Effigies

Archaeologist Faye Longchamp and her friend Joe Wolf Mantooth have traveled to Neshoba County, Mississippi, to help excavate a site near Nanih Waiya, the sacred mound where tradition says the Choctaw Nation was born. When farmer Carroll Calhoun refuses their request to investigate a nearby mound on his land, Faye and her colleagues are disappointed, but his next action breaks their hearts: he tries to bulldoze the huge relic to the ground. Faye and Joe rush to protect history—with their bodies, if necessary. Soon the Choctaws arrive to defend the mound, and the farmer’s white and black neighbors come to defend his property rights. Though a popular young sheriff is able to defuse the situation, tempers are short. But that night, Calhoun is found dead, his throat sliced with a handmade stone blade. Was he killed by an archaeologist angered by his wanton destruction of history? Or, since local farmers have been plowing up stone tools like the murder weapon for centuries, did one of them take this chance to even the score with an old rival? The sheriff is well aware that Faye and Joe were near the spot where Calhoun’s body was found and that their combined knowledge of stone tools is impressive. They had motive, means, and opportunity—but so does almost everyone in Neshoba County.