A Hard-Hearted Man

by Melanie Craft

“That won’t be necessary,” Ted said finally, stiffly. “Mine seems to be here after all. It’s no wonder I didn’t notice it, though, in this mess.”

  It suddenly occurred to Lilah that no one had checked the lab tent. An apprehensive chill began to curl up through her. If it was in a similar state, if artifacts, data and the valuable microscopes and computer were dumped to the ground in the same reckless way...

  Just the idea made her stomach clench into a giant knot of anxiety.

  Lilah ran across camp to the lab tent, and tore aside the loosely hanging flap. What she saw there made her want to drop to the ground and cry.

  Boxes of artifacts had been overturned on the floor, and were now hopelessly mixed and jumbled into a giant mess of stone chips and bone fragments. Documents, blank forms and Denise’s drawings all drifted around the tent, rustling in the slight breeze.

  The microscopes were unharmed, and so was the little laptop computer, but anything that could have been opened or emptied had been, and Lilah knew that it would be days of work before everything could be put back into order.

  “Oh, my God,” someone said behind her, and Lilah turned to see Peter Lee staring past her into the tent. He had been working late every night, studying prehistoric blade-making techniques by fitting together hundreds of stone flakes and their original core rocks. It was slow, frustrating work harder than the most difficult jigsaw puzzle, and now all of his hard-won progress had been swept down to scatter on the floor.

  Peter looked as if he was about to be sick, and faced with the chaos that was once their orderly lab tent, Lilah was choked by a hot rush of fury. She forced herself to take a few deep breaths, then gripped Peter’s shoulder and walked him away from the tent.

  “I can’t believe it,” he said, over and over. “I can’t—why would someone do this?”

  Lilah shook her head helplessly. The grad student wasn’t the only one who wanted an answer to that question.

  “And they didn’t even take anything,” Peter said angrily, as if a robbery at least would have explained the senseless wreckage. “Not a thing! The microscopes, the computer...it’s all here! What was this for? Who hates us this much?”

  Hate? It did seem like a hate crime, Lilah had to admit. Why else would the camp have been attacked so ruthlessly? But Lilah was equally mystified as to who they could have offended. There were the ranch workers who came down daily to help with the excavation, but they were good men who seemed pleased with the steady work and wages, and Lilah couldn’t imagine any of them having a reason to be vindictive.

  “What a night,” Elliot said, coming up to them, taking in the grad student’s gray face. “Pete, are you missing anything?”

  “Data,” the young man said darkly. “A thesis. Funding for another season of fieldwork. A reason to stay here. Other than that, no.”

  “Now, now,” Elliot cautioned. “One step at a time. We’ll work this out. Fieldwork is always full of... surprises, right?” He gave a weak smile.

  “This is a little more surprising than I expected,” Lilah said. “It’s downright weird, Elliot. Why would someone trash the camp but not take anything?”

  “Sabotage,” Peter muttered. “Pointless vandalism.”

  “Maybe,” Lilah said. “But it doesn’t make sense. All the destruction was incidental. Aside from what was dropped or knocked over, nothing was damaged. Vandals would have broken things, smashed things. Whoever did this just emptied everything out, like they were looking for something.”

  “But what?” Peter asked.

  “Valuable artifacts,” Elliot speculated. “All sorts of rumors can get started about excavations. People think of King Tut when they think of archaeology. If someone came here looking for treasure, and all they saw were bone pieces and stone tools, they might have been angry enough to wreck the camp.”

  “So this could happen again?” Peter looked uneasy. “If someone else has the same idea.”

  “No,” Elliot said. “We need to make sure the camp isn’t left unguarded again. Those askaris that Ross mentioned earlier...” He looked at Lilah. “What do you think?”

  “I think we have no choice,” she said. “Let’s get them down here. Tonight. We’ll all feel safer with protection.

  Elliot, would you mind driving up to the house and telling Ross what happened? I want to start putting the lab back together.” Her head ached, and she felt too angry and exhausted to handle the added emotional weight of seeing Ross.

