"Kathleen O' Neal & Michael W. Gear - People 5 - People Of The Sea" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'Neal Kathleen)

out of the field notebook Jess slapped down next to his other displays.
Finally he pulled out a long, square box. It said "Nikon" on the side,
but sand, sun and riding over sagebrush in one too many
four-wheel-drive vehicles had long since worn most of a marketing
director's masterpiece away.

Mary's gaze lingered on the box for a long moment, knowing what it
contained. Perhaps their most compelling argument. When she glanced
up, she noticed that the Dandy's concentration had been jolted by
Jess's arrival. He studied Jess with the same distasteful fascination
he might have leveled at a scorpion crawling across the toe of one of
his highly polished, four-hundred-dollar oxfords.

Keene continued smiling nervously, his fingers dancing like ants on his
papers as he said, "Well, we're all here. I suppose most of us are old
friends, but I'd like to introduce Hal Jacobs on my left, here." He
gestured to the white-haired bigwig. "Hal is one of the first-level
assistants to the Secretary of the Department of the Interior in
Washington. We're fortunate that the Bureau sent him out to check on
the project at just this time."

Mary studied Jacobs anew. The man leaned back in his chair, eyes
downcast as he smiled. His hair had a thick coating of hair spray to
keep it perfectly "puffed." "Just Wcs's bad luck that I showed up."

Everyone but Mary and the Dandy laughed.

"And to Hal's left," Wcs continued, "we have Peter Preston. Hal needed
a solicitor to check some of the papers, and Pres happened to draw the
short stick."

They laughed at the right time again, and, this time, Preston joined
in.

"Hal, Pres, this is Jess Davis, Principal Investigator for Sayatasha
Archaeological Services, the contractor conducting the 'mitigation of
cultural resources' for us on the ColPac Water Project."
Jacobs nodded, glancing evenly at Mary.

Keene stumbled slightly, embarrassed that he hadn't introduced Mary
first. "Uh, sorry. This is Mary Crow Dog. She's the Native American
monitor who works with Jess to make sure that Native concerns are given
proper attention and respect. Mary is with the California InterTribal
Heritage Coalition."

"So, you're Indian?" Jacobs asked in his pleasant voice, as if it were
a delightful new topic of conversation.

Mary just stared at him. He wasn't going to turn patronizing, was he?
But then, few of the BLM buddies in Washington had ever even seen an