Every Hidden Thing

by Kenneth Oppel

  “Time,” I said, more sharply than I’d intended, and started reading out my words. He’d done better this time, but halfway through he said, “Salvage? You got salvage? Where?”

  I tapped out the letters with the tip of my pencil. “That’s worth seven points, by the way.”

  He shook his head in bewilderment. “I can’t believe I missed it.”

  “Maybe you’re not as sharp a prospector as you thought.”

  He frowned at his word list, and I felt a bit sorry for him.

  I said, “I’m sure your expert eye will help your father find his king of all dinosaurs.”

  He glanced up at me so sharply I sensed I must’ve touched on something.

  “All his talk of behemoths.” I nodded over at his father. “He seems to have his sights set on something big.”

  He shrugged, but he still looked guarded. He was poor at hiding his thoughts. “Bigger is best with my father,” he said.

  I wondered if I’d made a discovery. Did they truly know about something vast waiting for them out there?

  “Another lead from your dentist in Kansas?” I made a joke of it.

  He grimaced. “I don’t think Father would trust him to dig up a potato for him now. Anyway, Kansas is mostly aquatic reptiles—we’re looking for true Dinosauria.”

  So he wasn’t looking for any more reptiles. Nor was he going to Kansas. . . .

  “If you could find anything out there, what would it be?” I asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Not another hadrosaur, not something that’s already been discovered. Something amazing!”

  His enthusiasm was so genuine I smiled, because it reminded me of the feeling I had when I thought of prospecting.

  “Will you be able to put it together again in three minutes? Like the raccoon?” I made my eyes wide, wanting to flatter him, to make him talk even more. It surprised me when his face reddened.

  “Well, the story didn’t go quite like that. I left a bit out. My father had a stopwatch and gave me three minutes. I had it nearly put together, all except a pair of bones, and I didn’t know where to place them.” Even as he retold it, there was a faint echo of frustration and even panic in his voice. “It made me question all the work I’d already done. Was it even a raccoon? I started undoing everything and my father called time and I was still holding these two mystery bones, and I said, ‘What are these?’ And he laughed and said, ‘I just added those to throw you off.’ And everyone laughed with him, and I was furious.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Eight.”

  “That’s a cruel joke to play on a boy.”

  “It was a good lesson, I suppose. Taught me to trust my instincts and not get flustered.”

  The fact that he’d told me the real story—and not the bragging feat he’d related when we’d first met—made me like him much better, this new, more vulnerable boy.

  “Was your father a good teacher?” he asked me.

  “He was. I don’t think he knew any other way to talk to me.”

  “Gave you your first magnifying glass.”

  He’d remembered. “Yes. And showed me my first dinosaur fossil. He woke me up early and took me to a field where a farmer had plowed up some sandstone slabs.” I could still feel the chill in the morning air, see the long light through the trees. “There was a line of huge bird tracks in them. The farmer said it must’ve been Noah’s raven; he’d never seen a bird so big. My father told him it was no bird. They were dinosaur footprints. It had been walking on two legs, dragging its tail behind it through the wet mud. You could see the tail marks. Millions of years ago. It was one of the most incredible moments of my life.”

  He nodded, saying nothing, eyes on mine. He knew how it felt. I had the sense I could say anything without baffling him, so unlike the people at my father’s dinner table, with their thin-lipped smiles of disapproval or even pity. So I said, “I started looking at everything more carefully after that, for longer, too. The magnifying glass helped. A snail. A moth. A beetle. Even things that seemed ordinary or ugly at first could be beautiful.”

  6.

  LET ME KISS YOU SWEET GOOD-BYE

  WE TALKED AND TALKED, NEBRASKA swelling gently past the windows. We played one more round of the word game—and I played my other game, trying to learn as much as I could about Rachel’s expedition. It would’ve been nice to win at least once. But I would’ve played any game that kept her near me.

  The only thing reminding me of time was the train, stopping every so often to let people on or off. But Cartland’s party showed no signs of leaving.

