Old Bones, page 17
There was a silence. Nora glanced at Clive.
“I can answer that question,” Clive said. “When a member of the relief team reached the Lost Camp in the spring of 1847, the snow was still twenty feet deep. You couldn’t bury anyone in those conditions. And there was no way to haul out the remains. It was all the man could do to rescue the one survivor, Chears.”
“Why didn’t they come back later and bury them?”
“This was exceedingly remote country at that time. One reason might have been superstition—a fear of lingering evil, perhaps, or revulsion at what happened. The rescuers saw scenes of appalling horror at the camps, and the newspapers sensationalized it to the hilt. That deterred others from coming up here after the snows melted.”
“And so the bones were left unburied for one hundred and seventy-five years.”
“That’s unfortunately correct.”
Another long strip curled off and landed at Peel’s feet. “So this rescuer—what did he find when he got up here?”
“Josiah Best was his name. He never left a written record of what he found. However, he did mention it—briefly—to a couple of people after bringing Chears back to the main camp at Truckee Lake. After that, he apparently never spoke of it again, nor did he make note of the location—which is why the camp was lost these many years.”
“What exactly did he see, this Best?”
At this, Burleson broke in. “Jack, are these questions really necessary? It’s been a long day.”
“We’re up here because of the Lost Camp, and I’d like to know what’s going on. There’s no reason to be hiding anything from us—but when I was up earlier, there they were, hiding the body of Samantha Carville from me.”
“Just a minute,” Nora said. “Nobody was hiding anything. Covering an excavation is standard procedure.”
“There’s nothing secret,” Clive said. “The problem with Best’s account is, as I said, he didn’t write it down. All we have are secondhand reports, which were later collected by a newspaper reporter and written up as if in the first person. The oral reports of what Best originally said have been lost, which makes the reporter’s article a thirdhand conflation. There’s no way to know how accurate it is—or how embellished.”
Peel stared at him. “So what did it say?”
“The newspaper account? You want me to read it?”
“Yes,” Peel said.
Clive got up and went over to his tent, then returned a moment later with a notebook. He turned on his headlamp, opened the notebook, cleared his throat, and began to read.
The Lost Camp was the most appalling spectacle ever to greet my eyes. A crude shelter had been erected from wagon boards, almost entirely buried in snow, with an entrance like a hole, trampled and stained with human blood. Bones lay scattered around as so much trash. Inside the hut was an iron kettle setting on a dead fire, containing a foot and a head split from top to bottom. The face was unrecognizable. In one corner of the shelter a scalp had been flung, a mass of black hair tied in a bun, which I took to mean the remains of the poor soul in the pot were of a woman. In another corner were two corpses. Mr. Chears was outside, heedless of the elements and singing to himself. He was fashioning something out of pieces of bone, but did not object when I raised him to his feet and tied on snowshoes for the journey out. He never to my knowledge spoke a word of sense while I was there or after. It looked as if the devil himself had unleashed hell upon that bloody ground. I never in my life witnessed such a dreadful thing and I pray never to see the like of it again.
A horrified silence fell on the group. Nora wished Peel had not pushed for this grisly passage to be read, but it seemed Clive had done the best he could under the circumstances.
At last, Peel spoke again, his voice quiet. “Why isn’t there a clergyman up here? To oversee the handling of these remains?”
“Once we’ve confirmed the identities back in the lab,” Nora said, “we’ll involve clergy. As I said, the remains will be interred with the appropriate religious rites, according to the wishes of their descendants. Or in the case where there are no descendants, the State of California will make the reburial decisions.”
“After 9/11,” said Peel, “they had clergy on call for whenever human remains were found. But here, it seems to me you scientists are digging these folks up with no respect or consideration of their immortal souls.”
“Jack,” said Burleson sharply. “I was very clear with everyone what we were going to be doing up here. It’s a little late to be registering objections.”
Peel turned to him. “I didn’t realize it involved this.”
