Free Random Acts of Kindness by Lisa Verge Higgins Page A

twice in the glossy pages of National Geographic for her ongoing work on the Zapotec cultures of ancient Mesoamerica. Fluent in a half-dozen languages, she bore a bullet scar on her leg from a tussle with drug dealers in the jungles of Guatemala. The archaeologist unfolded herself from the ground and made her way around the roped-off area. She walked in the easy, loping gait of a woman who knew people were watching. Her slim, black tank top slipped up to show a wink of navel.
    “Damn,” Maya said as she approached. “Look what the prairie breeze blew in.”
    Claire stepped into Maya’s open arms, knocking her friend’s hat off her head with the brim of her own. Maya smelled of musk and earth and rain and sweat and something spicy, like cardamom or star anise. Tracking this friend’s world-skipping adventures had become something of an embarrassing hobby of hers. Back in Pine Lake, Maya had been a college brat, the daughter of an anthropology professor at Saint Regis College, a few miles outside of town. Maya had missed whole months of high school following in her own mother’s footsteps. Jenna may have questioned Maya’s path, but in Claire’s opinion, this particular Pine Lake friend was the only person she knew who never doubted her life’s purpose.
    Claire pulled back to get a better look at her, from the scar cutting across Maya’s chin to the silver studs winking along the arc of her right ear. “Do you have a portrait aging in an attic somewhere?”
    “What’s an attic? I’m still renting an apartment.” Maya hugged Jenna then turned to Nicole and paused. “Did somebody die?”
    Nicole gave her a quizzical look.
    “I’d never imagined you’d cut off that long, gorgeous hair.” Maya shrugged. “And chopping off hair is a universal sign of mourning.”
    “It’s not universal in San Mateo.”
    “C’mon, Nic, you remember CCD. Jeremiah 7:29: ‘Cut off your hair and cast it away; raise a lamentation on the bare heights…’ No?” Maya’s brows rose high. “And I always thought you were the good Catholic of the crowd.”
    Nicole ran her fingers up her nape. “I did it about eighteen months ago. On a whim.”
    “Well, it suits you, anyway.” The suntanned creases by Maya’s eyes deepened. “Gawd, it’s so good to see you guys. You have no idea how exciting it is to get nonacademic visitors when you’re living in the back of the beyond. Did you ladies come ready to camp?”
    Nicole grimaced as she hefted the tent pack. “My pup tent was meant for my three kids, so we three are going to be cozy. We’d better pray for no rain.”
    “I’ve already danced to my Mohawk ancestors for good weather.” Maya linked her arm through Claire’s and tugged her deeper into the shade. “Come on, let me show you the glamorous life of an archaeologist.”
    Maya led them to the edge of a grid. Spikes jutted from the ground in geometric precision. Strings stretched between them, demarcating the large area that was being unearthed. Within, a dozen people kneeled, gently scraping away at the damp soil with small tools. Maya launched into her explanation, pointing to some depressions in the ground as evidence of a dry moat fortification—suggesting that, a thousand years ago, this had been a Mandan or an Arikara Indian village of some sort.
    “So,” Jenna piped in, “have you found any bodies yet?”
    “No.” Maya pulled a face. “We’re hoping when we dig deeper we’ll find a jawbone or at least some teeth.” She tilted her head at the food truck. “Are you guys hungry? I wouldn’t trust the burgers but the chicken fingers rock. If we’re going to eat, we have to get food now because Pedro leaves at six sharp.”
    Claire murmured assent for all of them. Maya turned to one of the college kids and directed him to set up Nicole’s tent near her own. By the time they all purchased food, that minion had assembled the pup tent and started a small campfire carefully banked by stones. Half of the