"If mines they are," Brandon pointed out.

"Oh, they"re mines, sure enough," the archeologist a.s.serted. "You should be convinced of that, Brandon." He waved a big hand for emphasis. Red clay made crescents beneath untrimmed nails.

"Who were the "ancients" who dug them?" Dell asked. "Were they the same Indians who put up all those mounds you see around here and Tennessee?"

"No, the mound builders were a lot earlier," Kenlaw explained. "The mines of the ancients were dug by Spaniards-or more exactly, by the Indian slaves of the conquistadors. We know that de Soto came through here in 1540 looking for gold. The Cherokees had got word of what kind of thieves the Spaniards were, though, and while they showed the strangers polite hospitality, they took pains not to let them know they had anything worth stealing. De Soto put them down as not worth fooling with, and moved on. But before that he sank a few mine shafts to see what these hills were made of."

"Did he find anything?" Dell wanted to know.

"Not around here. Farther south along these mountains a little ways, though, he did find some gold. In northern Georgia you can find vestiges of their mining shafts and camps. Don"t know how much they found there, but there"s evidence the Spaniards were still working that area as late as 1690."

"Must not have found much gold, or else word would have spread. You can"t keep gold a secret."

"Hard to say. They must have found something to keep coming back over a century and a half. There was a lot of gold coming out of the New World, and not much of it ever reached Spain in the hands of those who discovered it. Plenty of reason to keep the discovery secret. And, of course, later on this area produced more gold than any place in the country before the Western gold rush. But all those veins gave out long before the Civil War."

"So you think the Spaniards were the ones that dug the mines of the ancients," Dell said.

"No doubt about it," stated Kenlaw, bobbing his head fiercely. "Maybe that"s been settled for northern Georgia," Brandon interceded, "although I"d had the impression this was only conjecture. But so far as I know, no one"s ever proved the conquistadors mined this far north. For that matter, I don"t believe anyone"s ever made a serious study of the lost mines of the ancients in the North Carolina and Tennessee hills."

"Exactly why I"m here," Kenlaw told him impatiently. "I"m hoping to prove the tie-in for my book on the mines of the ancients. Only, so far I"ve yet to find proof of their existence in this area."

"Well, you may be looking for a tie-in that doesn"t exist," Brandon returned. "I"ve studied this some, and my feeling is that the mines go back far beyond the days of the conquistadors. The Cherokees have legends that indicate the mines of the ancients were here already when the Cherokees migrated down from the north in the thirteenth century."

"This is the first I"ve heard about it then," Kenlaw scoffed. "Who do you figure drove these mines into the hills, if it wasn"t the conquistadors? Don"t tell me the Indians did it. I hardly think they would have been that interested in gold."

"Didn"t say it was the Indians," Brandon argued.

"Who was it then?"

"The Indians weren"t the first people here. When the Cherokees migrated into the Tellico region not far from here, they encountered a race of white giants-fought them and drove the survivors off, so their legends say"

"You going to claim the Vikings were here?" Kenlaw snorted. "The Vikings, the Welsh, the Phoenicians, the Jews-there"s good evidence that on several occasions men from the Old World reached North America long before Columbus set out. Doubtless there were any number of pre-Columbian contacts of which we have no record, only legends."

"If you"ll forgive me, I"ll stick to facts that are on record."

"Then what about the Melungeons over in Tennessee? They"re not Indians, though they were here before the first pioneers, and even today anthropologists aren"t certain of their ancestry."

Brandon pressed on. "There are small pockets of people all across the country-not just in these mountains-whose ethnic origins defy pinning down. And there are legends of others-the Shonokins, for example..."

"Now you"re dealing with pure myth!" Kenlaw shut him off. "That"s the difference between us, Brandon. I"m interested in collecting historical fact, and you"re a student of myths and legends. Science and superst.i.tion shouldn"t be confused."

"Sometimes the borderline is indistinct," Brandon countered. "My job is to make it less so."

"But you"ll have to concede there"s often a factual basis for legend," Brandon argued doggedly. "And the Cherokees have a number of legends about the caves in these mountains, and about the creatures who live within. They tell about giant serpents, like the Uktena and the Uksuhi, that lair inside caves and haunt lonely ridges and streams, or the intelligent panthers that have townhouses in secret caves. Then there"s the Nunnehi, an immortal race of invisible spirits that live beneath the mounds and take shape to fight the enemies of the Cherokee-these were supposedly seen as late as the Civil War. Or better still, there"s the legend of the Yunwi Tsunsdi, the Little People who live deep inside the mountains."

