HE HAD TOLD HER.
She’d held him, with her hands and arms and breasts against the sweat on his back. She still loved him. But Day’s father had been good, and she could not understand how Nick felt now. She couldn’t possibly know incest. Nick ran along the floor of the canyon, the sand and prickly plants under his feet, branches scratching his arms and legs and the sides of his chest like memories.
This wild place where there were no others, this lightless Maze of rock, was the place where it didn’t matter that he came from badness. He breathed hard, and in sweat remembered who he was. Digger, EMT-I, outfitter, guide, lover of women. Day was distant from him, something he wanted but couldn’t quite touch.
Why did she love him?
The thoughts hurt, and he ran faster and harder and didn’t think at all. He ran until he fell, tripping in the sand of a dry wash. He rolled in the sand, covered himself with the dust that had come off the canyon walls.
I want to be good.
The need hurt so much he didn’t know what he would do. If only he could start over, and all the pots were still lying in the sand; he would leave them alone. If only he could have taken Kelly to the police, to someone who would have helped, instead of giving her away. He’d been so stupid. Why was he stupid?
Well, I think you’re smarter than that, Nick.
One of those things Sam had said. Before Sam had stopped talking to him. Before Nick had felt the silence that meant, You’re an adult, and there’s nothing to be done with you anymore. Pity you didn’t turn out any better.
“Sam,” Nick whispered into the dirt.
How could he go back to Day? How could he take her, have her, when he didn’t deserve her? From Salt Lake City, it had seemed possible. There, he lived clean and worked hard and tried to save people, tried to resurrect corpses that vomited on him, tried to stop blood from running out of bodies. With distance, it had seemed possible that if he tried to fit in with civilized people, he could be enough like her that they could be together.
But seeing her and Grace and cultured Zachary, remembering Sam, reminded him how far from them he really was. Saying the words to her, saying that he’d heard his father trying to have sex with his sister, he had seen how different he was.
He was a dirt creature, the sandman. He was Weather. He was Rousel.
He dug deeper in the sand.
DAY WAITED by the fire, feeding wood to the blaze. She finally went to the tent to get her sleeping bag. She brought it out and lay by the fire to wait for her lover.
He didn’t come back, and she fell asleep and dreamed about chipmunks and awoke with something dripping on her.
“Nick.”
The fire was out. He was zipping his sleeping bag to hers. He smelled like smoke and was naked and damp from the pool.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Sure.”
In the starlight, they pulled the joined sleeping bags more tightly around each other and searched out each other’s mouths, with only her clothes between their bodies.
“I love you,” Day said. “What you did wasn’t wrong,
Nick. You were just a little boy.”
“I was twelve.”
“Like I said.”
“Let’s not talk about it anymore.” Let’s pretend I’m like you, that I’m one of you.
Day wanted to talk about it—wanted him to talk about it. “Have you tried to find her, Nick?”
“I hired a private detective. Thirty thousand dollars.”
“Oh, Nick.” Each of her fingers clung to him, trying to tell him how she loved him. “You shouldn’t keep it bottled up.”
“I told you.”
“You should talk to other people. Susan gave up a baby for adoption. You’ve seen Zac psychotic and Bob in a coma. We’re all human. That’s what your friends are for.”
She was the only friend he needed. Nick changed the subject. “Tell me some more of the story.” The lowly knight and his queen. But even Lancelot was a nobleman, the son of a king. Like Zachary or Pip. Nick was not. But in stories he could become Na-chu-rú-chu the weaver, or Tiyo who went down the Far Far Below River in a hollowed-out log…or Lancelot. Will our love always be forbidden, Day? Yes. It would be forbidden while he avoided the cart, avoided the disgrace of exposing his crime.
Day allowed the change of subject, and she drew his head to her breast. “Let me see. Where were we? Oh, yes. The tryst. Lancelot came to her window that night, and they held hands through the iron bars but were frustrated to be otherwise kept apart. Lancelot boasted that if the queen wanted him inside, no iron bars would keep him out. She did want him, and Lancelot pried the…bars…and he…Oh, Nick. Oh, God.”
“Shh. I love you.” He was unfastening her jeans, and she felt close to crying as she felt his hand between her legs, making love to her. “Let me tell the story now,” he said softly. “I think I know how it was between them.”
