The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike

  “Where did you find these?” Runcible said.

  The boys at once became secretive. Obviously, they had argued it out and agreed not to tell anyone. But, by picking up a handful of the soil, he got his answer. This soil was familiar. They had found the arrowheads down the road, at the leaching line digging.

  “Down there,” he said, pointing at John Flores’ crew.

  The boys, reluctantly, nodded. One of them said loudly. “But nobody cares; we got permission.”

  “From who?” Runcible said.

  “From Mr. Flores,” a boy said.

  “Okay,” he said. He poked among the chunks in the wagon load of dirt. They had found some Indian tools; awls, evidently, and some bones that had been made into hooks or punches. But he did not care about these. “All right, boys,” he said. “Thanks.” Taking his arrowheads, he returned to the house and shut the door after him.

  He seated himself by the phone, examined the arrowheads once again, and then began to dial.

  After several rings, Wharton answered.

  “This is Leo Runcible,” Runcible said. “Listen, some boys just came by and sold me a couple of obsidian arrowheads.”

  “Where did they get them?” Wharton said.

  “You know Walter Dombrosio.”

  “Yes,” Wharton said. “From the leaching field? Where they’re digging?” He sounded triumphant. “I told him to keep watch. Every time anybody digs. I want them to watch.”

  “There was a lot of junk besides arrowheads,” Runcible said. “What looked like granite awls. And leather punching tools. They had a wagon load; they’re peddling it door to door.”

  “All right, fine,” Wharton said in a business-like voice. “Now here’s what I want you to do.” He did not wait for Runcible to assent; he went on immediately, “You go down there to the digging. You understand? Tell Flores to stop digging. Don’t let him do any more digging. I can’t get over for an hour or so, but I’ll be over. Maybe you had better stay down there until I get there. To see that none of the children take any more away. Is Dombrosio home?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, nonplussed at being ordered around by the grammar school teacher.

  “Some of the things are quite fragile,” Wharton said. “So better leave any further digging to me. I’ll bring tools. Let’s see—we have about five hours of daylight. Fine. Goodbye.” The phone clicked; Wharton had hung up.

  For christ’s sake, Runcible thought. I’m supposed to be back at the office; I can’t fool around with this. He started to redial, but changed his mind and put the phone back on the hook. His curiosity had been awakened a little; not to the extent that Wharton’s had…but still, he did feel some excitement. And Wharton’s professional tone had made it grow even more. Maybe there’s something in this, he said to himself. What’s the most they’ve found? Spanish treasure? Buried cities? No, that’s the Aztecs and Incas. Further south. Nothing like that up here…only pottery and tools and arrowheads. But still—

  He left the house and made his way down the road on foot, to the digging.

  A man makes a good buy in arrowheads and look what he gets himself into, he thought as he walked. How long had it been since he had set foot on the Dombrosio property? And now, he thought, I have to go down there and beg to have the work stopped, and for what? For myself? Do I get anything out of this? I put myself in the position of having Walt Dombrosio say no to me, and I get nothing out of it.

  But Wharton was right; the work should be stopped. Science, mankind itself, had a priority above them all. The interests of cultural research had to be served.

  By the time he arrived at the digging he was breathless with excitement. As soon as he caught sight of John Flores he cupped his hands and yelled, “Stop digging!”

  Heads turned.

  “Stop digging,” he panted, scrambling onto the field and hurrying towards Flores. Dirt flew up ahead of him; stones, kicked by his shoes, rolled away. “Did you people find some Indian relics?” he said, halting in front of Flores. “I talked to the West Marin School District—” His mind found the most impressive way to express his errand. “They advise that you halt work immediately.”

  The dark, wrinkled face of John Flores recalled to him the man’s peculiar fame. He could neither read nor write, and yet he was one of the most respected, shrewd and able businessmen in the area; he sometimes bossed eight or nine persons and did a good deal of the heavy work for the ranchers and homeowners. Flores stood almost seven feet high. He wore a tan cloth jacket and jeans and boots, and fixed on his nose was his one pair of glasses, the round steel-rimmed glasses that had been fitted onto him when he was a child.

