People of the Lakes

One


The soft roar of traffic in the distance, the barking of dogs, and the occasional slamming of a door, carried across the chain link fence to this quiet corner of the park. Here, in another six months, there would be a different roar, that of bulldozers, earth movers, and graders.

He dragged his feet through the grass, noting that it needed to be cut again, and to his surprise, spotted something protruding from amidst the green blades.

Kneeling down, he removed his folding knife from his pocket and chiseled the soil away, exposing polished stone. With careful fingers, he freed the object. It felt cool and heavy in his hand.

The piece had been crafted from banded slate; it was dark and lustrous, probably from the quarries in southern Ohio.

Hopewell people had made pendants, gorgers, pipes, all sorts of beautiful stonework. What he now inspected represented some of the finest artistry he’d ever seen.

It was a canoe, with an unusual fox head carved on the pointed bow. Four people sat inside. The second in line faced backward. Now, what did that signify? The specimen was roughly fifteen centimeters long and five centimeters tall.

In the trees behind him, a crow cawed angrily.

Bill looked up and saw the bird perched on the edge of a beech tree that overhung the circular earthwork. “Don’t worry,” he said wearily. “After all, that moron DOT engineer insisted they would miss the circle by exactly twenty-eight feet and seven whole inches.”

The crow flapped its wings in the slanting sunlight, ‘ the sheen from the feathers seemed to glow radiantly.

He gazed down at the canoe again. He couldn’t help but think of the carvings he’d seen at Petroglyph Provincial Park, in Ontario.

Along with Gitchie Manitou and Nanabush, there were many, many canoe figures. But none like this. None with a fox head prow.

He had studied Hopewell culture ever since graduate school and knew its artwork. Stylistically, this was new. Around him, the grass waved and bobbed, hiding the wealth of information just down under that root mat.

“Damn you, Anne Seibowitz.”

The crow made a low, mournful sound, cocking its head, blinking.

Bill sat back on the wet grass, not caring if he stained his uniform. Tomorrow he’d come out with the transit, shoot in the location of the effigy carving, and mail the little canoe down to the university for curation. Then anyone else finding a similar artifact could cross-reference it from the computer curation files—and maybe one of these days, someone would bitch like mad because the key to one more puzzle had been stripped away for a slab of asphalt.

Maybe … A pathetic laugh shook his chest. Who? And by then, Anne Seibowitz would have been promoted to a more influential job. The governor would be in Congress. No one would have to be responsible.

Bracing a hand on the grass, he rose and started back toward the office and the row of shiny trucks, any one of which would have paid for the test excavation he’d pleaded for.

The crow followed him, flying from branch to branch, People of the Lakes Id squawking. As he walked, he looked down at the four travelers in their canoe. Traders? Is that what they were?

Hopewell traders had crisscrossed the continent, following the rivers.-carrying goods all over. It must have been both terrifying and wonderful.

But that was an age of heroes … He stopped by the admission booth, the

“Gestapo Box” as he called it, and opened the mailbox to pull out the daily supply of advertisements and junk mail. The SAA Bulletin, the newsletter of the Society for American Archaeology, huddled among the dross. Bill chucked the rest into the garbage can and headed for the office, flipping through the newsletter as he walked. In the classified section, jobs were listed.

He paused to read one: “Navajo Nation archaeological preservation project is currently seeking applications for full-time employment … “

A car horn blared in the distance. The crow had gone silent, but now flew down to land on the stack of orange-and-white traffic barricades propped against the rear wall of the office.

“Window Rock, Arizona,” Bill mused. He glanced at the crow, which peered back at him intently. “Do you think I could do it? Just throw everything into the truck and go? Uproot my whole life?” The thought frightened him. Way out there, alone, surrounded by a strange people in an alien land. So, what’s keeping you here? His relationship with Marge had broken up weeks ago.

He looked down, thinking about the Hopewell traders who had carried entire canoe-loads of obsidian down the river systems.

Imagine that, from Yellowstone to the heart of the eastern woodlands. They did it. Two thousand years ago!

He inspected the stone canoe and the faces of the people sitting inside. What would it have been like? Who were they?