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VANDALISM ACROSS A perfect site was the best recipe for an archaeologist’s worst day. Apparently, it wasn’t enough that Nel Bently’s visa had met with “authenticity issues” twice on her way into Chile. She ducked under the rope that had served as a barrier. A poor one, she mentally snarled. The site was a disaster. Great gouges carved the formerly pristine soil. The tools stacked under a tarp by the bushes were now scattered, bent and broken. What pits her crew had dug the week before were filled with rotting leaves and back dirt, the perfect, square walls of the trenches ruined and crushed in.
Nel stepped carefully through the mess. This has Founders written all over it. As a rule, Nel was a patron of locals and the people she studied. Coming onto culturally significant land, not matter how old the site, was always tricky and she respected that. The Founders were her exception. They took issue with any archaeologist that set boots near their land, despite admitting there was no spiritual or cultural significance to the sites Nel chose.
“Well, fuck.” Her tanned hand raked sweat and sunscreen through her sandy hair. She had permits and this was blatant vandalism. She turned back to her colleague and the two grad students who had arrived early to help. They waited, uncertain, at the rope, tools and packs still held with earnest dedication. “Alright, Mikey, grab pictures of this mess. You two, packs and tools go there, and set up a tent over them. Once Mikey has his pictures, clean it up. Wear gloves, it's gross and smells like a sewer.”
She watched as they moved to do her bidding, eyes wide as they got their first good look at the vandalism. “If you need anything, talk to Mikey. I'll be on the phone.” She trudged up the rise, dry soil crunching under her battered boots as she tugged the satellite phone from its case in her pack. She dialed, listening to the clicks as the call connected and surveying the land below her. It was perfect, really. The site was nestled between a stream and the rise she stood on now. The water had carved deep enough to have been there when it was inhabited, but small enough to be on only the local maps. The rise, curving from the north to the west, was covered with artifacts. It was the first place they surveyed, and it provided natural protection from the wind that whipped off the Pacific, just a few hundred feet away.
“You've reached the machine of Dr. Martin de Santos. Leave your name and number and how I can help you, and I'll return your call at the earliest convenience.”
“Martos, it's Nel. Site was vandalized, looks like Founders. We could use some extra help—I don't know if my greens can handle this. Give my cell a call tonight, I'll be in town.” As she hung up, she caught site of the rotted mess Mikey was about to shovel out. It was a rough shape of a symbol. “Oi! Mikey wait!” She snapped a few pictures with her handheld, before waving for him to continue and stamping down the rise. She had been unable to see it from the ground. It was the angled symbol with which the Founders signed their papers, websites and protests. As she watched the clean up, she noted two figures on the rise across the stream. Both wore telltale woven bands around their forearms. A cold mix of dread and defiance crawled down her spine. It wasn’t like them to watch. I'll be damned if I'm going to be cowed by radicals. “C'mon,” she called to the students, brown eyes fixed on the figures above. “I wanna see you moving dirt by ten!”
She returned to the site and sat on a rock, flipping through her field book. She had been digging since she was an undergrad. She had started with a history major, then steadily worked backwards in the time line, learning about anthropology, prehistorics, and paleolithics. She fell in love with her first dig. Now, with her doctorate defended, she had her own crew, her own research. Not to mention funding from a generous private patron to continue her passion for sweat, dirt, and work that made her body ache. She was staring at the page where she had sketched the site last summer when Mikey sauntered over.
He was a blocky man—square head, square hands, square shoulders—with only a slight paunch to round out the edges. “Sucks, eh? Think it was the Flounders?”
Nel smiled at his nickname for their adversaries. “More than likely. I tried to keep this site under wraps, but when you've grown up here, I think nothing escapes notice. They were watching us clean up this morning. Creeps me out a bit.”
Mikey glanced at her, a frown crinkling his sun-weathered skin. Mikey was the resident prehistoric ceremonial specialist from their department, but more than that he was her best friend. “Everything OK?”
She shrugged. “I don't know.” Her gaze was fixed on stain from rotted debris.
He rose with a groan. “I bet you a beer you pick up a shovel before tomorrow's over.”
It was an old tradition. Nel could not keep her hands out the dirt, and even as site supervisor, she often found herself in a pit before long. She laughed. “You're on.”
•
THE JEEP RIDE BACK down to the village was about as comfortable as what Nel assumed a camel ride would feel like. The wheels bounced over a road that Class 6 trails in the U.S. dreamed of being when they grew up. It still made Nel feel decidedly badass. The trip took all of 30 minutes, though the distance was short, and it was close to 5:00 when they arrived. The house they rented for the summer— Vecuna y Las Rosas—was a small, narrow building, butted up against the hillside. A locked shed in the rear had enough room to park the Jeep and equipment, and that was all that mattered to Nel. She swung off the Wrangler's rollcage and began unloading.
