Sacred Ground by Barbara Wood Page B

flavor of the hour,” he said with another smile.
    She and Jared fell silent again and Erica thought of a hundred things to bring up that needed to be discussed— her growing concern about the lack of security around the cave, for one— but ultimately all she could do was voice what was foremost on her mind. “Sam Carter just told me about your wife. I didn’t know. I was lecturing in London at the time and was out of touch with the local news. I was sorry to hear about it.”
    His lips formed a grim line.
    “She was so young,” Erica said. “Sam didn’t say how…”
    “My wife died in childbirth, Dr. Tyler.”
    Erica stared at him.
    “We lost the baby, too,” he added softly, turning his eyes toward the dark sea.
    Erica was shocked. Suddenly she felt as if she were standing with a total stranger. “You must miss her.” It sounded lame, but something needed to be said.
    “I do. I don’t know how I’ve made it through these past three years. It just doesn’t seem fair. Netsuya had so much ahead of her, so many plans and dreams. She wanted to redress two centuries of grievances and restore her tribe’s history to them.” He looked at Erica. “She was Maidu. I don’t have to tell you what an undertaking that would have been.”
    As an anthropologist specializing in California natives, Erica was familiar with the story of the Maidu, which was similar to that of every other West Coast tribe. Although they had been unaffected by the Spanish missions, which had spelled doom to the coastal cultures, the Maidu nonetheless met their fate during the Gold Rush, when white men, in their greed for the precious yellow metal, destroyed anything that stood in their way, be it mountains or people. Malaria and smallpox had decimated much of the tribe, and then the miners had driven away game and destroyed fish habitats by using gold-mining techniques that ravaged rivers, killing fish and their spawning beds. Life as the Maidu had known it for centuries winked out almost in an instant.
    “After Netsuya graduated from law school,” Jared continued, speaking to the night, his back to Erica, “she started on a plan to provide housing, senior care, health care, cultural resources, as well as tribal economic opportunities and academic scholarships for her people. But her real dream was to someday see a Native American occupying the office of Governor of California.”
    Erica listened to his words fade away on the wind. When silence followed, and he remained faced toward the ocean, she said, “Netsuya is a pretty name. What does it mean?”
    He brought his gaze back to Erica. She tried to pinpoint the color of his eyes. Steel gray didn’t quite touch it. They were the color of shadows, she thought, and mystery. “Actually, I don’t know,” he said. “Her real name— well, the name she was baptized with— was Janet. But when she took up the cause of her people, she adopted the name of her great-grandmother.” He kept his eyes on Erica. She couldn’t read his expression. There was the anger she had seen since the day he had arrived, but other emotions as well, rippling across his handsome features like the surface of a dark pool disturbed by a breeze.
    She remembered his attitude the day he first arrived here, with a chip on his shoulder, making Erica wonder why he had come with such aggression. She wondered now if it had something to do with his wife. It was well-known that prior to meeting Netsuya, Jared, specializing in property law, had been the legal representative of corporations, heirs, and citizens with land disputes and that it was only after he married an Indian rights activist that he took up their cause. Now it was almost exclusively all he did. Erica imagined some sort of death wish, Jared’s wife telling him to carry on the fight. A ghost was a powerful motivator.
    When Jared leaned against a carved post, folding his arms, Erica was struck by the thought that he was trying to relax, to be friendly. And