Airtight Case (26 page)

“Long hunters?”

“You’ve seen pictures of those guys in fringed buckskin clothing, leggings, and leaning on a rifle? Those were long hunters. Men who went on long hunting and trapping trips, staying out for months. Daniel Boone was one.”

“I had an outfit like that when I was a kid. Coonskin cap and everything.” Lewis gestured as if he were fitting the cap on his head.

“I’ll bet you were cute. The trading posts bartered for furs from the Indians and long hunters, and sent the furs by pack trains or down the rivers by keelboats to Charles Town and New Orleans. American furs brought high prices in Europe, and the competition between the English and French for the Indian trade quickly escalated into a power struggle for the new territory.”

“I know about the French and Indian War, in 1750-something, wasn’t it?”

Lindsay nodded. “It was a long war, lasted about nine years. The Indians were kind of caught in the middle. When it was over, the English had won.”

“So how does this all connect to the farmstead?”

“I’m giving you background and context. Isn’t that what you said you wanted?”

“Yes, don’t get testy. Just continue.”

“After the French and Indian War, the big deal was no longer fur trading, but land acquisition. English settlers from Virginia and North Carolina began migrating across the mountains into East Tennessee, settling in Indian lands. At first they leased the lands from the Indians, but as time went on and the number of settlers increased, they settled wherever they wanted, with or without consultation with the Indians.

“So, by the early 1770s, the pioneers had built settlements along the rivers in the northeast corner of what is now Tennessee. This, naturally, brought all kinds of tradesmen, blacksmiths, craftsmen, miners, preachers, land speculators, surveyors, soldiers, politicians—you name it. I believe the first occupation of the farmstead, the lead coffin people, were in this group.

“Anyway, the influx of people put a lot of pressure on the Cherokee. Different factions among the Indians responded in different ways. One faction tried trading with the settlers and selling them land. Another faction resented this and, led by Chief Dragging Canoe, made their presence felt for the next twenty years.”

“Interesting. I always thought of the Cherokee as peaceful.”

“They were, unless they were provoked. In the beginning when the settlers were few, the Indians were very friendly. They brought them food to get through the winter.”

“What linguistic family do the Cherokee belong to?”

“Iroquoian. Lewis, all this is in books. I could check you out a . . .”

“No. I just want something quick.”

“Something quick, then. The settlers naturally wanted self-government . . .”

“How do you know all this stuff?”

“Lewis, I study about the sites I work on. Anyway, as you probably know, the British didn’t like all this self-government business.”

“So, we get to the Revolutionary War.”

Lindsay was feeling closed in. She had decided against a Porsche. Too small.

“Yes, the Revolutionary War. Do you mind if we get out into the fresh air? Let’s go into the woods. There’s a beautiful place we can sit.”

Before Lewis could object, she was out of the car. She took Elaine’s scrapbook from her Explorer and headed for the woods.

“What’s that?”

“Something I want to show you. You’ll like it.”

Lindsay led him down a path bounded by the deep green mountain flora. She breathed deeply.

“Isn’t this great?”

She sat down on a large boulder, motioning for Lewis to sit beside her.

“I see why you like this place. It’s quite beautiful. We won’t get bitten by mosquitoes, will we?”

“No,” Lindsay lied. “You need to get back to nature more. There are beautiful, timeless things here. William Bartram went through here exploring the southern Appalachians in the 1770s or thereabouts.”

“I’ve seen historical markers for his trails all over the place.”

“He passed near where I live in Georgia,” said Lindsay. “He came through here, too, surveying, sketching, and recording everything he saw. He probably sat on this very rock, observing the plants and the animals that passed his way.”

“Animals?”

“Bears, mountain lions, wolves.”

“Here?” Lewis glanced around, squinting at the deep undergrowth.

“Don’t worry, they’re usually very shy. You know, historical archaeology can be seductive when you run across the writings and drawings of someone like Bartram who was a keen observer and appreciated beauty. Many of the species around us are the same ones Bartram saw and recorded over two hundred years ago—wild woodbine, magnolias, silver bell, rhododendron. Gregory Bald isn’t far from here. The azaleas are in bloom there now. It’s all so beautiful. It would seem that being amid such beauty would keep a person in a state of grace, charmed against evil.” Lindsay shivered.

