Birthright

stone.”
    “It’s not going anywhere. It’s lunch break.”
    “I’m not hungry.”
    Rosie sat to open Callie’s tea jug. “Thing’s still full. Want a lecture on dehydration?”
    “I’ve been drinking the water. I don’t think this is a tool, Rosie. Or a weapon.”
    “Sounds like a job for a geologist.” Since she’d poured out tea already, Rosie drank it before hopping down totake a look. “Definitely been worked.” She ran a thumb over the smoothed edge Callie had uncovered. “Considerably. It looks like the rhyolite. Typical of what we’ve been finding.”
    “It feels different.”
    “It does.” Rosie sat back on her heels as Callie worked with brush and probe. “Want pictures?”
    Callie grunted. “Don’t bother Dory. Just grab the camera. There’s a nub here. Doesn’t feel natural.”
    She continued to work while Rosie retrieved one of the cameras. “Another group of people just drove up. This place has been a regular Disneyland ride all morning. Ease back, you’re casting a shadow.”
    Callie waited until Rosie took the shots, then shifted to her trowel, carefully explored the earth. “I can feel the edges of it. It’s too small for a hand ax, too big for a spear point. Wrong shape for either anyway.”
    She brushed at the loosened dirt, went back to probing.
    “You want half this sandwich?”
    “Not yet.”
    “I’m drinking your tea. I’m not going back for my Gatorade.” With the sandwich and drink, she sat down again, watched the stone shape grow. “You know what that looks like to me?”
    “I know what it’s starting to look like to me.” Excitement was beginning to skip down her spine as she worked, but her hands remained steady and sure. “Christ, Rosie. It’s a day for art.”
    “It’s a goddamn cow. A goddamn stone cow.”
    Callie grinned down at the fat body, the facial details carved into stone. “A dust catcher. What will our anthro have to say about man’s ancient need for tchotchkes? Is this sweet or what?”
    “Majorly sweet.” Rosie rubbed her eyes as her vision blurred. “Whew! Too much sun. You want more pictures?”
    “Yeah, let’s use the trowel for scale.” She picked up the camera herself, framed the shots. She was reaching for her clipboard when she noticed Rosie hadn’t moved.
    “Hey, you okay?”
    “Little woozy. Weird. I think I’d better . . .” But she stumbled, nearly pitched over when she got to her feet. Even as Callie reached out, Rosie collapsed forward against her.
    “Rosie? Jesus. Hey! Somebody give me a hand.” She braced herself, held the weight while people ran over.
    “What is it?” Leo boosted himself into the hole. “What happened?”
    “I don’t know. She fainted. Let’s get her out of here. She’s out cold,” she told Jake when he swung down with them.
    “Let me have her.” He shifted Rosie into his arms. “Dig, Matt.”
    He held her up, free-lifting a hundred and thirty pounds of dead weight. The team and visitors gathered in, hands reaching, then laying her on the ground.
    “Everybody move back. I’m a nurse.” A woman pushed through. “What happened?”
    “She said she was feeling dizzy, then she just fainted.”
    “Any medical conditions?” the woman asked as she checked Rosie’s pulse.
    “No, nothing I know of. Rosie’s healthy as a horse.”
    With one hand still monitoring the pulse, the nurse lifted one of Rosie’s eyelids to check her pupils. “Call an ambulance.”
    C allie burst through the doors of the emergency room right behind the gurney. The only thing she was sure of now was that Rosie hadn’t simply fainted.
    “What is it? What’s wrong with her?”
    The nurse who’d ridden in the ambulance from the site grabbed Callie’s arm. “Let them find out. We need to give the attending as much information as possible.”
    “Rosie—Rose Jordan. Ah, she’s thirty-four. Maybe thirty-five. She doesn’t have any allergies or conditions that I know of. She was fine. Fine one minute and unconscious the next. Why hasn’t she come to?”
    “Did she take any drugs or medications?”
    “No, no. I told you she’s not sick. And she doesn’t take drugs.”
    “Just wait over there. Somebody will be out to talk to you as soon as they can.”
    Jake strode in behind her. “What did they say?”
    “They’re not telling me anything. They took her back there somewhere. They’re asking me a bunch of questions, but they’re not telling me anything.”
    “Call your