The Arkana Mysteries Boxed Set

by N. S. Wikarski

  Hannah sat up again, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her blouse. “It wasn’t just the kitten I was crying about. First, I lost her, then my father was taken away, and my mother was reassigned to another man. And now the baby is gone. Everything and everybody I ever loved is gone. They’ve all been taken away from me, just as quick as that.” She snapped her fingers. “No warning.” She stood up hastily. “I’m sorry. I need to be alone for a while. Maybe I better lie down again and sleep some more.” Abruptly, she bolted from the table and pelted up the stairs. The slamming of her bedroom door echoed down the hall.

  Zach and Faye stared at one another in silence for a few moments.

  “That might have gone better,” the old woman said ruefully.

  “Jeez! She’s like a Raggedy Ann time bomb!” Zach muttered. “What else is gonna surface?”

  “I don’t know, dear.” Faye sighed. “She may be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s impossible to guess what might upset her or when. If this is too much for you—”

  “I didn’t say that.” He cut her off. “If she is a human time bomb, then we’ve just gotta figure out how to defuse her, that’s all.”

  “A delicate operation requiring patience,” Faye observed pointedly.

  Zach rose to leave. “There’s nothing we can do about it today. Like she said, she wants to be left alone. I should go anyhow. I feel a sudden urge to get home and hug Ralph.”

  “Ralph?”

  He retreated down the hall toward the back door. “My dog.”

  Chapter 36 – The X Factor

  “I think Erik is going to have better luck than we will,” Cassie said to Griffin as they walked through the rental car parking lot to pick up their vehicle. The Arkana team had decided to split up to cover more territory. After landing in New York, Erik had gone to New Hampshire to interview the Algonquin trove keeper. Cassie and Griffin had flown to Syracuse, New York, the heartland of the Iroquois tribe. The pythia and the scrivener were planning to rendezvous with the trove keeper at an archaeological dig several miles outside of town.

  Cassie walked over to the driver’s side of the vehicle and unlocked the car.

  “You’re going to drive?” Griffin asked incredulously.

  She stared at him over the roof of the car. “Why not? You’d just drive on the wrong side of the road.”

  “I’ve been living in this country long enough to adjust to local customs,” the scrivener said in an offended tone.

  “I’ve seen you drive. You’re like a little old blue-haired lady who can’t see over the steering wheel. And that’s even when you’re on the right side of the road.” The pythia ended the discussion by sliding into the driver’s seat.

  Griffin sighed and climbed into the passenger seat. “I’m cautious, that’s all.”

  Cassie started the engine and maneuvered the car out of the terminal. “Back to what I was saying before. I think Erik has a better shot with the New Hampshire tribes. After all, you said yourself that the name ‘Iroquois’ is based on a Basque word that means ‘people killers.’ The fishermen got that description of the Iroquois from the Algonquins. Why would the lost Basque sentinel want to get chummy with the enemy of his friends?”

  “Your point is well-taken in that Basque fishermen were friendlier with the Algonquins than with the Iroquois at first,” Griffin replied, checking their GPS readout. “But that state of affairs changed over time. Basque trade goods eventually found their way into Iroquois hands. For example, copper kettles of Basque manufacture have turned up from precisely the time period our lost sentinel would have made his journey to the New World.”

  Griffin paused to glance nervously at the speedometer. “Mind the speed limit.”

  Cassie rolled her eyes and ignored the comment. “But why go to central New York instead of staying along the ocean? Isn’t the New Hampshire coast a more likely spot for a fisherman to hide out?”

  “Under ordinary circumstances, I’d be inclined to agree but remember that our sentinel was looking for a safe place to hide the artifact. If he was, in fact, on friendly terms with the Iroquois, there was no safer place than the center of their territory around modern-day Syracuse. The Iroquois were the dominant civilization in this area, with ambitious plans to expand their territories in all directions. They were to North America what the Aztecs were to Mexico.”