  It was Father who eventually halted our conversation, by coming and introducing himself.

  “I believe the last time we met,” he said, smiling his most charming smile, “you had a very good grip on my ear.”

  I was glad to see she didn’t fall victim to his grin and crinkled eyes. Solemnly she let her hand be taken and pressed.

  “I have an appetite for lunch,” Father said to me.

  Reluctantly I said good-bye. We walked back to the dining car. My mind was singing with my long conversation, and I listened to little bits of it again and watched her laugh and frown and look at me gravely. Each thought and image of her was like one of those river rocks you held before putting it back so it stayed wet and beautiful.

  The dining car was filling up when we arrived. We were directed to a free table and warned by the headwaiter that others might be seated with us if the need arose. My stomach rumbled happily. The food we’d been eating at station stops since Philadelphia was disgusting. Gray meat cunningly hidden beneath puddled gravy. It looked like something already chewed and rejected. I’d heard the Union Pacific’s food was supposed to be good.

  Father leaned in. “You two had a good long chat. What did you learn?”

  I told him how I’d asked her leading questions about Nebraska and horses. But she’d been evasive.

  “But,” I said, “did you know they have an army escort?”

  “Do they?” he murmured. “Trust Cartland to strum all the moneyed strings. But this is a very interesting bit of information. Because the soldiers have to come from somewhere. . . .”

  “So we know he’s getting off near a fort.” I was quite pleased with myself.

  “Precisely.” He pulled the Union and Central Pacific map from his jacket. He consulted his pocket watch.

  “We’ve cleared Silver Creek,” he muttered. “We’ve got North Platte coming up. That’s near Fort McPherson. That situates them perfectly for excursions into both Kansas and Nebraska. He’s found a lot of his horse fossils in that region. Even up into southern Dakota. After that there’s Cheyenne—there’s a fort near there as well. And next would be . . . well, that would put them at our station stop.” He looked crushed.

  “It’s most likely North Platte,” I said to cheer him up, though I hated the idea of Rachel getting off the train.

  “That means they’ll be getting off at two a.m.,” he said, looking at the timetable. “Let’s hope.”

  Just then the lavender-scented lady from our car was escorted to our table by the headwaiter. Both Father and I rose and said, “Good afternoon, ma’am.”

  “I hope you don’t mind my joining you?”

  “Not at all, please,” said my father, pulling out the chair next to his.

  We sat and introduced ourselves. Her name was Mrs. Cummins, and she was traveling from St. Paul to live with her sister’s family in San Francisco. She’d lost her husband during the war. She must’ve married very young, because she couldn’t have been thirty, and was uncommonly pretty.

  She talked mostly to my father, who’d angled his chair toward her. He was trying to subtly stroke his mustache into some order. To straighten the lines of his train-rumpled jacket. No one could be as attentive to women as him. It was positively cosmic. He turned on his full solar attention, and they actually seemed to lean closer, like they were gravitationally pulled.

  Despite Mrs. Cummins’s lush mo
uth, and the pleasing swell of her blouse, I was thinking only of Rachel. Watching for her to come and have her lunch. I only half listened to my father’s conversation with Mrs. Cummins. Mostly to make sure he didn’t reveal too much about our expedition. He told just enough to impress the widow with his fame. Our food arrived, and the two of them seemed scarcely interested in it. She liked to touch his arm when she made a point or was surprised by something he said. She was surprised a lot. I saw Father sit up taller, his smile spread roguishly across his face. He was never at a loss for words, asking her question after question, which she eagerly answered.

  Cartland and Rachel arrived and had their lunch with Landry and one of the students. She did not look over. Which was maddening.

  When we were finished, Mrs. Cummins shook our hands and excused herself and went back to the second carriage.

  “Well,” my father said, inhaling as if enjoying a fresh breeze, “she was a very pleasant lady. We should return to the carriage as well.”

  “But shouldn’t we try to learn more?” I asked. “About the Cartlands.”

