ticks, she sprayed her clothing and exposed skin with repellent. She tucked her hair under her hat and went outside to join the others.

  Alan had returned. "Glad you made it to our hideaway," he said, greeting her with a peck on the check. Alan's normally tanned skin looked a little pale.

  "How are you doing?" she asked.

  He pushed a lock of dark hair away from his eyes. "Won't know until the blood tests are back, but the doc said I'm probably in for a round of antibiotics. But tell me, what do you think of our little site?"

  "I'm impressed, I really am. You guys are doing a great job. I like the way they even signed their name to the site. That was considerate of them."

  "Wasn't it, though?" said Alan.

  "Jane said you had some bones for me to look at," she said.

  Lindsay sat on a wooden crate and used her hand lens to examine the bones that Alan showed her. "You don't need me to tell you that this humerus and femur were sawed off; the cross section is completely straight," said Lindsay.

  "Yeah," said Alan. "Poor guys. No anesthesia." He wrinkled his brow in sympathy.

  "Bring me one of the bones of the pig you found," Lindsay said. Alan brought two bones for her to look at. "It's domestic," she said after a close look. "No doubt about it."

  "I wonder where they got pigs?" asked Jane. "I didn't think Pardo took pigs with him. Weren't they hurting for food at Santa Elena? Wasn't that one of the reasons Menendez sent Pardo out, to ease the food shortage in Santa Elena by getting rid of a portion of the soldier population so they wouldn't have to feed them? Make them live off what they could extort from the Indians?"

  "Yeah, that," said Alan, "and to inform the Indians they were now the subjects of Spain, and to find a good route from here to the Spanish silver mines in Mexico. But they must have had to take some provisions when they left Santa Elena or they'd have starved before they reached Indians who would feed them."

  Lindsay examined the end of the pig femur while they talked, then picked up the human bone again. "They were sawed with a similar tool."

  "Great," said Alan. "You mean those poor devils had to share medical equipment with the butcher?"

  "Perhaps," said Lindsay, smiling. "Maybe their surgeon and their cook just had the same kind of equipment."

  "Maybe the surgeon and cook were the same person," suggested Jane, smiling wickedly.

  As the sun went down and it grew dark, the crew gathered in their primitive camp, built a fire, and ate buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken that Gil had brought with him from his supply run. There was no moonlight. Illumination came from the campfire and Coleman lanterns. Some of the crew had put on long-sleeved shirts against the cool mountain air. Thousands of stars in the cloudless sky twinkled in the opening above the clearing. Tree frogs, crickets, and other night noises were as loud as they had been at Brian's site, but in the more primitive surroundings of the rock shelter, they seemed closer and louder just outside the circle of light. Alan unrolled a map and laid it on the ground. They all leaned forward as he traced his finger along a trail he had marked with a pen.

  "On his second expedition," Alan said, "Pardo went this route, from Santa Elena, along the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina, through South Carolina and into North Carolina and Tennessee. According to Bandera's journal, at the town of Aboyaca, Pardo sent a guy named Esteban Calderon out to visit the town of Tipwan on the Zantee River, a tributary of the Chattahoochee. Calderon is reported to have had a skirmish with hostile Indians somewhere along his route, with major loss of life on both sides. Calderon lost seven men, and he is said to have killed perhaps forty Indians."

  "That event would be consistent with the amputated limbs and lost teeth you've found here," Lindsay said.

  "The crossbow bolts and musket trigger are from the kinds of weapons carried by the Spanish expeditionary forces of the period," Alan added. "Diego Vazquez is mentioned as a member of Calderon's party. This may be one of Calderon's camps."

  "May be?" said Gil. "I'd say probably."

  "De Soto also visited Tipwan about twenty years years earlier," said Jane, taking up Alan's story. "From the description of his chronicler and from Bandera's report, we know that Tipwan is probably the Sarah Flint Site."

  "If that's the case," said Brian, "it probably wasn'tTipwan people that Calderon fought. There was no indication of warfare and no battle wounds on any of the burials at the Sarah Flint Site, as I recall."

  "No, there weren't," agreed Lindsay.

  "Then who did they fight with?" asked Jane.

  Lindsay peered at the map, which had triangles marking the probable locations of towns mentioned in various Spanish chronicles and squares for archaeological sites. She put a finger on the triangle labeled Calusa, several miles north of Tipwan. "De Soto also visited here," she said. "As I recall, the people at Tipwan told him that Calusa was a chiefdom with five wealthy villages."

  "What are you getting at?" asked Alan.

