The Summoning God: Book II of the Anasazi Mysteries by W. Michael Gear, Kathleen O’Neal Gear Page B

perking.
    For the tenth time, he stared at the address he’d written on the front of the envelope, and his gut squirmed: Dr. Maureen Cole, Department of Anthropology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Her face drifted through his mind, straight nose, glinting black eyes, full lips, long black hair.
    Dusty folded his arms across his chest like a shield.
    Sending a letter was the coward’s way out.
    Dale stepped out of the camp trailer and walked carefully down the trail that led to the ruin. He wore a tattered gray canvas coat that Dusty had seen on a hundred excavations. It had to be thirty years old. White insulation peeked through the holes in the elbows, and there were numerous rips around the cuffs. Dale picked his way, step by step, over the irregular rock, and paused two paces from Dusty to stare down into the excavation. A thatch of wiry gray hair stuck out beneath the brim of his fedora.
    In his seventies, Dale was still fit. He had worked with the best, Neil Judd, Paul S. Martin, Harold Colton, Emil Haury, and the other giants in the discipline. Though a professor emeritus, he just
couldn’t stay away from the field. His love had always been dirt archaeology. Dusty supposed he would eventually die on a site somewhere.
    “I’ve just been on the phone to the Wirths. They want some photographs of the kiva bone bed. Apparently, they’re going to start planning their subdivision.”
    Dusty looked up. “Oh, great. What do you think of all this? An archaeology subdivision?”
    It sounded like Dusty’s worst nightmare. He could just see the owners out with their shovels, destroying every subtle bit of data the site contained to get to the best artifacts—which they would probably sell on the open market to people who could care less who the Anasazi were or what had happened to them.
    Dale tipped his fedora back on his head. “To tell you the truth, William, if it saves one archaeological site from destruction, more power to them.”
    “You think this will save sites? And Sylvia calls me an optimist.”
    Dale paused. “William, the political entanglements of archaeology in this country today are forcing more and more landowners to bulldoze sites. Perhaps subdivisions like this will help to educate people. I think it’s worth a try.”
    “Yeah, I suppose,” Dusty answered. “But what about us? I mean, if it comes down to a choice between professional ethics and the Wirths’ financial interest, what do we do?”
    “We do what’s right for the archaeology, William.” Dale’s bushy eyebrows arched. “But I think the Wirths are genuinely interested in making archaeology an integral part of their subdivision here.”
    “Right.” Dusty looked down at the skull in his hands. He tried to imagine the old woman’s response to the knowledge that people in the future were going to try and make money off the ruins of her culture. Could she even have conceived such desecration?
    “What have you got there?” Dale indicated the skull.
    “I think she’s an old woman.”
    “And that?” He pointed to the hole. “Trephination?”
    “Maybe. I can’t tell if it was done when she was alive, or after she died.”
    Dale glanced from the skull to Dusty. “I know someone who could tell.” He paused, trying to read Dusty’s expression. “You could call her, William.”
    Dusty gut tightened. “She’s in the middle of her semester, Dale. She has classes, students, all that academic bull that lab rats insist on. But I thought maybe I’d write her.”
    “She’s tenured,” Dale said mildly. “You can bet that if Maureen Cole, one of the world’s foremost physical anthropologists, walks into the dean’s office and says she needs to leave for a couple of weeks to conduct research, he’ll grant it.”
    “Just like that?”
    “He’s no fool. Maureen could have a position at any university in North America.”
    “So, why does she stay at McMaster? There are bigger, more prestigious places.”
    Dale