  Formally, with his usual politeness, he nodded good day to Runcible. “How are you?” he said.

  None of the boys were digging, now; they had halted to gape and listen. So there was no urgency. Getting his breath, Runcible paused. “I got down here as soon as I could,” he said. “To inform you.”

  The problem with Flores was that the power of words was wasted on him; he slogged through to the meaning, and that was the best he could manage. To him, any sort of diction was as effective as any other. He looked only to see how his practical interests were affected. “Say,” he said, “we got to get through. It’s costing us money.” He had no accent, although he was a Portuguese; he had a full voice, impressive in its depth, like that of a radio announcer. “Look we got the job half done.”

  There was no answer to that; at least, nothing that Runcible could think of.

  While he stood there, unable to combat Flores’ ruthlessly practical position, he saw the door of the Dombrosio house open. Walt Dombrosio, in a sports shirt and slacks, stepped outside. He saw Runcible and Flores together and came towards them.

  “You ask Mr. Dombrosio,” Flores said.

  “Right,” Runcible said, bracing himself.

  “What’s going on?” Dombrosio said, when he reached the two of them. He had a dark expression, opaque and withdrawn. Obviously, he had no desire to see Runcible; this unexpected meeting did not make either of them happy. Runcible felt the man’s hostility.

  Runcible said, “I just now talked to Mr. Wharton at the school. You’re a friend of his as I understand it.”

  “Yes,” Dombrosio said.

  “Did you know that some Indian remains were found here?” He pointed to the long trench, in which several of the boys stood with their shovels. “Turned up by the digging,” he said. “Wharton wants you to stop until he can get over.”

  “I don’t care,” Dombrosio said. “What sort of relics?”

  Flores put in, “Mostly stone things. I looked at them. They weren’t much of nothing. We threw them back. Some boys took them.” He clearly did not like the idea of stopping work.

  “Let’s see,” Dombrosio said.

  “The boys took them,” Flores said, gesturing towards the road. “To sell. Nothing to see; they got them all.”

  It did not seem wise to Runcible to say anything about his two arrowheads. Perhaps Dombrosio might claim them. After all, they had been found on his land; he would have a strong case.

  “Do I have to pay for the time wasted?” Dombrosio said.

  “It’s your job we’re on,” Flores said. “I’m not going to take the loss—I’ll tell you that.”

  “At least you ought to split it,” Dombrosio said.

  “No,” Flores said. “It’s your idea to quit. I wouldn’t quit; I don’t care nothing about no Indian relics. If you want me to stand around idle, you’re going to have to pay me. I don’t have my men stand around idle for nothing.”

  After a pause, Dombrosio said, “Maybe they can dig around for more relics, instead of just standing.”

  Runcible said, “Wharton asked me to have them do no digging at all. All I’m doing is repeating what he said; I have no involvement in this. I’m not getting anything out of it.” He felt indignant that it should seem as if he were costing Dombrosio money.

  “Maybe something valuable will turn
up,” Dombrosio said in a grim voice. “I’ll be in the house.” Turning, he walked off.

  “I’ll tell you,” Flores said, when Dombrosio had gone back into the house. “That’s not a very smart guy, to have us stop.”

  Runcible said, “It’s his obligation to society and I admire him for it. He’s absorbing the cost and that’s admirable.”

  With a grunt, Flores wandered off and seated himself on the fender of his truck, to wait.

  Following him, Runcible said, “Show me where they found the relics.”

  The man’s large black hand came up; he pointed.

  “Over here?” Runcible said, following the trench. The boys, with their foolish, grinning faces, gazed at him. “Here?” he said.

  Flores nodded.

  With care, Runcible jumped down into the trench. Dirt rained down the sides and covered his shoes; he saw mud on his trousers once more, on these fresh ones. Sure enough, bits of stone lay among the lumps of brown adobe soil at the bottom of the trench. Squatting, he picked a fragment up.

