“Grateful?” she said, eyebrows lifting. “You mean because you’re so charming and handsome and I’m so plain?”
“Yes!” I wanted to see her eyes brim. I wanted to see that I could hurt her.
“I know I’m plain,” she said. “This is hardly new or upsetting to me.”
She was like a fortress. Impenetrable. It made me even more furious.
“Your heart’s made of the same substance as your teeth!”
She stared back at me, and I wondered if she was going to lash out finally.
“And yet,” she said, “you’ve managed to burrow your way inside like a clever fox.”
This stopped me. “Was that romantic?”
“My heart is not made of enamel,” she said, frowning.
“You said something romantic to me!”
“Not really.”
But she couldn’t stop her smile, and there was color deepening in her cheeks.
“You’re ridiculous,” she said. “You look like you’ve won some huge victory.”
That was exactly how I felt. I went to her and kissed her. After a moment she drew back and said, “Listen, I meant what I said. I just want to concentrate on this dig for a while. It’s really exciting.”
I nodded, said nothing.
“You’d be excited too. It’s a new species! Isn’t that why we both came? To pursue our passions? When I saw those bones . . . my heart thrilled at it.”
Thrilled. I was jealous of her find, of everything that pulled her attention away from me.
“And that’s what I want to think of,” she said. “I worked hard to get here, Samuel—”
“Me too!”
“I know. So let’s make the most of it. We’re only here for a couple of months. Let’s not waste it.”
She was right. Of course she was right. Didn’t make me feel one bit better. Just like a scolded child.
“I’m not going to waste it,” I told her.
“This expedition might convince my father to let me go to university.”
I grimaced. “My father wants me to go, and I don’t even want to.”
“Then you’re an idiot,” she said, her anger startling me. Now she was angry. “How lucky you can just throw away an opportunity I might never get. All you care about is whether I’m thinking enough about you!”
I stared at her furious face and felt frozen. Didn’t know what to do or say. I must’ve looked pathetic, because her expression softened and she came close and put her arms around me.
“I care about a lot of things,” I said to the top of her head. “I’ve wanted to find the rex since the moment I touched its tooth. I’ve got a lot of fire in me for that. I just care about you more.”
She kissed me. “If you care about me, it’s probably best you don’t come round for a bit. Father thinks this could take us weeks to dig out, and starting tomorrow, practically everyone’s working here.”
“I don’t want to go that long without seeing you.”
“Me neither,” she said. “But it’ll be too risky.”
“I’m still going to try,” I said stubbornly.
“All right. But just don’t be hurt if I can’t get away safely to meet you.”
I shrugged and lied. “I won’t be.”
“I can’t get caught, Sam. He’ll send me back home.”
“I don’t want that to happen to you. I’ll be careful.”
We kissed again, and she told me she had to go. I wanted to tell her I loved her, but I didn’t. Maybe I didn’t have the courage. Maybe I still wanted to hurt her. I watched her as she walked away without looking back.
Thunder woke me.
I poked my head from the tent. Lightning made blinding fissures in the night. The thunder tolled like colossal church bells that had burst from their towers and were cartwheeling straight for us—no buildings or streets or trees to stop them. In the flashes of lightning, the rain writhed like twisting serpents.
It was terrifying, and I loved it. The calamity of it. I completely understood how the Pawnee could believe their great spirit had sent a flood to wash away the world. The wind pummeled the tent, and I heard the pegs straining.
It had been over a week since I’d seen Sam. When I was at work, my mind was focused, but on my way to and from the quarry, I’d look for him in the hills and ravines.
He hadn’t called me plain—but he didn’t disagree when I had. That night I’d cried in my tent and told myself he was a conceited ass. I’d wanted to put him inside one of my killing jars. I’d keep him all bottled up, perfectly preserved so I could look at his beautiful face and body, and he’d never say anything hurtful or stupid again.
Could I ever love him? He made being in love look so miserable, and like so much work. Such a distraction from what I wanted most to be doing right now.