Over her, bare-shouldered and strong, he took her face in his hands and said, “He came to her bed, and when he was in bed with her, he said, ‘My lady, thank you for letting me be with you this way tonight. This is the greatest joy I know, for there is no woman in the world as beautiful as you, or as good. All good I do is for love of you.’ And he…” As he told about the tryst, about how Lancelot loved his lady, Nick caressed Day, imagining he was a king’s son, like Lancelot, and half-worthy to touch this woman he loved.
Hearing him, seeing the look in his eyes, Day understood. He thought he was bad, and he wanted to be her knight. You are. While he was inside her, Day took his face in her hands and said, “I love you more than anyone. You’re like all the stars in the sky to me.”
Nick’s arms squeezed the breath from her.
God, he couldn’t lose her. She’d accepted the mistake he’d made as a child. But she’d never forgive what he’d done as a man. If she ever discovered it, she would leave him.
The thought of Lancelot du Lac hanging himself from his saddle horn no longer made Nick laugh.
THEY RETURNED to the River Inn late Saturday night, and Nick and Day drove to her house and showered together and made love. Day was blissful. The next day was her birthday. No card from “Nick and Bonnie” this time. Nick wanted to take her to Grand Junction. They would visit Bob and have dinner.
But after they’d made love, Nick seemed restless in her bed. At last he asked, “Would you care if I went home and came by to get you in the morning? I want to check my answering machine.”
Who are you expecting to call?
It was happening again. This was the first subtle sign that she mustn’t hold too tight. Day didn’t know what to do. Except say, “That’s all right.”
Her voice was relaxed.
Nick knew everything she was thinking.
And she was completely wrong.
AT HIS TRAILER an hour later, Nick unlocked the cable that held the door shut. He carried his pack and some mail he’d picked up at the post office and left them by the door while he showered and found clean clothes.
When he was dressed, he opened a cabinet beneath the sleeping loft and dragged out the cardboard box he used to store his collection of artifacts. Besides the coyote effigy, there were three: a black-on-white Pueblo III double mug, two mugs joined together; a black-on-white Mesa Verde bowl, flawless and uncracked; and a basket. They were perfect and intrinsically beyond price. If sold, the three items together would bring seventy-five thousand dollars or more.
They, not his answering machine, were why Nick had wanted to come back to the trailer. Sitting on the floor in the cold, just outside the glow of the single bulb over the sink, he lifted each object from the box. Nick had never felt a need to display his finds. He had coveted them to enjoy himself, to handle and admire in solitude.
Now, however, they threatened him with the same intensity as the childhood threat of the trapdoor lifting on the roof of his prison, or of his father’s voice calling him when he ran away into the desert.
He had to get rid of them—and the coyote effigy.
Panic made him want to throw them in the river, where no one would ever discover them.
That would ease his fears—but not his conscience.
Perhaps he should donate them anonymously to the museum. He could provide information about where they’d been found.
That solution didn’t sit well. Day would learn of the donation, see the pieces. The artifacts would continue to haunt him. The only way to be free of them was to return them to where he’d found them; he remembered each place.
Nick couldn’t accomplish that tonight, and tomorrow was Day’s birthday—and they needed to see Bob and talk to his caretakers. So Nick boxed the treasures again and put them away, feeling as though he was hoarding dynamite that might someday explode. He had to get rid of them soon.
As he moved to prop open the door of the trailer, preparing to go to sleep, the mail he’d laid on the kitchenette table caught his eye. He glanced through it, stopping when he found an envelope from the West Fork River District in Idaho.
Nick didn’t have to open it to know what it contained.
The Selway.
Only one private trip launched each day during the Selway River’s brief season. Permits were hard to come by; this year, with Shep, was the sixth Nick had tried.
And this was the year it had worked.
He was joyful as he got ready for bed, and it was only when he slid between the sheets alone that he remembered Day. And felt disappointment that she couldn’t care about the Selway permit as he did.
Running that river was an experience she could not share.
THE NEXT MORNING, over breakfast at the Dead Horse Diner on Main Street, he told her about the permit.
Day remembered that time in the winter when he and Shep had come into the office together, talking about rumning the Selway, about applying for a permit. Who would Nick take down the river now? She asked him.
Nick didn’t know. Bob couldn’t go; he still slurred his words, spoke little, and his coordination wasn’t good. “I’ll find someone.”
