“If we get next year’s project, we might run into one tiny little problem,” Faye mused as she worked. “Remember the tantrum our client threw this morning? Well, if we excavate across the road, I think we might find some things that will make him absolutely nuts. We archaeologists, however, will be very, very happy.”
“I’m listening.” Oka Hofobi picked up a tiny scrap of bone and began brushing it clean.
“It looks to me like Mr. Calhoun’s mound is the tip of an ancient iceberg. You’ve got to look at the maps, too, and tell me what you see. I think it’s just possible that there are remnants of a very large mound complex. Right there!” She gestured out the trailer window. “I think I see traces of earthworks and water control structures. This could be big.”
“A site like that could stop any highway project. Even a popular one. Our client will be livid. Why do I find that funny?” Oka Hofobi’s smile showed only in the crinkles at the corners of his eyes.
Faye studied that smile for awhile. “Something’s bothering you.”
“Ma’s got herself in an uproar. She was fussing this morning when she walked out the door, and I could tell by the set of her head when she drove into the garage a minute ago that she’s not feeling any happier.”
“What about your dad?”
“You ever heard Pa put more than two words together? Ma does the talking. She does the thinking, too, most of the time. It works for them.”
Faye saw the Nails’ back door open. Mrs. Nail leaned out, looking around. She apparently didn’t see what she was looking for, so she pulled her head back in and closed the door. Slammed the door, actually.
“What’s she upset about?”
“There’s talk on the reservation that the sheriff’s been interviewing the Choctaws who were here for the ruckus over Mr. Calhoun’s mound.”
This was news to Faye. She’d had more than one conversation with Sheriff Rutland over Calhoun’s murder. She’d heard Neely mention Preston Silver’s name more than once. The sheriff had seemed intrigued by Chuck’s knowledge of stone tools and his enigmatic behavior. Actually, she’d seemed interested in the specialized knowledge of everybody on the archaeological team. If she’d now embarked on the task of interviewing everybody who was present when Mr. Calhoun attacked his mound with a tractor, she’d be working that angle for days. It would be like emptying the ocean with a leaky teaspoon.
Then the true reason for Mrs. Nail’s indignation dawned. Was Sheriff Rutland truly interviewing everyone who’d been present that day? Or just the Choctaws?
Faye knew what it was like to be singled out for her race, and the Choctaws’ history of discrimination in America was as long as African-Americans’ was. Maybe longer.
Faye pictured the scene as she had viewed it from atop the disputed mound. She and her archaeologist friends had been defending it, so they were natural suspects in Calhoun’s death. The same logic applied to the Choctaws. It had been Faye’s impression that everybody else present, black and white, had come to defend Mr. Calhoun and his property rights.
Viewed objectively, the sheriff’s choice to focus on the archaeologists and the Choctaws made perfect sense. Faye had no intention of explaining this to Mrs. Nail.
A new thought occurred to her. “Is your family full-blooded Choctaw?”
“As far back as anybody remembers.”
“Then why don’t you live on the reservation?”
“Like most questions involving the First Americans, you can’t understand the answer to that unless you know a lot of history. This answer goes back to 1830, when the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek sent most Choctaws to Oklahoma. We have the distinction of being the first tribe to be sent there, but the treaty had provisions for people who didn’t want to go. Adults who registered as Choctaw within six months were allotted land of their own: 640 acres for each adult, plus a smaller amount for each child still living at home. There was no reservation at that time. I don’t know it for a fact, but I think our land has come down to us from one of those original grants. We don’t have anything like 640 acres any more, probably because land was sold over the years to make ends meet. I’m sure it wasn’t easy to hang on to what’s left, but it’s still ours. It’s killing my father to lose the little piece that the highway department’s taking for its road. He wanted to fight them—to make them take the land through eminent domain. Ma talked him out of it.”