  "I don't imagine that the Spanish easily let go of the idea of finding treasure among the Indians. What if this Calderon had read de Soto's chronicles and either did not
go to Tipwan, or went to Calusa after Tipwan?" suggested Lindsay, examining the map.

  "But," argued Jane, "if I remember right, de Soto said that Calusa was the capital of the chiefdom, which meant it probably had a mound. There aren't any mound sites in that area that fit the description."

  "Anyway," said Alan, "what makes you think that it was Calusa? It could be any village; it could be one not mentioned in anyone's account. We've got no site to match up with Calderon's skirmish."

  "I think we do," said Lindsay. They all looked at her, surprised.

  "Where?" asked Alan.

  "Brian's site, the Royce Site."

  "It doesn't have a mound," said Jane.

  "It did. It was destroyed by landowners during this century, but the remnants are there." Lindsay told them about the massacred burials. "It's not that far from here," she said.

  Alan raised his fists into the air above his head in a gesture of triumph. "That's great. That's fantastic! I'm going to visit Brian's site tomorrow. Wouldn't that be great if we can make a link between the Rock Shelter Site and the Royce Site?"

  Lindsay got up and stretched her legs, leaving them mak ing plans to visit the Royce Site and to e-mail Frank to hurry it up in Spain. She saw Gil Harris get up and stretch, and she walked over to him.

  "This is a good site," she said. "You must be very pleased to have found it."

  "I am. Almost missed it, though. Whoever that Tully Murdock is, he almost obliterated Diego Vazquez's name. I don't know why people have to deface every rock they come to."

  "Marking their passage," said Lindsay. "If Vazquez hadn't, we might have never found this site, much less know any historical information about it."

  "That's true enough, I suppose."

  "Jane said you have explored some caves," she said.

  "A few," he said. But Lindsay took the sound of his voice and the cock of his head to mean that he was making an understatement.

  "Do you know other cavers?"

  "Sure."

  "Have you ever heard of a man named Ken Darnell?"

  Gil looked down, trying to remember. "Sounds familiaryeah ..." He looked up at Lindsay. "Didn't he die, get killed in a cave-in? Yeah, I remember now. Met him a couple of times at the National Spelunkers conventions. Outspoken fellow. We went out drinking together once or twice. He was a real hot dog. Knew a lot about caving, but reckless. Kind of a daredevil, I thought. I wasn't surprised to hear he died in a cave. He a friend of yours?"

  Lindsay shook her head. "His family asked me to look into his death."

  "They suspect something?"

  "The authorities didn't give them very much information about his death. I think they just want closure. Did you ever visit Hell Slide Cave in Tennessee?"

  "Once. It's a dangerous and difficult cave to navigate. Is that the one he died in?"

  "Yes. What's the cave like?" she asked.

  "What do you mean?" he asked.

  "The environment. Wet, dry ... ?"

  "Damp, as I recall. I didn't go too far into it. As I said, it's a dangerous cave."

  "If you remember anything else about Ken Darnell after I'm gone, give me a call?" Lindsay reached into her pocket and gave him a card with her car phone number on it.

  "Like what?" he asked, trying to make out the writing on the card in the darkness.

  "Anything odd or out of the ordinary," answered Lindsay.

  "Sure, but that's all I know." He pocketed the card in his shirt.

  After saying goodnight to the others, Lindsay went to her sleeping bag and turned in. She had a restless night filled with strange dreams. She awoke with stiff sore muscles and to a bloodcurdling scream.

  Chapter 7

  A JOKE, LINDSAY thought at first. Some guy put a snake somewhere for one of the girls to find. But the scream continued, and she heard some of the crew run past the tent. She hurriedly got out of her sleeping bag, slipped into some jeans, and ran to see what the commotion was. The sun was just up, and the light was dim. The morning air was moist with dew and cold.

  "What is it?" Lindsay asked Jane when she ran past.

  "I don't know, but it sounds like it came from this direction." She pointed toward a trail that wound down around the hillside. They both followed other crew members who were hurrying in that direction. The screaming had stopped. Then more shouting-distressed, frightened shouting.

  When Lindsay and Jane arrived at a rocky area beneath the bluff, they saw what had caused the distress. It was Gil. He lay among the rocks. His right leg, bent at the knee, was under him. His other limbs were at odd angles, draped over the rocks on which he lay. His head leaned to one side. Alan had climbed among the jumble of talus and was feeling for a pulse in Gil's contorted neck, but there was no doubt. He was dead. Already the miniature army whose job it is to reduce all dead things to dust had begun their work. Flies buzzed, settling on the body, ants assaulted from the ground. Lindsay smelled the faint odor of death that would only get worse.