The storm was still directly overhead, its claps so loud I had to put my hands over my ears. The horses neighed, and I heard the shouts of soldiers, lashing things down and telling one another to stay low. I heard Papa bellowing at his students to get back inside. There was a searing crack, and I saw a great cottonwood near the river cleaved in two.
My face and the collar of my nightgown were soaked. I was more frightened and thrilled than ever before in my life.
And I realized that, more than anything, I wanted to be seeing this with Samuel. To have him beside me, his shoulder against mine, peering out into this wild world, where everything was being broken down, and built anew.
It was still drizzling the next morning. Too wet to prospect or quarry. The clay in the rock made it slippery as soap.
We cleared space inside the covered wagon so we could work out of the rain. We had a couple bones from our latest quarry, and I got busy chipping away the matrix, working like I always worked these days, which meant thinking about Rachel.
“He’s made a big find,” Father was saying. “I saw it two days ago in passing. They’ve got enough vertebrae for the keel of a schooner.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised if Cartland set a night sentry,” I said. Scoundrel that he was, I didn’t want my father getting shot in the dark.
“I have no designs on it.” Glumly he added, “He’ll have to build a new hall at his university to house it. No doubt named after him.”
“It’s not the rex,” I said. “Sounds too big.”
“Yes,” he agreed, “something that size couldn’t be a predator. Too slow. Ours is a predator.”
It could still be ours. Even though Cartland might have the upper hand right now. Even though there were only three of us, looking in a sea of surfaces. I’d find it. Despite everything, that fire had not gone out.
I worked on mechanically. I’d tried to see her again. Once I’d waited for hours and had to leave without getting a chance; another time I couldn’t even get close to the quarry, there were so many people and horses coming and going.
After lunch it stopped raining. Hitch tended to the horses. In the soft dirt near our cookstove I took a stick and made a four-by-four grid. Wrote some random letters inside the boxes. I hoped to quiet my mind, have a few minutes without her. Foolish. Every word led me back to her.
Dear. My dear Rachel. I’m sorry I called you plain. You aren’t.
Head. I sometimes think your head is firmly, resolutely above your heart.
Order. Something I cannot do with my mind at the moment.
Her. A pronoun I use all the time now.
17.
BRONTOSAURUS
AS WE NEARED THE QUARRY, MY EXCITEMENT built, just like it did every day. I’d found the biggest dinosaur in history, Papa had said. A quadruped of massive proportions, it had a thick tail and a long tapering neck, and a small head with teeth for mashing plants. My father had already gone so far as to suggest a name. It was completely unlike him to be so bold and spontaneous. Maybe he’d been truly swept up by the excitement of discovery, or maybe he was just impatient to catch up with Bolt. But yesterday, as we’d stood surveying the giant bones, I’d said, �
��Imagine the noise it would have made, just walking. It would shake the earth.”
And he’d said, “Brontosaurus. Thunder lizard.”
“I think that suits it very well,” I’d said, and he’d put a hand on my shoulder.
I could only hope that this find, along with the pterodactylus, would convince Papa that I was more than suited for a life as a fossil hunter—and win me his blessing for university. I wouldn’t bring it up just yet, though. I’d wait a bit longer.
Our large party made its final turn into the valley. I gazed at the quarry and didn’t understand what I was seeing. Utter devastation. I swung myself off my pony. Every step brought me closer to the wreckage of bones. Spiny vertebrae hacked to bits, ribs snapped like kindling, limb bones smashed to shards, the skull unrecognizable except for a few scattered teeth on the lower jaw. Our own picks and shovels had been the weapons of destruction, and they lay scattered among the ruins, their blades and points dented and dulled, handles snapped in two.
“Bolt,” my father said beside me.
“No . . .” Even though he’d stolen from our last quarry, I couldn’t believe a paleontologist would destroy something so valuable. It was too much.
Students and soldiers were fanning out, stunned, through the wreckage. It was like the graveyard of some terrible massacre.
