by Andy Andrews
“And like you said, Dylan,” Mark interjected, “she’s the expert.”
“Yeah, she is,” Dylan concurred.
“Abby,” Dorry broke in. “A minute ago, you said that there were two things—specifics, you called them—two specifics that caught your attention. One was the condition of these pieces. What was the other?”
“Location,” Abby said simply. “Both pieces were collected on the North American continent. Not unusual really, but telling, just the same.”
“How so?”
Abby shrugged. “Think of it this way. This continent is an archaeological net. The world’s objects of scarcity and value have always gravitated to financially superior and culturally free societies . . . and that’s what we have in North America. Mathematically, give Earth another twenty thousand years, and everything will end up here.”
“So this one,” Mark said, “the food stone, came from Africa in the mid-1800s. And this one, Michael’s, was—”
“—was not in that creek for long,”Abby interrupted.“In an archaeological sense anyway.”
Conscious of the need to take a break, Dorry said,“Mark, you three go into the kitchen and make some fresh coffee. Tell Abby and Dylan the whole story about Mae Mae and George Washington Carver. I’m gonna check on Michael and do a couple of quick searches on the Internet. There’s pie in the fridge.”
Twenty minutes later,Dorry eased back into the kitchen and joined the others who were seated around the breakfast table. Mark was almost through with the story—telling Dylan and Abby about George Washington Carver’s funeral and how Mae Mae had gotten the food stone. As he talked, Abby held the food stone in her hand.
“I don’t want to sound weird or anything,” Mark said as he finished,“but I swear, something happened to me when she put that thing around my neck and I promised to do something with my life.”
“Something special with your life,” Dorry corrected.
“Right. Something special.”
“Something happened to you . . . in what way?” Abby asked.
“Honestly, I’m not even sure how to explain what I felt,” Mark said. He lifted his hands, then let them fall in a futile gesture. “In a way, I suppose I have always intended to do something special with my life, but when I said it—or as Mae Mae said, when I ‘made it a choice’—I felt a sense of power, or purpose . . . or certainty . . . assurance . . . something.” “I’m not even getting this,” Dylan said. He held out his hand to Abby, silently requesting the food stone. As he took it, he shook his head as if to clear it, then spoke slowly. “Okay. This thing translates out to . . .” He looked expectantly at Abby.
She said,“By your hand, the people shall be fed.”
Dylan looked at the other three and repeated Abby’s words. “By your hand, the people shall be fed.” He paused dramatically.“Fed . . . fed? And George Washington Carver was wearing this? George Washington Carver? I mean, guys, the odds against any human being achieving what he did . . . and then you tell me he was wearing this? I barely believe it.”
“Excuse me,” Dorry said as she raised her hand.“Let me rattle our collective cage a bit more.” She fanned out a stack of paper. “Fresh from my printer . . . plumbed from the depths of cyberspace.”Turning to her husband, she asked, “Mark, did you tell Abby and Dylan about Patterson?”
“Patterson?” Mark appeared lost.“I’m not sure I remember. Tell me who he was again.”
Dorry shuffled the pages she’d brought to the table. “Lucky for us . . . I take notes,” she said to Abby as she waggled her eyebrows up and down.“Dr. Frederick Patterson was the president of Tuskegee Institute when Carver died. Mae Mae met him at the funeral in 1943.”
“Yeah, I remember now.”
“Do you remember that Mae Mae said Dr. Patterson wrote a letter to her? In it, he told her that Carver put the food stone around his neck several times and asked him to pledge to do something special with his life. You remember this, right?”
“Yeah, I do,” Mark replied.“He told her that he tried to live up to that choice he made every day.”
“Well . . . he made good on his promise,” Dorry said. “You wouldn’t believe the Internet search hits when I typed in his name. Listen to this.” She read a sentence she had highlighted on one of the pages from the printer.“As founder of the United Negro College Fund, Dr. Frederick Patterson richly deserved the Presidential Medal of Freedom bestowed upon him personally by President Reagan. Dr. Patterson, the first African-American member of the American Red Cross Central Committee, created research institutes, schools, public grants . . .” Dorry looked up. “It would take a week to read everything this guy did. It’s incredible.”
