Sacred Ground (9 page)

As she pushed her hair back, she realized with a jolt that she wasn’t alone. Someone was already here, on the other side of the gazebo, at the very edge of the promontory. Jared Black! Standing with his feet apart, hands on hips, as if he were having an argument with the ocean.

He suddenly turned around and Erica was stunned by the expression on his face. It was like looking into the heart of a storm.

The moment hung suspended between them, like a freak lull in the wind and everything in the night froze for an instant. They had never been alone together. In the weeks since the project began, whenever Erica encountered Jared there were always other people around, issues to deal with and matters to settle. They had absolutely nothing to say to each other in private company. She wondered now which one of them would walk away first.

To her surprise, Jared turned from the cliff’s dangerous edge and came up the creaking steps of the gazebo to stand beneath the elegant roof trimmed with gingerbread. “Sister Sarah must have preached from here. This structure was designed with acoustics in mind.”

Erica looked up at the underside of the roof. “How can you tell?”

“I studied architecture once,” he said, adding with a smile, “back in the Pleistocene Era.”

The smile shocked Erica, as did the joke. And then she realized that the smile and joke had been forced.
He is covering up for something I was not meant to see. The look on his face, his fury at the ocean.

“I usually have this place to myself,” she said, feeling strange currents in the air and unable to identify them. “The signs frighten people away.”

“Signs can sometimes accomplish the exact opposite of what they were meant to do.” He fell silent, watching her.

Erica tried to think of what to say. She had the odd notion that Jared was holding himself in check, that if he let go just a little, if he was negligent in his vigilance for just a moment, he would turn into something he did not want people to see.

“I’ve been getting calls from Hispanic interest groups,” she said for lack of anything better to say. Ever since the news broke about the
La Primera Madre
graffiti, Erica was being contacted by people who wanted to come and see it, journalists asking her to comment on what “The First Mother” might mean, Mexican-Americans making a claim of ownership of the cave.

“We’re the flavor of the hour,” he said with another smile.

She and Jared fell silent again and Erica thought of a hundred things to bring up that needed to be discussed— her growing concern about the lack of security around the cave, for one— but ultimately all she could do was voice what was foremost on her mind. “Sam Carter just told me about your wife. I didn’t know. I was lecturing in London at the time and was out of touch with the local news. I was sorry to hear about it.”

His lips formed a grim line.

“She was so young,” Erica said. “Sam didn’t say how…”

“My wife died in childbirth, Dr. Tyler.”

Erica stared at him.

“We lost the baby, too,” he added softly, turning his eyes toward the dark sea.

Erica was shocked. Suddenly she felt as if she were standing with a total stranger. “You must miss her.” It sounded lame, but something needed to be said.

“I do. I don’t know how I’ve made it through these past three years. It just doesn’t seem fair. Netsuya had so much ahead of her, so many plans and dreams. She wanted to redress two centuries of grievances and restore her tribe’s history to them.” He looked at Erica. “She was Maidu. I don’t have to tell
you
what an undertaking that would have been.”

As an anthropologist specializing in California natives, Erica was familiar with the story of the Maidu, which was similar to that of every other West Coast tribe. Although they had been unaffected by the Spanish missions, which had spelled doom to the coastal cultures, the Maidu nonetheless met their fate during the Gold Rush, when white men, in their greed for the precious yellow metal, destroyed anything that stood in their way, be it mountains or people. Malaria and smallpox had decimated much of the tribe, and then the miners had driven away game and destroyed fish habitats by using gold-mining techniques that ravaged rivers, killing fish and their spawning beds. Life as the Maidu had known it for centuries winked out almost in an instant.

“After Netsuya graduated from law school,” Jared continued, speaking to the night, his back to Erica, “she started on a plan to provide housing, senior care, health care, cultural resources, as well as tribal economic opportunities and academic scholarships for her people. But her real dream was to someday see a Native American occupying the office of Governor of California.”

