Come In and Cover Me by Gin Phillips Page A

man,” said Ren.
    â€œNo,” said Silas, “he was not. Although I think sometimes the old-time pothunters get a bad rap. It wasn’t always good versus evil. Some of them really loved the pieces and did what they could to preserve the pottery. They were in it for the art instead of for the money.”
    â€œThey kept it for themselves,” said Ren. “Whether it was the money or the art.”
    â€œDidn’t you manage to direct some of Gardner’s pieces to the T or C museum after he died?” said Ed.
    Silas nodded. “A few.”
    â€œHow’d you get them?” asked Ren.
    â€œHis housekeeper knew of some smaller pieces he kept in storage. He hadn’t made arrangements for them.”
    â€œHow did you know about them?” she asked.
    â€œI went out to his house after he died and asked her if there were any pieces unaccounted for,” Silas said. “We drank a few cups of tea and talked about her two daughters in high school. One was hoping to be an engineer. It was a nice afternoon.”
    Ed snorted. “Silas flirts with women, men, cats, dogs, sometimes lizards.”
    â€œAnd houseplants,” added Paul.
    â€œI do not,” said Silas, with some dignity. “I am not attracted to houseplants. And I did not flirt with that woman—I talked to her. Nicely.”
    â€œYou flirted with that geologist when she came out to the canyon,” said Paul. “She was in her sixties.”
    â€œI did not flirt with that geologist. That’s ridiculous.”
    Ren thought he sounded annoyed now. She watched his face, although he wasn’t looking at her.
    â€œYou don’t even know when you’re doing it,” said Paul, and it occurred to Ren that Ed had grown quiet. “It’s like breathing. You can’t help it.”
    She remembered that when Scott was in middle school, her parents had devoted entire dinner conversations to trying to teach him when a joke was no longer funny. To explaining how to read your audience. But the more Scott wanted to impress someone, the more he beat a dead joke into the ground.
    Paul turned to her. “Ren, he flirts, doesn’t he?”
    And now they were all looking at her. She held her glass in front of her mouth, not drinking. “I hadn’t noticed,” she said.
    Silas was folding his napkin. Paul kept looking at her. Ed did not.
    â€œBut I’m not a houseplant,” she added.
    â€œWe’re just giving him a hard time,” said Ed, a little loudly. “It’s not like we’ve seen him with a constant stream of women coming through the canyon.”
    â€œHence the houseplants,” said Paul.
    â€œEnough,” said Silas, flatly, and everyone became interested in their napkins. Ren watched him in her peripheral vision, and he did not move, not even a jostle of his knee or the twitch of a fingertip.
    She wanted to say something very quickly, something utterly fascinating. “Paul,” she said, “when did you get interested in archaeology?”
    It was sufficient. They moved on. She and Ed and Paul chatted easily enough until the waitress brought the checks. Eventually Silas picked up his beer again and nodded his agreement at a comment or two.
    Until they pulled off onto the dirt road into the canyon, the ride home had been almost completely silent. Ed loved to drive, even on these roads, and Paul sat beside him. Ren and Silas sat in the backseat, seat belts buckled, jerking forward and back as the tires hit ruts and rocks. Ren pressed her cheek against the cool glass to watch the sky in early evening. She had a takeaway sack of tamales still warm against her foot. Her forehead smacked the window as Ed drove through the creek, and she pulled back slightly. The sky was deep and rich just after sunset, tactile as velvet or raw silk. She saw a small movement along the edge of the road.
    â€œJackrabbit,” she said, pointing.
    â€œThe bunnies