Come In and Cover Me by Gin Phillips Page B

stopped speaking.
    Later in the afternoon she hit a root, long dead, and pried at it, then hacked at it with the pickax. She splintered it but couldn’t detach it. She paused to readjust her grip and catch her breath. When she looked up, Paul was kneeling, eyeing the root she’d been attacking. He flexed his biceps.
    â€œVery nice,” she said, straight-faced.
    â€œCan I interest you in two tickets to the gun show?” he said, deepening his voice. She thought it might be a movie reference.
    She handed him the ax.
    â€œOr one ticket to the ax show,” he said in the same voice. He rolled his sleeves up even higher. “I’m all about manual labor. It gives me a little something for the ladies.”
    She vaulted out of the pit to give him room. “Girls do like muscles.”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œOh, yes,” she said, dislodging some sort of gnat from the corner of her eye. “I would have noticed those muscles when I was in college.”
    â€œDon’t get any ideas, son,” said Ed, rummaging through the supply bag. “She’s a long way from college now.”
    â€œI can’t imagine why you don’t date more, Ed,” she said.
    She turned back to Paul, shaking her head sadly. “But it wouldn’t have worked out between us. You’re a nice boy. I would have eaten you for breakfast.”
    The boy blushed, actually blushed underneath his tan, and she arched an eyebrow at him. He ducked his head and started chopping at the root.
    The truth was she did like nice boys. And she had eaten them for breakfast. Spat them out and left them bruised and battered. But even though that was the truth, when she said it to Paul, it was not real. It was only dialogue.
    Later, as they began packing to head back to the bunkhouse, Ed and Paul bickered over when chilies arrived in the Southwest. Paul thought they had come up from Mexico at the same time as corn and squash.
    â€œHey, Silas, when did New Mexico get chilies?” called Ed.
    â€œWhen the Spanish came,” said Silas. He’d been chasing a paper bag that was blowing across the site.
    â€œTold you,” said Ed.
    Later that night they sat on the porch, watching the darkening sky over the mountains. A jackrabbit bounded across the field near the grazing horses.
    â€œSo you know how some of the Mimbres pots have people with parrots perched on their heads?” asked Paul in the silence. “What’s the deal with the parrots?”
    â€œIt taught good posture,” said Ed, unblinking, as if he were staring into the cameras, announcing a traffic jam on I-10.
    â€œIt depends on what we think pottery means,” Ren said. “I mean, there were, in fact, parrots. The Mimbreños traded for parrots from northern Mexico. But are they drawing these pictures the same way we would take a photograph—to capture what actually existed? Or were the images just symbols—representations of an idea or emotion, or some historical allusion? An expression of faith?”
    â€œSo we don’t know?” Paul asked.
    â€œThe only people who know for sure are long gone,” Ren said.
    Paul frowned. “How many licks does it take to get to the bottom of a Mimbres bowl?”
    â€œThat doesn’t even make any sense,” said Ed.
    Paul rocked back on two chair legs. “Silas, how many licks does it take to get to the bottom of a Mimbres bowl?”
    Silas had not been in a storytelling mood tonight. He had stayed quiet, sitting away from the rest of them, close to the fire. Zorro had fallen asleep on top of his feet. Silas didn’t answer Paul, who waited for a moment and turned back to Ren.
    â€œI like the animal hybrids on the pottery,” he said. “Macaw heads on women. Bear heads on turtles.”
    Ren nodded. “Turkey men. Macaw women. Maybe that’s where the jackalopes got started.”
    â€œI think I saw a bear-elk the other night, by the