  "He's cold and stiff," said Alan. Lindsay heard sobs. As Alan moved away from the body, he brushed against Gil's left hand, which caught on Alan's clothes. Because it was stiff, the arm seemed to grab at him, and Alan almost stumbled. He cursed. As he climbed down, he inadvertently moved the rock over which Gil's left leg was propped. The lower part of the leg swung slightly and made Gil look animated. Someone gasped.

  "We need to call the park ranger," said Lindsay. "Alan, you and Jim stay with the body. The rest of you go back to camp." Alan nodded slowly. They all had the confused look that people have when confronted with sudden death-that look that says, "But I just saw him last night."

  Lindsay led the crew back to the camp. Jane fished in her knapsack and pulled out a phone, strangely out-of-place in this primitive setting. She dialed the ranger station, which Lindsay noted she had programmed into the phone, and told them to come, that there had been an accident, that one of the archaeology crew was dead. Several people looked shocked when they heard the word dead, as if saying it out loud made it official. Gil Harris was dead and would not rise off those rocks of his own volition.

  After the call, they waited. At first in silence. Then one by one, they asked questions. What happened? When did he fall? What was he doing at the top of the cliff at night? It had to be at night, because they all saw him the evening before and they found him early this morning. It began to look sinister, and they all looked at one another and around them into the forest, still dark because the rising sun had not penetrated through the canopy. Lindsay tried not to show the anxiety she felt.

  The agent in charge of criminal investigations in the national park arrived on an off-road motorbike. He was dressed in khaki pants and shirt and wore a gun in a holster and a badge on his belt. He had short brown hair and a clean-shaven face. Lindsay guessed him to be about thirtyfive years old. He parked his motorcycle and approached the crew.

  "Jane Burroughs?" he said.

  Jane stood up. "That's me," she said timidly, as if she were about to be accused of something.

  "You're the site director who called?"

  "Oh, uh, yes, I am," she said, and came toward the man.

  He held out his hand. "I'm Agent Dan McKinley of the FBI." He showed her his badge. "Where's the body?"

  "This way," said Jane.

  Agent McKinley told the crew to stay were they were and that he was expecting others and to send them along. Lindsay rose and followed the two of them. Dan McKinley stopped and turned.

  "Are you morbidly curious?" he asked Lindsay. Neither his voice nor his expression was openly hostile, but his dark eyes suggested that he meant business.

  "No...," began Lindsay.

  "Then why are you following?" he interrupted.

  "Lindsay is a forensic archaeologist," said Jane hurriedly. If that impressed the agent, he didn't let it show.

  "There is something I would like to point out," Lindsay told him.

  "Then please, join us," he said. They walked to the scene. Alan and Jim were there, stand
ing as far as they could get from the body, talking to each other, neither looking at the corpse. Agent McKinley sent them and Jane back to the others after he had asked the usual questions: Who found the body? Had they touched it? Alan told him he only checked to see if Gil was dead, but that he did stumble over some of the rocks.

  When they were gone, Agent McKinley and Lindsay walked over to the body, gave it a quick look, then looked up at the cliff. "You had something to say?" he asked.

  "I saw Gil-Gil Harris, that's his name, last night around ten. He was found around five this morning. That's, at most, seven hours. However, rigor seems on its way to being well established throughout the body. That suggests a struggle that depleted the andescine triphosphate in his muscles, accelerating the rigor."

  "You think someone gave him a shove off the cliff?"

  "I have only made observations at a distance that are suggestive. Many things affect rigor."

  "Anything else?"

  "Yes. When Alan stumbled over the rocks, the left leg swung at the knee. If it's true that rigor is vastly accelerated and has reached the legs, then the knee would be stiff, unless it was broken after death in some way, as in a fall."

  "Let's take a look."

  McKinley took a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and put them on. He tried to move Gil Harris's ankle. It was stiff. He did the same to the leg at the knee. It swung easily.

  "Sure enough," he said. "It looks like the boy was dead for a while, then someone tossed him over the cliff. You observed all this from a distance?"

  "Yes."

  Dan McKinley eyed her. "Rather observant, aren't you?"

  "Observation is how I make my living."

  He smiled for the first time. "Tell me, what is a forensic archaeologist doing at one of these kinds of digs?"

  "I mainly do prehistoric archaeology. I prefer it. But from time to time I am called on to look at bones that are not in an archaeological context. Right now, I'm supposed to be on vacation. I'm just visiting. I came yesterday."

  They turned at the sound of approaching footsteps. The vanguard of the other army that deals with death, the human one, had arrived. It was their various jobs to ascertain the cause of death and to begin the process that would delay the microbes and insects and lengthen by centuries the time it took the body to revert to dust.