Dylan was leaning over the table with his mouth open while Dorry read. When she finished, he held up the food stone and asked,“And that guy . . . Patterson? That guy had this around his neck?”
“Several times, evidently,” Dorry replied as the others gawked at her.“Hang on. Wait till you hear this!”Then, to Mark she said,“Did you tell them about Henry Wallace?” Mark nodded.
“The vice president?”Abby asked.
“Um-hmm,” Dorry confirmed. “There are about ten times the number of Internet hits on him. Now, you know that he wandered the woods with Carver when he was a child in Iowa.”
“Wait a minute,” Dylan said incredulously.“I wasn’t connecting these dots before. Carver put the food stone on this kid in Iowa?”
Dorry nodded, and Dylan looked at Mark.“This is who you were telling us a few minutes ago who . . . this kid grew up to be the secretary of agriculture and vice president of the United States?!!” Dylan was about to come across the table.
“Well, here,” Dorry said. “Let me just send everybody over the edge.” She flipped some papers.“Okay . . . secretary of agriculture in ’33 . . . vice president in 1940. That was under Roosevelt, by the way . . . hang on . . . here we go. Henry Wallace developed some of the first hybrid corn varieties, and by planting his hybrid seed, U.S. farmers doubled and tripled their per-acre yield.”
Dorry glanced up. Mark’s eyes were wide as he slowly shook his head. “Oh, just wait,” she said turning pages as she searched for a specific, highlighted piece. “This next bit is . . .well, here it is. Okay,” she said to the others,“this is from just one of the Web sites with this info . . . you ready?”
“Go. Shoot,” they said.
Dorry read, “‘In 1940, shortly after being elected vice president,Wallace traveled to Mexico and was appalled at the corn production in a country where corn was the most important part of a Mexican family’s diet. Their per-acre yield was drastically lower than that of American farmers who planted hybrid varieties. The vice president soon created an agricultural station in Mexico to develop corn varieties adapted for the climate and soil of that region.’”
Dorry looked up and said, “Still reading—follow me here.” She continued. “‘One of the first scientists to join the station started by Wallace was a man named Norman Borlaug. Twenty years after the station was built, corn production in Mexico had doubled and wheat production had increased fivefold. Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 because of the work he did at the station.’” Dorry lifted her head.
No one spoke. They simply stared at her as she held the papers printed from the Internet out in front of her. “So why did Borlaug get the Nobel Prize? It says here—get this—that the work at that station in Mexico in expanding yields of corn, wheat, and rice prevented worldwide famine . . . and over the years, the lives of a billion people were saved.”
“A billion?”Abby whispered.
“Yeah, billion,” Dorry answered.“With a b. ”
“Uh-huh,” Dylan restated, “with a b. B for billion and b for butterfly. This, my friends, is a textbook illustration of the butterfly effect.”
“The what?” Mark asked.
“The butterfly effect—sensitive dependence upon initial conditions.”
“In English, please,”Abby prodded.
&n
bsp; Ignoring her, Dylan continued.“In 1963,Edward Lorenz presented a paper to the New York Academy of Sciences that created an uproar because of its straightforward and unembellished accuracy. He called it the butterfly effect. Simply stated, the butterfly effect says that a butterfly can flap its wings on one side of the world and set molecules of air in motion . . . that in turn set other molecules of air in motion . . . which set other molecules of air in motion— that can eventually create a hurricane on the other side of the world.” Dylan spread his hands apart like an entertainer receiving applause and repeated,“The butterfly effect.”
As they digested this new thought, the four friends each quietly reacted in a different way. Dylan, the last to speak, remained perfectly still, simply staring at the others. Abby slowly twirled the end of her ponytail around the forefinger of her right hand. Mark ran his thumbnail back and forth in the groove of the table’s edge while Dorry absentmindedly sipped her coffee, which was cold.
