Sharyn McCrumb - Lovely In Her Bones

“Prison, I expect,” said Bill. “He and Lerche are probably laundering bodies for the Mafia. I’ve suspected it for months.”

“No, as a matter of fact, I’ve been captured by Indians,” said Milo.

“Does this have to do with why you were glad to see me?” Elizabeth asked.

“Yes. You remember when you found the skull in the woods, and you said that you’d like to go on a dig sometime? Well, today Dr. Lerche decided that we’re going on one up in the mountains, and I’ve arranged for you to be able to come along.”

Elizabeth looked puzzled. “I don’t know anything about archaeology.”

“You don’t have to. Only the supervisors have to be experts. You’ll be one of the field crew. It’s sort of like-”

“Ditch digging,” suggested Bill.

“I was going to say ‘gardening,’ ” said Milo. Elizabeth looked less than delighted, so he hurried into a more enthusiastic account of the project. He explained the Cullowhees’ problem, and the general assignment: to excavate the oldest section of the burial ground to gain clues about the tribe’s origin. “And besides that, Elizabeth, it will be a chance for you to be part of a team establishing new data for anthropologists. Remember the discriminate function chart I told you about?”

She nodded. “The one that enables you to tell males from females and blacks from whites? The skeletal remains, I mean,” she said hastily to forestall Bill’s next remark.

“That’s right. The point is: there is no discriminate function chart for Indians. That’s what Dr. Lerche is working on right now. It’s going to be a pretty major contribution to the field. Most of the data for the chart has already been compiled from Dr. Lerche’s work in the Southwest, but he’s going to add the Cullowhees in to widen the sample.”

“How do you mean, add them in?”

“We’re excavating the old burial ground, right? Okay, when we exhume a body, we take the skull measurements, and so on, and add the data to the statistics we already have.”

“It sounds very exciting, Milo, but what’s the catch? I still haven’t forgotten your remark about the next couple of weeks being difficult.”

“That’s right, Milo,” said Bill. “Skip the part about grave robbing and get down to the rough stuff.”

Milo, who was used to his roommate’s repartee, ignored this remark. He had been about to give Elizabeth a carefully edited version of life on a dig, minimizing the discomforts and tedium, when he remembered what Mary Clare had said about anthropologists burdening themselves with unsuitable women. If he lied to Elizabeth about the rigors of fieldwork, surely he was inviting the same kind of maladjustment in the future. He wanted her to go very much, but it had to be for the right reasons. If she went merely to humor him, it might be all right this time, or even the next dozen times, but sooner or later problems would arise.

Milo sighed. “Okay, here goes. We’ll be camping in the Sunday school room of a little Baptist church in Sarvice Valley, so we’ll have electricity and an indoor toilet, but the showers will be rigged up outdoors, and the cooking will be strictly hot plate or campfire. And you can forget about clean sheets: we’ll be in sleeping bags. We will usually work a ten-hour day, because there’s not much time left in the summer to do this job, and you’ll spend most of the day on your knees grubbing in hard red clay. There’s no salary, and you pay your own expenses. Now, do you want to come or not?”

Elizabeth blinked. “Well, of course I want to come, Milo. I told you I wanted to learn how to read bones the way you do, besides, since you’ve made it sound so awful, if I don’t go, certain people will never let me hear the end of it.” She nodded meaningfully in Bill’s direction.

“Just tell me where you want the Red Cross parcels sent,” Bill remarked.

“Sarvice Valley,” said Milo. “In care of Mr. Stecoah, our host.”

“Stecoah?” echoed Elizabeth. “Amelanchier Stecoah?”

“No. I think this guy’s name is Humphrey. No, that’s not it. Comfrey, maybe.”

“Comfrey! Hold on!” Elizabeth began to rummage through her tote bag from folk medicine class. She pulled out her spiral notebook and leafed through the pages, skimming her notes with her forefinger. “Comfrey is the name of a plant,” she told them. “That’s why I think… ah! Here it is: ‘One of the best-known Appalachian herbalists is an Indian woman, Amelanchier Stecoah, whose folk medicines and reputation as a storehouse of mountain lore have made her the subject of numerous articles and one documentary film.’ Why, she’s famous! And I’ll bet she’s one of the Cullowhees. Do you suppose I’ll actually get to meet her?”

Bill, who had watched his sister’s outburst with weary amusement, turned to Milo and said, “Well, I know what I’m going to do while you’re gone.”

“What’s that?”

“Move. And leave no forwarding address.”

Elizabeth laughed. “Don’t be silly, Bill. What would you do without letters from me to brighten up your tedious existence? Now, I haven’t got time to cook because I have to talk to Milo about the dig. Weren’t you going to order a pizza?”

SARVICE VALLEY, named for the white-flowered trees which covered the hillsides, had been optimistically named by its pioneer discoverers. Strictly speaking, the area was not large enough to be a valley; in local terms, it was merely a “run,” which is the bottomland carved out by a small creek. The encircling mountains formed the community’s boundaries, limiting its population to several dozen families farming a few acres of rocky hillside. A one-lane road turned off the main highway where tiny Sarvice Creek emptied into a stone-studded river, and it paralleled the creek up the run, turning to a dirt track long before it reached the creek’s source: a trickle from a spring in a wooded hollow six miles from the mouth. At the end of the run, where it joined the main road, the hills arched up on either side of the pavement, crowding road and creek into a sliver of land. There was no room to live or farm for the first mile of the run, but after a few rises and turns the land began to level out, revealing frame houses and cornfields on either side. In the widest stretch of bottomland at the center of the run, the community had built its main street: a one-room post office and a general store. Any less basic transactions would have to be carried out in the nearest incorporated town, Laurel Cove, which was eight miles up the highway.

Although Sarvice Valley’s population was 98 percent Cullowhee, there were no souvenir shops or other concessions to tourists. The area was not on the path of the Appalachian Trail and was sufficiently remote to be largely ignored by the sightseers, who confined their interest to the Blue Ridge Parkway or the Great Smoky Mountains National Forest. Those in search of Eastern Indians found the Cherokees conveniently situated to both, so that few outlanders even bothered to investigate the Cullowhees. It was just as well: seekers of colorful Indian folkways would have been disappointed by the Cullowhees, who were indistinguishable from their Appalachian neighbors. Those tourists who did risk their cars’ suspension systems in Sarvice Valley were drawn there by the hand-lettered sign by the side of the main road.

“There!” cried Elizabeth. “Did you see what that sign said?”

“I’m not stopping at any more Antiques or Scenic Overlooks ,” said Milo.

Elizbeth pointed to the weathered board, marked in slanting free-form lettering: AMELANCHIER-WISE WOMAN OF THE WOODS-6 MI. An arrow pointed toward the Sarvice Valley Road. “I told you she lived around here,” said Elizabeth.