“Don’t touch anything!” Papa called out. “We may be able yes yes to salvage. Bones can be glued.”
“Bolt saw the site,” Daniel Simpson was saying. “Just a few days ago we saw him go by.”
“No one person could’ve done all this,” my father said. “His boy and Plaskett and their half-wit teamster must’ve helped.”
“Samuel wouldn’t do this,” I murmured.
“No?” Papa said angrily. “I think we’ve already seen what that family’s capable of. If they can steal, they can destroy.”
I felt a deep cramping pain in my belly, worse than the ones that came before my monthlies. All those beautiful ancient bones, fragile as newborn things. My eyes welled, and I turned away so Papa wouldn’t see and think me too emotional. I doubted we could repair much. It was too broken, too scattered, all our bones and all our work. My work.
“Look who’s come to admire his handiwork!”
The shout was Hugh Friar’s, and we looked to where he stood on a butte, clenching the shirt collar of Samuel Bolt.
You idiot, I thought. What are you doing here?
I cried out as Hugh gave him a shove and sent him staggering down the steep slope into the valley. He tried to keep his balance but fell, tumbling. Carefully, Hugh skidded down after him.
Shakily Samuel stood, hands bleeding, sleeves torn at the elbows. I wanted to run to him, but forced myself to walk at the same pace as Papa and the others.
Hugh got there first and shoved him down again. I could see the fury in Sam’s face as he stood and faced Hugh.
“What was that for?” he demanded.
“You know exactly, you little bastard.”
It was only then Samuel turned and looked at the quarry, and I saw the honest shock in his face.
“I didn’t do this,” he said, his eyes finding mine.
Hugh pushed him. “Liar!”
Samuel flew at him and landed a punch on Hugh’s big handsome face. Hugh was solid and a bit taller, and he didn’t move much. He came at Sam hard. Fists, knees, heads, they struck and butted each other.
“You two, stop it!” My voice was strangled. I hurried forward and grabbed Hugh’s arm and tried to pull him away, but then I felt myself being forcefully removed, and saw two blue-coated soldiers dragging Samuel back. No one had their hands on Hugh, and he punched Samuel in the stomach while his arms were pinned. He pitched forward, retching and gasping.
“Hugh!” I shouted. “Leave him alone! He didn’t do it!”
“Like hell!”
“Hugh,” my father said calmly, and the Yalie turned with a curse and walked off.
A bruise was already darkening around Sam’s right eye, and his lip was split.
“You can let him go,” I told the soldiers.
They looked at my father first and, when he nodded, released Samuel.
“You were very thorough,” my father said to him.
“This wasn’t us,” Samuel replied hoarsely.
“I suspected you’d stolen from one of my quarries, but this is something altogether more atrocious. You’ve destroyed an entire specimen—you’ve deprived me and the world of a treasure!”
“I didn’t do this!”
Papa laughed coldly. “Not alone, certainly. This was a great deal of work. I gather all of you came yesterday in the rain.”
“We were at our camp all day.”
“At night, then.”
Samuel’s eyes came to me, pleading—and there was something else in them now, a terrible uncertainty, as if he himself was wondering if his own father was capable of this terrible thing.
I believe you, I tried to tell him with my eyes.
“How do we know it wasn’t Ethan Withrow and his men?” I said rashly. “Or Indians. There’s a village nearby.”
My father just shook his head with a bitter smile. “You go tell your father he has gone too far. I will publish this widely, in both the popular and academic press, and he will find himself a very despised and lonely man. His career, whatever career he had, is utterly finished.”
He did not shout. His face was calm, but I could sense a malicious pleasure in him, and it chilled me.
“Go give your father my message.”
Samuel shot me one last look, and I had to look away. I felt cowardly, like I was abandoning him, but I didn’t know how to help him right now, and I didn’t want Papa to suspect anything. If he did, more than our dinosaur bones would be destroyed.