Mark broke the silence first.“So in human terms, you’re saying that Carver is an example of the butterfly effect.”
“Without a doubt,” Dylan said. “Look at it this way: Carver influenced Wallace, who set up the station in Mexico. The station in Mexico produced Borlaug . . . who directed its efforts. And the final result was that worldwide famine was averted and a billion lives saved.”
“Actually,”Abby interjected,“that wasn’t the final result. That particular storm put in motion by the butterfly will never die. It’s still gathering strength. Think of the things yet to be accomplished—the lives that are sure to be touched— by those billion people who wouldn’t even be alive if . . .” Her voice trailed off as she raised her eyebrows in wonder.
Mark finished the sentence. “Who wouldn’t even be alive if Carver hadn’t taken time with that little boy . . .”
“Who grew up to be vice president . . . ,” Dylan said.
“And started the station in Mexico . . . ,”Abby added as they watched each other wide-eyed.
“Holy moly!”Dorry exclaimed as they burst out laughing.
Mark stood and leaned against the wall, still adrift in the concept of one life having so much meaning. “Wrap your brain around this,” he said. “These billion people. They are a part of only one move Carver made. All the peanut stuff? That was a totally different flap of his wings-to stick with the same metaphor. Consider that! You think the ‘little boy’ connection is big? When Carver flapped his wings and created the uses for the peanut, how many billions have been affected by that?”
“Here’s my question,” Dylan said standing up. He moved the food stone to the center of the table. “Where has this thing been?” He looked sharply at each of the others.“By your hand, the people shall be fed?” Then, Dylan moved Michael’s object to the center of the table. “And this! By your hand, the people shall live? What does that mean? And where has this one been?”
Dylan turned to his girlfriend. “Ab, think about it,” he said.“You feel that the condition of these objects indicates personal handling. Okay, I agree. Now . . . I want to know who handled them.”
TEN
DENVER, COLORADO—NOVEMBER
MARK HAD RESCUED DORRY FROM A ROUGH morning at the Post in time to join Dylan and Abby for lunch at a diner downtown. It was their fifth time together since their first meeting as a foursome. They were discovering quickly how much they enjoyed each other’s company and to a person were increasingly interested in the broadening mystery of the relics.
Mark’s experience as a detective had made him the acknowledged leader of their quest, and at his direction, they had each agreed to shoulder separate tasks—exploring different angles—for information. Mark sent requests to the data banks of the FBI, Scotland Yard, and Interpol hoping a “stolen items report” might include a description of one of the objects. Unlike news releases, which report broadly, he explained, arrest reports required itemized listings. Still, he was not optimistic.
Dorry worked a reporter’s angle with friends in the research department at the Post. Focusing on archaeological finds, she narrowed the search to “leaded bronze pieces weighing less than 200 grams” and waded through mountains of articles—most of them pre-Internet from AP or UPI.
As they ordered and ate sandwiches, the four friends tried to lay out their facts and questions in as orderly a fashion as possible. As Abby listed her findings, mentioning again that the two relics were hollow, Dylan stopped her. “Hey, here’s a question,” he said. “Are both hollow in the same way?”
Noting Abby’s furrowed brow, he explained,“I mean . . . were they cast in hollow form? Or were they left hollowed by pressure—like when you bend a car antenna until it breaks. If you do that to an antenna in two places, you are left with a piece that is closed at the ends and hollow in the middle.”
“I see where you are going with this,” Abby said as she narrowed her eyes to concentrate. “If I ran a scope on the objects and concluded pressure closure . . .” She paused.
“What?” Dorry asked.
“Pressure closure would prove the objects are in secondary— broken—form.”
“And that would mean . . . ?” Dorry prodded.
“It would mean that we have a new question,” Abby said.“And that would be:What did these objects look like in their primary form?” She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. “I made the assumption that the relics were relatively unchanged because of the lack of erosion on their surface. But that doesn’t preclude the possibility of a catastrophic event. And in archaeological terms, that can be anything from a meteor strike to a hammer blow. It’s the opposite of erosion, which happens over time.”
