Chapter One from Slave Graves

segment from my novel Slave Graves, chapter one









”This Goddamned place.”
He increased speed, his new BMW roaring down forehead even though the air conditioner whined at full force. Gravel and dust kicked up by the wheels created a dark following cloud which the car could not escape in the morning heat.
His name was Frank Light and he was the chairman of his university’s department of archaeology, the youngest professor ever appointed to the position. At the moment, instead of managing his department, he was going out into the field on a quick reconnaissance, something his graduate students usually did. Frank had no choice. A location needed to be tested immediately and the president of the university had specifically asked him to do the job.
A potential shipwreck site had been discovered in a marsh on the Nanticoke River. Workmen digging the foundations for a bridge had uncovered timbers of the wreck. The marsh was near River Sunday on the Eastern Shore, a region east of the Chesapeake Bay. One of the bulldozer operators had immediately reported the site to the Maryland construction permit authority as the law required. The state regulations were very definite, much to the chagrin of the bridge contractor. Construction had to be stopped regardless of expense until the site was professionally evaluated for historic importance.
The president had told him this job was a favor for a special friend of the university board of trustees, the famous real estate financier Jake Terment. Apparently, if the bridge wasn’t built, Terment’s whole project and millions of his dollars were in jeopardy. Last night, Frank complained about the special assignment to his girlfriend, Mello, and she had just grinned.
“You’ve got to realize something when you’re chairman, Frank,” she had said. “Universities are a business like everything else. You give something to people and they give something back to you.”
Mello taught a couple of business courses. He had listened to her and knew doing an evaluation survey for this Terment celebrity might be good for the school and good for him. All he had to do was go down there and look the place over to make sure there wasn’t anything significant that was going to be covered up by the new construction.
Mello had kissed him and reminded him that he used to do surveys like this all the time. “Go down there, get the job done, and come on back. Even if you found a galleon, it wouldn’t be important enough to hold up a Terment project, ” she had said.
“Discovering a Spanish gold galleon in the Chesapeake Bay, that would be quite a find,” he had grinned.
She had not thought that was funny. “Sometimes, Frank, I don’t think you’re ready for the big leagues at all, no matter what I try to teach you.”
However, this was still a bad time for him to be away from his office. Corrected proofs on his new textbook on archaeology were overdue to his editor. Also, tonight the field school students had planned their annual end of term festivities in his honor. Even with his new responsibilities as chairman, he still liked working with the younger scholars and had looked forward to the party. He’d never missed one of these celebrations. A part of him would always be an idealistic student no matter how he changed with the responsibilities of his career. He smiled as he drove. Mello could never understand this side of him.
“Grow up, Frank, “ she had said, kidding him about wanting to go to the party with the kids.
He arrived in River Sunday just before noon. The other archaeologists he met at the national conferences talked about the beautiful climates that they visited around the world. He never had that kind of luck. Like this trip, he thought. He always got to these construction site problems when the locations were having a stretch of abnormal weather, wet from rain, cold from snow, hot from sun. Just one time he would enjoy a project that had decent weather. Then he reminded himself, “Be satisfied. You’re smart enough to play the game. Like Mello is always saying, take the jobs no one else wants, smile a lot, and keep your mouth shut. You can wait. There will be plenty of time later to work in the pretty places.”
Frank saw the steeples of the churches reaching high over the orderly colonial houses along the narrow streets. As he drove he noticed that the town had grown around a natural harbor coming in from the Chesapeake Bay. Soon he spotted his destination, the Chesapeake Hotel. He drove the BMW under a large banner stretched across the street. The banner, decorated with red and white, orange and black Maryland flags, proclaimed "River Sunday Heritage Day, August 7." Six days from today, he thought. He found the entrance to the hotel parking and pulled into the ramp.
A few minutes later he walked out of the garage into the sunlight, carrying his suitcase. The August sun was brutally hot on his skin. He could smell the hot tar from the overheated street. Moving in the humidity was like pushing his body against a great rubber band. He breathed hard, straining against the heat as though it would finally overcome him and slap him backwards. He climbed the large wooden steps up to the wide porch of the hotel.
“Boom!”
The noise arced and rumbled above the clatter of the street. He instinctively fell on the planked floor of the porch, pushing his body flat, making his hands grasp for protection from the pine planks. Then he stopped, looked up and remembered where he was. Whatever this noise was, it was not war. Incoming mortars in Vietnam were a long time ago in his life. A black doorman, in a red uniform, standing over him, reached down a hand. “I did that when I first came home from Nam,” the porter grinned. Two tourist women looked on, amused.
Frank took the man’s hand and stood. Momentarily embarrassed, he composed himself by looking out from the porch at the view of the River Sunday harbor. He could see a great number of pleasure boats, sail and power, anchored or sailing out to the Chesapeake Bay in the distance. In the middle of the harbor a huge pile of what appeared to Frank to be large building stones rose fifty feet above the water. They were stacked haphazardly, as if a giant had thrown them there in disgust. A navigation beacon blinked on top of the rocks. Anchored nearby and surrounded by small fishing boats, was a very large and modern white yacht far grander than any other craft in the harbor.