“Go shower, get settled in if you didn't last night. Be downstairs in half an hour—I'm orienting the undergrads who arrived today. Dinner is whatever, wherever.” When the students had scattered she felt Mikey's concerned gaze. She did not want that conversation. Not now.
“Meet you on the porch in twenty!” She hoisted her pack over her shoulder and grabbed the bag they used for the day's artifacts. She and Mikey had two of the singles on the fourth floor and with them the privilege of a private bathroom. The house was narrow and tall, giving the impression of precarious building. Nel knew it had survived every earthquake with minimal damage and had no qualms with her room at the very top. She dropped her field pack off in her room and spread out the finds on a desk in the spare room. Her fingers traced the artifacts. They were few, but promising.
Finally she grabbed her cooler and jogged down to the porch. Nel eased herself into a chair next to Mikey with a sigh. “What do you think this year'll bring?”
“Artifacts or crew?” Mikey popped open one of the precious ciders he shipped from the States.
“Crew. Artifacts are too close to home for me to comment on.” The rest of the diggers arrived that afternoon. She wasn't looking forward to orientating a bunch of undergrads.
Mikey snorted, running fingers through his sweaty hair. “I think we'll get three partiers — old fashioned drunks — someone in a committed relationship and then the studious brown nose.”
Nel laughed. “The usual round up?”
“Not every time. That one year everyone was a fucking introvert.”
“You got a problem with that?”
“You kidding? That was the only year I got some decent sleep. Every other time it's either been drunkards stumbling up the stairs at 3:00 or someone boinking through the wall.”
Nel raised her glass. “To introverts and celibates?”
Mikey hooted and tapped his bottle to hers. “Fuck yeah.”
A door slammed above them and Nel smothered a smile. “I suppose I'll quiet down. They'll think I'm the partier among them.”
Mikey laughed softly. “No, but you get a few beers and you'll be prowling the bars for a tanned-up senorita.”
“She only chatted me up once, and it was my birthday.” She leaned back with a smile. “You think she's still there?”
The screen door snapped open behind them and Mikey craned his neck to peer over. “Ahh, the crew approaches.”
Four undergrads filed onto the porch. Each performed a rendition of the Where-Should-I-Sit dance before settling on the bench along the edge. Nel watched them shuffle about. She noticed more than a few puzzled glances directed at her and Mikey's un-showered appearance. They'll be embracing dirty-beers soon enough. A moment later her two grad students arrived and flopped, dirty, into the chairs.
When they stilled, she leaned forward, her eyes bouncing from one digger to the next. “Welcome to Chile. I'm Dr. Nel Bently and this is Dr. Michael Servais. We're heading up this year's field school for USNE. I know you all have to get settled in, you're welcome to skip dinner tonight. We do crew dinners every Wednesday. We'll get to know each other a bit now and the grad students will join us at the restaurant — Padradito's — a bit later. I know all of you by name, but you'll have to help me put faces to those names. Let's go around and introduce ourselves.” The introductions were quick and awkward, Nel ignoring most of the innocuous why-I'm-an-arch-major nonsense as she tried to pin faces to names. I'll learn about them over the next weeks. No sense wasting time now.
When they finished, she polished off her beer and flipped open the cooler. “The social rules — I'll go over the work rules tomorrow on site — are simple. I know you're all of age, and we'll be drinking here, but try to keep the shenanigans to a minimum. Drink, but don't drive or be an asshole. Flirt with the local boys and girls, but don't get pregnant or knock someone up. Don't wander off alone. I don't have the budget for a drug lord's ransom, but that won't stop them from trying.” The well-worn warning slid off her tongue and she added a narrow-eyed glare to the words. “Stay up late skinny dipping and bar hopping, but be out here on time in the morning. If you drink too much, you deserve the hangover.” She made sure to punctuate the last statement with a heavy swig of her new bottle. “Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have a shower-beer.”
The door clapped shut, muffling the stuttering conversation. She breathed a sigh of relief. She hated dealing with new people. She took advantage of the deserted upstairs by stripping off her dirt-logged clothes in the hall and almost skipping naked into the wet-bath. Within five minutes the solar-heated water ran red from the dirt ground into her skin.
Images of her vandalized site flashed through her mind. She slammed a fist against the tile. “Fuckers!” Her words echoed in the small room and she winced. There was no way Mikey didn't hear. The water was hotter than the day had been, and worked a few superficial knots from her back. Man, there's nothing like a Phase II to screw up my back. She stopped, soap forgotten in her hand. She had her own Phase II dig. Her excavation was fully funded by a third party and accredited through two universities. If under-grad-Nel saw her now she would never believe it. Nel tilted her head into the water with a happy sigh. Her mouth curled, eyes crinkling as they closed. Someone pinch me, I'm dreaming.