  “Minus the disgusting blood sacrifices,” Cassie murmured.

  “And there’s another connection between the Iroquois and the Basques,” the scrivener added. “Though it’s not generally known, they share a genetic link.”

  “What?” Cassie turned her head to stare at him.

  “Eyes on the road, please,” he reminded her stiffly. “Do you remember our discussion of DNA in mapping the migration of the steppe nomads throughout Europe?”

  The pythia nodded, facing forward. “Sure, but what’s that got to do with it?”

  “Maternal DNA or mtDNA from haplogroup X is found to a small degree in the populations of Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. The Basques carry a higher than average concentration of this haplogroup in their gene pool.” He paused for effect. “So do the Iroquois. As much as 25%.”

  “What!” Cassie exclaimed in shock. “But how? Is it because the Basque fisherman got involved with local natives?”

  “You sped up. Do slow down, I beg you!”

  Cassie sighed and tapped the brake pedal.

  Griffin continued his explanation. “The DNA signature is ancient. Samples have been taken from Iroquois burials dating back several thousand years, and haplogroup X was already present then. It means that both the Basques and the Iroquois shared a common genetic inheritance. There is a theory that the inhabitants of the Pyrenees travelled along the ice bridge between Europe and North America as early as twenty thousand years ago. The natives of the northeastern United States all bear some percentage of haplogroup X in their genetic makeup. The Iroquios tribes show particularly high concentrations. It’s more proof for my belief that the Americas were visited by all sorts of people other than migrants from Asia.” He paused to consider. “Of course, there’s another hypothesis which argues that the refugees from Atlantis fled in two opposite directions when their continent sank. One group landed in the Pyrenees and the other in New England. Hence the high concentration of haplogroup X in both those areas. It’s a fringe theory, though an intriguing one.”

  “I guess you might say that the Basques and the Iroquois are actually blood brothers,” Cassie quipped.

  “It’s something YOU might say.” Griffin emphasized the word “you.”

  Undeterred, Cassie added, “And I guess you might also say that the reason Basques use the letter ‘X’ so often in their language is because it’s in their genes.”

  “I refuse to dignify that comment with a response.”

  Cassie slowed the car as it approached a gravel road. “Check the GPS,” she instructed. “I think we’re supposed to turn here.”

  “Yes, quite right. Just here.”

  Cassie made the turn, and the two suspended conversation while they bumped along the deeply-rutted trail. A mile or so later, she announced, “This is it.”

  They pulled up to a clearing in the woods where several cars were already parked. As they exited the vehicle, Cassie noticed that the maple trees surrounding the clearing had all turned a vivid shade of autumn red.

  She transferred her attention back to Griffin as he climbed out of the car. Narrowing her gaze, she asked, “What’s up with your face?”

  “I’ve decided to grow a beard,” the scrivener replied in a flustered tone.

  “I don’t think so. I’ve seen beards before, and that’s not what they look like.”

  Disregarding the comment, Griffin said, “I’m surprised you’ve only just now noticed. I’ve been at it for over a week.”

  Cassie stared at him appraisingly. “Why?”

  Griffin shrugged. “I thought it migh
t give me a more raffish air.”

  “Raffish? What’s so great about raffish?”

  “It’s all very well to be clean-shaven when one inhabits the vault, but a field mission calls for something a bit more...”

  “Scruffy?” Cassie completed the thought. “Seedy? Skanky? And that’s just the S’s.”

  “Admittedly, that wasn’t the effect I was hoping for.” Griffin sighed in exasperation. “It’s just that both you and Erik possess a natural bravado which I lack.”

  “And you thought a chin rug was gonna help with that?”

  “I thought it might give me a certain hard-bitten appeal.”

  Cassie raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Unless the first words out of your mouth are, ‘Oy, mate! Ow’s me old mucker!’ nobody is gonna buy your act.”

  “Just give it a bit more time. In another week, I expect to look quite ruggedly masculine.”