  The most impressive Indian remains, he knew, were enormous mounds that had been dump heaps composed of every sort of thing considered worthless by the Indians, everything thrown away by them over a period of centuries. Strange, he thought as he scratched at the dirt. That we should pore over five hundred year old garbage. Studying each bit. Seeking something valuable.

  Could a mound be here, exposed by the digging? Most of them, if not all, had been found near the water. The Indians had lived on shellfish, clams and mussels and abalone, and the shells of those creatures had made up the bulk of the content of the mounds.

  Already he had found additional granite tools; from the dirt he lifted out a heavy—what was it? An awl, possibly. A stone cylinder that tapered at one end, almost like a bowling pin. And bits of bone that had been clearly shaped by intention. God damn, he thought exultantly. He had never done anything like this; how exciting it was. But then he realized that everything belonged to Walt Dombrosio, and his triumph, his sense of discovery, vanished. I’m finding this stuff for him, he recalled. So, clambering back to his feet, he stopped.

  Maybe I better get out of here, he thought, before they accuse me of stealing my two arrowheads.

  But curiosity kept him. I think I’ll hang around until Wharton gets here, he decided. I don’t want to miss anything, if it does turn out to be important.

  Less than an hour later the grammar school teacher showed up in old clothes, carrying pick, shovel, rock hammer, gunny sack, and a roll of wire mesh over his shoulder. He waved at Runcible as he tossed his load down.

  “You have on the wrong clothes,” Wharton said as he dropped down to the trench floor and began scooping up trowelfuls of earth and tossing them against the wire mesh. “You need work clothes, my friend.”

  “I know,” Runcible said.

  “Go back up to your house and change,” Wharton said.

  Feeling chagrined—after all, he had already stood idle for fifty minutes—Runcible trudged back up to his house. As rapidly as possible he changed to work clothes and then returned to the digging.

  When he got back he found to his amazement that Wharton had ceased digging. He sat on the ground, his legs folded under him, deep in meditation.

  “What’s wrong?” Runcible said.

  Wharton, holding a granite tool between his hands, said, “There’s something wrong. These things aren’t usually found in soil of this kind. I got all there are.” He pointed to a heap, and Runcible realized that in the time it had taken him to change his clothes, Wharton had collected all these objects. And, he realized, there were no more. Or at least Wharton did not expect to find any more.

  Approaching, Flores said, “Mr. Wharton, can we start work again? Are you through?”

  Wharton said, “Wait a minute,” Absorbed, frowning, he ignored both Runcible and Flores. Suddenly he hopped to his feet and returned to the trench, beckoning to Runcible. “Come here,” he said.

  Getting down beside Wharton, Runcible looked. The man was pointing at the surface of the ground, the untouched surface waist-high to them. “See the contour?” he said. “There’s a wash, here. It’s dug down.”

  “Water,” Runcible said, pleased. “I had the idea that mounds usually were found near water.”

  Wharton said, “There’s a run-off that spills down the hillside, here. It comes from above. It probably carried these artifacts down here over a long period of time. Possibly a few inches a year.”

  “I see,” Runcible said.

  With a wry smile, Wharton said, “This will make a fine leaching line. With spill coming down from above. They’ll be lucky if the pipes and gravel don’t carry the run-off up into their house.”

  “That’s Flores’ work,” Runcible commented.

  Still pondering, Wharton gazed in all directions. He studied the hillside above them, the trees, the several houses. “Whose land is that?” he said finally. “Where those eucalyptus trees are? Back about a thousand feet from the road, where all those boulders are.”

  Runcible, with a queer sensation in his stomach, said, “That’s my land. Part of my property.”

  The grammar school teacher put his hand on Runcible’s arm and forcibly turned him, pushed him down so that he faced in a certain direction at a certain angle. “See?” he said.

  “No,” Runcible said.