  It was going to be a long night. As Elliot drove off toward the ranch house, Lilah returned to the lab tent, steeling herself to face the sickening mess there. Too many of the stone tools littering the floor had chipped or broken against each other as they fell. Others had lost their labels and become anonymous bits of stone without data to link them to their original positions at the site. It was a terrible, senseless waste, and as Lilah crawled around on her hands and knees, picking through the wreckage, she felt numb with rage at the thought of some stranger sweeping their hard work into a heap on the floor.

  The students joined her to help, but the light mood from dinner was shattered. Everyone worked silently and methodically, lost in their own thoughts as they sorted through the jumbled sea of artifacts.

  Lilah was sitting cross-legged on the floor, with her back to the door, sorting papers, when she heard a rustle of canvas behind her, and then felt a hand on her shoulder.

  “Lilah,” said Ross’s deep voice, and she looked up to see him standing behind her. “Can you take a break?”

  “A break? Why not,” she said, frustration making her thump the pile of papers back down to the floor. “This certainly isn’t going to get finished tonight.”

  Elliot was waiting for them outside the tent. “He wanted to see the damage for himself,” he said, nodding to Ross.

  “Well, there it is,” Lilah said, waving her hand back toward the lab tent. “Feast your eyes on the destruction of a lot of hard work.”

  Ross reached up to rub a hand over his forehead. “I’m sorry. I should have been faster about arranging an askari for you—”

  “Don’t say that. You have enough to do. There was no reason to expect something like this.”

  “No,” Ross said. “There wasn’t. But a hell of a lot of unexpected things have been happening lately. I should have been better prepared.”

  “Whatever,” Lilah said flatly. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “You’re sure that there’s nothing missing?”

  “If so, nobody’s noticed. All the valuables are here.”

  “And the excavation area wasn’t damaged?”

  “Not even touched. The tarps are all in place, undisturbed. But they certainly did a job on the tents, whoever they were.”

  He exhaled slowly. “This is very strange.”

  “Yeah, isn’t it.” Lilah’s voice was bitter. “And I thought we had enough to deal with already. I wonder what else is headed our way.”

  She took a shaky breath, trying to ease the hot, tight feeling in her chest, and was caught by surprise as Ross put an arm around her shoulders. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  At his touch, Lilah felt her choked-up emotions loosening suddenly, rising up inside her in a churning swell. She swallowed hard, feeling the pricking of tears behind her eyes, and silently allowed him to lead her out of camp, toward the road.

  The sky was clear, and the chirping of the frogs in a pond nearby was a musical backdrop to the warm, starry darkness.

  Ross was warm, too, and smelled faintly spicy, and as they walked along the road, she slowly let herself relax against his side.

  “I’m having a rotten night,” she said finally, apologetically.

  He nodded. “I know.”

  “What happened at camp...it makes no sense. I’ve gone over all kinds of possibilities in my mind—”

  “Like what?”

  “Crazy ideas. Drugs, data theft, government conspiracies, aliens...” She shrugged, with a half smile. “Nothing
at all realistic. I just don’t understand why anyone would have searched the camp. Or what they could have been looking for. Or even if they found it.”

  “Searched,” Ross repeated. “That’s interesting. So you think that whoever tore apart your tents was looking for something specific.”

  “Yes, don’t you? That part seems clear. But who and why...I haven’t got a clue.”

  “Whoever it was knew that your camp would be empty this evening.”

  “Right, but how? I know I told you about the trip the other night, but I certainly wouldn’t have mentioned it to anyone else. I haven’t even seen anyone else. I’ve been down here, working, and so has the rest of the group. The only way someone could have known that we’d be gone would be if...” She paused, not liking where her thoughts were taking her. “Ross, do you think someone could be watching our camp?”

  It wasn’t a pleasant idea. The night was dark under the sliver of moon, and the tangled vegetation along the road suddenly seemed deep and forbidding, thick with shadows and mystery.

