The Tombs

“Okay,” he said. “They’ve kept their distance for three days. If they come any closer, we’ll have a talk with them. Meanwhile, we’ve got to get that sunken village mapped. The past few weeks have been interesting, but I don’t feel like devoting the rest of my life to salvage archaeology.”

Sam and Remi Fargo always claimed their reputation as treasure hunters had come from catching the attention of a few imaginative reporters on a slow news day. They shared a strong interest in history and the urge to go out and see it for themselves. This spring they had volunteered to do some diving for the state of Louisiana. An archaeologist named Ray Holbert had been on the shore, looking at the coast for damage from the oil leaks after an oil-drilling platform had burned, when he had found some potsherds washed up from the Gulf onto the beach. They were clearly of native origin and quite old. He had asked for a grant from the oil company to salvage what had seemed to be a sunken village. When Sam and Remi had heard about the project, they had offered to pay their own expenses and help.

Remi said, “Come down with me. I think I’ve found another hearth. Bring the camera.”

Sam pulled himself up over the gunwale to reach the underwater camera, and they submerged again. Remi seemed to lose herself in the work. She led him to the stone hearth and let him examine it while she took the camera and photographed the site from every angle to record the positions of the potsherds around it. He watched the graceful movements of her body—in her wet suit looking a bit like her own shadow—and noticed a thin wisp of auburn hair had escaped from the hood of her suit at her forehead. He caught her bright green eyes looking at him through the glass of her mask, so he forced himself to relinquish the sight of her and look at the ring of charred stones she had uncovered beneath the sand. Then they filled their net bags carefully to bring more pottery up to be catalogued and mapped the site where they found them.

Suddenly Sam and Remi both heard the buzzing sound of a propeller. It grew louder, and as they looked up they saw the underside of a black hull speeding toward the anchored dive boat, throwing waves to each side. They could see the outdrive and propeller and the long spiral trail of churned bubbles behind it.

They watched the dive boat’s hull rock and saw the anchor chain tighten to hold it, tugging against the anchor they’d sunk into the sand and then going slack when the other boat slowed down and idled within a yard of theirs. In a minute or two, the black hull sped up again and moved away at high speed, bouncing as it crested each wave.

Sam pointed upward, and the two floated to the surface. Remi climbed the ladder, and Sam followed. As they took off their gear, Remi said, “Well? That was a little closer, wasn’t it? I’m glad we didn’t surface just as they came roaring in.”

She could see Sam’s jaw was working. “I think they zoomed in to look at what we’ve been bringing up from the bottom.”

“I hope they got a good look,” she said. “I don’t want to get chewed up by a propeller over a few potsherds and a middenful of thousand-year-old clamshells.”

“Let’s see who they are,” he said. He started the engine and stepped to the bow. Remi took the wheel and inched them forward in the direction of the anchor so its two flukes would be pulled forward and freed from the sand. Sam pulled the anchor up and stowed it under the foredeck. Remi brought the boat around so Sam could scoop up the small ring buoy that held the diver-alert flag, red with a white diagonal stripe, and pull in its light anchor, then stow both in the stern.

She pushed the throttle forward and accelerated in the direction of the Grand Isle Harbor.

Sam moved forward to stand beside Remi and rest his elbows on the roof of the cabin while he held the binoculars and sca

Remi steered toward the harbor at top speed, but then, as they reached the harbor entrance, she slowed down rapidly. As they came around the breakwater, a Coast Guard boat moved across their bow at a distance.

“Good timing,” Sam said. “You might have had to bat your eyelashes at him to get out of a speeding ticket.”

“I don’t get speeding tickets because I don’t break the law,” she said, and batted her eyelashes at him. “You can take the wheel.”

She stepped aside and he took it, slowing down even more, to the speed of a walk. Remi bent over and ran her fingers through her long hair to straighten it, stood up and glanced at Sam. “You’re still looking for them, aren’t you?”

“I’m mostly just curious. I’m wondering how long we’re going to have amateur treasure hounds, looters, and grave robbers following us everywhere.”

“I guess you gave one too many interviews. It was probably the one with that TV girl from Boston with the long black hair.” She smiled at him. “I could understand why you hung on her every word. She had such a cultured accent that the questions really sounded smart.”

Sam returned Remi’s smile but did not rise to the bait.

They both kept watching the slips they passed for the black-and-gray boat, but didn’t spot it. When they reached the slip for the rented dive boat, they pulled in, tied up to the big cleats, and hung the bumpers over the side. While they were hosing off their wet suits and putting the tanks on the dock to be taken to Dave Carmody’s dive shop to be refilled, they were still watching for the black-and-gray boat.

“Hey, Fargos!” Ray Holbert was waving as he walked out onto the dock, making it roll a little on its pontoons. He was tall and red-faced, and all his movements had a special vigor. His steps were long and his gestures were big.

“Hi, Ray,” said Remi.

“Find anything?”

Sam lifted the cover on a cabinet near the stern to reveal several full net bags. “A few more potsherds we found near a stone hearth, some napped flint tools, a deer antler with some pieces chipped off, probably for projectile points. We’ve got the place nearly all mapped.”

Remi handed up the camera. “It’s all in here. You can download it to your computer and line it up on the chart from where the midden is.”

“Great,” said Ray. “We’re catching up a little. I think we’re going to get the three sunken villages along this part of the coast all identified, mapped, and given a once-over before the grant money runs out.”

“We’ll help out a bit when that happens,” said Sam. “We can extend the work a bit.”

“Let’s wait and see,” Ray said.

“Follow us to our cottage in your truck,” said Remi. “We can hand over the latest finds. The charts and photographs are ready, the artifacts and bones are labeled and shown on the grid. I’d feel better if you have everything.”

“Okay,” said Holbert. “We’re really learning a lot about these people. We knew just about nothing before. These villages were right above the beach. The carbon dates show that they must have been submerged by the rising sea level around the year 700. They all seem to be about the same size as yours—about five or six families in small dwellings with stone hearths. They used catches from the sea for food but also hunted deer inland. This first set of sites has been great.”

“You’re telling us it’s time for the next set, aren’t you?” said Remi.

“After tomorrow, I want to move everybody a few miles west. There’s a couple dozen potential sites, and each dive team has just done one site. The day after tomorrow, I want every team to take an initial survey of a new spot along the coast off the Caminada Headland. That way, we’ll get a better idea of what we’ve got to get done before we start to lose our summer volunteers. We’ll probably eliminate most of the sites when we get a look underwater.”