Birthright

silence that was heat, insects and solitude.
    Lifting her camera, she took a series of photos, and was just about to hop the construction fence when she heard, through the stillness, the sound of an approaching car.
    It was another four-wheeler. One of the small, trim and, to Callie’s mind, girlie deals that had largely replaced the station wagon in the suburbs. This one was flashy red and as clean as a showroom model.
    The woman who slid out struck her as the same. Girlie, a bit flashy and showroom perfect.
    With her sleek blond hair, the breezy yellow pants and top, she looked like a sunbeam.
    “Dr. Dunbrook?” Lana offered a testing smile.
    “That’s right. You’re Campbell?”
    “Yes, Lana Campbell.” Now she offered a hand as well and shook Callie’s enthusiastically. “I’m so glad to meet you. I’m sorry I’m late meeting you here. I had a little hitch with child care.”
    “No problem. I just got here.”
    “We’re so pleased to have someone with your reputation and experience taking an interest in this. And no,” she said when Callie’s eyebrows raised, “I’d never heard of you before all this started. I don’t know anything about your field, but I’m learning. I’m a very fast learner.”
    Lana looked back toward the roped-off area. “When we heard the bones were thousands of years old—”
    “ ‘We’ is the preservation organization you’re representing?”
    “Yes. This part of the county has a number of areas that are of significant historical importance. Civil War, Revolutionary, Native American.” She pushed back a wing of hair with her fingertip, and Callie saw the glint of her wedding band. “The Historical and Preservation Societies and a number of residents of Woodsboro and the surrounding area banded together to protest this development. The potential problems generated by twenty-five to thirty more houses, an estimated fifty more cars, fifty more children to be schooled, the—”
    Callie held up a hand. “You don’t have to sell me. Town politics aren’t my field. I’m here to do a preliminary survey of the site—with Dolan’s permission,” she added. “To this point he’s been fully cooperative.”
    “He won’t stay that way.” Lana’s lips tightened. “He wants this development. He’s already sunk a great deal of money into it, and he has contracts on three of the houses already.”
    “That’s not my problem either. But it’ll be his if he tries to block a dig.” Callie climbed nimbly over the fence, glanced back. “You might want to wait here. Ground’s mucky over there. You’ll screw up your shoes.”
    Lana hesitated, then sighed over her favorite sandals. She climbed the fence.
    “Can you tell me something about the process? What you’ll be doing?”
    “Right now I’m going to be looking around, taking photographs, a few samples. Again with the landowner’s permission.” She slanted a look at Lana. “Does Dolan know you’re out here?”
    “No. He wouldn’t like it.” Lana picked her way around mounds of dirt and tried to keep up with Callie’s leggy stride. “You’ve dated the bones,” she continued.
    “Uh-huh. Jesus, how many people have been tramping around this place? Look at this shit.” Annoyed, Callie bent down to pick up an empty cigarette pack. She jammed it in her pocket.
    As she got closer to the pond, her boots sank slightly in the soft dirt. “Creek floods,” she said almost to herself. “Been flooding when it needs to for thousands of years. Washes silt over the ground, layer by layer.”
    She crouched down, peered into a messy hole. The footprints trampled through it made her shake her head. “Like it’s a damn tourist spot.”
    She took photos, absently handed the camera up to Lana. “We’ll need to do some shovel tests over the site, do stratigraphy—”
    “That’s studying the strata, the layers of deposits in the ground. I’ve been cramming,” Lana added.
    “Good for you. Anyway, no reason not to see what’s right here.” Callie took a small hand trowel out of her pack and slithered down into the six-foot hole.
    She began to dig, slowly, methodically while Lana stood above, swatting at gnats and wondering what she was supposed to do.
    She’d expected an older woman, someone weathered and dedicated and full of fascinating stories. Someone who’d offer unrestricted support. What she had was a young, attractive woman who appeared to be disinterested, even cynical, about the area’s