  “It wouldn’t be very hard to eavesdrop on us,” she added, her apprehension growing. It wasn’t the first time this possibility had crossed her mind. She had also wondered about spies the other day at Jake Wyatt’s house, when he had surprised her with his up-to-date knowledge of what was going on at the site. In the wake of the other drama of the day, she had forgotten all about it.

  “You know,” she said to Ross, “I didn’t tell you about one strange thing that happened at Jake’s. He congratulated me on the excavation.”

  “What was strange about that?”

  “He meant the latest part. The tool cache we found. I still don’t understand how he heard about it so quickly.”

  “Did you ask him how he knew?”

  “Yes, but he didn’t really answer me. Just said something enigmatic like ‘I have my ways of knowing.’ I can’t remember exactly. Don’t you think that’s a little weird?”

  “Not really. I know he has connections in the Park Bureau. Last week, before we went to Nairobi, I phoned a few people to discuss your research permit, so his sources there must have filled him in.”

  “Oh,” Lilah said. “That does make more sense. I couldn’t imagine a reason why Jake would care enough about our excavation to have someone spying on us.” She smiled. “I told you that I was coming up with crazy ideas.”

  “It’s not crazy,” he said, releasing her to cross his arms against his chest. He stared down at the road as they walked. “Not any crazier than what’s actually happening around here.”

  He shook his head slowly, grimly. “I don’t like this,” he said under his breath. “I don’t like this at all.”

  “Do you think there’s a connection between our camp being ransacked and the prowler at your house?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” he said, stopping in his tracks and raising his hands. There was more frustration in his voice than Lilah had ever heard before. “I can’t explain anything. I hate this constant feeling of being two steps behind. Every time I look one way, something hits from the other direction.”

  His hands had tightened into fists, and he looked down at them, frowning, then unclenched them slowly, returning them to his sides. “I am not used to this,” he muttered.

  “Feeling out of control?”

  It was the wrong thing to say. Ross turned on her, his eyes fierce and his answer reflexively swift. “No! I’m simply surprised that a quick trip to tie up business in Kenya could turn out to be so goddamned complicated!”

  There was no time for Lilah to react before he turned away, taking a deep breath.

  “I don’t know if the prowler is connected to the attack on your camp,” he said flatly, not looking at her. “Or even if he’s connected to the sale of the ranch, and you’d think I’d at least have figured that out by now. I don’t know why your tents were searched, what the person was looking for, what the prowler was doing in my house, where Jake got all the money to back the factory project...”

  Ross’s voice was becoming less controlled as he spoke, and Lilah stared at him, astonished, watching his composure crack. Violent emotion seemed to be leaking from him, coloring the air with a dark mixture of anger and desperation that was terrible to see.

  She responded instinctively, reaching out to comfort him. “Ross,” she said, gripping his arm, “it’ll be all right. Please, don’t worry. I’m here, I’ll help you. We can do this together. It’s going to be okay.”

  Still holding him, she pressed a kiss into his shoulder, and felt his body stiffen. He looked down at her, his face suddenly distant and guarded, as if he’d just become conscious of how he appeared to her.

  “Of course it’ll work out,” he said coolly. “I’ll make sure of that.”

  Without you. The rebuff was clear. She’d gotten too close, and Ross had just flung up his walls so quickly that she’d practically grazed her nose on them. She let go of his arm and stepped back, suddenly resentful. Why was it so damned hard for this man to let go and simply talk about how he felt? Emotion only came out of him in a burst, against his will and to his regret, and she was losing patience.

  “Oh, sorry,” she said sharply. “Did I scare you by noticing that you were actually being honest about your feelings for a change?”

  “What?” He frowned at her.

  “You’re so good at shoving people away when they get too close to knowing you. Do I really feel like such a threat?”

  “This topic is sounding a little too familiar,” he said. “Are we back to this again?”