“That should have been obvious,” said Burleson angrily.
“I’m sympathetic to Jack’s sentiments,” said Nora, intervening. “And as I said, we plan to involve clergy. But not until we’ve finished. This area is too difficult, logistically, to bring in anyone. We don’t even know the faith of most of these victims—whether Protestant or Catholic, or perhaps Jewish.”
“You’re messing around with some powerful stuff,” said Peel. “And you can sugarcoat it all you want, but it sounds an awful lot like desecration to me. The consumption of human flesh, that talk of hell on earth, the people going mad, the bodies unburied. This is the devil’s playground. Ever since I got here, I’ve had a bad feeling about this godless place. And nothing any of you all have said—or done—has made it go away.”
Nora’s feeling of apprehension rose. She’d never considered such serious objections might be raised. “I realize the details are disturbing,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “As archaeologists, we’re only trying to understand what happened. We’re not desecrating anything.”
Jack Peel stood up. “This isn’t right.”
Clive suddenly spoke again. “As a descendant of one of the Donner Party families,” he said, voice rising in anger, “I resent your attitude. I want to know the truth, all of it, even the worst. Voltaire once said, ‘To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.’ And that’s the way we can best serve these people’s memories—by learning their stories. I’m not going to let some Bible-thumping wrangler tell me what’s right and what isn’t.”
Peel stared at him for a long moment. Then he slowly holstered his bowie knife, tossed his stick into the fire, and turned and walked off into the night.
Burleson turned to Clive. “I’m sorry. I had no inkling of this. I can’t have this kind of disruption on my team. I’ll replace Peel.”
“Let’s not do anything hasty,” said Nora. “Let’s see how things stand in the morning.”
As they broke up to go back to their tents, Nora turned to Clive. “What the hell’s gotten into you?” she asked in a low voice. “Riling up Peel the way you did? You think that’s going to help?”
“I can’t stand these sanctimonious religious types, dictating to scientists what they can and can’t do.”
“Sanctimonious,” said Nora angrily. “That’s rich, coming from you—and Voltaire. Well, you can pat yourself on the back for standing up for science—and royally screwing up in the process.”
25
May 12
NORA AWOKE WELL before dawn to hear Burleson talking in a raised voice to Wiggett. From the tone, she knew immediately something was wrong. She dragged herself from her sleeping bag, dressed, and went outside. The breakfast fire was just lit and Maggie was working on a Dutch oven full of biscuit dough. Clive and her two assistants had yet to emerge from their tents.
“What’s going on?” Nora asked.
“Peel’s gone,” Burleson said. “Packed and left during the night. Seems like he quit.”
“I can’t say I’m all that surprised,” said Nora.
“I’ll bring another horse wrangler up from the ranch. No worries about that. It’s just a goddamned annoyance. Peel was a fine wrangler—too bad he got so self-righteous and worked up.”
The party gradually assembled around the fire, and they ate breakfast as the sun broke over the trees and a cloudless day dawned. A good day to work, Nora thought. With the excavation of the midden heap nearing completion, they could move on to opening up the shelter and hearth area of the camp. There would undoubtedly be a concentration of artifacts and bone fragments there, a mother lode of sorts.
She and Clive filled their day packs with lunch, water, and a few tools, then set off with Adelsky and Salazar. The usual ravens followed them as they hiked, cawing their displeasure. When they arrived, the valley was still in shadow, a cold mist rising in tendrils from its grassy floor.
Suddenly Clive’s voice broke through the cawing. “What the hell?” he burst out.
They had just rounded a bend, bringing the meadow into sight. Even from this distance, Nora could see that several of the tarps had been pulled aside and were lying loose.
They broke into a jog. The tarps covering the midden were askew, the pegs pulled up. For a moment, Nora thought the previous evening’s thunderstorm might have done the damage—but then she noticed fresh hoof marks and boot prints around the muddy site.
“A horse has been up here,” she said. “Walking all over the damn place.”
