Bone River (15 page)

“What else was there? Besides skeletons? Anything?”

“Old pots, things like that. I didn’t look too closely. But I did get this.” He rose from the old rocker and came over to the bed, and Daniel and I moved aside so he could reach the trunk he’d stored beneath it. He dragged it out—like the one that held the mummy, it was a large Chinese camphor trunk that had once been a ubiquitous trade item among the Indians, this one painted bright red, studded with brass nails. He opened it, pushing aside blankets and clothing to pull something out.

A small basket woven of reeds in black and white.

The world dissolved around me.
My
basket. Tumbling down a hill, flashing in the sun, leaving behind a pool of berries red as blood, and someone watching, waiting. That terrible, hovering fear—a wave of nausea swept me. I pressed my hand to my mouth.

“Leonie? Lea, are you all right?”

Daniel’s words seemed to come from far away. I blinked at him; he was frowning.

Junius was on his feet. “Lea, look at the pattern.”

Daniel’s frown deepened. His hand came to my arm as if he meant to anchor me, warm and solid when I felt as unsubstantial as smoke. “Leonie, what’s wrong?”

I tried to find myself. I focused on his hand, the press of his fingers, until the world righted. It was all I could do to whisper, “I’m fine.”

I saw he didn’t believe me, but he pulled away. I felt cold, sick, and sad. Not myself at all.

“The basket’s not even the best part,” Sanderson was saying. He reached into it, taking out a stone knife bound to a cedar shank. He gave it to Junius before he sat again in the rocker.

Junius turned the knife in his hands. “You found this in the cave?”

“Most everything else was broken,” Sanderson said. “Every pot had a hole in it.”

“They do it on purpose,” Junius said. “So no one will steal them.”

“Well, they forgot to ruin that.” Sanderson nodded toward the knife.

The basket seemed to waver when I looked at it, its edges fading, blurring, as if it couldn’t quite keep to its lines, or didn’t want to stay. My voice sounded curiously hoarse as I said, “Could I...could I hold it?”

Sanderson handed it to me, and the moment I took it, my dream swept back. Hot, dry grass beneath my bare feet, the smell of sun-warmed dirt. Berries spilling. Rolling and rolling—

Violently I shoved the basket at Daniel.

He caught it clumsily, saying in a low voice, “Are you certain you’re all right? You look ready to swoon.”

Junius said to Sanderson, “Do you think you can remember where that cave is well enough to draw a map?”

“Certain of it. God knows I won’t forget it. Creepy place.”

Junius pulled the leather-bound notebook he carried from his pocket, handing it to Sanderson, who opened it and began scrawling out a map. “From Toke’s Point here, and then about half a mile due north. There’s no path but for the one I made, which is probably gone by now.” A few more quick lines, and then he handed it to Junius. “I’m warning you, it ain’t a pleasant place.”

Junius nodded and shoved the notebook and pencil back into his pocket. “Thank you. I appreciate it. Come on Lea, Daniel. We’ll let our neighbor get back to things.”

Sanderson reached to take the basket from Daniel, and suddenly I knew I had to have it. I didn’t understand how it had come
to be here, or why it had been in my dreams, but I knew it meant something. It had something to tell me. Something important.

“We’ll give you three dollars for the knife and the basket,” I told Sanderson.

“Three dollars?” he asked. He looked uncertain. “I don’t know as I want to sell them.”

I controlled my own desire with every ounce of strength I had. Trade was my talent, how to win from someone something they had no wish to relinquish, but I knew I wanted this too much, and I was afraid of making a mistake. The dream hovered, that basket called me like a siren. I wheedled, “What would you do with such things, Mr. Sanderson? Keep them in that trunk? My guess is that you could use a...a new pair of boots, maybe. Or a cooking pot. Three dollars will buy at least another trap.”

He hesitated. It was all I could do not to give away how much I wanted it. I ignored Daniel’s quiet watching, Junius’s tension. I said, “How long have you had those things?”

“A few months.”

“Have you had any reason to think them unlucky? Any bad dreams?” I was casting about, hoping to land on something, but I didn’t expect it to stick. He’d spent the night in a cave with skeletons and felt no
tomawanos
. So I was surprised when he hesitated.

“A few,” he said reluctantly.