  There was a clear warning in his voice, but Lilah didn’t care. “Yes,” she said pointedly. “We are back to this. Bradford rule number one, which is never let yourself be vulnerable. Why not? What’s so dangerous about showing me that you’re worried and confused about everything that’s been happening here?”

  “Why is this an issue?”

  “Because I’m tired of being shut out! Stop keeping me at arm’s length. Talk to me.”

  Ross shook his head stonily. “If you’re looking for someone to cry on your shoulder, I’m not your man, Lilah. Don’t expect that from me, or you’ll be very disappointed.”

  “Cry or don’t cry, I don’t care. All I want is for you to trust me enough to be honest with me!”

  “What the hell are you talking about? I’ve never lied to you.”

  “Wrong. You lie every time you feel something and pretend you don’t. You can’t be honest about who you are, because you can’t let yourself trust me. You have this idea that if you let me get close enough, I’ll hurt you.”

  Ross exhaled hard, in a sound that was almost a growl. “Lilah, what is it you want from me?”

  “Talk to me! I want you to tell me about the things that matter!”

  “Which are what?”

  “Everything! Your frustration with what’s been happening here. Your fear that Jake Wyatt might get his factory. Things about your past, and your family. How you feel about your father’s death, and this affair between your mother and Jake.”

  “I told you that the affair doesn’t bother me,” he said, raising his voice. He took another deep breath.

  “Really? Or was that just another one of your stoic pretenses? I have no way of knowing. It really doesn’t upset you to think about Jake and your mother, together, his hands on her—”

  “Enough!” Ross burst out. “It was one of a hundred affairs! What the hell would have happened to me if I’d gotten upset about every single one?”

  They stood staring at each other, their breathing rough in the suddenly silent darkness.

  “So you didn’t let yourself,” Lilah said softly. “You closed off. And you did that when your father was always too busy with the ranch, and then you did it later when your mother died, and again when your father rejected you. You’ve spent your whole life defending your heart, but you don’t have to do it anymore.”

  Naked pain was written on Ross’s face, and seeing it twisted Lilah’s heart.
Was she wrong to confront him like this? No, she had to make him listen, had to make him understand that these walls of his harmed him far more than they helped.

  “Ross,” she said. “Trust me. Don’t spend your life with a shell around the core of you just to keep from getting hurt—”

  “For God’s sake,” he exclaimed. “This is all I hear anymore. Between you and Otieno this topic is wearing thin. I would like to know what qualifies both of you to tell me how to live my life.”

  “Because,” Lilah said, “you’re convinced that you have to be alone, but I know it isn’t true.”

  “No?”

  “No! For a start, you have me.”

  “Do I?” he said wearily. “And why are you so concerned about me?”

  “Because I love you!”

  There was a moment of shocked silence as the echo of her impulsive confession hung in the air. It was too late to retract the words. Desperately, Lilah searched Ross’s face for some hint of a reaction. He stood as if frozen, his expression betraying nothing.

  She took a deep breath. “Ross,” she repeated, her voice wavering only a little. “I love you.”

  Slowly, he seemed to hear her, the impact of her words breaking over him like a wave. “Oh, God, Lilah...” he said raggedly, and the raw emotion in his voice sent wild, vibrant hope bubbling up inside her. He loved her, he had to. Surely he was about to say so.

  But he didn’t continue, and the stillness became unbearable.

  “I...I’ve been wanting to tell you—” Lilah stammered, trying to fill the void.

  “Don’t,” he said. He took an uneven breath and said, “I’m going to be leaving here in three weeks.”

  It was as if he were reciting a pledge to himself, as if they both needed to hear it and be reminded.

  Lilah took a stunned step backward, and Ross caught her arm. She twisted unsuccessfully in his grip. “Let go of me,” she said in a choked voice.

  “No. We need to talk about this.”

  “Talk? Why?” Her eyes stung with suppressed tears of humiliation and pain, and she blinked fiercely, willing them away. “You just said all that you needed to. This affair ends in a few weeks! Thanks for the reminder. I made the mistake of thinking of you in the long term.”