In the four years before he died of tuberculosis, Ishi developed a deep, genuinely reciprocated friendship with the brilliant Kroeber. During their long conversations and their trips back to the Yahi country, Kroeber learned as much about Ishi’s early life as one man can acquire from another. He learned how the little band of Yahi, certain they would be killed if the white man ever found them, had walked from stone to stone so they wouldn’t leave footprints and had walked under and not through the chaparral, traveling for miles on all fours. He learned how they had lain perfectly still when whites were nearby, sometimes from morning until dark, and how they had lived in tiny, camouflaged huts impossible to see at fifty paces, shielding their fires with tall rings of bark.
And for forty years, no one had even vaguely suspected they were there.
Ishi’s name was enough to end Abe’s resistance. "It’s possible, it’s possible," he said, his eyes glowing. "Why not? A little band of Indians in the rain forest. What better place to hide? Not luxurious, but they wouldn’t freeze either, and they’d have plenty to eat. Oy, Gideon, think what we could learn-a Stone Age people, maybe-what a thing it would be!"
"What a thing, indeed," Gideon said. "But…they’re almost too primitive-bone spears, atlatls. Even the Yahi were more advanced, and certainly the Northwest Coast Indians were way ahead of that even a hundred years ago. So who are these people?"
"Well, remember, they’ve got to be a small band, like the Yahi were-five, six, a dozen people. Even if they walk on rocks you can’t hide a hundred people."
"True, and the cemetery is small. Not many people for a hundred-year occupation, assuming that’s their only burial ground."
"Right. And when you get a group that small and that isolated," Abe said, "you get what I would call the cultural drift phenomenon."
"And what would I call it?"
"You wouldn’t call it nothing because I just named it, but it’s got to be true. Like genetic drift, where you got only one guy with blue-eyed genes. He gets killed, and good-bye blue eyes in that gene pool. Look, you got one guy, say he’s the bowmaker, the only one who knows how. One day he falls off a cliff, and poof"-he snapped his fingers inexpertly-"good-bye bow technology. You just lost five thousand years of cultural evolution."
Gideon thought about it and nodded. "And you’re more isolated and scared than ever. You see the jets go over, you hear the automobiles, maybe see them sometimes, and you retreat farther and farther, where you’re safe, where those strange beings can’t kill you or eat you or whatever they think is going to happen."
"And if someone gets too close, you kill him? Like Eckert?"
Gideon had almost forgotten. "Yes. I think so."
Abe finished the last of his milk and licked his lips. "And you’re going in the rain forest and find them."
"When did I say that?"
"You don’t got to say it. You think I don’t know you?"
He was right, of course. "Abe, think what it’d be like to go in there and talk to them!"
"Yes, sure, only they kill people who get close, remember?"
"Well, yes, but I’m an anthropologist, not a casual drop-in. I’d research the language, I’d-"
"Very nice, only what language? You don’t know who they are, you don’t know what they speak. Look, are we playing chess, or aren’t we?"
Gideon picked up his queen, hesitated, and waved it vaguely about. "Well, I didn’t say I was going in tomorrow. I have the Dungeness dig to finish, for one thing. Then I have a lot of research to do before I try it. I was thinking of next summer." He put the queen down in front of Abe’s advanced pawn.
"Already the queen?" Abe said. "On the third move?"
Gideon pushed his chair back from the chess table. "I think I’d better get going, Abe. I have to be up early."
Abe looked up from the board in surprise. "In the middle of the game?"
Gideon grinned at him. "Checkmate."
Abe stared at the board in rueful confirmation. "In three lousy moves," he said bitterly.
"Child’s play," Gideon said, smiling. "I try that on you about once a year. It always works, and you always say you’ll remember to watch for it next time."
"Next time I’ll remember." He laughed and patted Gideon on the back of the hand. "Gideon, you’re a physical anthropologist, not a cultural anthropologist. I don’t say you don’t know ten times as much as any of them, but why not leave it to the trained ethnologists? Report it to the university. Let them take it from there."
"But the university says there can’t be any Indians in there. I’m not sure I could convince them otherwise."
"You’re not sure you want to, you mean."
"Maybe I’m not," Gideon said.
Abe took a deep breath and let it out in a shuddering sigh. "Ah, in your shoes I wouldn’t be either. Boy oh boy, I wish I was ten years younger. I’d go with you. But this damned arthritis…"
"I wish it too, Abe, with all my heart," Gideon said.
The jingling of the telephone was fading to an echo as Gideon opened the door to Seagull Cottage, and the caller had hung up by the time he got to it. He stood there a little worried-it was 1:20 a.m.-waiting for it to ring again. It didn’t.
"I know you’re going to ring again if I get into the shower," he said aloud, glaring at it. He brushed his teeth slowly and packed his bag for the weekend, waiting all the time for the ring. After fifteen minutes, he gave up, took off his clothes, and stepped under the shower.
The telephone rang.
"Doc, where the hell have you been?"
"John? What’s up? Where are you calling from?"
"Lake Quinault. I’m at the lodge. Julie told me you were coming down tomorrow, and I wanted to catch you before you started out. There’s-"
"Wait, let me get a towel."
He came back to the telephone, rubbing vigorously. It was cold in the cottage, and he’d forgotten to turn on the electric wall heater. "Okay, I’m back."
"Doc, can you bring your tools down with you? We’ve kept on digging around that cemetery, and we’ve turned up another body-a partial skeleton, that is. It looks like Hartman."
"Who the hell is Hartman?"
"Hey, what are you getting mad about?"
"I’m getting mad because, one, you got me out of the shower and I’m freezing, and two, because it’s going to be a beautiful day tomorrow and Julie and I were going to take off for Kalaloch Beach as soon as I got to Quinault, but you’re going to ask me to work all day in a dusty workshop on some dumb skeleton, and I’m going to rant and rave and say no, but eventually I’ll do it out of a ridiculous sense of friendship or service or something equally absurd." He gasped for breath. "That’s why I’m getting mad!"
John laughed, the delighted, childlike burble that always broke down Gideon’s defenses. "I thought you liked working with bones."
"I do like working with bones. I love working with bones. There are just some things I like even more." Gideon sighed. "All right, who’s Hartman?"
"He’s the other guy who disappeared."
"I thought that was a girl. Claire Hornick."
"No, I mean six years ago, the same time as Eckert. Hornick disappeared last week. She’s still disappeared."
"What makes you think it’s not another Indian burial, an old one?"
"Well, we’ve tentatively identified it through dental records, but I’d sure appreciate it if you’d have a look anyway."
"Okay," Gideon said, "okay. I’ll see you about nine. Uh, John?…I’ve been talking the case over with an old professor of mine…"
John listened quietly for ten minutes while Gideon told him about the discussion with Abe, interrupting only to ask for an explanation of atlatls. After Gideon had finished, the line remained silent.
"John? Are you there?"
"I’m here. I’m just in shock."
"Well, after all," Gideon said magnanimously, "you were the one who first suggested Indians-"