CHAPTER 39

  HOPE IN EMMETT COUNTY

  It had been over a year since we returned to what passed for normal life. We were preparing for the arrival of the baby. Any talk of giants existed only in one elective course I still taught. Everything seemed settled—until the phone rang one afternoon with a call that convinced me, against all odds, that I had to take a chance.

  I thought of Vincent and his quest and wondered how he was doing. He had quit teaching to pursue his dreams. The more I considered that decision, the more sense it made for me as well. I became so convinced that I didn’t even discuss it with Mimi. I decided I would simply walk into the dean’s office and resign.

  I didn’t think about the money. Damn the money, I told myself. This mattered more. I was so certain I was doing the right thing that I told no one.

  I followed through. I walked into the dean’s office and told him I was resigning. He said he would not be able to hold my position open. If I left, the vacancy would be filled. I explained what had happened and why this mattered to me, but he showed little interest. He questioned the idea entirely. I told myself he simply wasn’t a believer.

  My mind was made up. He accepted my resignation. I quit on the spot.

  I then returned the call that had set everything in motion. The farmer from Emmett County, Iowa, said he knew of my interest in giants and believed he had found something worth my time. He was right.

  I called the farmer back and told him I would drive out the next morning. He said he had been meaning to call me again. He and a few friends had discovered more. What looked like an ancient crypt. They had opened it, and inside were skeletal remains, large ones. Nearly fifteen feet in length. He urged me to come quickly, before word got out.

  I immediately thought of Bayne and told the farmer I would be there first thing in the morning. Everything felt as though it was falling into place. It was too good to be true.

  All I had to do was go home and tell Mimi what I had done.

  I rehearsed what I would say on the walk home. I needed to be honest. I needed to remind her that this was bigger than teaching. That this was what I was meant to do. I had chased this across Europe. Now it was here. I needed to go claim it.

  “Jack, why would you do this?” she said when I told her. “What are we going to do for money? We have a baby coming. This is crazy.”

  She walked into the kitchen. I followed.

  “Mimi, please hear me out.”

  Without waiting, she continued. “This was supposed to end in Europe. You’re going to be a father now. You need to use some common sense.”

  It was clear she no longer believed in me. I told her so.

  “Jack, it’s not that I don’t believe in you,” she said. “There are other people involved now, a baby. When we left France, we agreed on a path forward. Without your job, we can’t pay rent or hospital bills. Oh, Jack. This was a mistake.”

  “I have to do this,” I said. “It’s too late to change anything.”

  She stepped toward me and took my hand, fear in her eyes. “No. It’s not. You can go back to the dean. Tell him you changed your mind.”

  Frustration turned into panic. “Let me do this,” I said. “I’ll find work. Any work. Maybe this even changes everything.”

  “Jack,” she said quietly, letting go of my hand, “it already has.”

  There was silence as she checked on dinner. Finally, she spoke again. “I didn’t think this was about money. Now you’re calling it a meal ticket. Is that you talking or Bayne?”

  I knew it was both.

  “It’s not about money,” I said. “That part is your concern.”

  “Yes,” she answered. “Because someone has to be rational. Quitting your job to chase something on a farm in Emmett County is a mistake.”

  I felt hope slipping away. “This is my dream,” I said. “I have to do this.”

  “At what price, Jack?” she asked. “What are you willing to lose?”

  Anger flared. “Are you leaving me?”

  “No,” she said after a moment. “But what if we lose everything?”

  I tried to hold her, but she stopped me. “This is all too much,” she said. “Things were good.”

  “I would never do anything to lose you,” I said. “Please trust me.”

  She agreed but reluctantly. I knew she didn’t approve. I told myself I would prove her wrong.

  The next day, I drove to Emmett County and walked straight into a prank, a hoax. One I should have seen coming. I had heard only what I wanted to hear.

  The farmer stood there with a reporter waiting. The questions came fast and mercilessly. “Dr. Bayne says there’s no proof of giants. Aren’t you a man of science? A professor rushing to something clearly unbelievable?”

  There was no fixing it. I drove away humiliated.