Day could see that he’d never considered her. She should be thankful. Instead, she was worried. What if he met a woman who wanted to go? No. Nick had made a commitment to her now. But…
Last night was the first night in a week she’d slept in a bed. Day should have slept well. Instead, she’d awoken in the middle of the night, trying to find him. In her distress, she would have traded her bed for the naked ground if he had lain beside her.
He liked it that I came on the Maze trip. He said so.
“Nick, I could go with you.”
“Down the Selway?” His voice cracked. “White water makes you throw up.”
“It’s been a long time since…well, since I’ve tried it.” With her fork she stabbed a piece of cantaloupe in her fruit cup. “It’s mostly habit now. Not going, I mean.”
He didn’t believe her. She’d gone white. The real Day sat before him, dressed in a shimmery emerald sleeveless dress and lime high-heeled pumps, her hair up in a French twist like Grace Kelly. This elegant woman was telling him that she was dying for a trip down the loneliest, most rugged river in the west.
She’s changing, Nick reminded himself. We really had some good times in the Maze. Maybe she wants to try the river again.
If so, he wanted to be there for her. But the Selway wasn’t the place to start. There were gentler rivers. Like the San Juan. A San Juan trip could serve a dual purpose. The basket in his trailer had come from a pit house on the cliffs above the San Juan River corridor, and the easiest way to reach the area was by boat.
“What about trying the San Juan first?” he said. “We could go in April, before things get busy at Rapid Riggers. I think I can get a permit.”
The San Juan was the first river Day had ever rowed, with her father and Grace. No big rapids. Nick was sweet to suggest it. He’d probably be bored out of his mind. But maybe with his help, Day told herself, I can really get over this fear.
She realized that she did want to defeat her fear. And not to win Nick’s admiration or the respect of her employees or even to feel that she’d won her father’s posthumous approval.
But simply because she was tired of being scared.
WHEN THEY ARRIVED at the rehabilitation facility in Grand Junction later that morning, Bob was in the common area watching TV. Both felt a familiar shock seeing their friend. Despite the number of times they’d visited him since his accident, the difference from the Bob they had known still made them sad. Although he wore the same shaggy hair and beard that he had in his river days—and though he’d largely recovered from the physical injuries of the crash—his facial expressions and manner and motion had all been altered by brain damage.
Seeing them, Bob squinted, looking for a moment as though he didn’t know who they were. “Oh, hi.”.
Nick sat down beside him and hugged him. “How’re you doing?”
“I need to work.” Obviously it was foremost in his mind; often he had trouble articulating thoughts.
As she took an adjacent seat, Day caught what he’d said and wanted to reassure him. “We miss you at Rapid Riggers.”
Before either she or Nick could mention the possibility of his living above the river office, Bob said, “I can row now.”
Shit, thought Nick. Taking people into the wilderness required sound judgment, split-second reflexes, a dozen things Bob lacked—and might never have again. That his friend had once possessed those qualities but no longer did made Nick angry and upset.
He could see Day wondering how to fix things. Afraid of what she might say to Bob, that she might make him hope, Nick cut in. “You can’t row yet, Bob. But there’s stuff to do, and…We want you around. In fact, we had an idea.”
While Nick spoke to him, Day noticed that Bob seemed to grow even more despondent. Wondering if he’d rather talk to Nick alone, she said, “I’m going to find the ladies’ room.”
Bob watched her leave. “Can I come home now?”
“Soon,” Nick said. “We’re going to take you out on visits for a while, then see if they’ll let you come home.”
His friend swallowed and shut his eyes, and he was crying. “I’m all messed up.”
Nick reached for the other man and embraced him, held him while he cried. “A couple of months ago you couldn’t eat by yourself, Bob. It can take years to get better.” He wanted to promise they’d climb mountains, row rivers together again. But all he could say with certainty was “We’re going to be with you.”
THEY TOOK BOB OUT for another drive around the cliffs and buttes of Colorado National Monument. Later, when they’d returned him to the facility and left him, Nick was subdued. Wanting to put his friend’s pain out of his mind—and settle some things with Day—he said, “Let’s go to Aspen.”
“Aspen? We can’t afford to breathe in Aspen, let alone eat.”
“Sure we can. It’s your birthday.”
She agreed they should go to Aspen, and as he drove her Porsche toward Glenwood Springs, he said, “You know, that night at the Marble Quarry was something I’ll never forget.”
“Me, neither.”
“I’m glad you’re trying some of the things I like to do, Day.”