  “It’s your face,” the pythia said resignedly as they turned to walk toward the dig site.

  Off in the distance, a dozen people worked over a long shallow pit, marking off segments of ground with stakes and string. A middle-aged woman with grey-streaked hair drawn back into a pony tail was supervising their efforts. She wore jeans, high rubber boots, and an oversized flannel shirt. When she looked up and noticed the new arrivals, she smiled and came over to meet them.

  “Hi, Griffin. Long time, no see.” She took off her work gloves and extended her right hand in greeting. Her features were broad with high cheekbones though her skin was very light for a native American.

  Turning to Cassie, she said, “You must be Cassie, the new pythia. I’m Grace Littlefield—trove keeper.”

  Cassie would have expected her to have a more poetic name like Jumping Otter. Grace Littlefield sounded downright commonplace. The pythia wisely decided not to comment.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t meet you at the airport,” the trove keeper apologized. “I had to stick around here to keep an eye on things. We’re pushing it to continue this dig so late in the fall, but I wanted to keep going until we get a hard freeze.” She glanced ruefully at the cloudy sky. “By the looks of things, that could happen any night now.”

  They walked a little distance away from the rest of the dig team. Cassie inferred that not everyone here was part of the trove keeper’s staff or part of the Arkana. Grace led them into a large canvas tent which held a variety of paraphernalia needed by the group onsite. There were piles of books, a card table, several camp chairs, plastic buckets, digging tools, and a cooler.

  Cassie gazed out the tent flap at the staked pit. “What did you find here?”

  “A long house,” Grace replied.

  “That’s what the Iroquois lived in, right?”

  The trove keeper hesitated. “We prefer to be called ‘Haudenosaunee,’ or ‘People of the Longhouse.’”

  “Right,” Cassie blushed, remembering the Basque meaning of the name. She eyed the length of the trench. “When you say, ‘long house,’ you mean really long.”

  Grace nodded. “Yep, most of them are long and narrow. About twenty feet wide but the length can range anywhere from fifty to a hundred and fifty feet.”

  Cassie studied the staked indentation in the dirt. “It’s hard to picture what the building would have looked like.”

  “This might help.” Grace reached for a book from a pile sitting in the corner. Cassie and Griffin looked over her shoulder as she thumbed through it to find the right page. “Here it is.” She laid the book flat on the card table.

  Cassie studied a page of illustrations that showed the exterior and cutaway views of the interior of a longhouse. It was a tall single-story building with doors on either end. The exterior consisted of a wooden frame covered with bark panels. The interior was structurally supported by posts set on either side of a central corridor. The posts ran at regular intervals all along the length of the interior. Cassie assumed the stakes in the dig outside must have been markers for the original post holes.

  The cutaway view showed the layout of the interior. The center of the room was a passage dotted with several evenly-spaced fire pits. The illustration showed groups of people sharing each of the fire pits for cooking. These were probably members of individual families. Smoke escaped through holes in the roof. Partition walls separated each family living space. People slept on shelves about a foot above the ground which were covered with animal skins and furs for comfort. Above the sleeping shelves were other shelves for storage. Animal hides were draped over the front of each partition for privacy.

  “Your people sure must have liked togetherness,” the pythia said.

  “It was an extended family arrangement,” Grace replied.

  “The tribe was matriarchal,” Griffin chimed in.

  “Really?” Cassie remarked with surprise. “I know you’ve told me some of this back at the vault, but I’ve also watched a lot of Westerns. There’s always a macho brave and a lowly squaw.”

  Grace chuckled. “That only happened in some Hollywood writer’s imagination. Haudenosaunee women were powerful. They were the farmers, they owned the property, and they allocated all the food, even game killed in a hunt. Everyone’s lineage was traced through the female line to the first clan mother. When a couple married, the man came to live in his wife’s longhouse. If a wife wanted to divorce her husband, all she had to do was tell him to remove his belongings. Her property remained hers and didn’t transfer to her husband.”