I struggled to hide my relief and the triumph I knew was mine. Just like fishing with a Chinook salmon hook the way Lord Tom had taught me. All it took was patience. You waited in the shallows, unmoving, until the salmon came by, and then, one quick twist, and it was flopping and dying on the shore. “I see. You know, the Indians would say that the spirits want those things back. They’d say you’ll have bad luck until you get rid of them.”

“Then why do you want them?” he asked.

“For the museum. They ask me to get them relics, and that’s what I do. I wouldn’t keep them in the house if it were me.”

He had taken back the knife from Junius, and now he stared at it. “You wouldn’t?”

“A rational man doesn’t believe in bad luck or spirits, but bad dreams...well, that’s something else. Better safe than sorry, that’s all I’m saying.”

Sanderson frowned.

I rose, touching Daniel’s shoulder so he did the same. “Well, you do as you wish. It’s not my head the
memelose
are playing in.” I did not intend to walk out of here without that basket, but I had to at least be ready to do it. People sensed uncertainty and reluctance. “We’ve kept you long enough, I think.”

Junius rose as well. We’d played this game too often; he knew the moves as well as I.

“Thank you,” he said. “And thank you again for the map.”

Sanderson nodded, but his frown grew bigger, and he was staring at the knife in his hand, the basket. I was so close. One more step.
Give him enough time to think of what he’s refusing. Walk to the door.
In moments, it would be mine.

If I’d just stepped to the door, he would have sold it to us. He would have been outside, following us, calling us back, before we’d gone three strides. Three dollars was a lot of money for a couple of mementos. But the moment I walked past that basket, my dream flashed back, and the urge to have it swept me like a storm, overwhelming. I did not even get another step before I said, “I’ll give you five dollars for them, Mr. Sanderson. But that’s my last offer.”

I was horrified the moment I said it. I’d made the mistake I’d been afraid of. I’d revealed how much I wanted it. I’d given it worth. I saw the glint of knowledge in his eyes and the calculations in his head, his realization that I was playing him, that the relics were worth more than I’d led him to believe. He didn’t trust me now. There was no offer I could make that he would
accept. And bone collectors, as he called us, were not so hard to find. He could sell the things to someone else.

Sanderson smiled. “I think I’ll just hold on to them, if you don’t mind.”

It was gone, just like that. I was struck with horror and despair. I felt tears start at my eyes, and I hurried out so quickly I did not say good-bye. I was so angry and miserable that I was halfway down the path before I realized I’d left Junius and Daniel far behind me.

I leaned back against the rough bark of a cedar and waited for them to catch up, dashing the tears from my eyes, trying to regain my sanity. It was just a basket. It was like the one in my dream, but it couldn’t possibly be the same one. I was an idiot, and
damn
, how could I have let it just slip away? How could I have been so stupid?

Junius came around the bend first, and when he saw me, he said, “Calmed down yet?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, struggling for composure. “I ruined it.”

“I was certain he would deal,” Daniel said casually, but I saw the way he looked at me, his burning curiosity. He’d seen too much, I realized. My near swoon and how I’d wanted it. I felt vulnerable and off-balance.

“It’s not often you play a hand so badly,” Junius said. “What happened?”

I tried to laugh it off. “I...I can’t explain it. I was fine and then I...then I wanted that basket so I couldn’t think. It was so like hers.”

“I was surprised to see that design,” Junius admitted. “But the basket isn’t what’s important. It’s where it came from that matters. If there are answers to the mummy to be found, it’s the cave that will hold them. We’ll find something there, Lea. Something better than a basket.”

“I had him, too,” I said, unable to let it go. “He was going to sell.”

“It was one mistake. Now stop feeling sorry for yourself and come on. There’s something else I want to do before it gets too late.”

He started back down the path, plunging into underbrush. Daniel gave me a look I couldn’t interpret, and then he turned to follow, and I went after, still feeling shaken at how I’d let it slip away.

I didn’t notice how far we’d gone until we were back at Stony Point. Junius stood at the bottom of the cliff, looking up at it the same way he had when we’d come in, and I remembered what was undoubtedly up there, what I believed Junius meant to do.