“So am I.” She meant it. If only she was a better athlete. The challenges were growing more difficult. The Selway…
It would be a triumph if she could ever accompany him down that river.
In Glenwood, they grabbed a quick sandwich, then continued up the mountain. The aspens and other trees had not yet begun the greening of spring, and they saw cars with skis on the roof going both ways on the road. In Aspen Nick parked outside the elegant Hotel Jerome. It had begun to snow, and he zipped his guide shell and helped Day button her navy wool spring coat. They walked up the street arm in arm and ducked in the first store they saw, which sold nothing but Christmas ornaments.
Then, at the same instant, they both spotted an ornament of a yellow-and-gray raft, exactly like the Rapid Riggers boats. Nick said, “We’d better get this,” and took it to the counter.
When he handed Day the package, she said, “For me?”
“Actually, this is our first jointly owned Christmas-tree ornament. What do you think about that?”
“Sometimes I make it a point not to think, Nick.” Do you have a fever, or what? Day tried to forget it.
They browsed till five, then found the Thai restaurant a shopkeeper had recommended for dinner. Over wine, Nick handed Day a small gift-wrapped box. “Happy birthday. From just me.”
“No others is a good rule.” She peeled off the tape, unfolded the wrapping paper. In the box was a thick silver ring on a black satin cord. A movable knob on the outside of the ring could be slid along the metal to correspond with letters representing the months of the year. A card was attached to the cord. Reading it, Day learned that the ring was an Aquitaine, an instrument for telling time using the sun. Eleanor of Aquitaine had given one to her lover, Henry II, so that when he was out hunting he would know when to leave to meet with her.
“You set the knob to the month, then turn it toward the sun, and the sun shines through the hole. You can read the hour inside.”
“Thank you, Nick.” Day hung it around her neck. “I love it.”
His eyes never left hers. “Maybe now isn’t the time to talk about this—in light of what’s going on with Bob. But I want to live with you, Day.”
He had been serious about the Christmas ornament. When she could speak, she asked, “Where?”
“We could get a bigger trailer. On my land.” It didn’t matter how he’d bought the land, Nick reasoned. It was his. She never had to know anything more.
“I have a house,” Day pointed out.
“If we rented it or sold it, we could build one of our own on the river.”
“That’s a big commitment.”
“I know.”
Day sipped her wine. She really needed to think. Was it Dr. Joyce Brothers who’d said you should never live with a man you wanted to marry?
Not ready to answer, she changed the topic. “Nick, what do you think about asking Susan if she knows some way to look for Kelly? She’s linked with an adoption-reunion service on the Internet. There are a lot of resources like that.”
“I’ve checked all the adoption-reunion listings I know. Not the Internet, but…” He grimaced. “People list themselves if they want to be found. Kelly hasn’t. She knew who she was. She wouldn’t forget that. She was seven.”
“She might have forgotten.”
“Then I won’t be able to find her, will I?”
“Can I try? Can I talk to Susan?”
Nick considered. He’d told Day. Could he stand for his other friends to know? “I guess.”
After dinner, they walked in the snow to a bookstore and coffeehouse. Nick examined climbing magazines, then browsed through the bargain books. Discovering a volume called Arthurian Legend, he flipped through it and admired color plates, pictures from old manuscripts, photos of England, text from various Arthurian stories. He selected a copy of the book, took it to the counter and bought it, then hunted for Day. She was upstairs in the architecture section. When she saw him, she closed a book she’d been reading.
“Oh, you’re ready? Let me pay for this book. I’ll just be a minute.”
He waited while she paid, and when she joined him, he nodded to the coffee bar in the back of the store. “Want to get something?”
“Sure.”
They ordered cappuccinos and apple cobbler. Nick gave her his paper bag, passing it over the table. “I got you this.”
She flushed, smiling. “You already got me something.”
“It’s still your birthday, isn’t it?”
“Well, it’s not yours, but I bought this for you.” Day handed him a hardbound volume.
Nick read the cover. Gustav Stickley’s Craftsman Homes.
“He was like you,” she explained. “He loved simplicity and the outdoors. These homes were built in the early part of the century, and he made outdoor sleeping rooms with fireplaces, things like that. The book has house plans in it.”
“Really?” Was she considering what he’d suggested, building a house together? His misgivings about the land and how it was bought resurfaced. Nick squelched them. He’d tell her everything in maybe five years. When he could say it was that long since he’d stolen anything.
