When Rick didn’t answer, Amber did. “He fought for the Union.”
As Rick sat rigid in the chair, his jaw tightened, and he gritted his teeth. He was sliding into that dark place where he was tightly wound and easily angered. But today she didn’t have the breath to sing to him, not even one short sea shanty. If she stayed calm, he would slowly drift out of it.
The train swayed around a bend and while Noah twiddled his pencil between his teeth, his journal slid off his lap. Ripley stood and sniffed the book.
“I know. I know.” Noah snatched it up and patted the dog’s head. He then thumbed through several pages to find his place again. He’d been copying Amber’s sketch of the hogback, including fossils found at specific locations.
“I met with Chief Ouray yesterday,” Rick said in a light tone, full of hesitation, as though he was searching for proper balance and was unable to find it.
“I’m sorry I forgot to ask. How was it?”
He stared out the window for a moment. “I have several pages of notes.”
“I’ve heard of him,” Noah said. “Pa says he’s a good man.”
“He is, Noah. I’m going to write about him. I want other people to know what we know.” Rick picked up another newspaper from the stack and returned to the task of reading the daily news.
“Amber, how did the bones get into the rocks and turn to stone?”
She smiled, fondly remembering a similar query to her grandfather when she was a child. “That’s the same question I asked when I found my first fossil. It led to years of questioning, digging, research, and reading. I’ve never stopped asking questions, but I do my research first. Then, when I can’t find the answers, that’s when I go to the experts.”
“Is Dr. Lakes an expert?”
“He’s an insatiably curious scientist, talented illustrator, and teacher. His discoveries last year set off the dinosaur bone rush in Colorado and throughout the West. Yes, he’s an expert.”
“That makes him pretty important. Will he take time to talk to you?”
“I hope so.”
Noah’s concentration on his sketch continued as he delicately erased and shaded the dinosaur’s vertebrae. Using the flat edge of his hand, he brushed the eraser’s rubber shavings off the page. “Amber?” He said her name as a question, as if he wasn’t sure she was still beside him.
“Yes, Noah. I’m still here.” She’d been staring out the window, watching the landscape as it spread and grew as they climbed higher, thinking about Daniel and wondering if she’d see him again.
Noah looked up at her, raising one eyebrow slightly in a move that she’d seen his father make dozens of times. “How did the bones get in the rocks on the hogback?”
She yawned, patted her hand against her mouth. “The short answer is that it took millions of years.”
“That’s a long time.”
She flipped back a few pages in her journal to a sketch of North America. It showed the Cretaceous Interior Seaway with an arrow pointing to the western edge where Colorado was located today.
“Hundreds of millions of years ago, there was an interior seaway that split the continent of North America into two land masses.” She lightly drew over the lines in the sketch, so he could see the area she was talking about. “The dinosaurs roamed along the western edge of the sea, where I’ve marked the location of Colorado. See?”
He nodded, chewing on his pencil meditatively.
“They died there.”
There was a long pause in the conversation before he asked, “Why did they have to die?”
She felt the weight of his stare and raised her head to meet it, intuitively knowing that Noah wasn’t only asking about dinosaurs but also about his mother and sister.
“Sometimes people we love are taken from us before their time. We don’t understand why, and we beat ourselves up trying to find a reason. But we’re not meant to understand. We can’t see things clearly now. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But one day, the weather will clear, the sun will shine, and we’ll see it all as clearly as God sees us. Then we’ll fully understand. At least that’s what my granny told me when my cousin Trey died.” Amber put her arm around Noah’s shoulders. “When you think of your mom and Heather, you can believe they see everything clearly.”
“Can they see me?” he asked, a single tear sliding down his cheek.
“I believe so,” she said.
He wiped the tear with the back of his hand. “That means they already know what happened to the dinosaurs.”
“I guess so.” She laughed and glanced over at Rick expecting to see his face buried in the paper, but he was watching her, his eyes glistening.
She put her fingers to her lips, puckered, and threw him a kiss. He smacked his face, smiled slightly, and returned to reading the paper.
“So Noah, until we can see clearly, the four leading theories of what happened to the dinosaurs are: One, a big meteorite crashed into Earth, changing the climatic conditions so dramatically that dinosaurs couldn’t survive. Two, ash and gas spewing from volcanoes suffocated them…”
“Wait, stop please, so I can take notes.”
She watched him write and when he finished, she continued. “Three, diseases wiped out entire populations. And, four, food chain imbalances led to starvation. And someday they’ll figure it out.”
“Maybe a geologist named”—He paused to square his shoulders—“Noah Grant will solve the mystery?”
She hugged him, smiling. “Maybe.”
Her closest friend in the world was her sister, but Olivia had never been interested in geology or dinosaurs. She tolerated Amber’s interests but could barely get through a conversation when it involved rocks and fossils. This precious child had somehow come into her life and stolen her heart, not only because his fascination with geology and paleontology equaled hers, but because of his compassion, intelligence, and humility. She swallowed the lump in her throat. She had fallen in love with a ten-year-old. Leaving him might be more painful than leaving his dad. No, they were a package deal, and would equally break her heart.