"I"m still looking for that "factual basis"," Kenlaw said with sarcasm.

"Sometimes it"s there to find. Ever read John Ashton"s Curious Creatures in Zoology? In his chapter on pygmies he quotes from three sources that describe the discovery of entire burying grounds of diminutive stone sarcophagi containing human skeletons under two feet in length-adult skeletons, by their teeth. Several such burial grounds-ranging upwards to an acre and a half-were found in White County, Tennessee, in 1828, as well as an ancient town site near one of the burials. General Milroy found similar graves in Smith County, Tennessee, in 1966, after a small creek had washed through the site and exposed them. Also, Weller in his Romance of Natural History makes reference to other such discoveries in Kentucky as well as Tennessee. Presumably a race of pygmies may have lived in this region before the Cherokees, who remember them only in legend as the Yunwi Tsunsdi. Odd, isn"t it, that there are so many Indian legends of a pygmy race?"

"Spare me from Victorian amateur archeology!" Kenlaw dismissed him impatiently. "What possible bearing have these half-baked superst.i.tions on the mines of the ancients? I"m talking about archeological realities, like the pits in Mitch.e.l.l County, like the Sink Hole mine near Bakersville. That"s a pit forty feet wide and forty feet deep, where the stone shows marks of metal tools and where stone tools were actually uncovered. General Thomas Clingman studied it right after the Civil War, and he counted three hundred rings on the trees he found growing on the mine workings. That clearly puts the mines back into the days of the conquistadors. There"s record of one Tristan de Luna, who was searching for gold and silver south of there in 1560; the Sink Hole mine contained mica, and quite possibly he was responsible for digging it and the other mines of that area."

"I"ve read about the Sink Hole mine in Creecy"s Grandfather"s Tales" Brandon told him. "And as I recall the early investigators there were puzzled by the series of pa.s.sageways that connected the Sink Hole with other nearby pits-pa.s.sageways that were only fourteen inches wide."

The archeologist sputtered in his drink. "Well, Jesus Christ, man! " he exploded after a moment. "That doesn"t have anything to do with Indian legends! Don"t you know anything about mining? They would have driven those connecting tunnels to try to cut across any veins of gold that might have lain between the pits."

Brandon spread his big hands about fourteen inches apart. He said: "Whoever dug the pa.s.sageways would have had to have been rather small."

*III*

Afternoon shadows were long when Dell drove the other two men down to the house in his pickup. The farmhouse was a two-storey board structure with stone foundation, quite old, but in neat repair. Its wide planks showed the up-and-down saw marks that indicated its construction predated the more modern circular sawmill blade. The front was partially faced with dark mountain stone, and the foundation wall extended to make a flagstone veranda, shaded and garlanded by bright-petaled clematis.

Another truck was parked beside Kenlaw"s Plymouth-a battered green 1947 Ford pickup that Brandon recognized as belonging to Dell"s father-in-law, Olin Reynolds. Its owner greeted them from the porch as they walked up. He was a thin, faded man whose bony frame was almost lost in old-fashioned overalls. His face was deeply lined, his hair almost as white as Brandon"s. Once he had made the best moonshine whiskey in the region, but his last stay in Atlanta had broken him. Now he lived alone on his old homestead bordering the Pisgah National Forest. He often turned up about dinner time, as did Brandon.

"h.e.l.lo, Eric," Olin called in his reedy voice. "You been over to get that "chuck that"s been after my little girl"s cabbages yet?"

"Hi, Olin," Brandon grinned. "Shot him yesterday morning from over across by that big white pine on the ridge."

"That"s near a quarter-mile," the old man figured.

Brandon didn"t say anything because Ginger Warner just then stepped out onto the porch. Dell"s younger sister was recently back from finishing her junior year at Western Carolina in nearby Cullowhee. She was tall and willowy, green-eyed and quick to smile. Her copper hair was cut in a boyish s.h.a.g instead of the unlovely bouffant most country women still clung to. Right now she had smudges of flour on her freckled face.

"Hi, Eric," she grinned, brushing her hands on her jeans. "Supper"ll be along soon as the biscuits go in. You sure been keeping to yourself lately."

"Putting together some of my notes for the thesis," he apologized, thinking he"d eaten dinner here just three nights ago.

"Liar. You"ve been out running ridges with Dan."

"That"s relaxation after working late at night."

