One Grave Less

Amazon. It would be logical they would flee here. After all, they did.
    Maria watched the car drive away toward the docks.
    They stayed in the grassy area, walking around, looking at the plants, pretending to play. Maria had taken the doll from the backpack and given it to Rosetta to hold.
    “We need to wait to make the call,” said Maria. “I know you are anxious, but let’s not go back to the hotel just yet.”
    A battered car drove up and she recognized Patrik and Hanna. He had found some wheels. Maria and Rosetta walked over and waved.
    Hanna opened the passenger door and stood up, looking over the roof of what looked like a 1990s Eagle Premier with the paint worn down to the primer. “Look what Patrik found. Great, huh? We ride in style.” Hanna laughed and it sounded like music. “Get in. We go eat.”
    The restaurant was on the banks of a pond of perhaps three acres. On one side of the pond near the main restaurant were small cabanas with grass umbrellas. Leafy plants were planted neatly between the cabanas. The main restaurant looked almost like a luxurious version of the native long huts she and Rosetta had recently escaped from. The roof was grass and the structure was of thick timbers with no walls. The kitchen area was in the center. Tables with blue and yellow tablecloths, not unlike the tables in the lobby of the hotel where they were staying, lined the room. It was crowded. Maria liked it. They wouldn’t stand out in a crowd.
    Patrik and Hanna led them to a table with several others from their tour group. Some of them Maria had met, some she hadn’t. They sat down and looked at the menu.
    Maria and Rosetta ordered caruru , a shrimp dish with onions, okra, and nuts seasoned with palm oil, along with acarajé —deep-fried black-eyed peas—and rice. Patrik ordered them drinks of something called Inca Kola.
    The two of them felt like they were feasting. Maria tried to not eat too fast, but she really wanted to put down her fork and dive in with her hands.
    “Your daughter doesn’t look like you.”
    This was one of the women across from Maria. She was a botanist, as Maria recalled, from Spain—Gabina, if she remembered correctly.
    Maria smiled and stroked Rosetta’s ponytail sticking out the back of her cap. “No, she takes after her father,” she said.
    “He is from here, then?” she said.
    “No, he is an American Indian,” said Maria.
    “Really? What tribe? They are called tribes, aren’t they?” she said.
    Maria suspected the woman was trying to trap her, as if she had seen the flyer and was trying to determine if Maria had kidnapped Rosetta. She was going to ask questions until she tripped Maria up.
    “He’s Cherokee,” said Maria.
    “Oh, from that place like the musical,” said Hanna, “ Oklahoma .”
    “No, Daddy’s from the Eastern Band in North Carolina,” Rosetta piped up.
    She did it so fluidly Maria had to smile.
    “Eastern Band?” said Gabina.
    “The Cherokee were moved to Oklahoma in 1838 after gold was discovered on their land in the southeast. Many of them, including my husband John’s ancestors, hid in the mountains and stayed. Their reservation is in the mountains of North Carolina. I would like to call him. Do you know where there is a phone available? I’m sure he is worried sick about us,” she said.
    “The hotel has a phone,” said Patrik. “I used it just today.”
    “So tell us your story,” said Gabina.
    “We had fun most of the time,” said Rosetta. “Didn’t we, Mama?”
    “Most of the time. Not in the beginning, but the rest of the time was an adventure.” She smiled. “Rose is a little adventurer, more so than me, I’m afraid.”
    “Rose? I thought her name was Rosetta,” said Gabina, smiling.
    So that was it. It was the flyer, the name of the little girl—Rosetta—and the fact that Rosetta didn’t look like Maria. She and Rosetta had discussed the name and come up with another story. Maria was warming up to the lies they were telling. She wondered what that said about her.
    “Her name is actually Rose of Sharon. Her father is a fan of Steinbeck. Her grandfather started calling her Rosetta and it caught on in the family. You know how nicknames are.”
    “It doesn’t sound American Indian,” said Gabina.
    Maria grinned. “You think we should have named her Running Deer or Little White Dove? American Indians are pretty much like all of us. Some follow their cultural heritage to the letter and others don’t, and others