  “Never overplay your hand,” he said wisely. “Our best chance will be after dinner, when the bar opens in the parlor car. Until then, we have our own plans to discuss.”

  A big wintry gust of disappointment moved through me, but I followed Father back to the carriage. When dinnertime finally came round, we returned to the dining car. Much to my father’s disappointment, we weren’t seated with Mrs. Cummins. She was already with three Yale students, who mostly stared at her in stunned silence while she made sunny chitchat. I noticed she liked touching the arm of one of the handsomer students.

  We ourselves had the bad luck of being seated with two waxy-looking stationers. The more talkative one, very slowly and in excruciating detail, told us about the challenges of the job. I was shoveling food into my mouth so I could get away fast, but my father seemed to enjoy interrupting the fellow to pepper him with questions. I kept looking over at Cartland’s table, hoping Rachel would look over and see me. She did, just once, and held my gaze for an electrifying moment before turning her attention back to her father.

  By the end of the meal our stationers thought Father was a capital fellow and gave him their cards. They parted with hearty handshakes and invitations to visit next time we were in Sacramento.

  “Ah, that was an ordeal,” he said. “I believe the parlor car will be serving restorative beverages by now.”

  As we entered, the attendant was just unlocking the liquor cabinet. Its mirrored shelves were filled with festive-looking bottles. As diners finished their meals, the car filled till there were no more seats. People stood about, holding their cigars and drinks.

  My father ordered whiskey. Many Quakers disapproved of liquor, but my father wasn’t one of them. He pressed a drink into my hand; I was still unaccustomed but took it back in two slugs. It seared sweetly all the way down. A hot bloom started through me. I felt the train’s restless pulse through my feet. Rex-ex-ex, rex-ex-ex, rex-ex-ex . . . My father soon had a group of Yale students around him, asking about his finds. Tumblers hit the bar and were refilled. Mine included. Cigar and pipe and cigarette smoke thickened. A group of students began to sing, and I smiled this time.

  Let me introduce a fellah, Lardy dah! Lardy dah!

  A fellah who’s a swell, ah, Lardy dah!

  From the corner of my eye I saw Rachel, sitting in a corner by the window. She was not drinking, nor was her father. I wanted to go talk to her more than anything.

  Suddenly the singing seemed louder, a familiar voice yodeling above the rest. Sure enough, when I looked, my father had joined arms with four other Yalies as they swayed back and forth, belting out:

  As he saunters through the street,

  He is just too awful sweet;

  To observe him is a treat, Lardy dah! Lardy dah!

  He had a terrible voice, my father, but it never stopped him from singing with huge enthusiasm.

  In his hand a penny stick,

  In his mouth a quill tooth-pick,

  Not a penny in his pocket, Lardy-dah!

  Which might be our situation, if Father kept buying everyone drinks. He was slapping another bill down on the bar for the attendant. Much cheering and backslapping and raising of glasses. Someone pushed a glass into my hand. I had to admit, Father knew how to commandeer a room.

  “How much have you spent?” I shouted into his ear, pulling him aside.

  “A pittance,” he said, grinning. “And a small price to pay for what I just learned.” He winked. “North Platte.”

  Just like he’d hoped: Cartland’s group would be getting off the train at two in the morning. And I was headed on into Wyoming. Leaving Rachel far behind.

  Father was elated. “And when we find our rex,” he said, leaning close to me, face flushed, “I’m naming it after you.”

  A jolt went up my spine. “Really?”

  “Of course! You practically funded this expedition! And you’ll be at my side with your keen eye!”

  I wasn’t sure I believed him, especially in his current state, but it didn’t stop the ballooning of happiness in my chest. My name. The perfect piece in my collection. Before I could even thank him, he was swallowed back up by Cartland’s adoring students, who were embarking on the well-known temperance song “Dinna Forget yer Promise, Jamie.”

  Dinna forget yer promise, Jamie,

  Dinna forget to think o’ me.

  Let me kiss ye sweet gude bye,

  Let me kiss ye sweet gude bye.