Faye’s island had been in her family even longer than that, and her ancestors had had their struggles to keep it. Heck, she’d had her struggles to keep it. She knew how Oka Hofobi’s father felt when he stood here and looked around at this land that was his, really his.
“I thought he resented the road project because it brought us evil archaeologists into his life.”
“Um, I think I did that to him long before you arrived. Don’t forget that he lives with an evil archaeologist. Sometimes, I think my father resents…everything.”
Faye focused her eyes intently on her work, unwilling to make eye contact that might leave Oka Hofobi too self-conscious to unburden himself. “Has he always been this way?”
“No. He loved farming. There’s no man alive that knows more about pigs or cows or soybeans. But you can’t make a living doing that any more. Well, some years you can, but you have to eat every year. When I was in high school, my mother got a job in an office at the health center on the reservation, and they just can’t quit promoting her. She’s very good at everything she does.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“So’s my father, but you need a high school diploma to get a job like my mother’s. Have you seen the reservation high school?”
“Yeah. Big, nice building. Did you go there?”
“Yeah, and both my sisters. Did you notice the date on the older building?”
“I noticed that it says ‘1963’ in big, black numbers. We archaeologists have a good head for dates.”
“It says 1963 because there was no high school on the reservation until then. Anybody who wanted to go past eighth grade had to go to boarding school on another reservation. Some people did what Ma’s family did and sent their kids to the Cherokee school in North Carolina, but think of what it would be like to split up a family like that. Pa never had that chance. When our family finances got to the point where the farm couldn’t support us, he got a job managing a convenience store. It’s a good job for someone without a high school education and he’s plenty smart enough to run it well, but don’t you know he spends every minute at work wishing he was here? On his own land?”
Faye was still trying to figure out one aspect of the Choctaws’ tangled history, so she pointed out the obvious. “So the government moved the Choctaws west, except for a few who accepted land here. How come there’s a reservation here, now?”
“In the early 1900s, a congressional report called the Choctaws the ‘poorest pocket of poverty in the poorest state in the country.’ Most of them had been forced to sell their land grants by then…or been swindled out of them. Reform was obviously needed, but reform takes time. The land for the reservation was bought and put in trust in 1939, not so long before my father was born. There was a world war on, so the Choctaw constitution wasn’t ratified until 1944. That’s when the land was finally set aside for the tribe.”
Faye considered the hotel where she was staying, with its casino and all the other trimmings of a big-time resort. “They’re doing okay with that land now.”
“Finally.”
“Did you say the treaty that banished most of the Choctaws to Oklahoma was called the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek?”
“Yeah. Not the United States of America’s finest moment, was it?”
“But didn’t I see a Dancing Rabbit Golf Course near my hotel?”
“Yeah. And it costs an awful lot to golf there.” Oka Hofobi’s head was still bowed over his work, but Faye could see the suggestion of a smile lighting his face. “Don’t ever let anybody tell you that my people don’t have an exquisite sense of iro
ny.”
Dr. Mailer’s office door opened, and their boss peered through it at Faye and Oka Hofobi. Crossing the room and peering out the window, he stood watching Joe and Chuck, who were still working as the sun sunk behind the treetops. “Are you people workaholics or something? I have done my dead level best to outlast you but, darn it, I’m hungry.”
“We can quit whenever the boss says so,” Faye said. “Of course, long days mean fewer expense account meals and lower hotel bills…”
“Just because the client thinks you should kill yourself to save him a little money, that doesn’t mean he’s right. Oke, can you point me in the general direction of a barbecue joint? And I’d be glad for some company if any of you want to come.”
As she and Oka Hofobi put their tools away, Faye seized the opportunity to wangle permission for another task that wasn’t billable to the client. “Our maps and photos don’t cover a big enough area for me to do that proposal justice. Do you mind if I spend tomorrow morning gathering up those documents?”
“Trying to get out of some good, honest back-breaking labor?”
Faye checked his face. He was smiling, so she said, “A minute ago, you called me a workaholic.”
