Birthright

that’s the case, just how do you intend to proceed with your development?”
    He had this worked out. Not all the way, but enough to keep the naysayers quiet. “We’ll put up markers, that’s what we’ll do.” He’d thought this angle through carefully, particularly carefully when he’d realized how an extensive delay would wipe out his cash flow. He could afford to cull out an acre, section it off, even put in fancy stones to spotlight a bunch of bones.
    He could even use it as a selling point, use the prehistoric impact the same way he often used Civil War history to advertise a development.
    But the one thing he couldn’t afford to do much longer was sit and wait.
    “We’ve yet to determine the full area we suspect is a Neolithic cemetery,” Jake pointed out. “Where the hell are you going to put the markers?”
    “I’ll get my own survey, and we’ll do the right thing. You got some Indian—excuse me, Native American —coming out to say some mumbo jumbo and give you the go-ahead. Well, I made some calls myself, and I can get me a Native American out here who’ll protest any tampering with those bodies.”
    Jake leaned back. “Yeah, you probably could. There are some disagreements within the tribes on how this sort of thing should be handled. But believe me, Mr. Dolan, we’ll trump you on that score. I’ve been doing this for nearly fifteen years, and I have contacts you couldn’t dream about. Added to that, it so happens I’m a quarter Indian, excuse me, Native American, myself. And while some may feel the graves should be left undisturbed, more are going to feel sympathetic with the sensitivity with which we handle the project than with the idea of having those graves paved and sodded over so you can see a profit on your investment.”
    “I paid for that land.” Dolan’s jaw set. “Fair deal. It belongs to me.”
    “It does.” Jake nodded. “By law, it does. And in the end, it’s the law that will support what we’re doing on it.”
    “Don’t you tell me about the law!” For the first time since they’d started the meeting, Dolan blew. It didn’t surprise Jake, he’d been watching it build all along. “I’m sickand goddamn tired of having some flatlander come in here and tell me what I can do, what I can’t do. I’ve lived in this county all my life. My father started this business fifty years back and we’ve spent our lives seeing that people around here have decent homes. All of a damn sudden we got environmentalists and tree huggers coming along and bitching and whining ’cause we put up houses on farmland. They don’t ask the farmer why he’s selling, why he’s had enough of breaking his ass year after year just to get by, and maybe he’s sick and damn tired of hearing people complain ’cause the cost of milk’s too high. You don’t know nothing about this place and got no right coming into my office telling me I don’t care about anything but the bottom line.”
    “I don’t know what you care about, Mr. Dolan. But I know we’re not talking about farmland and the loss of open space anymore. We’re talking about a find of enormous scientific and historical impact. To preserve that, we’ll fight you every step of the way.”
    He got to his feet. “My father’s a rancher in Arizona, and I watched him bust his butt year after year to get by. He’s still doing it, and that’s his choice. If he’d sold off, that would’ve been his choice, too. I don’t know your community, but I know fifty acres of it—and I’m going to know it better before I’m done than you know your own backyard. People lived there, worked there, slept there and died there. The way I look at it, that makes it their place. I’m going to make it my business to make sure that, and they, are acknowledged.”
    “I want the pack of you off my land.”
    “Talk to the State of Maryland, to your own County Planning Commission, to the court.” His eyes were cool and green now, and his voice was no longer lazy. “You take us on, Dolan, and the press is going to bury you long before the courts decide who’s right. Dolan and Sons will end up one more artifact.”
    Jake walked out. As he did, he noted by the secretary’s wide eyes and sudden, avid interest in her keyboard that she’d heard at least part of Dolan’s rampage.
    Word was going to spread, he thought. He imagined they’d have a number of visitors out to the site in the next few days.
    He pulled out his cell phone as he