Free The Pot Thief Who Studied Billy the Kid by J. Michael Orenduff Page B

got some Gruet rosé in the fridge .”
    “Just coffee.”
    “If you don’ t drink the Gruet, I’m afraid I will.”
    “Even if I drink it, you just open another one.”
    He knows me well.
    I poured us both a cup of coffee. He took a sip and asked what happened to my ankle. I gave him an abbreviated version of my cliff dwelling adventure.
    When I finished, he said , deadpan , “So you’ve become a grave robber.”
    “It wasn’t a grave.” I had summarized for Martin all the options Susannah and I had kicked around on that topic.
    He nodded. “I agree a murderer wouldn’t haul his vic tim d o wn there to bury hi m, but there’s another option.”
    I thought about it for about the hundredth time, but no new explanations came to me.
    “So what is this other possibility?”
    “You taught me math isn’t about numbers. It’ s about reasoning. Take your one fact and combine it with two assumptions. The fact is there’s a guy buried there. The first assumption is he was murdered. The—“
    “That’s a stretch.”
    “That’s why it’s an assumption. The second assumption is that a murdere r wouldn’t haul a body down there. So what fere/font>
    I did abandon math for accounting, but I didn’t forget simple reasoning. “The murderer was already down there.”
    He nodded.
    “Okay,” I admitted, “the logic is flawless. But it depends on two premises. The first is that two people were down there together. The second is that one them decided to kill the other one. T hose both seem highly improbable .”
    “Maybe not so improbable . M aybe they were a couple of pot hunters. They got in an argument about splitting the loot , and one killed the other .”
    The more I thought about it, the more it made some sense. And the more uncomfortable I felt. Not about whether the dead guy was murdered , but about myself.
    I like to compare myself to Howard Carter who found King Tut or to the fictional Indiana Jones. I see treasure hunters as dashing romantic figures.
    But th ere is a seamy side to my profession. It’s estimated that illegally gathered artifacts in the United States constitute a billion dollar black market. The epicenter of that illicit industry is the Four Corners, the place where Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico meet. Archaeologists estimate there are four hundred thous and abandoned settlements and two million grave s in that area .
    The diggers there are not romantic figures. They are often more like gangsters. They use backhoes. They damage more artifacts than the y sell. And they carry guns.
    That’s a far cry’latino Li from me digging with my hands under a de sert moon and treating my finds with care and affection. But as the saying goes, if you lie d o wn with dogs, you ’ll get up with fleas. I was beginning to fear I might be part of the problem.
    Martin held up the pot he’d brought. “You can get this one withou t digging in a grave.”
    His uncle is a gifted potter. This was one of his smaller pots, about six inches high wit h a circumference the size of a grapefruit . The colors were sienna and pomegranate , and the d esign was traditional to their p ueblo.
    “Unfortunately, I don’t have the money to buy it.”
    “You want it on consignment?”
    “Sure. How much does he want for it?”
    “He’s hoping for a thousand.”
    “ Okay. Maybe it will attract some customers. I could use some.”

     
     
     
     
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    It took ere/fstifyme fifteen minutes to make what is normally a three minute walk from my shop, through the plaza and over to Dos Hermanas , primarily because I had to take two rest stops.
    I leaned the crutches against our table at Dos Hermanas and said, “I’m sweating like a pig.”
    “Pigs don’t sweat, Hubie. That’s why they have to wallow in mud to stay cool.”
    “You raise sheep and cattle, not pigs . ”
    “ But I know about pigs. I was an ag major for a while.”
    “ Okay, I’m sweating like a dog.”
    “Dog’s don’t sweat