“We’ve been robbed!” Clive cried out as they reached the edge of the midden, now exposed to the elements.
Nora stared in dismay. The midden had been badly disturbed. All three skulls they’d found were missing, as well as several of the larger bones and bone fragments—literally ripped out of the ground. Boot prints could be seen everywhere.
Nora looked around wildly. Down by the stream, the tarp that covered Carville’s body was also askew.
“Oh, no.” She rushed down with Clive and the others. The little skeleton was gone—every last bone picked cleanly out of the earth.
“Peel,” said Clive. “That son of a bitch did this.”
“He must have taken them for reburial,” Nora said.
She glanced over at the shocked faces of Adelsky and Salazar. This was an almost unthinkable development. A stain on her professionalism, a scandal for the Institute—and, potentially, a flat-out archaeological disaster.
“The strongbox,” Clive said. “I wonder if he took that, too.” He jogged off to the HQ tent while Nora continued to assess the damage. The area with Reinhardt and Spitzer hadn’t been touched, at least, its tarp still pegged down. But quite a few of the more intact bones were missing from the midden, and—almost as bad—the site had been seriously contaminated.
Clive emerged from the tent. “The gold’s still there.”
Nora turned to her assistants. “Jason, Bruce, please rephotograph the entire site, and document the boot and hoofprints as well—then stabilize and tarp down everything as best you can. Clive and I will go back to camp and report this.”
As they walked down the trail, Clive asked: “What next?”
“What next? Next we call the Forest Service and report the theft. And then…I’ll have to call the Institute.”
Clive was silent for a moment before speaking again. “I agree you have to call the Institute. But don’t you think it’s a little premature to call in the authorities?”
“Why?”
“You spelled it out yesterday. As soon as you report it, that Agent Swanson is going to be back up here, all hot and bothered. And maybe shut us down.”
Nora cursed under her breath, recalling that Parkin’s skull was among the three taken. “But how can we avoid reporting it?”
“It’s likely the value of those stolen bones is under a thousand dollars, which would make stealing them a misdemeanor.”
“Less than a thousand dollars?” Nora said. “Those relics are priceless.”
“To you and me, yes. Not so much to the local police. Most likely, this would be viewed as a misdemeanor violation of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966.”
“What about the Antiquities Act?”
“Look, Nora, let’s not go off half-cocked. Let’s see what Burleson says. Maybe Peel hasn’t gone far. Maybe he’s going to show up in town and turn the bones in to some priest or something.”
Nora sighed. “Okay. Good point. Let’s see what Burleson has to say before we decide anything.”
* * *
Back at camp, Burleson was beside himself with fury when he heard about the desecration and looting. The lanky man stomped around, letting fly a string of curses that shocked even Nora. He turned and collared Wiggett. “Saddle our horses. We’re going after Peel. Catch that damn-fool son of a bitch and get your bones back. I mean, it’s not like the sheriff would get off his fat ass for something like this.”
Nora exchanged a look with Clive.
Burleson took a deep breath, calming down. “What do you think Peel’s going to do with those bones? He’s not going to sell them, and he’s not going to destroy them. I’ll call my staff at Red Mountain Ranch. They’ll talk to the local clergy, stake out Peel’s house, watch the trail exit, maybe the nearby cemeteries—there’s only two of those, after all. We’ll get your bones back. Give me forty-eight hours and then, if we haven’t resolved this, we’ll call in the cavalry.”
“Thank you,” Nora said.
“I apologize again for Peel’s behavior. Meanwhile, let’s keep the specifics—his looting of the bones, I mean—between us. No point in agitating Maggie and Drew more than they already are.”
Nora nodded.
“One thing you can be sure of: Peel is taking tender care of those artifacts.”
Nora hoped Burleson was right, and that Peel and his stolen loot would be back in short order. She let him get on the satellite phone and notify his people at the ranch. Then she and Clive watched as the man saddled up and rode off with the assistant wrangler.
