Birthright

a low stone wall, which we believe the tribe built to enclose their graveyard. As we excavate bones—bones are my specialty, by the way.”
    “Bones are your specialty?”
    “Yeah. I almost went into forensic archaeology, but it’s too much time in the lab. I like to dig. Here, this is pretty sweet. I found this the other day.”
    She crouched down for her clipboard, flipped back sheets and pulled out a photo of a skull. “It’s already at the lab, so I can’t show you the real deal.”
    “This will do.” Gingerly, Suzanne took the photo. “There’s a hole in it. Is that a wound?”
    “Trepanning. An operation,” Callie explained when Suzanne looked blank. “They’d scrape or cut away bone, using a stone knife or drill. The purpose, we speculate, might have been to relieve cranial pressure caused by fractures or tumors.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “No. Had to seriously hurt. The point is, they tried, didn’t they? However crude the healing, they attempted to heal their sick and injured. A tribe gathers together for defense and survival, and evolves into a settlement. Housing, rituals—you can talk to Graystone if you’re interested in that kind of thing. Hunting, gathering, organized tasks, leadership, healing, mating. Farming,” she added, gesturing toward the area not yet disturbed. “Grains, domesticated animals. From settlement to village, and village to town. From town to city. Why? Why here, why them?”
    “You find out the who and the how first.”
    “Yeah.” Pleased, Callie glanced back at Suzanne and continued. “To do that, you have to plot the site. That’s considering you have permission to dig, financial support and a team. You’ve got to do your surveys. Once you start digging, you’re destroying the site. Every step and stage has to be recorded, in detail. Measurements, readings, photography, sketches, reports.”
    Jake watched Callie give Suzanne a tour of the site. Hecould gauge Callie’s emotional state by her body language. She’d closed in immediately upon seeing Suzanne, then had gone on the defensive, from there to uneasy, and now to relaxed.
    In her element now, he thought, as he noted her using her hands to gesture, to draw pictures.
    “It’s nice to see them together,” Lana said as she stepped beside him. “To see them able to be together like that. It can’t be easy for either of them, trying to find some common ground without trespassing. Particularly challenging for Callie, I’d think, as she’s sectioned off in so many areas.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Oh, I think you get the meaning. This project is her professional focus right now, and one that challenges and excites her. At the same time, she’s dealing with the trauma of uncovering answers to her past, trying to forge a relationship with Suzanne they can both live with. And in, around and through all that is you. Personally, professionally, every which way. And, if you don’t mind my saying so—”
    “Whether I mind or not, you strike me as a woman who says what she has to say.”
    “You’re right about that. And you strike me as a difficult man. I’ve always liked difficult men because they’re rarely boring. Added to that, I like Callie, very much. So I enjoy seeing her more at ease with Suzanne, and I enjoy watching the two of you trying to figure each other out.”
    “We’ve been at that for a long time.” He turned as Ty raced over, clutching a bone in his grimy fist.
    “Look! Look what I got. I found a bone.”
    Jake chuckled at the low and essentially female sound of disgust Lana tried to muffle. He swung Ty up, shifting so Ty could wag the bone in his mother’s face.
    “It’s neat, huh, Mom?”
    “Mmm. Very neat.”
    “Is it from a people? A dead people?”
    “Ty, I don’t know where you’ve developed this ghoulish interest in dead people.”
    “Dead people are neat,” Jake said soberly. “Let’s have alook.” But he was still watching Callie. “Why don’t we ask the expert?”
    “And wooing a woman with bones isn’t ghoulish?” Lana said under her breath.
    “Not when she’s Callie. Hey! Got a find over here, Dr. Dunbrook.”
    “It’s a bone!” Ty called out, waving it like a flag as Callie walked over with Suzanne.
    “It certainly is.” Callie stepped close, examined it thoughtfully.
    “From a dead person?” Ty asked.
    “A deer,” she said, and watched his face fall in disappointment. “It’s a very important find,” she told him. “Someone