They examined the books together, then set them aside and sipped their coffee.
“You never answered me,” he said. “You want to discuss it?”
“Well, Bob’s not a problem. I think we feel the same way about him, Nick.” That they would care for him as long as he needed it. “I’m thinking of logistics. You know, it would be easier if you wanted to move into my house. And if Bob came there, too, it might be simpler. If he can live on his own later, the river office is a good option.”
“This is something we can discuss with Susan. She sees him even more than I do. But sure, I don’t mind moving into your house for a while. I’d want us to figure out something else eventually.” The place on the river. If he returned the artifacts to where he’d found them, he would feel at peace with it.
Day said with significance, “Yes, I hope we do figure out something else.”
Marriage. Nick smiled at her from his eyes. “For now, why don’t you give me back my house key?”
HE HEADED BACK to Salt Lake City early the next morning with the plan that Day would take the train to see him the following weekend. She did, and they made love on the mattress on the floor of his room, near the stack of his textbooks. They hiked in the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains and went to a film festival and ate Greek food.
The following weekend he visited Moab without telling her.
Nick drove directly to his trailer to pick up two of the three artifacts. The other one, the basket, he’d found on the Navajo side of the San Juan River. He would return it when he went down the river with Day.
In his trailer he transferred the double mug to a smaller cardboard box, padding it with newspaper, and tucked the coyote effigy, carefully wrapped in an old bandanna, beside it. Then he took the Mesa Verde black-on-white bowl from the box. He’d found it in an alcove near Grand Gulch. He’d rappelled to the place from above, then to the canyon floor with a full pack.
Now the memory made him sick. For years he’d ignored what he was told, that the archaeological record, learning the history, was the most important part. He’d believed that the “moki” diggers were the experts when it came to exploring ruins. That the artifacts were what mattered.
The bowl was beautiful. He stood up to carry it to the couch, and without warning, a section broke free from one side and fell to the peeling linoleum floor, where it shattered into dust.
The quiet accused him.
Nick was incredulous. What had happened? There had been no cracks in the bowl. Heartsore, he squatted to gather the pieces.
What should he do with them?
It would be faster to take the double mug back to New Mexico without making the other stop.
Uncertain of anything except that he’d been destructive, that his life was some form of destruction, he opened another cabinet under the loft and placed the potsherds inside.
THAT NIGHT, Grace stopped by the river office and coaxed Day to join her downtown for pizza and beer. Zac was out of town, on a modeling job, and she didn’t feel like cooking.
While they sat outside the pub eating, Day filled her in on Bob—and confessed that Nick was going to move in.
Grace seemed pleased. “He’s really changing. When we were in the Maze, he said he’s going to try to work with the Moab ambulance next winter.”
Traffic passed on the street behind Day. A horn honked in the spring night. “Yes. I guess we’re both changing. I’m going down the San Juan with him.”
Grace lifted her eyebrows and swallowed a piece of pizza. “I guess you and Zac will both be facing your river nemesis. He’s going on the Cataract trip with the Japanese businessman.”
Day knew how Nick felt about that trip. Zac’s mental-health problems troubled him. Sitting back in her plastic chair, she asked, “Are you sure he can spare time from the hotel?”
“For this, yes. It’s important, Day. He needs to believe in himself.” Grace’s mouth tightened, and she dropped her gaze to her plate.
“Is something wrong?”
“We’re just having a little disagreement.” Briefly she cast her eyes at the other tables. They were all occupied by strangers, tourists in cycling togs, and the ambient noise lent privacy to their conversation. “I want a baby,” she said.
Day saw the implications. Zachary’s mental illness was not chronic, but he perceived it as a flaw. A genetic flaw. Without being told, she understood her sister’s hope, that perhaps the Cataract Canyon trip could restore Zac’s faith in himself.
Grace thrust her head forward, peering past Day at Main Street. “Wasn’t that Nick’s truck?”
Day looked in time to see a blue‘57 Chevy stop for a light farther down the street. The sinking sun glared on the windshield, and it was impossible to see the driver. But Day saw the equipment box in the bed. It looked exactly like Nick’s truck. It couldn’t be; he’d said he was busy this weekend and made it sound like he had to study, work on the ambulance. “He’s in Salt Lake.”
Grace started asking about Bob, volunteering that he could live at the River Inn, but Day couldn’t forget the truck. When she got home, she called Nick in Salt Lake.