  “It takes a zigzag course down the hillside. You see, in winter when the heavy run-off occurs, the grass, the weeds, are so high and so thick that unless it happens to spill over your driveway or between you and your butane tank you’re not going to notice. The water’s down almost in the ground. The adobe almost melts. It seeps as well as spills. You’ve seen it, I’m sure. You just haven’t paid any attention to it.”

  Runcible nodded.

  “It carries a good deal of earth along,” Wharton said. “See how the gouge runs. Very wide, but not deep. We’ll have to go up the hill and take a look at each step until we find where it starts. Or where it’s been picking up this stuff. Those boulders look interesting to me. Do you use that land for anything?”

  “No,” Runcible said. “Not back there.”

  “Then you won’t object to it being dug up, if necessary.”

  “I’m not sure,” he said, guardedly.

  Wharton eyed him. “Oh, come on, Leo. You don’t use that land. I want your permission. Do I have it?” He gripped Runcible friendlily but forcefully on the arm until at last Runcible nodded.

  “I hate the way it looks,” Runcible said. “When there’s anybody digging. It comes from having had to watch street repair as a kid in the city. Where I lived, there were old sewers that always broke.”

  “Maybe you’ll be famous,” Wharton said.

  “Pardon?” Runcible said, not following the man’s reasoning; he seemed to skip along so rapidly.

  “If we find something important. The University of California always sends out people to chart these things, if anything of value turns up. Who knows—maybe you’ll wind up on television.”

  Runcible shrugged. But he felt his heart labor. And a great thrill of intimation sailed up inside him. So it isn’t on your land after all, he said to himself, Mr. Dombrosio. It’s on my land, only it happens to have washed down on yours by accident. I mean, a little bit has washed down.

  Putting his hand into his pocket he felt for his two arrowheads. They were not there, and for an instant he felt horror and panic; his scalp crawled and sweat came up on his forehead.

  “What’s wrong?” Wharton said.

  But now he remembered; he had changed his clothes, had left them in his other trousers. The arrowheads were safe. And, he thought, we may find a lot more. And other things besides. And they are mine.

  11

  At the office of the Carquinez News, Seth Faulk opened the envelope that Mrs. Runcible had handed him. While he read she remained at the counter, standing silent and—it seemed to him—tense in her long coat, with her purse between her hands. She kept her eyes
on him; he could feel her.

  “You want me to read this through now?” he said. “While you’re here? It’ll take a while.” He preferred to put it aside until later; for an hour he had been working on an ad for the grocery store, and it had to be done by noon.

  Janet Runcible said, “I’ll wait.”

  Inwardly, Faulk sighed. He continued reading, skipping whole lines, getting the general sense only. From the start it was obvious that Leo Runcible had written this himself; not only had it been typed on the typewriter at the realty office (the same on which all the other Runcible proclamations had been typed) but it had in it the usual Runcible-isms. The throwing the gauntlet to everyone. As if Runcible could not stick to telling, or even educating, but had to incite. Faulk thought, The man must see the world as composed of either friends or enemies. Those who are for him are supposed to read this and flock to his defense. The others I suppose will behave as usual.

  He glanced up at Mrs. Runcible, standing there so stiffly. Almost every day, through the windows of his newspaper office, he saw her going by, doing her shopping. Today she had on no make-up at all. His knowledge of her—a bit of his knowledge of everyone in the area—had in it the notion that she drank and that when she looked like this she was getting over a morning after. In one part of his mind he held news that might or might not be worth printing, and in the other he held an enormous conglomeration of gossip and fact that would never be printed, true or not, because it lay outside the purpose of his newspaper. The fact or theory that she drank was not important to him professionally. But she interested him anyhow. She had such a dried-out quality. Her hair was so stringy, so colorless. The coat, he thought, looked like a man’s coat. And her hands. He saw that her fingers were drawn up, interlaced rigidly. As if, he thought, she might pop apart.

  “What did Mr. Runcible say about this?” he said, holding out the typewritten page, back in her direction.

  She winced at the question, clearly expecting it but nervous at having to hear it. “He’d like to have that included in the next issue,” she said. She added, “of the News.”