Rebel Betty (3 page)

Chapter 4

Although the trees that encircled the mound obscured its lines, as soon as Thad stepped on it to rise, he had no doubt that it was a burial mound
. The angle of it was too definite, too perfectly symmetrical to be a natural occurrence. Rising more than six feet from the surrounding field, it would have seemed an annoyance to the farmers who had settled this area. Of the thousands of mounds that had once dotted the landscape, only a tiny percentage had escaped the inexorable mark of progress. The rest had been tilled under by farmers hungry for arable land.

He surveyed the sight, scanning over the dips and rises around the elevated area, searching for the best place to take a core sample. The area between the mound and the creek seemed the most likely to yield results. After another hour of taking notes and pictures, he made the trek back to the jeep and retrieved the auger.

He set the canvas sack with his gear at the base of the hill and pulled out a clipboard to take notes. Using a high resolution camera, he took another set of pictures, focusing on the area that he would sample.  After filling out the provenance data and forms, he plotted his location with a GPS, and then was finally able to set the corkscrew into the ground.

The soil near the creek was clay, heavy as lead, and by the time he had reached the digging limit, his back was protesting. After pulling it out, he bagged the sample, noting with delight the dark particulates that could mean charcoal.

By the time that he finished in the field and returned to the yard, the air was filled with the aromas of seared meat and the meaty richness of the mushrooms sautéed in butter and a little garlic. An open bottle of wine waited on the table, breathing. 

He stowed his bag in the jeep and walked toward the patio.

“No!” Mackenzie said. “Don’t like it.”

“Try just a little,” Lara urged, wishing there was some way to avoid the stress that was mealtime. Mackenzie turned everything into a battle, especially food. No matter how many different things Lara tried to tempt her with, Mackenzie liked pasta with butter and little else. They argued back and forth until Lara sighed and replaced the plate with the bowl of pasta she had kept waiting.

“Knock, knock,” Thaddeus said, walking up the flagstone stairs. Mackenzie giggled.

“Would you like to sit down?” Lara asked, and the professor nodded, his attention already focused on the bowl at the center of the table.

“Are those morels?” he asked,

Lara smiled and nodded. “Yes, we had a good crop of them this year,” she said. “Would you like to join me for supper? Kenzie doesn’t like steak and mushrooms.”

“Nasty,” she piped up.

“I'd love to.”

She went into the kitchen and retrieved another plate and a steak that had only a little piece cut from it. “I hope you don’t mind a little pink.” She scooped up a generous portion of the mushrooms and placed them next to the peas and the still-warm beef. “I can give it a quick heat, if you’d like.”

Thad shook his head. “Nope, on the rare side is perfect.” He cut a careful bite, layering it on the fork with a mushroom, and popped it into his mouth. A sigh of delight rumbled from his chest. “Christ, that’s good. I haven't had morels in ages.” He scooped up a spoonful of peas. “Are these from your garden?” he asked, nodding to the fenced-in garden area he had passed on the way in.

She nodded, and took a bite of her own steak. "I try and grow most of our own vegetables.”

"They are delicious," he said, eating them with obvious enjoyment.

Dinner preceded quietly, casual conversation interspersed with occasional peeps from Mackenzie. He asked her more questions about the history of the farm, and she gave him an abbreviated summary of her great-great grandparent's settlement of the area.

“How much of the surrounding land you own?”

“A little over five hundred acres. I don’t farm it, though. Most of the tillable is leased, and I just have the sheep. Working around here keeps me out of trouble,” she said with a small smile.

Dusk began to settle on the farm, softening the bright blue of the sky. Kenzie began rubbing her eyes and slumping in the chair.

“I need to put her to bed,” Lara murmured, rising from her chair.

“Not tired,” Mackenzie said, and then yawned. .

Lara shook her head, and then glanced at Thad. “If you give me a few minutes I will put her to bed and we can talk.”

He nodded, and Lara lifted Mackenzie into her arms. “Say goodnight to the nice professor.”

“Night,” the words came out on a sigh, the child already half asleep. Blonde curls spilled over Lara’s plaid shirt, and she snuggled in, basking in the contact she would not allow when fully awake.

Mackenzie’s bedroom was the one room in the house that Lara had decorated herself, instead of using a professional. Unlike many women, she had never planned out details of a wedding, never been enthralled by the details of gowns and cakes and diamonds. But as her twenties slipped by, pictures of nurseries and children's rooms began to hold an unmistakable appeal. When Mackenzie came to live with her, she had taken the opportunity to bring her favorite fantasy to life, indulging in an orgy of decorating that would have given her frugal father a stroke.

The walls were a soothing shade of light green, and the canopy bed that dominated the room was swathed in layers of purple fabric that glittered, reflecting a thousand tiny lights that formed constellations on the ceiling. Fairies and butterflies had been painted on the walls, and they danced through the room, darting among the piles of toys.

After helping Kenzie into her pajamas, Lara tucked her into bed, then brought over the picture of her mom and will for a goodnight kiss.

“Night, Larry,” Kenzie said, turning over abruptly when Lara leaned in for a kiss.

Lara shook her head and did not press the issue.

“Good night, Kenzie Bug,” she murmured, and left. 

She walked through the sun-room to the patio, an apologetic smile on her face. “Sorry about that. We keep early hours here.”

“Not at all.” While she was gone, he had cleaned his plate. “Thanks for the meal. It was wonderful.”

Lara grabbed the bottle of wine from the side table. “It’s nice to have someone appreciate it, for a change. Would you like a glass of wine?” He nodded, and Lara went into the house to retrieve a second glass. Thad pushed his chair back from the table and sat watching the sun as it sank across the trees, sending pink and orange dappled rays through the forest to the pasture. What he could see of the back yard was a cheerful jumble of sandbox and swings, plastic houses and dolls left in the grass, their blonde plastic hair mingling with the blades of feathery grass.

