Free Orphan of Creation by Roger MacBride Allen Page A

mower’s grass-catcher into the garden compost heap—for the fourth or fifth time, judging from the heaps of cuttings. Livingston parked his near-antique ‘73 Dodge by the shed, got out, took his purchases from the back seat, and set them on the rear deck of the car.
    Barbara dusted off her hands and came over. “Welcome back, partner. Just about ready for you. Get everything?”
    “Sure did, Barb. But you won’t like it when that American Express bill hits.”
    “That’s tomorrow’s problem. Let’s see the haul.” Livingston extracted the metal detector and shoved the batteries into it. Barbara took it from him and ran it over the grass by the shed until it started beeping. She bent down, scrabbled in the grass, and produced an old bottle cap. “Okay, that works.” She walked back to the car and checked the rest of the bags. “Film, notebooks, string, compass. Even a metric tape measure. Good. Okay, let’s get to work.”
    They found a good-sized hammer, a wheelbarrow, shovels and trowels, dumped everything into the barrow, and wheeled it over to what cousin Barbara was already calling “the site.” Livingston thought they would be getting right to it with some spade work, and was relieved to learn that evil moment was to be put off for a bit. Barbara explained briefly to him how a road could shift, and how the first order of business was finding the line of the old plantation road. So he relaxed at the edge of the cleared area, sitting on the upended wheelbarrow, happy to be getting paid by the hour, while she walked over every square inch of the ground, rarely taking more than one step at a time, frequently crouching down to examine a bit of stone or a handful of pebbles, scribbling down innumerable notes.
    Livingston watched her as she worked, and got the distinct feeling that she had forgotten him altogether. There was something almost otherworldly in her concentration, as if she was looking at a place that was not there anymore, a place no one else could see. With a start, he realized that was precisely her job description. He watched more intently, wondering what the rocks and clay and topsoil of Mississippi told her that was hidden from him. He started to follow her about, a pace or two behind, trying to see what it was she saw.
    She looked behind herself suddenly, realizing he was there. She smiled, and her face lit up with the light of some special secret inside. “Careful, Liv. You’re walking on the past.” She knelt abruptly and patted the ground with the flat of her hand. “The past is buried right here, if you know how to read it. All this dirt came from somewhere. The pebbles and rocks were part of mountains; the soil itself used to be trees and animals and air and rain, churned up and recycled again and again. The bones of creatures no human has ever seen, from a hundred million years ago, are beneath our feet somewhere, locked up in sediments that were formed before this continent was here.”
    There was a long pause, and Barbara seemed to be staring into the ground, through soil and rocks and strata made clear as glass, to look upon the ultimate secrets of yesteryear.
    As last she shook herself, stood up, and smiled again, this time in embarrassment. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I get so focused, so involved, that I forge t everything.” With a visible effort, she brought herself back to the job at hand. “Listen, load up the camera and photograph the whole area. I shot the whole site before it was mowed, and I might as well have a record of what it looks like now. What I’m looking for is the shape of the land—where the road is in relation to the burial ground and the house, that sort of thing. Grab a notebook and write down a description of each shot.”
    Livingston got busy with the camera, and shot most of a roll. He felt as if he had seen something meant to be unknown, hidden from view under the sheltering mantle of professional decorum. Barbara must be pretty spooked to