  By afternoon, the story was in the paper. By morning, it was everywhere. The university distanced itself from me immediately. Worse, Mimi was dismissed as well. Our name had become something the university no longer wished to carry.

  That night, Mimi called her sister, Myrtle May, in Des Moines. May offered to take her in. Mimi left immediately to escape the attention. I stayed behind to close things out.

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  I wrote to Vincent, asking for help, knowing it would take weeks to reach him. I needed work, any work.

  Mimi’s sister, Myrtle May, was a year older, and they had eight additional brothers and sisters, all older. May, she hated the name Myrtle, was unlike any woman I ever knew. She drank. She smoked. She did everything they told her not to.

  The day I met May she was wearing men’s overalls, high heels, and a dark fur coat, a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of something in the other. She dyed her hair the blondest blonde she could and swore of marriage as a man’s institution designed to keep women as property for me. Not something you want to hear when you are newly engaged to her baby sister.

  May came for Mimi the next day. We sold what furniture we could. Mimi cried as she packed.

  “You know we’ve never been apart,” she said. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  I told her it was temporary.

  May hugged me before they left. She slipped money into my hand despite my protests. “You’d take it from me if I were a man! Family leaves no room for pride. Trust me a grew up in a two-bedroom apartment with nine other siblings,” she said.

  Before Mimi and Mum got into the car, Mimi held my hand against her stomach. “We’ll miss you.”

  I told her I was sorry for what had happened.

  “I know you’re sorry,” she said. “What’s done is done. We’ll figure this out.”

  As they drove away, I felt something break that I couldn’t name.

  The next couple of days were tough. I disconnected the phone from the house. The calls from reporters, pranksters, and those wishing us harm became too much. The quiet of the house gave me time to think about what I would do next. I hoped the news had not spread beyond Iowa. I thought maybe we would have to move out of state to find new teaching jobs. The problem was that it was the middle of the school year, and it would be nearly impossible to find something until summer. I was hoping we could start fresh somewhere else.

  One afternoon, a junk dealer came by to pick up some of our furniture. He paid me cash for the items. As I helped him load the truck, a man arrived with a telegram addressed to me. I signed for it, fearful of what I might find inside. It had been a week since the story broke, and things were finally dying down. I hoped it wasn’t bad news.

  Instead, the telegram said there was a dig going on in White Sands, New Mexico, for the remaining fall and winter months. I was asked to attend. It wasn’t a teaching job, but I had experience with digs like this. The site was a Native American burial ground on part of a reservation. They had been looking for a seasoned anthropologist, and my name had come up. They had tried to reach me by phone but had no success.

  I sent my response back by telegram and gratefully accepted. They had obviously not heard about the story in Emmett County. I wasn’t about to tell them.

  I called Mimi and explained the situation. I told her the money would be good. I told her we didn’t really have a choice. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best offer likely to come along. I said we needed to make our way to New Mexico to join the team.

  “Jack, I won’t be going with you this time,” she said.

  I was stunned. Mimi had always been a constant source of support.

  “The baby is going to be here soon,” she continued. “Traveling to the desert of New Mexico isn’t the best idea. And I can get a teaching job here.”

  She had already applied for a position at a high school in Des Moines and would be able to substitute until the baby was born. The pay wasn’t as good as the university, but she felt she needed to contribute something to her sister while staying there. I didn’t know what to say. I knew I had blown it.

  She went on. “Jack, I hope you find what you’re looking for. Whatever it is, I really do.”

  I still said nothing. What could I say?

  “May says I can stay with her while I have the baby. She has a good business here, and when I’m not teaching, she could use my help at the beauty shop. It was obvious Mimi had already been making plans.

  “Jack, we really need stability. May said she’d help watch the baby when I go back to work. She’s sure we can work something out with our schedules. I knew you’d find something. I just didn’t think it would be in the desert. A desert is no place to raise a baby.”

  “I suspect not,” was all I could say.

  “Maybe you can reapply for a teaching job here for the spring semester, and we can be together,” she said.