“That’s because you are. If the governmental agencies that have those maps and photos were open at night, you’d be at their offices after supper. Then you’d go back to your hotel room and take them to bed with you. Fortunately for workaholics like you, government workers go home at night. Come eat some barbecue with us. You’ve got my permission to do your non-billable research tomorrow. Charge it to my overhead account.”
When Faye and Joe, completely stuffed with barbecue, reached the hotel, they found that Mr. Judd had been released from the hospital. He was happily ensconced in his room, enjoying a room service meal that looked a lot better than the box lunches that had been packed for the field crew by the self-same kitchen.
Faye felt a weird pang of guilt at finding out that he’d been released without her knowing about it. Why? She decided it was because Mrs. Judd had charged Faye with keeping her informed on his condition. Since he had just finished talking to his wife with his own lips, Faye figured her duty had been discharged. She hated to think about anybody leaving the hospital in a taxi, but the sight of Ross Donnelly’s solicitous figure at the sick man’s bedside suggested that maybe he’d been Judd’s ride home. This was nice of him, but it wasn’t a particularly selfless act when one remembered that Ross wanted the former congressman’s support in a major way.
Faye leaned over toward Ross, asking, “So what kind of business brings you here to Philadelphia?” He was as conspicuously well-dressed as he’d been the day before, though his knit polo shirt and khakis were far more casual than the business suit had been.
“I’m here for the Fair.”
“So this is a pleasure trip?”
“No, I work as a lobbyist for—well, you heard me tell Mr. Judd what our position is. Politicians hover over the Neshoba County Fair like vultures. It’s a good place for me to get the attention of people I need to know.”
Faye noticed that, like anyone in politics, he had kept certain key information close to his vest. Like, for instance, the name of the group for whom he lobbied.
“Ross,” Judd interjected. “I have some business I need to discuss with Faye. Do you mind?”
“Not a bit. Faye, I’m in Room 710. When you leave, let me know if you think he shouldn’t be alone. I’ll come back and sit with him.” His exit was deft and quick. Nobody would accuse Ross Donnelly of overstaying his welcome.
Now that she had a chance to really look at him without distractions, Faye could see that Congressman Judd looked terrible. Faye would guess that he’d lost five pounds that he couldn’t spare in the twenty-four hours since his collapse. His skin was gray, and when he reached out to shake her hand, she could see each finger tremble independently of the others. But he was, by God, ready to go do some cross-country trespassing.
“I think we should wait a day or two,” Faye began, but she wasn’t allowed to finish.
“If I recall correctly, we knew that Mrs. Calhoun was going to be out of the house on Monday evening because there was to be an open-casket viewing of her husband at the funeral home.”
Joe’s expression said that he found the idea distasteful, and Faye rather agreed. She much preferred his Creek-style funerary practices, which mostly consisted of washing himself with water and cleansing herbs, then burning stuff that smelled good. After that, Joe just sat and thought good thoughts about the deceased. All in all, Faye thought the process to be quite constructive.
“—and Mr. Calhoun’s funeral should be going on about now,” Mr. Judd was saying, “so we’ve missed today’s opportunity to go sneaking around on his widow’s land. Tomorrow’s Wednesday, and I hear that Mrs. Calhoun’s a big churchgoer, so she’ll be gone for hours. She’ll go to prayer meeting, for sure, where they’ll remember her husband. Then she’ll go to choir practice, because those little country churches can’t ever spare a single voice out of the choir. She’s probably part of some kind of women’s charitable group, and they always meet on Wednesday nights. Faye, tomorrow is our last safe day until she goes back to church on Sunday. I’m not in the mood to wait that long. As I was reminded yesterday, life’s short.”