Ginger gave him a skeptical look and returned to her biscuits. With a ponderous grunt, Dr Kenlaw sank onto one of the widearmed porch rockers. He swung his feet up onto the rail and gazed thoughtfully out across the valley. Mist was obscuring the hills beyond, now, and the fields and pasture closer at hand filled with hazy shadow. Hidden by trees, the Pigeon River rushed its winding course midway through the small valley. Kenlaw did not seem at ease with what he saw. He glowered truculently at the potted flowers that lined the porch.

"What the h.e.l.l!" Kenlaw suddenly lurched from his rocker. The other three men broke off their conversation and stared. Balancing on the rail, the archeologist yanked down a hanging planter and dumped its contents into the yard.

"Where the h.e.l.l did this come from!" he demanded, examining the rusted metal dish that an instant before had supported a trailing begonia.

Dell Warner bit off an angry retort.

"For G.o.d"s sake, Kenlaw!" Brandon broke the stunned reaction.

"Yeah, for G.o.d"s sake!" Kenlaw was too excited to be nonplussed. "This is a Spanish morion! What"s it doing hanging here full of petunias?"

Ginger stepped onto the porch to announce dinner. Her freckled face showed dismay. "What on earth...?"

Kenlaw was abashed. "Sorry. I forgot myself when I saw this. Please excuse me-I"ll replace your plant if it"s ruined. But, where did you get this?"

"That old bowl? It"s lain around the barn for years. I punched holes along the rim, and it made a great planter for my begonia." She glanced over the rail and groaned.

"It"s a morion-a conquistador"s helmet!" Kenlaw blurted in disbelief. Painstakingly he studied the high-crested bowl of rusted iron with its flared edges that peaked at either end. "And genuine too-or I"m no judge. Show me where this came from originally, and I"ll buy you a pickup full of begonias."

Ginger wrinkled her forehead. "I really don"t know where it came from-I didn"t even know it was anything. What"s a Spanish helmet doing stuck back with all Dad"s junk in our barn? There"s an old iron pot with a hole busted in it where I found this. Want to look at it and tell me if it"s Montezuma"s bulletproof bathtub?" Kenlaw snorted. "Here, Brandon. You look at this and tell me I"m crazy."

The albino examined the helmet. It was badly pitted, but solid. It could not have lain outside, or it would have rusted entirely away centuries ago. "It"s a morion, of course," he agreed. "Whether it dates to conquistador days or not, I"m not the one to tell. But it does seem equally unlikely that a careful reproduction would be lying around your barn."

"h.e.l.l, I know where that come from," Olin cut in, craning his long neck to see. "I was with your-all"s daddy time he found it." Kenlaw stared at the old mountain man-his eyes intent behind thick gla.s.ses. "For G.o.d"s sake-where?"

Olin worked his pointed chin in a thoughtful circle, eyeing Dell questioningly. The younger man shrugged.

"Place up on Old Field Mountain," Olin told him, "near Tanasee Bald in what"s now Pisgah National Forest. There"s a sort of cave there, and I guess it won"t do no harm now telling you a couple of old boys named Brennan used to make a little blockade from a still they"d built back inside. Me and Bard used to stop up there times and maybe carry wood and just set around. Well, one time Bard goes back inside a ways, and we worried some because he"d had a little-and after a while he comes back carrying that thing there and calling it an Indian pot "cause he found it with a lot of bones way back in there. He liked to keep arrowheads and axeheads and such-like when he found them, and so he carried that there back and put it with some other stuff, and I guess it"s all just laid there and been scattered around the barn since."

"You can find the place still?" Kenlaw pounced. "Can you take me there tomorrow? Who else knows about this?"

"Why, don"t guess there"s n.o.body knows. The Brennans is all out of these parts now and gone-never did amount to much. Hardin Brennan got hisself shot one night arguing with a customer, and they said his brother Earl busted his head in a rock fall back there in the cave. Earl"s wife had left him, and there was just his boy Buck and a daughter Laurie. She was half-wild and not right in the head; young as she was, she had a baby boy they said must"ve been by her own kin, on account everybody else was half afraid of her. They all went up north somewheres- I heard to live with their mother. There"s other Brennans still around that might be distant kin, but far as I know n.o.body"s gone around that cave on Old Field Mountain since Buck and his sister left here better than twenty years back."

Kenlaw swore in excitement. "n.o.body knows about it, then? Fantastic! What time tomorrow do you want to go? Better make it early. Seven?"

"Say about six instead," Olin suggested. "You"ll need the whole day. How about coming up to the cabin-if that"s all right with you, Eric? Shouldn"t go back in there by yourself, and Lord knows my old bones are too brittle for scrambling around such places."