He finished writing and asked, “So the dinosaurs died. What happened next?”
“About sixty-five million years ago the sea drained, and a sudden uplift called the Laramide Orogeny formed huge mountains where the Rockies are today. The seabed tilted at a forty-five-degree angle.” She stacked her hands on the side and tilted them to show him the angle.
“Then, about forty million years ago, the mountains began to erode, and the continent entered a volcanic period that buried the mountains under ash. A period of erosion followed and washed away the softer rock layers to reveal the much older and harder rocks that make up the Rockies today. The layers of the seabed came to the surface as a long chain of ridges or hogbacks.”
“And brought the dinosaur bones to the surface?”
“Exactly, and that’s why Dr. Lakes is working near Morrison.” As much as she wanted to find him, she didn’t think she’d have the energy to look. Fighting for her next breath was exhausting.
“But how did they turn into rocks?”
“You are full of good questions today.”
He blushed.
“You’re really thinking this through. When the dinosaurs died they were buried in the seabed mud. Over time more sediment covered the remains. Eventually they were encased…” She had to stop to catch her breath, and then she continued, “in this newly formed sediment and turned into fossils.”
Noah drew a bone, covered it with sediment, and then made notes to describe the process, just as she had done with her drawings, matching notes to numbers and symbols.
When he finished writing his notes, she continued. “As the bones decayed, water infused with minerals—” She had to stop again.
Noah glanced up. “Take your time.”
“Seeped into the bones,” she continued, “and replaced the natural chemicals in the bones with rock-like minerals.”
He tapped his
pencil against his journal. “So water ran into the bones and changed the bone chemicals with rock chemicals.”
“Yes, and that process created a heavy, rock-like copy of the original bones.”
He wrote another note. “Is this a correct statement?” He pointed to the note.
“The fossil has the same shape as the original bone but is chemically more like a rock,” Amber read. “Yes, that’s correct.” His ability to understand complex scientific concepts amazed her.
“I’m thinking about questions other students will ask when I give my report at school,” he said. “They’ll want to know if they find a fossil, how they can be sure it’s not really a rock?”
She flipped a page in her journal and pointed to a broken fossil. “Fossils will preserve the internal bone structure. If there’s a break, you should be able to see the different canals and webbed structure of the bone, like these,” she said, pointing to the sketch and catching her breath. “But on the outside, fossils are smooth, and most rocks have a rougher texture.”
“So if I find a rock and it’s smooth, I’ll know it’s a dinosaur bone.”
“Not exactly. If you dig up a rock in your grandfather’s yard, it’s unlikely to be a fossil, but if you dig up a rock on the hogback, then there’s a good chance you could have a fossil.” It was becoming more and more difficult to carry on a conversation for the breaks she had to take.
“So, it’s about location.”
“It’s always about location,” she said.
He gave her a quizzical look.
“That’s a joke and one of Olivia’s favorite lines.”
“If…” He lowered his voice. “If something happened to Ripley and we buried her. Would she become a fossil?”
“Most animals don’t fossilize. They simply decay and disappear from the fossil record. Only a small percentage of the dinosaur genera have been or will be found as fossils.”
“How do you know?” he asked. “Maybe I’ll find some when I grow up.”
“That’s certainly possible.” She did a quick mental calculation. Dr. Lake closed his quarries in 1879, and it wasn’t until the Alameda Parkway was constructed in 1937, to provide access to Red Rocks Park, that workers discovered hundreds of dinosaur footprints. Noah would be sixty-nine. It was possible he could return and be part of that discovery.
“Why are the bones the same color as rocks?”
“You can answer that one. Think about it.”
He tapped his pencil against his journal, studying the picture he had copied from her notes. It was a large vertebra drawn in bas relief on a flat slab of sandstone. “Because they are rocks.”
“Go on,” she said.
He tapped his pencil faster, as if he was playing his drum, as he focused on something beyond the window. “A fossilized object is just a rock model”—he stopped tapping, his eyes wide—“of an ancient object.”
“That’s excellent, Noah. Now let me add something else. Fossils come in many colors, depending on the surrounding rock matrix.”
“What’s that?”
“Your next lesson,” she said. “See how exciting that was to figure it out on your own instead of asking someone for the answer?” She lightly knocked on his head. “It’s up there now. It’ll never go away.”
“That’s where Ma is. And,” he lowered his head, then slowly lifted his eyes to her. “I guess that’s where you’ll be someday, too.”
She hugged him again. “Oh, Noah. You know how to break a girl’s heart and you’re only ten. God only knows what will happen when you’re fifteen.”
He sniffed and returned to his journal and she took a rest break.
“If Dr. Lakes has been working on the hogback for a year and a half, do you know where he found fossils?”
She flipped back a few more pages. “Here’s a picture of the hogback with Xs marking the fourteen quarries where he’s found fossils. Only four of these have yielded significant discoveries. He found the first fossils here.” She pointed to a spot half way up the slope, on the northern side of the gap, through which Bear Creek crossed the hogback.
“I love Dr. Lakes’ description of the hogback.” She ran her finger along the ridge. “He said, ‘A mighty ocean wave capped with a crest of rugged sandstone for six hundred feet. And from the crest, looking toward Denver, the prairie undulates like the waves of the sea.’”