His roommate Jack answered. “He’s not there? He said he was going down south. I thought he meant to see you.”
The moment swiftly became awkward as they both began to wonder what Nick was doing.
And if he was seeing someone else.
THERE WERE TENTS on the canyon floor, and as soon as Nick saw their shapes in the darkness, he gazed up the rock wall at the alcove ruin. Moonlight shone on string stretched between wooden stakes.
Archaeologists.
They were digging the ruin where he’d found the double mug.
Instinctively he backtracked the trail through the canyon, wanting to distance himself from the dig. He walked for almost a mile before he felt safe to sit down and think.
Parking his pack against a boulder, he listened to the mosquitoes and the frogs. It was one in the morning.
Nick tried to remember everything about his first visit to the ruin, but it was four years back. What else had he taken? An olla…Yes, everything from the site had been beautifully made, Pueblo III. But there hadn’t been much. After a while he’d found only sherds.
But if archaeologists were digging, they were trying to learn something, and what he knew might be valuable.
He kept a notepad and pen in the first-aid kit from his pack. Uneasily he switched on his headlamp, keeping the beam softer than was useful. Under the strain of fear, he started to write a note. It took so long that he lay down on the boulder. He drew pictures, a map. It mattered where things were found, and he tried to recall everything.
The note took two sheets of paper. When he was done, he left his pack; carrying the double mug and the note, he wove back through the canyon.
He wouldn’t risk going up to the alcove. There was no reason to put the mug back where he’d found it. They would move it, anyhow. And he might be seen.
So instead, silently he crept toward the nearest tent and set the mug in the sand outside the fly, holding down the note. Stealing away, he jogged, then ran back up the canyon, his heart pounding.
Never in his life had he felt so afraid of being caught.
Because never had he had so much to lose.
NICK WASN’T SEEING someone else. Day didn’t believe he would do that. She didn’t understand why he’d come through Moab without trying to see her, but by Saturday morning she was convinced it was his truck she and Grace had noticed. Maybe he’d gone backpacking. But if so, why hadn’t he invited her? Was he running?
The strangeness of it all reminded Day about his sister. They really ought to try to find Kelly. It was bound to help Nick.
At work that morning, after Leah and a guide named Joe had left on a four-wheel-drive trip with a dozen passengers, Day found Susan in the office. “Susan, I’ve wanted to ask you about something. Nick said it was all right with him.” Quietly Day confided what Nick had told her.
Susan bit her lip, and her eyes watered. She dried them with a paper towel. “I’ll help any way I can. Have you gotten on the Net?”
“Not yet. But I think that’s worth trying. Nick said he’s listed with all the adoption-reunion services he knows about—but not that one. How do you get on?”
“I’ll help. There’s a bulletin board where you leave messages.” She squinted suddenly, as though at a recollection, then shook her head.
“What?”
“Nothing. I don’t even want to say it. Because I know what it’s like to get your hopes up and be disappointed.”
“What?”
“I think there was a message for a Nick a few months ago. Oh, come on, Day. It’s a common name.”
“Well, let me talk to him tonight and see what kind of message he wants to leave. Then maybe you can help me?”
“Sure.”
“Thank you, Susan.” Day hugged her.
“Hey, don’t muss my Mohawk. He was what you were crying about on Christmas, wasn’t he?”
Pride kept Day silent.
“A little bird told me you two were moving in together.”
“Grace is not a little bird, she’s a parrot.”
Susan said, “I’m really pleased, Day. I love you both. I hope it lasts.”
A heaviness clasped Day’s heart. Nick’s relationships had an average duration of six months.
“SHIT,” SAID JOHN FRAZIER, handing the double mug to Theresa, the artist, for her to draw. “I hate these guys. He thinks he’s an archaeologist.”
Rory studied the note, the drawn map. “He’s repentant,” she pointed out. “He’s sorry. See? He said so.”
The others gave her a look of disgust.
Theresa studied the mug, then made a face at the drawings of the other artifacts he’d taken.
“He’s not much of an artist, either,” grumbled John. “Cretin.”
Rory was ashamed of the conversation. Their pot hunter had felt enough pain for what he’d done to return an object he’d stolen four years earlier and to try to detail everything else he’d taken.
But he was ignorant, focused exclusively on artifacts. If he’d seen anything else, he hadn’t found it noteworthy. There was no bringing back the history he’d destroyed.
And his note was no help at all.