Erica listened to his words fade away on the wind. When silence followed, and he remained faced toward the ocean, she said, “Netsuya is a pretty name. What does it mean?”

He brought his gaze back to Erica. She tried to pinpoint the color of his eyes. Steel gray didn’t quite touch it. They were the color of shadows, she thought, and mystery. “Actually, I don’t know,” he said. “Her real name— well, the name she was baptized with— was Janet. But when she took up the cause of her people, she adopted the name of her great-grandmother.” He kept his eyes on Erica. She couldn’t read his expression. There was the anger she had seen since the day he had arrived, but other emotions as well, rippling across his handsome features like the surface of a dark pool disturbed by a breeze.

She remembered his attitude the day he first arrived here, with a chip on his shoulder, making Erica wonder why he had come with such aggression. She wondered now if it had something to do with his wife. It was well-known that prior to meeting Netsuya, Jared, specializing in property law, had been the legal representative of corporations, heirs, and citizens with land disputes and that it was only after he married an Indian rights activist that he took up their cause. Now it was almost exclusively all he did. Erica imagined some sort of death wish, Jared’s wife telling him to carry on the fight. A ghost was a powerful motivator.

When Jared leaned against a carved post, folding his arms, Erica was struck by the thought that he was trying to relax, to be friendly. And when he looked up at the stars, and said, “The Maidu believe that the soul of a good person travels east along the Milky Way until they reach the Creator,” Erica refused to let her guard down. Reminding herself that they were still opponents and that Jared’s main reason for being at the project was to take it out of Erica’s hands, she looked at her watch, and said, “It’s getting late and I still have work to do.”

He brought his gaze away from heaven and fixed his eyes on a point somewhere out on the black, rolling ocean. Erica sensed that he was weighing something important or wrestling with something internal. When he looked at her, she braced herself. But when he said, “I understand you found something unusual in the cave today,” she had the odd feeling that that was not at all what he had been about to say.

“You’re welcome to come to the lab and watch while I open it.”

As they started to leave the gazebo the silence was suddenly shattered by a tremendous roaring sound.

“What is
that
?” Jared said.

They looked up and saw a police helicopter hovering over Emerald Hills Drive, its high-intensity beam focused down on one spot.

As they ran back down the path and through the compound, they saw a crowd gathered in the street in front of the Zimmerman house. Homeowners— husbands, wives, kids, and pets— holding boxes and suitcases, sleeping bags and pillows. Harmon Zimmerman, wearing an Adidas jogging suit, was shouting at the security guard, who had apparently gotten spooked when he saw all those people streaming through the security gate and so had called the police. Sirens could be heard coming up the canyon.

“What the hell did you call the cops for, you idiot?”

“It’s m-my job, sir. It’s what I’m supposed to—”

“Yeah, it’s your job all right because
we hired you
, you moron. We’re paying your salary. Why did you call the cops on
us
?”

When the flustered guard couldn’t reply Jared stepped in, and said, “The man just told you. He called the police because that’s what he was hired to do. Why do you have a problem with that?”

Zimmerman turned on him: “And you, hotshot lawyer, between you and that woman” —he jabbed a finger toward Erica— “you’ve managed to drag this out so long that our houses are getting ripped off, our lawns are going to seed. This looks like a freaking ghost town.”

Erica looked down the dark, deserted street. There were houses only on one side. Across the way were trees and then a gentle slope down into the next canyon. Beautiful homes, but the lawns were becoming choked with weeds, roses growing wild. The whole look was one of neglect, like Sleeping Beauty’s castle, Erica thought. The maiden fell asleep and nature was reclaiming her kingdom. And it would take more than a handsome prince to rescue this situation. The entire neighborhood had been declared unsafe. The city soils engineers had drilled the length of the street and found that the whole canyon from its blind end at the north to its opening to the south was all liquefying and spilling out into lower canyons. It was almost as if, Erica thought, the canyon were restoring itself to its original state, after humans had interfered with it and tried to alter its natural formation.