Noah examined the sketch. “I’ve never seen the ocean. Pa has been to California and Virginia. He’s seen both oceans, but I haven’t. When I grow up, I’m going to Scotland. I’ll see the ocean then.”
“That’ll be exciting”
He returned to his sketching, trying to copy hers in every detail.
“But Amber… How did Dr. Lakes know what he found? How did he know the bones were from a dinosaur?
“He didn’t. He sent fossils to Dr. Marsh who coined the name Stegosaurus. He thought the bones were from a turtle.”
Noah laughed. “A turtle?”
“A giant prehistoric turtle.”
“When did he realize he made a mistake?”
Amber leaned over and whispered, “He doesn’t know yet, but I know the truth.”
“How do you know?”
She put her finger to her lips. “It’s a secret. You can’t tell anybody.”
Ripley stood and did a doggy stretch.
“Ripley’s probably bored. Why don’t you take her for a walk to the next car and back?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He tucked his pencil into the loop attached to the journal, closed it, and stowed it away in a canvas sack.
“What do you have in your sack?” Rick asked.
“Books,” Noah said. “When I don’t have anything else to do, I read. Pa always carries books with him, too. He reads a lot.”
“I do, too. Maybe I’ll read one of your books on the way back to Denver.” The tension around Rick’s eyes had slipped away, and it seemed the dark place had released him again, after taking only a short detour this time.
“Have you read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?”
“I’ve heard the story many times, but I’ve never read the book.”
“It’s in my sack, if you want to read it.”
As soon as he was out of ear shot, Amber put her feet up, leaned back on the sofa, and asked Rick, “If I go home now can I come back?”
“Now? Right now?”
“No, tonight maybe. Kenzie and David can come and go, but can I?”
“They don’t have any special powers. At least, not that I know of. The whole family used the ruby, sapphire, and emerald brooches to go back to 1881, so I don’t know why you couldn’t go home and come back. Did you ask Kenzie?”
Amber put her hand on her chest. Her heart was beating faster, and each breath was a struggle. “She said she didn’t know.”
Rick scrubbed the back of his neck, contemplatively. “If you’re thinking about going home, it’s because you’re feeling worse. Your breathing is shallow, and you’re constantly stopping to catch your breath. You can’t even take deep breaths, can you?”
“Sometimes.”
“And you don’t have an appetite either.”
“I do, too.”
He stared stubbornly at her. “Amber, you move food around a plate to make it look like you’re eating. You filled your breakfast plate yesterday and only ate part of a biscuit. You pushed the eggs around the flower pattern. You made a pretty design, but that didn’t do your stomach any good. But it’s not your appetite that concerns me. It’s your lungs.”
She poured spring water from Noah’s canteen into a tin cup and took a long drink. She offered to refill Rick’s cup, but he declined with a polite wave of his hand.
“I’ll wait for the steward to bring coffee,” he said. “But here’s my suggestion for today. Let’s go back to Denver.”
“No. I can ride in a buggy. I can’t…” She paused to give the lump in her throat time to settle and her breathing to catch up. “I can’t give up yet. This would
be like you meeting Doc Holliday or Bat Masterson. I can’t miss it.”
He folded the last newspaper and tossed it on the stack of the papers he’d read. “Here’s the deal. When we get to Morrison, I’ll take you up to the Swiss Cottage and get you a room. Noah and I will go search for Dr. Lakes. If we find him, we’ll bring him back to talk to you.”
“What will you tell him?”
“That a geologist and amateur paleontologist would like to engage him for an afternoon’s discussion on fossils.”
“Don’t tell him I’m a woman.”
“I wouldn’t dare.” Rick’s intensity had moved from eyes to voice.
She glanced at her lapel watch to see if a visit could coincide with lunch. “Tell him I’ll buy him lunch, but I still don’t think he’ll give up an afternoon to talk to a visitor. You never know, though.”
“How much do you think Dr. Marsh is paying him to dig for fossils?”
“About a hundred dollars a month.”
“I’ll offer him that much to come talk to you.”
She closed her eyes and focused on the shallow flow of her breath. “He’d probably come for that.”
“Does that mean you’re not going to make any site visits?”
“The locations of Dr. Lakes quarries have been lost to history. He described the excavations and the bones in considerable detail, but the precise locations were never recorded.” Her heart was working so hard to help her breathe. She hoped she wasn’t putting too much stress on it.
“I want to know where they are,” she continued. “He left a sketch of the ridge in 1879 after most of the excavating was completed, but it’s sparsely labeled, not to scale, and lacks reference points. I’ll ask him to identify where they are and any geological markers. If he only identifies last year’s sites, that’ll be more than what history has now.”
“You still haven’t answered my question,” Rick said with only an ounce of his previous patience.
She handed him her journal. “On the last page is a list of sites and a sketch of the ridge. Those are the places I want to visit. Tear it out and take it with you. Go to those places and take pictures. I’ll be satisfied with that. Then I’ll be ready to go home.”
The Amber Brooch: Time Travel Romance (The Celtic Brooch Book 8) Page 48