  The Yale students were making a big show of grasping their pals and planting big smacks on their cheeks. Someone kissed my cheek too, and my heart kicked. Rachel. But when I looked over I saw that it was Mrs. Cummins. She laughed at my surprised face, and then my father took her hand and led her in a dance. They seemed very cozy with each other.

  I looked back at Rachel, alone now at the table, and was seized by the panic I wouldn’t see her again. I’d never felt anything quite like it. I downed my drink, started toward her, not having a clue what I’d say.

  I sat down next to her. Bold, since she hadn’t invited me, but this was the Wild West and there was singing and I’d had whiskey.

  “I wanted to say good-bye.”

  “Are you getting off soon?” she asked. She looked genuinely surprised, which made me surprised for a second until I realized she was playacting. I chuckled.

  “No,” I said, feeling very suave. “We’re not getting off till after you.”

  Her eyes widened. “How do you know that?”

  “One of your students just told my father where you’re going.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “It’s funny,” I said. “My father wanted me to talk to you and try to weasel out where you were going.”

  She hesitated a moment. “Mine too.”

  I sat back. “Really? So we were both spying on each other.”

  She smiled. “Is that the only reason you talked to me?”

  For a moment I wondered if I’d hurt her feelings. I shook my head.

  She looked unconvinced. I knew her father might return at any moment, so I hurried. “Would you write to me?”

  “Yes,” she said right away. “Where do I send the letter?”

  “Just the post office in . . .” I caught myself. Too much whiskey. “Ha! You’re very good. I almost told you where we’re going.”

  “So why don’t you?

  What was it about her gaze that made me want to tell her the truth? Tell her everything in me. Maybe she’d make sense of it all, keep it safe. Maybe I thought the more I told her, the more she’d like me. At school girls had seemed to like my talk, but usually I was just flattering. I saw what they liked, and the look in their faces made me want to please them better than they’d ever been pleased.

  Right now I wanted Rachel Cartland to stay and like me. I wanted her to trust me. I leaned closer, though there was no risk of anyone overhearing, it was so noisy. “We’re getting off at Crowe, work
ing the badlands to the north.”

  She nodded calmly, but I was pretty sure she was surprised.

  “Can I tell you a secret?” I said.

  She smiled. “You are a terrible spy.”

  “I shouldn’t tell you.”

  “You don’t need to tell me. I’ll say good night.” She made to get up.

  “Wait,” I said. “Wait, wait.” I told her about the tooth, all about it. She listened with rapt attention. Our faces were close, and when I finished talking we watched each other expectantly. Her mouth was not lush, but her upper lip had a very precise and pretty notch at its center, and I knew I was about to kiss it. I didn’t care who’d see or what would happen afterward, and I had the feeling she didn’t either. But from the corner of my eye, I saw her stolid father approaching. The sour sight of him made me lose my nerve. I knew I only had a few more seconds alone with her.

  “Don’t forget to write,” I said. “I like talking to you more than anything.” My heart was beating fast, and I couldn’t stop myself adding, “You really do have the most extraordinary eyes.”

  My appearance has gone uncomplimented, almost entirely.

  Certainly my father praised me for good schoolwork and my scientific drawings and observations—and I valued these a great deal. But without a mother I was never told I had lovely hair or a pleasing figure or striking eyebrows—or any of those things one is supposed to hear as a girl, even if they’re untrue. My aunt Berton’s few remarks usually involved a criticism of some kind, like my hair looked as though it needed washing.

  The first and only time I remember being complimented for my appearance was in school when I was nine. I was asked to read a passage of Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses,” and I was shy to do it. I did not like people’s eyes on me, and I read it as quickly as possible. Mrs. Hansard, who was always kind to me, nodded and said, “Rachel Cartland, that was quite clear and correct, but I find it hard to believe that you can’t read such stirring words with more passion, when you have such bewitching intensity in your face.”

  Bewitching intensity. I had clutched that phrase to me the rest of the day, and then wrote it down in my best writing and laid it in the bottom of a drawer, which I’d vainly reopen just to look at.