  “I also believe your people instituted a democracy long before the Yanks,” Griffin winked, knowing the term might rouse Cassie’s ire.

  “Hey, a little respect, buddy.”

  “That’s true too,” Grace agreed. “The Confederacy was an extraordinary accomplishment.” She paused. “Why don’t you two have a seat.” She motioned toward the camp chairs. “This story could take a while.”

  After they were settled, the trove keeper drew up a chair and began. “Back in the bad old days, the tribes in New York State were always fighting with each other. A prophet named Deganawida had a vision of uniting them. Unfortunately, Deganawida was a very poor speaker, and the People of the Longhouse have always valued good oratory. So, the prophet enlisted the support of a Mohawk named Hiawatha who went from tribe to tribe preaching the prophet’s message of peace. The first leader to actively support his vision was a clan mother named Jigonsaseh. She is known as the Mother of Nations. Deganawida, Hiawatha, and Jigonsaseh defined the structure of the League. They strategized and negotiated with the warring tribes until their ideas prevailed. The Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca were united as one people. Eventually, the Tuscarora joined too, and the union became the League of Six Nations.

  “From the time when the league was first formed in the twelfth century, both sexes had rights and responsibilities. The chiefs were appointed by the women’s council, and if the women felt a certain chief wasn’t doing his job, they could remove him from office. The principal chief was always nominated by the sister of the last chief. The council of chiefs wasn’t allowed to debate matters that weren’t presented to them by the women’s council. And if they wanted to declare war and the women didn’t support the campaign, all the clan mothers had to do was refuse to supply the men with food. That usually ended things right there. If the women did support a war, they had the right to decide what to do with the captives. They could have them killed, or they could adopt them into the tribe. Special care was taken to spare children and young men who could be assimilated to replace warriors lost in battle. It was kind of a melting pot philosophy.”

  Grace got up and walked over to the cooler. She drew out three bottles of water and wordlessly handed two to her guests. “All that talking makes me thirsty,” she explained.

  Cassie unscrewed the cap on her bottle and took a sip. “With all the checks and balances the league had in place, it sounds like Congress.”

  “Your analogy is highly appropriate,” Griffin agreed. “The organization
of the league so impressed the colonial Europeans that they organized the government of the United States along the same lines.”

  “Yeah, except they conveniently forgot to include a women’s council,” the pythia said pointedly. “Only men were created equal or entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

  “That deliberate oversight was eventually remedied by the women’s suffrage movement which also took its inspiration from the Haundenosaunee system,” the scrivener countered. “You’ve heard of the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony?”

  “Of course, I’ve heard of it,” Cassie replied. “They’re only my heroines.”

  “It was no accident that they held their convention in upstate New York. Both those estimable ladies were well-acquainted with the existence of the Haudenosaunee League and the role women played in its government. These female descendants of Europeans had been told all their lives that male dominance was a universal phenomenon. In their very own backyard, so to speak, was a culture that gave the lie to that fable. The rules of the Haudenosaunee League clearly stipulated that men were to be accorded the same rights as women and not the other way round. Females, and not males, held the preeminent position in their culture. Can you imagine how that notion must have affected the mothers of the modern women’s suffrage movement?”

  They paused in their conversation when a young man stepped inside the tent. “Grace, you got a minute? There’s something you need to take a look at.”

  “Sure thing.” The trove keeper rose to follow him out. “I’ll be right back, guys.”

  “No problem,” Cassie called out. Returning her attention to Griffin, she remarked, “I guess the League was an exception to the other tribes. I never heard about native women having that much clout anywhere else in America.”

  Griffin drank half a bottle of water before replying. “That’s because you haven’t heard the whole story. Most, if not all, native tribes were matrilineal before the arrival of Europeans—even the Aztecs. There was a relative balance of power since both sexes depended on one another for survival.” Griffin sighed. “But it only took two generations after the introduction of the horse to turn the plains Indians patriarchal.”