Without a word, Lara handed him a glass and resumed her seat. They watched the sun as it sank closer to the horizon, luxuriating in the peace of the moment. Far out in the pasture, the sheep were edging back toward the barn. A feisty lamb tried to leave the flock, only to be brought back in by the interrogative bleat of a ewe, obviously its mother.

There were few noises. Car traffic could not be heard from the highway. With the notable exception of a diesel pickup that had passed nearby during supper, blaring country music, he had not heard another vehicle.

“Beautiful,” he murmured, turning to look at Lara. In the dim light her face was dreamy, dark eyes filled with a thousand secrets. For a moment, he did not know if he meant her, or the farm, or perhaps both.

“Thank you,” she said. “Its home, you see. No matter where I have lived, this has always been my home.”

“You are very lucky,” he said, and meant it. He and his brothers had been raised in a small split level house in the suburbs, but after his parents had died, it had ceased being a home. The house he owned now was not truly a home either. It was the place bought to keep his belongings after the divorce, when figuring out what he wanted from the future seemed an impossible task.

She glanced at him as she sipped the wine. "May I ask you something?"

"Sure,"

"You don't talk like a college professor. At least not when you are out of the classroom. I was just curious...."

"Why I don't sound like a self-aggrandizing academic snob?" She nodded. "Like I said, I have three younger brothers. If I started throwing around words like transculturation or consanguinity they would have beaten the crap out of me. Hell, they still would."

"I have no idea what either of those words mean."

"Precisely." He grinned, and then changed the subject. “Do you know if there ever been any aerial photography done of the farm?”

Lara tapped her finger against her lips. “There’s a photo hanging in my father’s room, if you would like to see it.”

Unable to contain his excitement, he stood up. “I’d love to.”

Lara refilled her wine before leading him into the house. He followed her down a hallway lined with a collection of wildlife prints above oak wainscoting that looked to be original to the house. Mellowed with age to a rich golden brown, it was decorated with multiple dings and scratches. Thad could imagine children playing ball there, or riding tricycles on rainy days.

He looked up to see Lara watching him trace a particularly deep gouge marring the wood with a finger. “I love old houses. They have so many stories to tell.”

“This place certainly had its share."

She opened the door, and he followed her into a room that smelled musty from disuse. Cluttered and dusty, it was a stark departure from the rest of the house, which was immaculate, glowing with the luster of polish and cleaner and wood oil. There were stacks of newspapers that rose feet high, and open books occupied every surface. An ash tray overflowing with cigarette butts rested on the desk, illuminated by the light pouring in through large windows riddled with fly specks.

“My father was a pack rat, or you could say hoarder, that’s the new word for it. He never threw a thing away.” Her voice was wistful and affectionate, like a parent remembering a particularly naughty child who grew up too soon.

Thad began moving around the room, lifting up newspapers and blowing dust off of the pictures. He spotted the large framed photo of the farm on a south facing wall; a black and white image that looked to be at least 60 years old, given the age of the vehicles shown in the driveway. It had been professionally mounted and framed and seemed out of place amid the rubble of the disorganized room.

“Someone found a stack of negatives a few years back and came around selling them. Dad wouldn't get one, said they wanted an arm and a leg for them, but I got it for him for Christmas.”

He leaned in close to the picture, focusing on the mound of earth where the back pasture flowed near the creek. “Could be, could be,” he muttered, and took his phone from a back pocket. “Do you mind?”

“Go ahead,” she said, turning her back on him and moving through the room. At times she had to edge sideways between the towering stacks. Her hands drifted, touching the pack of Pall Malls and the discarded flannel shirt. She brought the shirt to her nose and inhaled. 

“How long has he been gone?”

Laura dropped the shirt and made a face, looking as though she had been caught. “Almost three years. I should clean it out, it's just…”

Thad nodded sympathetically. “Losing someone is like a punch to the gut that goes on for months. It took me a decade before I could go through my parent's things after they died. Hell, there are still a few boxes I have not been able to touch yet.”

She smiled at him, her smile all the sweeter for the grief he could still see in her eyes. "My dad was nuts for anything having to do with Indian history. Take a look at these,” she said, walking over to a huge antique cabinet that occupied almost the entirety of one wall. There were dozens of small drawers, like the library card catalog systems dimly recalled from his youth. Lara pulled out one of the larger bottom drawers. Nestled in a bed of pristine white cotton was a flint tool larger than his hand.

“A scraper,” he whispered. Thad reached in his back pocket for gloves before remembering that he was not in a museum. “Beautiful,” he said, taking it when Lara offered it to him. One of the better examples of flint work that he had ever seen, the scraper still possessed the keen edge that had allowed it to remove fur from treated hides. “Do you know where he found this?”

“All of them were found here,” Lara said, taking the scraper back when he offered it and returning it to the cabinet. She opened other drawers, showing him arrow heads, flint axes, and scrapers all carefully preserved in cotton padding. It was a significant collection, rivaling the scope of some found in museums.

Thad stuffed his hands in his pockets against the urge to begin pawing through her father’s things. He knew graduate students who would have cheerfully traded years of their lives to study such an amazing find. An arrowhead with a Clovis point caught his eye, and he had to bite back a moan when Lara closed the drawer too quickly, almost catching the delicate edge.

She turned to him with a smile. "So what do you think?"

His mind was already buzzing with the possibilities. "Let's go back outside. And we definitely need more wine for this."

Lara sat back down and sipped at her drink. The light from the setting sun filtering through the trees caught her hair, turning it a shade somewhere between auburn and blonde.