Abby was quiet for a bit, thinking, then breathed deeply. “This gives me a direction, at least,” she said and turned to Dylan.“Tell Mark and Dorry about Perasi.”
“Well,” Dylan began, “at the museum, we have this one guy, Perasi—that’s his first name; he’s Indian—he is a computer god! Short, stubby kid. He never goes home . . . I swear he sleeps there. He’s with Library and Archives. Anyway,” Dylan said with a sly expression, “I bring him pizza every now and then, so he’s my buddy, you know? Well, two or three months ago, he got his new computer platform up and rocking . . . cutting-edge software. I’m telling you, this is a state-of-the-art, monster system. We’re only one of four museums in the U.S. that even has one of these. Perasi says there are governments of countries that don’t have systems this powerful! I’m telling you, he can do anything. This kid could create a program to determine how many inches of string are used in the basketball nets owned by the Boy’s Clubs of America east of the Mississippi River! “So for me . . . us . . . Perasi has created a massive search engine designed specifically to search photographs, paintings, statuary, videotape, microfiche . . . that kind of thing. He fed 3-D representations of the two objects into the program and the computer will sweep for items of the same likeness that appear in any visual medium.”
Dorry was amazed. “Is that possible?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” he said excitedly.“I was only asking him to go through our museum archives and he said, ‘How about the world?’ And the kid was not joking! Just to show me what could be done, while I was standing there, he ran a program that searched for ‘United States presidents shooting a bow and arrow.’He designated ‘color photos only’ to narrow the field and in seventeen minutes showed me one of Eisenhower and one of Nixon!”
“So exactly what will he search,” Mark asked,“and when does he start?”
“Perasi is programming as we speak. He says he’ll be ready to fire it up tonight. We aren’t on a deadline, so I told him to sweep everything he can. He is programming for photographs—published and nonpublished—which means the computer will also search museum collections and news archives around the world. He’s scanning paintings, carvings, and statuary and cross-referencing all of it . . . in case there’s a painting of a statue or a photograph of a carving.”
“Great job, guys,” Mark said as the
y noticed the time and stood up from the table. “Let’s keep plugging away.”
LEAVING THE DINER, EVERYONE HAD AGREED TO meet again at four o’clock Saturday afternoon. It had been Tuesday, and five days, they felt, would have allowed time to work on their respective projects and, hopefully, have some progress to report. However, Thursday evening the telephone at the Chandlers’ house rang. Dylan was on the other end of the line, muttering,“Come on! Come on!”
“Hello,” Dorry answered. It was eight-thirty. She had just put Michael to bed and was about to take a bath.
“Dorry! Is Mark there? Can you get him on the other phone? I need to talk to both of you.”
Less than twenty seconds later, Mark picked up. “Hey, Dylan. What’s going on?”
“Are you both there?”
“Yeah, we’re here,” the Chandlers responded.
“We have to meet in the morning,” Dylan said in a rush. “Before work. Unless we could do it tonight. But you have Michael. I can’t find Abby anyway. We have to get together in the morning. If we—”
“Dylan! Hey, whoa! Stop!” Mark said. “Take a breath. What in the heck is going on?”
“I’m not kidding,” Dylan said.“I’m at the museum with Perasi. He called me and said to come down. Abby’s at a movie with her lab assistant, and I guess her cell phone’s off. I’m here and we have a hit on this program. I made a call and, man! This changes everything. Oh, man! Can we meet in the morning?”
Mark was on a cordless phone and had made his way to the bedroom where Dorry had originally answered Dylan’s call. They listened to him babble excitedly as they watched each other. Mark furrowed his brow and made an expression on his face to his wife that asked, What’s up with this? Dorry shrugged an I have no idea as Mark spoke again. “Dylan. Slow down, brother. Tell me what you have.”