"Sure, I"ll go along," Brandon agreed. "Sounds interesting."

"No need to," Kenlaw told him. "I"ve done my share of spelunking."

"Then you know it"s dangerous to go in alone. Besides, I"m intrigued by all this."

"You all coming in to eat?" Faye Warner pushed open the screen.

"Ginger, I thought you"d gone to call them. Everything"s ready."

*IV*

There was chicken and ham, cornbread and gravy, tomatoes and branch lettuce, bowls of field peas, snap beans, corn and other garden vegetables. Kenlaw"s scowl subsided as he loaded his plate a second time. Shortly after dinner the archeologist excused himself. "Been a long day, and we"ll be up early enough tomorrow."

Olin drove away not long after, and when Dell went off to see to some ch.o.r.es, Brandon had the porch to himself. He was half asleep when Ginger came out to join him.

"Did I startle you?" she apologized, sliding onto the porch swing beside him. "You"re jumpy as a cat. Is that what living in the city does to your nerves?"

"Keeps you alert, I guess," Brandon said sheepishly.

Coppery hair tickled his shoulder. "Then you ought to get out of New York after you finish your project or whatever it is. Sounds like you must spend most of your time travelling around from one place to another as it is."

"That"s known as field research."

"Ha! Dell says you don"t do anything but laze around the cabin, or go out hunting. No wonder you still don"t have your doctorate. Must be nice to get a government grant to run around the country studying folklore."

"Well, part of the time I"m organizing my notes, and part of the time I"m relaxing from the tension of writing."

"I can see how lugging that cannon of a rifle around would be exercise. Why don"t you use that little air pistol instead?"

"What air pistol?"

"You know. You use it sometimes, because once I saw you shoot a crow with it that was making a fuss in the apple tree in front of the cabin. I saw you point it, and there wasn"t a sound except the crow gave a squawk, and then feathers everywhere. My cousin has an air pistol too, so I knew what happened."

"Little spy." His arm squeezed her shoulder with mock roughness. "Wasn"t spying," Ginger protested, digging her chin into his shoulder. "I was walking up to help Dell chop tobacco."

When Brandon remained silent, she spoke to break the rhythmic rasp of the porch swing. "What do you think of Dr Kenlaw?"

"A bit too pig-headed and pushy. They raise them that way up north."

"That"s one, coming from a New Yorker! Or are you from New York originally? You have less accent than Dr Kenlaw."

"Hard to say. I grew up in a foster home; I"ve lived a lot of places since."

"Well, folks around here like you well enough. They don"t much like Dr Kenlaw."

"I expect he"s too aggressive. Some of these obsessive researchers are like that."

Ginger lined her freckles in a frown. "You"re a researcher. Is Dr Kenlaw?"

Brandon went tense beneath her cheek. "What do you mean? "

"I mean, have you ever heard of him? If you"re both studying the same subjects pretty much...?"

"I don"t know his work, if that"s what you mean." Brandon"s muscles remained steel-tight. "But then, he knows his subject well enough. Why?"

"He seems to be more interested in gold than in archeology," Ginger told him. "At least, that"s the way his questions strike most folks he talks to."

Brandon laughed and seemed to relax again. "Well, there"s more acclaim in discovering a tomb filled with gold relics than in uncovering a burial of rotted bones and broken pot shards, regardless of the relative value to archeological knowledge. That"s why King Tutankhamen"s tomb made headlines, while the discovery of a primitive man"s jawbone gets squeezed in with the used car ads."

"There was a curse on King Tut"s tomb," Ginger reminded him dourly.

"Even better, if you"re fighting for a grant."

"Grants! " Ginger sniffed. "Do you really mean to get that degree, or do you just plan to make a career of living off grants?"

"There"s worse ways to make a living," Brandon a.s.sured her.

"Somehow I can"t see you tied down to some university job. That"s what you"ll do when you get your doctorate, isn"t it? Teach?"

"There"s a lot of PhDs out there looking for jobs once the grants dry up," Brandon shrugged. "If there"s an opening somewhere, I suppose so."

"There might be an opening at Western Carolina," Ginger hinted.

"There might."

"And why not? You like it down here- or else you wouldn"t keep coming back. And people like you. You seem to fit right in-not like most of these loud New York types."

"It does feel like coming home again when I get back here," Brandon acknowledged. "Guess I"ve never stayed in one place long enough to call it home. Would you like for me to set up shop in Cullowhee?"

"I just might."