“Thanks. You, too. Where’s the crew?”
“Crew?”
“I thought you’d bring Sylvia for protection. You know, to even the numbers?” Maureen held her coffee cup in both hands.
He smiled uneasily at that. “Actually, I dropped them off downtown. By now Steve and Sylvia are knocking back shooters and eating
carne adovado
at Gaspacho.”
They’d be doing this for a few days—negotiating the minefield that lay between them, searching for safe footing. “Who’s Alfred Packer? Local politician?”
Stewart smothered a grin. “I guess that depends on how you look at it. He ate all fine Democrats in Colorado. A century ago, that earned you your own parade.”
“My goodness, and people still celebrate his accomplishment?”
“This is Colorado, Doctor. They even named the cafeteria at the university after him.” Bruce returned with a bottle of Guinness, an icy mug, and an enormous platter of nachos. As he set them down on the table, he said, “I used my considerable leverage to get your nachos done pronto. What do you think?”
Dusty nodded appreciatively at the enormous pile of chips covered with meat, cheese, and peppers. “I think that will feed four people, which ought to be just about right.
Muchas gracias.
”
Bruce smiled and turned to Maureen. “How’s your coffee holding out?”
Maureen checked it. “Half full. I’ll be all right for another ten or fifteen minutes.”
Bruce started to pour Dusty’s Guinness and Dusty grabbed the bottle. “If you don’t mind. I’ve been fine-tuning my pour for thirty-seven years.”
“Sure thing. I’ll check back in a few minutes.”
“Uh,” Maureen said, stopping him before he could leave, “I don’t want to complain, but is there a way I can get a really strong cup of coffee? I’ll pay extra.”
Bruce smiled. “I’ll see what I can do.”
He left, and Dusty tipped his mug sideways and very gently poured
the Guinness down the side of the glass. Creamy foam bubbled up. The rich scent made Maureen want to groan.
“Help yourself to the nachos,” Dusty said. “I have something I want to show you.”
“If it’s a sorority pin, I don’t want to know about it.”
He gave her a disgusted look. “Cute, Doctor.”
Maureen pulled out a chip dripping with cheese. As she ate the spicy concoction, Dusty swigged down half of his beer in four swallows and started stuffing nachos into his mouth like a man who hadn’t eaten in three days.
“Let me start out by telling you that the site is about a forty-five-minute drive to the south,” Dusty said. “You’ll be working with me, Dale, and Sylvia, as well as a graduate student named Steve Sanders. He’s in the Ph.D. program at the University of Arizona. Very sharp. Conscientious. The Salmon Ruins site lies straight south of us, and Aztec Ruins National Monument is just down—”
“There are Aztec ruins in the States?”
He squinted at her as if appalled by the question. “Don’t they teach you anything in Canada? They’re Anasazi ruins. Some fool geologist named John Newberry called them that in the 1850s and it stuck.”
“Oh, I see. Go on.”
Dusty leaned back, reached into his pants pocket, and pulled out a small plastic bag labeled;
Non-diagnostic bone artifact, 2.36N. 4.87E., 35 cm.
He took a long drink of his stout before wiping his mouth on his sleeve and saying, “We found it today. It’s definitely bone, but I don’t know if it’s human or animal. It sort of fits into a hole in a skull we found in the tower kiva, but it doesn’t look quite right.”
Maureen took the bag and tipped the artifact to the poor light. The piece was the size of a loonie—a Canadian dollar—cut into a rough circle, the edges smoothed, then a large hole had been drilled into the center. Four etched lightning bolts radiated outward from the hole on the outer table. She flipped it over and looked at the back. She couldn’t be certain, but the crude shape etched into the irregular surface of the inner table appeared to be a dog. The creature had its muzzle up and open, as if howling.
Just holding the artifact made her uneasy.
Around a mouthful of nachos, Dusty said, “So, what do you think? Human or animal?”
“Definitely human.”
He leaned forward. “Okay. What is it?”
“It’s part of a skull. Mostly parietal, I’d say. This is the coronal suture here. I’ll have to see the skull you found to know if it actually fits in the hole. Male or female?”
His blond brows lowered, as though assessing the physical anthropology made him uncomfortable. “Female. Maybe. I don’t want to risk my neck in front of an expert.”
“Elderly woman, then. See the porosity, the foamy appearance of the bone?”
Dusty nodded. “Osteoporosis?”
“Most likely.”
She studied it again. “Where did you find it?”
“In a room next to the tower kiva.”
She looked at him. “I thought you said it fit into a skull that came from the tower kiva?”
“I think it does.”
“But you found it in a different room?”
“Correct, Doctor.”
Maureen cocked her head. “That’s odd, don’t you think?”
“Yes, but I can’t explain it yet.”
Maureen placed the bag on the table between them and reached for another nacho, this one filled with peppers. She ate it in one bite and washed it down with coffee before it could burn. Coffee didn’t seem to help when it came to peppers. “What do you think it is? A pendant?”
He shook his head and his blond hair and beard flashed golden.
“Doubtful. The hole is in the wrong place. If you were going to put this on a cord, you’d drill the hole high, not in the center. It’s probably a big bead.”
Maureen studied the edge of the bone. “The edge doesn’t look like it was cut out after death. I’d say the bone was green when they drilled and cut. Maybe it’s a keepsake from a trephination?”
He made a face and reached for another nacho. “Wouldn’t it be unusual to cut out a chunk of skull because of medical concern and then keep it and turn it into a bead?”
“Yes, it would.”
He ate his nacho, and his eyes glinted, as if with secret knowledge.
Maureen drummed her fingers on the table. “Are you going to tell me what you’re thinking or not?”