Faye’s gaze wandered down to the older man’s legs, which were trembling as noticeably as his fingers. He noticed. “I’ve never been strong. This is not new. But no one has a stronger will than mine. Don’t you worry, I can haul my puny self down that creek and back. And if I can’t, this young man,” he pointed to Joe, “is more than big enough to carry me home. Tomorrow evening, I’ll meet you at the Nails’ house, just like we planned before. Somebody in Neshoba County knows the truth about what happened to me in 1965, but nobody has admitted it yet. Something tells me that you, young lady, have what it takes to get to the bottom of things.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Faye had often found that fate was a matter of split-second timing. If she had followed through on her plan to walk straight into the shower—possibly while still wearing her nasty clothes—she would never have heard the phone ring. The only thing that stayed her rush to the bathroom was a vision of herself, fresh and clean, wrapped in her bathrobe and reclining on the bed.
This vision was achievable within fifteen minutes, with one tiny problem. In her daydream, Faye was languidly munching on a chocolate bar, and she had no such thing in her possession. Fortunately, she knew the gift shop downstairs to be well-stocked. Figuring that it was better to venture out in public in dirty clothes than to be seen in her pajamas, she grabbed her purse and went on a chocolate-stalking expedition.
The phone beside her bed rang as she stood outside her locked door, juggling her purse, her key, and the chocolate bar. By stuffing the candy into her purse, she was able to answer the phone on its fourth ring. The mellifluous baritone of Ross Donnelly wafted gently out of the receiver and into her ear.
“Hello, Faye. It’s Ross. Congressman Judd warned me that you were the kind of woman who didn’t quit work at dinnertime, so I’m not surprised that you’re so late getting back to your room. I’m guessing you’ve already eaten, which destroys my plan to ask you out for dinner. The selection of movies in Philadelphia isn’t great—”
“So I’ve been told.”
“That doesn’t leave us many entertainment options. You don’t seem like the gambling type.”
Faye reflected that the man was a good judge of character. “I’m too cheap to enjoy gambling. Too many years spent nursing an overloaded bank book will do that to a girl. The joy of winning a few dollars just can’t wipe out the fear of losing those dollars and more. I’d be a killjoy in the casino.”
“Okay, then gambling’s out. I’m not crazy about it, myself. The fact that casinos stay in business is proof-positive that the odds are stacked against you. My meticulous research tells me that we only have a few other entertainment options, this time of the evening. We could
go frog-gigging.”
Faye made it a policy not to delve too deeply into where her fried frogs’ legs came from. “I’m not much into frog-gigging, but if you’re set on going, I’ll see if Joe’s in the mood. I swear the man can talk to frogs. He charms them right out of the water and into his boat.”
“I’m more interested in your company than I am in how we spend our time. So let me throw out a couple of other ideas. We could go out to the Fair—”
“It’s pretty late. What time does it close?”
“I have no idea. That’ll be part of the adventure. How many rides can we ride before they kick us out? We could even bet on it, except you don’t like to gamble. I say we can squeeze in the Ferris wheel and a couple of turns on the biggest roller coaster, then close down the evening on that giant pendulum thing. The one that swings back and forth about a dozen times before it works up the energy to flip all the way over.”
“Sounds enticing. If you’re into terror. But you said you had a couple more ideas. What’s the other one?”
“It’s not as exciting as the Fair, I’m afraid. I figured that if none of the other options suited you, we could just take a drive.”
Faye, who rarely turned down a spin on a Ferris wheel, was surprised at how attractive a simple drive sounded. The intensity of the past few days had left her drained, and she wasn’t cut out to live in a casino. The act of walking from her hotel room to her car required her to pass a zillion beeping, flashing, ringing slot machines, and the experience left her disoriented. Nighttime on her island home was black-dark and quiet, and she knew that kind of nurturing stillness waited for her on any number of lonely roads just a few miles from downtown Philadelphia.
When she was at home on Joyeuse Island, she didn’t have to tiptoe around egos. Career advancement was a faraway concern. She had no need to impress anyone there, mostly because no one lived there but her and Joe. If there were ever a person who expected nothing more from Faye than that she simply be herself, Joe was that person.
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