Говард Уолдроп - Them Bones

‘So that’s what you do with it!’ said Sun Man. ‘Someday, Yazoo, you will have to teach me to do that.’

El Hama took the horse a few more trips around the plaza, then reluctantly came back. He knew he was holding up his hosts.

‘He rides beautifully,’ he said, dismounting. ‘Ah, it will be fine when such animals as this live in this land.’ He looked at me. ‘You will dine with us this night aboard the ship?’

‘Certainly.’

‘I also have questions to ask you. Many, many questions,’ he said.

We had reached Sun Man’s house. People started handing us food and drink, and trying to get us to dance.

The platform mound looked like a pie graph. The test trench led in from each side, widened out in wedges where the headless skeletons had been uncovered on each side.

Jameson, Kincaid, and Bessie were opening the conical mound atop the other.

‘We’d better work in from this side.’

‘We’re going to have to take this whole mound system down to ground level, starting with the top.’

‘Is that what I think it is? Give me that whisk broom.’

‘Look at that.’

‘There’s another one under it.’

‘Over here, too.’

‘I’ll bet these just fit some of the necks downstairs.’

‘You know they do.’

‘Still more. Was that thunder again?’

‘Hell yes! Washington! Tear down my tent and bring it down here. Put all my stuff in the sorting room.’

‘How’s the dam?’

‘I can’t see anything from here.’

‘Oh boy.’

‘What?’

‘See those mold marks?’

‘Everybody out! Get the photographer in here. You getting this profile, Bessie?’

‘More skulls down here. God knows how many. That means lots of skeletons down below, probably. These skulls must be piled up from the level of the top of the platform mound.’

‘And this mound has different soil …’

‘Look, look.’

‘Part of a long tomb?’

‘Has to be, has to be.’

‘Get more light in here.’

‘It’s darker outside.’

‘Must be storming again. This tent’s going to take off.’

‘I hope they got the other tarps back down. Who’s shellacking?’

‘Leroy!’

‘Good.’

‘Find me something about a quarter inch thick and ten inches long.’

‘Get the photographer in here! Bring the shellac!’

‘Is that rain again?’

‘God! This guy must have been the Rockefeller of his time.’

‘Ignore all that stuff right now. Look at the arm.’

‘Broken and regrown.’

‘But look at that nick on the bone!’

‘Get the photographer in here!’

‘Easy, easy. Try to brush – there. Let me have the ice pick. No. The curved one. There. Wait. Wait.’

‘What are those?’

‘Try to keep the head attached.’

‘I can’t do very much of anything with that damn breastplate in the way.’

‘Can you keep them in one piece?’

‘Maybe.’

‘That’s steel.’

‘Maybe.’

‘I’ve got it. Them. And the head’s still on.’

‘Get them back to the sorting tent. Is that rain again?’

Bessie walked with the object cupped in her hands. It was a necklace made of tiny metal beads. Attached to it through holes drilled in their edges were many dozen thin rusted oblongs of metal, one inch wide, two inches long.

On at least one was writing in English.

Dawn was breaking, wet and sodden. They had been at work on the mound for twenty hours.

DA FORM 11524 Z 3 Feb 2003

Comp: 147TOE: 148

Pres for duty

106

KIA

13

KLD

4

MIA

12

MLD

1 for: S. Spaulding

Wounded, hospCol, Inf.

11 Commanding

Total 147by: Atwater, Willey

2LT, Arm.

Act. Adj.

DA FORM 11721 Z 6 Mar 2003

Comp: 147TOE: 148

Pres for duty

91

KIA

22

KLD

6

MIA

21

MLD

1

Wounded, hosp.For: S. Spaulding

6 Col, Inf.

Total 147 Commanding

by: Atwater, Willey

ILT Arm.

Act. Adj.

DA FORM 12014 Z 11 Apr 2003

Comp: 147TOE: 148

Pres for duty

81

KIA

23

KLD

6

MIA

21 For: S. Spaulding

MLDCol, Inf.

1 Commanding

Wounded, hosp.by: Atwater, Willey

21 ILT, Arm.

Total 147Act. Adj.

WAR DEPARTMENT

20 July 1929

RE: Serial Nos Possible US

Army Personnel

Dr. Kincaid

Salvage Survey

c/o Dixie Hotel

Suckatoncha Louisiana

via Baton Rouge

Dr. Kincaid:

In re: list of 75 possible US Army personnel your communication 18 July 1929. Two (2) names match current active duty US Army personnel, one duty Philippine Islands, one assigned Ft. Meade Maryland, officer rank not NCO. DOBs do not match.

Check underway US Navy & Marine Corps. Message relayed DOTreasury for Coast Guard personnel. DOInterior Veteran’s Bureau checking, answer expected NLT COB this date. Will forward Daughters Confederacy, S-A War Veterans.

Expect arrival your area ASAP Cpt Thompson, Graves Registration Officer this command to assist, act as liaison govt. agencies this problem.

Jilliam, T. V.

Cpt, Art.

Acting Asst AGC

We had to quit eating late in the afternoon. We waddled back to our huts and lay down and went to sleep.

Just at dark we were wakened by the whistle of the ship.

Took and I, Sun Man, some of the nobles, several warriors, and a couple of the artisans had been invited to the boat. The only Buzzard Cult person there was Moe, who was also head of one of the kinship systems.

We all met at the landing. The ship was dark. Then, all at once, it lit up with a cool blue light like giant glowworms were inside the decks and passageways.

El Hama and his men came down to greet us and led us aboard. They seated us around the largest room, maybe a third the length of the ship, on the second deck.

We ate again, while three of the merchants played on a guitar, drum, and flute. Several of the Northerners did acrobatics for us, like great bears inside their shaggy skins. I was seated on the opposite side of the circle from Took, Sun Man, and el Hama. I followed the conversation as best I could. It was mostly of inconsequentialities, trade, hunting, weather, crops, the surplus of skins and the shortage of bear’s teeth, and (el Hama begged pardon) woodpecker scalps. It was a lot like my idea of what a Rotary Club lunch in Des Plaines on a slow Tuesday would be like.