He used his red-and-black sleeve to clean a dribble of dark beer off the table. “Oh, I’ve heard of some interesting rituals involving trephination that don’t have anything to do with relieving pain.”
“Really? Go on.”
“You sure? It’s not hard science.”
Maureen exhaled hard. “Nothing you do is hard science, Stewart. Please continue.”
Dusty smiled. “Okay. A couple of years ago, an old medicine man told me that his ancestors believed a soul could not reach the Land of the Dead unless it began the journey from the Pueblo Alto, in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico.”
Maureen remembered the rugged terrain, the buff-colored canyon walls and magnificent ruins. “And?”
He waved a nacho. “Well, think about it. This belief posed a problem. Sometimes people died far away from Chaco Canyon, and it’s not always practical to drag your dead relatives back to bury them. Ruff-legged Hawk said that his ancestors solved this problem by capturing their relative’s afterlife soul in a soul pot, which they carried to Pueblo Alto on ritual feast days and gave to the priests who lived there. For a fee, the priests ritually broke the pot and released the soul onto the Great North Road which led to the Land of the Dead.”
“Hmm. Are there a lot of potsherds at Pueblo Alto to support Ruff-legged Hawk’s story?”
“Let me put it this way: we think about twenty-five people were permanent residents at Pueblo Alto, and they lived there for around sixty years. In
one
trash mound we found evidence for over one hundred fifty thousand broken pots. Granted the breakage occurred over a sixty-year period, but that still means they broke about two thousand, five hundred pots per year.”
Maureen lifted her coffee cup and steam swirled around her face. “That’s a lot of pots. I’m not even that bad in my own kitchen.”
“Me neither. Although I suspect I come closer than you do.”
Maureen braced her elbows on the table. “How did they ‘catch’ the soul to bring it back to Pueblo Alto where the priests could release it?”
“Well, that’s interesting, too. Ruff-legged Hawk told me that his ancestors usually held a pot over the mouth of a dying loved one and captured the soul that came out with the last breath.”
Maureen smiled, delighted by the discussion. Phil would be snorting in derision. “In other words, breaking soul pots amounted to a ceremonial industry in Chaco Canyon?”
“Apparently. Providing that old Ruff-legged Hawk was telling me the truth. You’d be surprised how much pleasure it gives some Native people to jerk an anthropologist’s chain. Particularly if his specialty happens to be archaeology.”
“No,” she said. “I wouldn’t be surprised. Remember, I
am
one of those Native peoples.”
“That’s right,” Dusty said, and looked down into his beer mug. “I guess that gives you license to yank my chain on occasion.”
“I promise not to do it too often. So, what does a trephined skull have to do with filling a soul pot?”
“Some people apparently didn’t want to take the chance that they’d miss it.”
“Oh.” Maureen winced. “That’s grisly.”
“Especially for the dying person. Imagine how it felt to have your skull opened and your soul stolen before you were ready to leave your body.”
To hide the sudden unease in his eyes, Dusty held his empty mug up to Bruce. Bruce lifted a hand and walked to the cooler behind the bar. Dusty set the mug down and turned back. The way he looked at her made Maureen’s eyes narrow.
He didn’t say anything for a time, just stared at her with unblinking blue eyes. “I was wondering …”
“What?”
He toyed with his mug, pushing it around the table. “Why are you here?”
Maureen sank back into her seat. “As I remember, you called me. Why are you surprised that I came?”
“Well, for one thing, you’ve never done anything I asked. And for another, you showed up PDQ. I figured you’d have to think about working with me for a while.”
“I did think about it.”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I was surprised, that’s all. I just
thought you might have had other reasons. We both know you wouldn’t come all this way just to bask in my dazzling presence.”
Maureen rearranged her napkin on her lap. “I had a number of reasons, Stewart. Actually, I did want to see you again”—when he looked up and pinned her eyes, she hurriedly continued—“You taught me a lot about archaeology the last time we were together, and I fell in love with the Southwest. I’ve wanted to come back for a long time, but I had obligations, Dusty. Things I had to take care of at the university, and with my family in Toronto. When you called about this site, well, you made it sound very intriguing.”
“Okay,” he said softly, and shoved his empty mug back and forth between his palms.
Bruce interrupted them by setting an open bottle of Guinness on the table, then he held out a coffeepot to refill Maureen’s cup. “Ready?”
“Sure. Smells good,” Maureen said as he poured.
“Sorry it took so long. I had to brew a new pot. I put three times as much coffee in the basket as they tell us to. I hope it doesn’t keep you up all night.” He peered at her over the tops of his granny glasses.
“It won’t. I’m used to it.”
“Right. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“We will.”
Bruce walked back to the bar, and Dusty glanced at her speculatively as he filled his mug. He took a few swallows, set the mug down, and pulled another tortilla chip from the dwindling pile. Before he put the chip in his mouth, he said, “Why did you write to Sylvia first? Trying to find out if I wanted you here?”
Maureen’s cup stopped halfway to her mouth. “No, Stewart. I wrote her first because I like her better than you.”
He chewed his chip, apparently trying to gauge the truth of her words. Stewart was like that. He seemed to be able to sense the deeper emotional currents that ran beneath people’s words or expressions, and spent a good deal of time trying to figure them out.
Finally, he said warmly, “I’m glad you came.”
Their gazes held.
“Yeah?” she said. “Why?”
He ate the nacho, then replied, “I really need you on this project.”
She couldn’t keep the surprise from showing. “Why?”
“Well, to begin with, this is a strange site.” He gestured to the bag on the table. “The bone bed is fabulous. We need more than a physical anthropologist out there. We need a great physical anthropologist. You.”