“Nature’s impartial, so is beauty. Perhaps, Lindsay, you should take a more active role in the investigation of what happened to you. Even an insensitive guy like me can tell you’re hurting.”

Lindsay turned her head sharply in his direction. “I wasn’t talking about me.”

“Weren’t you? My mistake. How about the history lesson?”

Lindsay breathed in the fresh air with its green woodsy smell. It was like cool water, refreshing. Here the smells were clean, the air pure.
Maybe I should camp out here. No, he’s right, the forest wouldn’t protect me
.

“Lindsay?”

“The settlers annexed themselves to North Carolina, hoping for protection.”
It didn’t come. They had to protect themselves. A lesson there.

“Lindsay? Are you all right?”

“Sure. Fine. By this time, the Cherokee had had enough of their lands being taken, and they sided with the British. In July 1776, the Cherokee attacked the settlements. Under the leadership of John Sevier, the settlers successfully defended themselves and then went on the attack against the Indians, burning their towns to the ground.”

“I didn’t know the Cherokee were involved in the Revolutionary War. What was their interest?”

“Their land. The Cherokee were a very large tribe, and they were losing land left and right. The settlers became greater in number and more and more independent. The Cherokee didn’t like it, and neither did the British, so the Cherokee thought their best interests would be served by siding with the British.”

The wind started to blow through the canopy of tall trees.
The wind was blowing that night. I had forgotten the way the trees whipped back and forth. They tripped me. No, it wasn’t nature, something man-made. Barbed wire. Traitorous barbed wire. Its only reason for existence is to constrain. That’s what it did.

The top outline of the mountains looming in the distance looked like tiny stiff fringe because of the dead Fraser firs throughout the high elevations.

“Ninety percent of them are dead, you know," she said.

“Who?” asked Lewis. “The Cherokee?”

“The Fraser firs.” Lindsay pointed into the distance. “They’re being killed by the balsam woolly adelgid. It’s a European aphid that was accidentally introduced into the United States. Ironic, isn’t it? Another European invasion with devastating results for the area.”

“Anything being done to stop it?”

“The park service is planting seedlings. People are working on it.”

“They’ll probably find a solution. What happened after the revolution?” Lewis prompted.

“The settlers organized the State of Franklin but failed to get it ratified. This all happened in the late 1780s. By the way, did I tell you about the log cabin?”

“What log cabin?”

Lindsay explained about the McBrides’ log cabin and the plaque and the older artifacts identified by Marina. She opened the scrapbook on Lewis’s lap. “These are pictures of the log cabin as it looked when it was at the site and now.”

“This is great. You say Drew didn’t have this?”

“No. The McBrides were put off by the archaeology survey team before Drew could find out anything.”

“I see. This Claire person?”

Lindsay nodded. “Unfortunately.”

“So you believe the lead coffins are from that earlier occupation and not the later one?”

“The use of lead coffins was an earlier burial practice in the North. As far as I can discover, they weren’t used here in the 1800s. By that time, settlers buried their dead in wooden coffins that were made and donated by members of the community. Often, families would keep wood, mostly walnut, on hand for that purpose. Besides, the Gallows family is buried in the church cemetery. They’re all accounted for.”

“So, who’s in the coffins, and how did they get here?”

“What I think is that the lead coffins belong to a family who immigrated from the North in the 1700s. People generally want to be buried the way their parents and grandparents were buried. They were performing the burial practices they were familiar with. I also believe that the burials themselves either predate or post-date the Revolutionary War.”

“Why is that?”

“Because the lead would have been needed for cannonballs and bullets during the war. Claire found an article about one of the first mines in Tennessee. It was a lead mine, and it’s believed that the mine supplied all the bullets for the Battle of Kings Mountain in North Carolina—that was one of the decisive battles of the Revolutionary War.”

“You think the lead in the coffins came from there?”