“You know,” Clive said as the two riders disappeared, “there were a lot of things to worry about with this project, but I never expected something like this.”
Nora sighed as she reached for the sat phone. “I guess I’d better call the Institute.”
Clive groaned. “The optics of this are terrible. First, I promised them twenty million in gold and all we found were ten dinged-up coins.” He paused. “And now a good portion of the artifacts have been stolen. I’m sure glad I don’t have to make that call.”
“Thanks,” said Nora sarcastically as she dialed the Institute.
26
AN HOUR LATER, Nora and Clive hiked back up to the dig site. Nora’s conversation with Dr. Fugit had not been pretty. After hearing about the theft, the president had delivered a chilly lecture on security and professionalism. And then she asked about the gold, and Nora had to admit they’d found only ten coins so far and there was a good chance no more existed. Fugit seemed even more upset about this than about the stolen bones and threatened to shut down the excavation entirely. In fact, she was going to call an emergency meeting of the trustees to discuss just that.
A total disaster.
As Nora looked over the site, Adelsky brought over the list of specific damages to the individual quads. Nora felt, if not exactly relief, a little less sick to her stomach. It wasn’t quite as bad as it had seemed at first. Peel had tampered with six of the quads—the four that made up the front face of the midden heap and the two containing the skeleton of the Carville girl. He hadn’t touched Spitzer and Reinhardt, the rear of the midden, or the test quads they’d done some preliminary work on.
“We noticed something odd,” said Adelsky. “The midden heap is all messed up, the bones pulled out higgledy-piggledy, boot prints all over. But the Carville bones were taken out piece by piece, with the utmost care—and with no boot prints in the excavated area.”
He took Nora over to the Carville quads. Nora peered in. “It looks as if that skeleton simply got up and walked off on its own.”
“Maybe it did,” Salazar said with a snort.
Nora grimaced. “Hey, Clive, take a look at this.”
Clive came over. He frowned, looking into the shallow hole. “Maybe he was more careful because it was a child—and the skeleton was almost intact.”
“Or,” said Nora, “perhaps Peel took the Carville bones first and then, while he was collecting bones from the midden heap, he realized it was taking him too long, or he thought he heard someone coming, and began to rush things.”
“Maybe,” said Clive. “What now?”
“I think we’d better remove any artifacts of value,” she said, “and lock them in the strongbox. I don’t want the chance of any more thefts.”
“Agreed,” Clive said.
There weren’t many: a gold medallion, a silver cross, some gold and silver rings, and a silver belt buckle. Nora used tweezers to remove each one from its matrix of soil and place it into a labeled artifact bag. Then she carried them into the work tent. She opened the strongbox and took out the plastic container with the ten gold coins, and then—on a whim—unlatched the container’s lid. They were all there, gleaming, nestled in the withered and split remains of the leather pouches that had once held them. One at a time, she took out each coin, laid it in a specimen tray, and examined it. All were ten-dollar gold eagles minted in Philadelphia, uncirculated when withdrawn from the bank, but scratched and dented after having been carried inside boots for a couple of months.
“Sad, isn’t it,” said Clive, peering over her shoulder. “Pretty low grade from a numismatic point of view.”
“Yeah. Funny how the rumor grew—that Wolfinger was carrying a fortune. They murdered him over a hundred dollars.”
“They were fooled. Just like we were.”
A silence fell over the work tent as Nora looked at the coins. All dated 1846. Out of nowhere an idea began to form in her head. A strange idea.
She turned to Clive. “Remind me, please. When you found that Independence bank ledger, you said a withdrawal of a thousand ten-dollar coins had been made. Correct?”
“Not exactly. The ledger indicated the bank had received a thousand coins in anticipation of a withdrawal. But beyond that, the records were damaged. I couldn’t determine who withdrew the money, whether it was a single person or many people. I only know Wolfinger made a withdrawal because of that note from the bank.”
