Faye Longchamp 01 - Artifacts

effort to add something intelligent to the discussion and came up with, “Is their camping gear here?”
    “Yes, and their sleeping bags were obviously slept in. Everything’s here but Sam, Krista, and the small workboat.”
    “Well, then, there you have it. They got up early and decided to boat in for breakfast at Wally’s. They’re undergrads, not even old enough to buy a legal beer. Wasting an hour for a stack of bad pancakes probably sounded like an adventure to them. Come to think of it, Wally would sell them a beer to wash their breakfast down.”
    Dr. Stockard picked at a ragged hangnail and said, “Yeah. Sounds plausible. Or maybe Sam finally decided to put the move on Krista.”
    Faye laughed. “Sam’s scared of Krista. And it hurts his dignity that her biceps are bigger than his. But you have a point. Maybe they are right this minute sharing an intimate morning-after breakfast.”
    “Over a bad stack of pancakes.” Magda’s short bark of a laugh erupted once. “Okay, you’re right. I’ll drop my mother hen routine—although it’s my most ladylike side—and go back to being a slavedriver. Get to work.”
    Faye found the area around the equipment shed filled elbow-to-elbow with student archaeologists gathering machetes, wheelbarrows, dustpans, trowels, brushes, dental picks—whatever it took to complete their assigned task for the day. The disarray drove Faye to distraction. She moved among them, helping this one arrange her tools in a plastic storage box, checking that one’s field notebook to make sure he understood his assignment. She was an entry-level, minimum-wage employee like the others and, like them, she had completed less than four years of undergraduate study, but she was ten years older than any of them and advanced age gave her words the hard glint of authority.
    As she organized her team for the day, Faye kept one eye on Senator Kirby and his ever-present friend, Douglass Everett. She had known Douglass for years, but Senator Kirby was an unknown quantity and she needed to learn more about him. Like so many politicians, the senator was tall and tan and his facial features were bold. Telegenic people are easier to elect than ordinary folk. It was startling to see him here, when she had an appointment that very Friday to meet with him in his Tallahassee office. If she hadn’t already waited weeks for the appointment, she would have strode right over to him and, as a taxpayer and a voter, requested a few minutes of his time. Considering her appearance—olive-drab twill shirt, baggy khakis, ratty boots, shiny-bare face—it seemed wiser to wait until she looked older than twelve. He would take her more seriously when she was dressed like a thirty-four-year-old upstanding taxpayer. Not that she ever paid any tax she could avoid.
    Keeping the senator in her peripheral vision, Faye herded her team toward their day’s work. Most of her field crew preferred large-scale tasks: surveying, digging, and hauling away the dirt. Faye was glad, because she liked fine work. She loved to run a shovelful of soil through a sieve to see what stayed behind. The pottery sherds, flakes, and arrowheads that were frequently left resting on the top sieve would be exciting for anybody but, to Faye, even the small bones, seeds, and shells caught by the finest mesh were fascinating.
    She was content to spend hours with a pair of forceps, separating scraps of bone from plant trash. Such work gave her time to think, or to listen to the other workers talk. Despite the fact that she listened more than she spoke and that they spent more money in an average weekend of club-hopping than she spent on food for a month, Faye had come to consider them friends.
    She’d been lonely most of her life. Being born biracial in America in the late 1960s had naturally had that effect. She usually liked to hear what her new friends had to say, even their inconsequential nattering.
    Today, she wished they would be quiet and leave her alone.
    “Can you believe that Douglass Everett?” exclaimed Beth Anne, a tiny girl with her hair in cornrows. “He took me aside and asked if I had any artifacts to sell.”
    “Me, too,” drawled slow-moving, quick-thinking Ted. “I think he tried it with all of us. He must think we’re all common pothunters.”
    Faye couldn’t shake her grandmother’s old saying from her mind. The hen that cackles laid the egg . Being a certifiable pothunter herself, the safest course of action was