Lindsay shrugged. “I don’t think they schlepped the coffins all the way from wherever the settlers came from.”

“Is there a way we can match the metal with its source?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. I’ll have to find out. Another interesting question is why a form of burial more typical of wealthy families is being practiced on a farmstead that has shown no indication of wealth. In the 1700s, the log cabin was one room and a loft. Nothing we’ve found so far indicates they had wealth.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. We’ve excavated the house foundation. And we now have the house that came off the foundation.”

“But you said that it was two—what do you call it—pens?” Lewis slapped a flying bug between his hands. “I thought you said there were no mosquitoes.”

Lindsay drew her feet up and sat cross-legged. “There are two pens. The second pen was built much later. You can tell by the two different styles of building techniques. It’s my guess the second pen was added to the house around 1836 by the Gallowses.”

“Could the cemetery be attached to some other house not yet discovered? Like the Gallows House, the house the crew stays in, for instance?”

“The artifacts on top of the coffin predate our house. There could be another house foundation somewhere, but where? There’s no indication I’ve seen of another house, and the initial survey was pretty good.” Lindsay shrugged. “But the survey team did miss the log cabin that was moved. I don’t know how they did that. Their informant knew about it.”

“I wonder why they weren’t told?”

“Mary Susan Tidwell was the main informant used by the survey team. Miss Tidwell was possessive about her status as their informant. Maybe she didn’t want to tell them about the cabin. That would have pointed their attention away from her and toward the McBrides. Maybe she concealed the information to prevent loss of her standing. Informants have been known to do that.”

“Didn’t the survey team use a variety of informants? Did this woman hypnotize them away from everyone else?”

“I think she had such a wealth of knowledge it was just easier to deal with only her. You can ask Drew. I try to keep away from challenging their survey methods.”

“How’s your relationship with the site director? Claire? I know she tried to bring in Nigel Boyd to analyze the remains in the coffins, rather than using you. He was really pissed off when he found out you were already here.”

“I know. He called. But Claire and I are getting along swimmingly now.”

“How did you manage that?”

“Bribery.”

Lewis laughed. “I’m glad to see I’m rubbing off on you. What did you offer?”

“First author on a couple of publications. It turned out that was something she really wanted. She’s not a bad writer or researcher, she’s just too inexperienced to be a site director.”

“That’s a big carrot you offered her. No wonder she took it. Are we about finished with the history lesson? As lovely as these woods are, I’m anxious to get back to civilization. That’s a big spider’s web in those branches over there,” he said, pointing toward a giant web swaying in the breeze with the motion of the branches.

“It’s going to be a cold winter.”

“What?”

“A thick spider’s web means a cold winter.”

“Does it really?”

“The mountain folk think so. I’ve never run a correlation.” Lindsay walked over and touched a strand of the web, gently vibrating it, trying to get the spider to come out. But it wouldn’t show itself. “Must be on to me.” She turned back to Lewis.

“Only about fifty more years of history. In 1789, North Carolina ratified the new Constitution of the United States and ceded its western regions, which included this area, to the federal government. They then called this the Southwest Territory. There was another land rush, and more land was taken from the Indians. In 1792 the Cherokee and Creek warriors attacked settlers in an effort to stop the squatters. The settlers formed a militia and counter-attacked the Indian towns, finally ending the raids. In 1796, Tennessee became the sixteenth state. This is the world the people like the Gallowses settled into.

“At the time, all the manufacturing, like forging tools, spinning cloth, making soap, tanning hides, milling grain, sawing lumber, and making whiskey, were done on the farmsteads like the one we’re excavating. I’ll have to take you to the mountain farm museum. It has a rebuilt farmstead, much like this one.”

“Good. We’ll all go. We have a few days before everyone arrives.”

“I think most of the crew have already seen it, that and Cade’s Cove, too. Anyway, about the only industry outside the farms was ironwork. Early on, metalworking was brought to the region by craftsmen from Pennsylvania—which is where the earliest settlers on our farmstead may have come from. These men built furnaces and forges to process the iron ores and supplied farmers and blacksmiths with the metal.