May Day Read Online Free Page B

late thirties, and I swear his green eyes reflected intelligence. I crossed my legs to keep a whistle from escaping between my thighs. If practice makes perfect, I’m pretty good at judging people, and I judged him to be worth further examination. Of course, desperation does lend a certain graciousness to my opinion.
    “Good morning.” His voice was mellow, cheerful. “I need information on the history of Battle Lake. Where do you suggest I start?”
    I smiled. It was serendipity, baby. I filled him in on the pieces I knew from my recent Recall article, focusing on the details that I thought would impress him. I explained that the village of Battle Lake was platted Halloween 1881 for Torger O. and Bertie O. Holdt. By 1885, there were 182 residents of the village, but newspaper references allude to unusual amounts of bad luck being visited on the inhabitants—mysterious plagues, crop rot, and intense weather were only the beginning. The first white settlers found Ojibwe burial mounds scattered in the region, forty-two near the lake’s inlet alone. Local legend had it that whoever took over the land that had once belonged to the Indians would be cursed.
    Ninety-some years later, the settlers’ descendants, filled with church-supper-type guilt, used city funds to erect a twenty-three-foot fiberglass Indian warrior, complete with faux-leather beaded pants and brown moccasins molded onto him. They called him Chief Wenonga, after
the Ojibwe chief who originally named the town, and planted him in Halverson Park on the north side, where he forever looks northeasterly across the lake at his old battle site.
    His statue looked exactly like one of those little plastic Indians that came with the cowboys in a bag of a hundred in the 1970s, but in full garish color. That, in fact, is when the Chief was built—1979. A fiberglass monstrosity popular with tourists and the trophy mentality of central Minnesota. I had splashed a photo of him—full headdress, six-pack abs on a half-naked body, tomahawk in one hand, other hand raised in a perpetual “How”—in my Lady of the Lakes article. The stereotyping killed me, but I had to admit as I snapped the photo that if I were a single, twenty-one-foot-tall fiberglass female, I’d be cutting my eyes at the Chief.
    “Fergus Falls will have even more information,” I told the patron, wrapping up my story. “It’s the county seat. Or try the East Otter Tail Museum in Perham. We pretty much just carry brain candy.”
    He smiled at me. I could tell by the way his eyes crinkled at the corners that my first estimate of his age had been correct—about a decade older than my soon-to-be twenty-nine, give or take a year. His teeth were strong and white, and I chose to ignore the fact that he was short, only a couple inches taller than my five foot six. He was also stocky, with a broad chest and ample arms extending from his white polo shirt. He had on the Teva-type sandals that suggest activity, and his khaki shorts revealed strong and evenly haired legs. I hate patchy leg hair on guys. You wonder what’s rubbing what. Around his waist he had tied a blue-checked flannel shirt.
    I held out my hand. “My name is Mira James. Can I ask why you’re interested in the town’s history?”
    He took my hand with his warm, hammy fist and shook it firmly. I’d lay money that he held it a little longer than necessary. “My name is Jeff Wilson, and I’m working for a company that wants to bring some business this way. I need to get the lay of the land, so to speak.”
    “So you’re like a surveyor?” I asked, disappointed. I was hoping he was something cool, like an independently wealthy explorer or a psychiatrist who didn’t mind house calls.
    “Something like that,” he said, chuckling. “I’m an archaeologist.”
    Ooh. I quickly added that to my list of cool things a guy could be. “Well, this town could use some more business. And I’m sure you won’t have any trouble finding whatever