There was a path that led from the beach, curving around, leading up to the promontory, and Junius followed it, motioning for Daniel and me to come as well. The path stopped after only a few yards, overgrown with brambles and wild currant. Junius seemed possessed by some excitement, a kind that filled me with dread, and I forgot about the basket when we reached the top and I saw the canoes—old and covered with moss, rotting on the ground, tangled with vines, fallen from the posts they’d once been mortised to—or removed from them. The Chinook put their dead in raised canoes, along with their possessions, for a year, after which they took down the bones and buried them. This had been an Indian graveyard like the
tenas memelose illahee
island between here and Bruceport, though I’d never known of it.

Junius stopped, breathing hard. “So your father was right. I’m surprised no one else has seen this.”

My dread grew. “Perhaps they have,” I said tightly. “And they decided to leave it be.”

He moved awkwardly through the undergrowth to the nearest canoe. He grabbed hold of the side, which came away in his hands, the wood rotted through. He tossed it aside and put his boot against the rest, pushing a little as if he meant to test the strength of it. It crumbled as easily as an old fallen nurse log in a wet forest.

Junius cursed beneath his breath, leaning over, rifling over the ground. “More likely they did the same thing Teddy did and took whatever was worth taking. Only canoes here now, and they’re too rotted to be much use.”

Daniel came up beside me. “What is this place?”

“An Indian graveyard,” I told him. “But it’s old. It looks to have been abandoned for years. Lord Tom never said anything about it. I’d guess his people have forgotten everything about this place but that it’s something to avoid.”

Junius stepped to the next canoe, and the next, and I said, “There won’t be any skeletons left here, June.” I started toward him, and misstepped—a hill that wasn’t a hill, collapsing beneath my boot, tangling my foot in vine. I stumbled, unable to catch myself, falling into wild currant.

Junius looked over his shoulder. “You all right?”

“Yes. Fine, dammit.” I tried to rise, but the wild currant I grabbed broke away and whatever was beneath me crumbled. My hand went through it to my wrist; my fingers met something hard and smooth.

Daniel hurried over, hauling me easily to my feet, and it was only then that I saw what I’d stumbled over was another canoe, completely overgrown, rotting, collapsing beneath my feet.

“What’s that?” Daniel knelt, grabbing the edge of the canoe, pulling it, and it broke into pieces and revealed another one, smaller, beneath, and my stomach turned, because as he pushed the pieces aside, we saw what the small canoe hid, what my hand had come upon: the creamy white of bone, two small skeletons, too small to be adults. The bodies of children, lying side by side, piles of beads gathered beneath their wrists and ankles, where the string that had held their bracelets had dissolved.

Daniel looked up at me. I saw the question in his gaze, and it took me a moment to realize what he was tacitly asking, but I paused too long, giving Junius enough time to notice how still we’d gone.

“What is it?” he asked, and then he was tromping over, and Daniel looked away from me just as Junius reached us and let out a low whistle. “Well, well, look at that. I guess not everything’s gone, after all.” He said to Daniel, “There are two bags in the canoe. Go get them, will you?”

Daniel didn’t move. Again, he looked at me.

Sharply, I said, “Junius, no.”

But my husband ignored me. He knelt beside Daniel, pushing aside the rotted wood to reveal the bodies more fully. “Go on, boy. Get the bags.”

“They’re children,” Daniel said softly.

“Indian children,” Junius corrected. “And they’re going to Baird.”

“You can’t mean to take them,” I protested.

Junius sat back on his heels. “Baird asked for these, Leonie.”

I could only stare at him, horrified.

Junius’s voice softened. “I don’t like this any better than you do, but you know it must be done. Without us, they’ll just rot away unnoticed. Everything we can learn from them will disappear. There’s no room for sentiment in this. And we
need
them.” He paused, his blue gaze hammering. “Baird will just find someone else to get him what he wants. Dammit, Lea, you can’t have everything. We either send these or the mummy. Which is it going to be?”

I stared down at the bones. I felt Daniel watching me. Junius, waiting. And I knew my husband was right. This was science. These were no longer the bodies of children, but relics. We had an obligation to study them, to learn from them. We were the caretakers of a disappearing past. My father had believed that a sacred charge, and he’d raised me to think the same. This was
necessary.
What was it I had said to Lord Tom about the mummy—that the soul was gone? I wanted to believe that too. And this was no different.