Head throbbing with every step my pony took, I made my way back to camp. I touched my face, spat to see how much blood was left in my mouth. My father, could he have done such a thing? He’d already stolen, but would he destroy? It was against everything he upheld as a scientist. It was also idiotic. Who else did he think Cartland would blame?
At least Rachel didn’t think it was me. I’d heard her shout it out to Hugh, before we began fighting. Would she think I’d started it? I hit first, but only after I’d been pushed down a hill. And shoved. And barked at and called a liar. What a coward he was, punching me when the soldiers had me.
I came out onto the river and saw our wagon—and four unfamiliar ponies tied up, cropping. They didn’t have saddles. Their tails were braided. I felt icy through to my toes.
I jerked the reins and hurried my pony behind some tall brush. I hopped off. My hand was shaky as I rifled through my saddlebag and grabbed the hammer. I walked closer to the camp. I spotted four Indians. The tallest held a bow in his right hand and had a quiver of arrows slung over his shoulder. They all had their backs to me, standing shoulder to shoulder, heads angled. Like they were looking intently at something. Or interrogating someone. I heard my father’s voice, but he was blocked from view by the Indians.
Off to one side Ned stood frozen, watching. In the middle of the camp, Hitch squatted by the cookstove. Everything was so still, it felt like only something terrible could follow.
I moved a little closer. I was pretty sure they were Sioux. I felt a strange numbness inflate inside me, like I was about to float free of my body.
I could ride for Cartland’s camp, get the army. Two hours it would take. Anything could happen by then. The hammer was slippery in my fist. Ned kept a rifle under the seat of the wagon. If I could somehow get to it.
Ned saw me first, grinned uneasily, tilted his head in my father’s direction. I had no idea what he meant. That everything was going to be okay? That my father was already dead? That this was my chance to get the rifle when their backs were turned?
The choice was taken from me. All the Indians turned at once, their faces surprised. I fixed on one. The boy I’d run into in the badlands. The Indians had parted enough so I could
finally catch a glimpse of my father, seated on a camp chair.
Impossibly, he was smiling. With a shock I saw that two of his front teeth were missing. Had they beaten him already? And then I saw he held them in his hand, attached to the dental bridge he’d had made several years ago.
He saw me and said cheerfully, “Samuel. Put down the hammer.”
I let it slip from my fingers. The Indians lost interest in me and turned back to Father. Who, with a theatrical flourish, held his fake teeth high and then reinserted them deftly inside his mouth.
After a moment of stunned silence, the shortest of the Indians made an eager circling motion with his hand. Again.
Twice more my father obligingly removed and inserted his false teeth before the boy said something to the other Sioux. He sounded irritable. Like he’d had enough of this nonsense. To my amazement, the three men nodded deferentially.
“Ned,” said my father carefully, “maybe we can offer our guests here some dinner. Hitch, what are we eating tonight?”
From the cookstove, Hitch began, in his methodical way, to count off what he’d prepared. He was frightened and stammered a bit. His hands fluttered and kept patting his trousers. He had a gun too, and was an excellent shot. I didn’t know where his gun was right now, but I was worried if he started shooting, it would be all over for us. The Sioux all had knives.
“That sounds like a wonderful meal,” my father told Hitch. “Ned, you said you knew some Sioux.”
“Not much, but I’ll try.” He said a few words, which won snorts from the Indians. He ended up miming eating with his fingers.
They ignored this and instead started looking around our camp. The second tallest Sioux had a face ravaged by the pox. Peering inside our tents, rummaging through our clothing. They didn’t take anything, though they looked for a while at Father’s shaving kit.
My eyes passed over their ponies. A pick was strung over the back of one. Unlikely thing for a Sioux to have, wasn’t it? Its blade was powdered gray.
“What happened to you?” Ned asked.
“Run in with the Yalies.”
“Your face looks pretty bad, son.” Ned seemed more concerned about me than my own father, who was busy watching the Sioux as they strutted around our tents.
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