  “Well,” I answered, “it seems like you have things worked out on your end. I’ve got a lot to do before I leave. I need to get a bus schedule. I’ll make sure to send my payroll checks as soon as they start coming in.”

  I was crushed, and she knew it. There was nothing left to say. I said goodbye and hung up.

  I walked out of the house and headed to the bus station to get a schedule. Nothing had worked out the way I had planned. At least I would be contributing. The only thing I could do was send her my paychecks and hope things would someday work out. This trip to New Mexico wouldn’t be forever.

  There was a bus leaving town the next morning, and I wanted to be on it. I spent the rest of the day getting everything in order. I felt like a failure. I had lost my job, my research grants, and now I was losing my wife. I was about to become a father, and I wasn’t going to be there when the baby was born.

  I felt like I had no choice. I had to take this job and show Mimi I could still provide, even while I was gone. It was my fault we had both lost our teaching jobs. I had made a terrible mistake, and I didn’t want her to worry.

  The next morning, I boarded the bus. It was less than half full. Some students got on before me and sat together. I walked to the back and slid into a window seat. As I walked down the aisle, I noticed a man watching me. I passed him, thinking he looked odd. When I sat down, he turned around, glanced back at me, then faced forward again. I worried he had recognized me from the reports about Emmett County. I feared it was going to be a long ride.

  The bus would take me to St. Louis, where I’d board another headed for New Mexico.

  After a while, the man grabbed his things and walked toward the back. He tried to make eye contact as he passed. I avoided it. He sat in the row directly behind me. I could feel his eyes on the back of my head. I said nothing.

  A few more people boarded, and then the driver closed the door and announced the upcoming stops, with St. Louis as our final destination. The engine started, and we pulled away. I looked out the window at the town square. When we passed the university, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I was leaving a chapter of my life behind. I wondered if I would ever come back this way. As it turned out, it was the last time I would see the university in Iowa.

  “I bet you teach at that school, don’t ya?” the man behind me said.

  I wasn’t sure how to respond. Ignoring him might upset him. Answering meant a conversation all the way to St. Louis. I wasn’t in the mood to talk. I had too much on my mind and didn’t want anyone to rob me of my misery.

  He tapped my shoulder and leaned forward, resting his folded arms on the seatback. “You look like a teacher. I got a way with people. And the way you watched that school go by—I’m bettin’ you taught there.”

  I didn’t have much choice. “Pardon?” I said.

  “You a teacher?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I am.”

  I turned away from him as much as I could and kept watching the window. Our house was only a block behind this street. I wondered if Mimi was okay.

  “What’d ya teach? No, let me guess. History. You look serious—like a history teacher.”

  “I do teach some history,” I said. “Mostly anthropology.”

  “Anthro what? Sounds like something I’d like to hear about. Glad we got some time.”

  “I’m actually pretty tired,” I said. “I need to get some sleep.”

  “No worries. Where ya headin’?”

  I hesitated. If I lied, I worried he’d catch it. “New Mexico.”

  “No kiddin’? Me too. Headed there for work. You?”

  “Work.”

  “Same here. No work left in Iowa. I been travelin’, lookin’ for jobs. Got a call about a research project—Indian burial grounds. Pays decent. Always wanted to see the Grand Canyon. Thought, why not?”

  “You know the Grand Canyon’s in Arizona, right?” I said.

  He looked surprised. “I know that. New Mexico’s about as close as I’ll get. Might as well see what I can.”

  Then he changed the subject. “So you know anything about these burial sites, bein’ a history teacher and all?”

  “I’m actually headed there to work on one myself,” I said. “I specialize in anthropology—the study of ancient peoples.”

  “Well, lucky me,” he said, hopping into the seat beside me. “Got myself a guide.” He smiled. His dark hair was uncombed, and his eyes didn’t quite line up—likely a muscular issue.

  “My name’s Fitch,” he said, holding out his hand.

  “Jack.”

  He grinned. “You know what? I was certain I’d meet someone named Jack on this trip. Must be fate.”

  “Yeah,” I said, watching my hometown slip out of sight. “Fate.”