“But it’s happened before. That guy in Page. He had a collection just like Bruce’s. And when the system got through with him, he was dead. It’s still an open wound. Last time I checked, the Constitution still has the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.”
“Nobody’s getting investigated for pot hunting,” Dalton said.
“Stanton, which one is the Fourth?” Mrs. Gladstone asked.
“Illegal search and seizure,” Forsythe said, pushing up his glasses with a middle finger.
“Oh well, people shouldn’t search and seize if it’s illegal,” she said.
“Very true, Janey,” Forsythe said. “Who watches the watchmen?”
Dalton pulled himself out of a slouch and adjusted his belt and holster. “Would it be okay if I went in and got to work?”
“It’s a free country,” Forsythe said.
“I would just like to help with the effort,” Mrs. Gladstone said. “Nobody will tell me where I can find Raylene. Maybe LaRae will.” She pushed past Dalton and headed inside the building. He considered chasing after her but didn’t.
Dalton leaned into Forsythe’s space. He could see the beads of sweat on Stan’s brow. “So help me, Stan, this is not a puppet show.”
Dalton pushed past Forsythe and went into the building. When he came to the reception area, he found Mrs. Gladstone with her bracelets draped across the high desk. LaRae was on the phone with her free hand resting lightly on Mrs. Gladstone’s wrist. As he passed, he heard LaRae tell her that she would ask when they would allow Raylene to have visitors.
As Dalton opened his office door, his phone buzzed. He dug it out of his pocket and saw that it was a text from his ex-wife, Karen: I DON’T SEE THAT YOU’VE LISTED THE HOUSE YET. Three bouncing dots followed. He sat in his chair and waited. The only thing that remained of their marriage was the final paperwork. Her text balloon appeared: THE GIRLS AND I ARE STUCK AT MY PARENTS’ HOUSE UNTIL YOU GET THIS DONE.
She moved out right after Christmas, and a month later she came back for the kids. These ongoing conversations seemed like pathetic cartoons. He thought about the right response. What he wanted to say was that he didn’t want to sell the house, and since she’d taken everything else, maybe she could leave him something. Maybe it would be enough to remind her that he was a person with responsibilities and his work schedule didn’t leave much time for real estate.
His feelings swarmed around the situation. After he came home, the VA doctor gave him some meds for anxiety, but they threw him the wrong direction, sent him into a hellscape, where it felt like somebody else was driving him around with a remote control. He’d bolt awake in the night, babbling, thinking through all the possible scenarios. Waking up dead didn’t seem like the worst problem. Somebody might see suicide as a solution, but he didn’t see how you’d follow through. Plenty of vets did. Guys he knew. You’d have to be determined to do it, and in a way, you’d also have to believe in something on the other side.
He picked up the phone and typed: BRUCE CLUFF KILLED HIMSELF ON SUNDAY. He watched the message change from “delivered” to “read,” then he flipped the phone over and opened the email app on his computer. As his inbox number ascended, he had the feeling that before too long his office wall would be covered with photos, and he’d be connecting them with a ridiculous piece of red string.
___
Sophia stretched awake like a house cat, with a block of sunlight painted across her face and the thin plastic blinds clacking against the interior of the trailer. Birdsong filled the trees. She enjoyed the moment, then her eyes flew open. She grabbed her phone and knocked her UNESCO book to the floor. It was seven thirty. Should have been gone two hours ago.
She tore through the trailer like a cyclone, gathering her sunglasses, multi-tool, water bottle, first aid kit, sunscreen, hat, bandanna, notebook, and camera bag. When she burst through the trailer door, she nearly crushed a small brown paper sack sitting on the rubber mat in front of the folding steps. She stopped and looked across the way to Mrs. Gladstone’s trailer and saw that her car was gone. She picked up the bag and opened it. Inside was a tuna salad sandwich on square wheat bread wrapped in plastic, a soft red apple with a brown gouge near the bottom, and a little bag of four Fig Newtons. There was also a note, written on an old card with a drawing of two wispy-haired babies hugging under an umbrella. Across the top it read FRIENDSHIP IS FOR KEEPS. She opened it.
Sophia, here is a lunch for you, honey. I’m sorry I wasn’t around, but I had to leave early today to see after my friend, Raylene, who lost her husband. Wake me up when you get home, so I know you’re okay. ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ Janey
Sophia lifted her eyes and saw Mikros pacing back and forth in one of the windows of Mrs. Gladstone’s trailer and could faintly hear her yap-growling.
She took the lunch and her backpack and placed them in the bed of the government-issued pickup she had been given for the duration of the grant. It was the plainest kind of vehicle possible. She got in and drove to the BLM depot and fueled up, then she continued to the grocery store. On the way into the parking lot, a turquoise F-250 cut in front of her, the driver flipping her off. She slammed on the brakes and honked, but he gunned the engine and shot in front of her, throwing a cloud of black smoke into the air, half of the truck rolling over the curb as it hit the street.
When her fury passed, she thought about how she’d have to cut corners today to get to the sites she had to measure. It was too far to make two trips, so she’d have to work late, cover everything, and drive back in the dark.
She thought about how she was all by herself in Utah, while her friends from school were doing high-profile fieldwork in Angkor Wat, Cyprus, Peru, and the Gambia. Of course, they hadn’t sparred in public with a visiting scholar over cultural nationalism and UNESCO’s World Heritage Site designations. During the seminar, it hadn’t seemed like a big deal. Her friends cheered her on. But when her advisor, Dr. Songetay, pulled her aside after the seminar to ask if she really had to call the visitor’s work McHeritage, her heart sank.
“Was that an incorrect assessment?” Sophia defended herself.
“No, but it was unwise,” he said. “You can’t just hand people the tools they’ll use to take you apart.”
“Truth to power,” she quipped.
“Well, okay,” he sighed, “I’m an Ojibwe anthropologist, so trust me when I say I’ve seen how this plays out. You spoke truth to a guy who sits on the UNESCO executive board. Nobody is going to back your Jordan site impact proposal now. I don’t like it any better than you do, but now you’re a loose cannon. People won’t risk that kind of trouble.”
“Not even you?” she asked.
Dr. Songetay looked away and shook his head. “Maybe there’s something you can do domestically, for the Park Service or BLM or something. I know some people working in Utah. I’ll do what I can.”
Mrs. Gladstone was so caught up in the idea of getting into the right kind of trouble, but Sophia was starting to believe there was only one kind. She parked and grabbed the lunch Mrs. Gladstone had given her and tossed the tuna sandwich into the garbage can outside the store. She thought about keeping the apple, but it was soft, so she tossed it, too. She might have saved a little time skipping this side trip, but she wasn’t going to make a bad day worse by having crummy food.