Cyclone fencing had been put up around Emerald Hills Estates and the only access in and out was through gates that were locked at night. Despite this precaution, as well as private security guards, the homes were prime targets for looters. Even though all furnishings had been moved out, they still contained valuable accessories. The police had already caught two men trying to steal the gold bathroom fixtures in one house, and one homeowner had dropped by to check on his house only to discover all the kitchen appliances gone, imported marble stripped from the bathroom walls, copper wiring and piping ripped out. All without a sound, without a trace of when and how the thieves had done it.

So the homeowners had decided they were going to move back into their residences despite the fact that the city wouldn’t allow them to because of the ground instability and that there were no utilities. Zimmerman and the others were demanding that the original developer refill the canyon and properly compact it, and reinforce it with steel and concrete supports, rebuilding the development to make it stable again.

“We thought this would be resolved weeks ago,” Zimmerman, spokesman for the irate homeowners, continued, “and that we’d be moving back in. This is dragging on indefinitely.” He poked Jared in the shoulder. “You with your Indians” —and then poked the air in front of Erica— “and you with your bones—”

The police, who had parked their cruisers outside the fence, were now running in on foot.

“We’re not leaving!” shouted the magazine publisher, who owned a nine-thousand-square-foot Tudor-style mansion where the tennis court had sunk three feet into the ground.

Zimmerman crossed his arms, and said, “We’re not moving. This is where we live and this is where we’re staying.”

Jared said, “This area is unstable, it isn’t safe.”

“You know how much that house cost me? Three million.
Before
the pool and the expensive rose garden, which is now totally ruined I might add because of everyone tramping through. The insurance isn’t paying, and it’s sure as hell I can’t sell. So you think I’m just gonna walk away from it? We’ve all been strung along and pushed around enough. There you are, hotshot from Sacramento, hawking Indian rights. But what about
our
rights? Some of us, our life savings went into these homes. Some of us came here to retire. Where do we go? You tell me that. No sir, here is where we take a stand and nobody’s going to move us off
our
property.”

Erica stepped in and said, “Mr. Zimmerman, I promise you we are moving as fast as—”

“And I’m promising
you
something, lady. I’ve already got my lawyers on this. We are going to have that cave sealed, this canyon filled in, and our properties restored to us. And you can take your Indians and your bones and shove ‘em. You got that?”

* * *

The dental tweezers and surgical blade lay ready for Erica to cut open the mysterious rabbit fur bundle. Sam was there, perched on a stool, his stomach growling because he had put himself on a diet— again. And Luke was checking his film, lighting, and shutter speed.

“Gentlemen?” Erica said. “Are we ready?”

Before either could respond, Jared came into the trailer, snapping the aluminum door shut behind him to block out the cold night wind. He had stayed behind to get further information from Zimmerman. “It’s what I expected. They’re going to move against the developer’s completion bond, asserting that the development wasn’t graded properly. If the court finds in their favor and orders completion of the project, then the builder will have no choice but to fill in the canyon.”

“Can you stop them?”

“I’m sure as hell going to try.” Jared looked at the tray and frowned. “Is that an animal?”

“No, it’s something wrapped in an animal skin.”

“Old?”

“I’d estimate about three hundred years. Dr. Fredericks, our dendrochronologist, took core samples from nearby indigenous trees and determined that a terrible fire devastated much of this area three centuries ago. Microscopic and chemical analysis of a thin layer of soot and ash on the cave floor matched bark material in those cores. This fur bundle came from beneath that layer, which means it was left there at least three hundred years ago. It could be Chumash. These beads are similar to the ones they used as currency.”

Drawing the light closer and adjusting the gooseneck lamp so that it spotlighted the object, Erica applied the very fine tweezers and dissecting blade to the sinews that tied the rabbit skin. Luke took pictures at each step of the procedure.

Beyond the thin walls of the trailer they heard sounds of people walking by, laughing, calling out to one another, while inside, Jared, Sam, and Luke stood behind Erica, softly breathing.