The outlines of the skull began to emerge. Behind the eye sockets with their spiky crests, the skull didn’t start curving down as I’d expected: It swooped up.
“What’s this?” I asked Father.
“Some kind of bony frill,” he said. “Incredible.”
I’d once seen drawings of Michelangelo’s unfinished sculptures. Like something struggling to be born from the stone. I couldn’t help thinking of them now as I stared at our bones waiting to be free of the rock so they could thrust themselves into the world.
By the end of the afternoon we had quite a spread. I stood, my back and knees burning after being crimped and crunched so long.
Still half-submerged in stone, the creature’s skull was large. A fox could curl up inside it. It had a compact beaked jaw, like a parrot, and teeth starting well back along the jawbone. The broken horn jutted up from above its nostrils. Might have been a massive rhinoceros, except for the bony frill at the back of it skull, which seemed to have two hornlets curving from it. Ned had uncovered a broken chain of cervical vertebrae, a few ribs, big as barrel hoops, and part of the pelvic girdle—next to the original thighbone he’d first discovered.
“It must have put up a good fight against the rex, with that horn,” I said.
“It’s in remarkably good shape for something that was eaten,” my father commented. What kind of creature do you make of it, Samuel?”
I stood at the edge of the quarry and surveyed the jumble. It was not like looking at a labeled picture in an anatomy book or a mounted museum skeleton. Millions of years of rock had collapsed the creature so that spine and ribs and pelvis and limbs were splayed and scattered in unusual patterns. My eyes darted from one bone to the next, just like my hands had done as a child, handling my father’s jigsaw specimens.
“He’s big bellied,” I said, “a quadruped, maybe twenty feet in length. Not built to be a hunter. He’s slow. A crest to protect his neck, a horn for defense. Jaws and teeth for mashing plant matter. An herbivore. But I bet that beak could give a nasty bite! He would have stood . . . four feet off the ground.”
Father was nodding. “Yes. Very good. I think this one will be . . . Monoclonius crassus. Single-horned fat one. And of course, in honor of its finder, we will append Plaskett.”
Ned beamed. Like a child unwrapping a Christmas gift. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen a happier face. I tried to hide my envy—and disappointment that it wasn’t the rex we were naming right now.
“Professor, I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll find more for me, Ned!”
“I certainly will!”
“Let’s cover it with the tarp and return in the morning.”
The sun hovered above the hills, sending long shadows across the badlands. We’d made an incredible find, but my rex was out there somewhere, and Cartland would soon have a small army of prospectors at work.
As we rode our ponies back toward camp, I was glad Ned was in the lead, because I still hadn’t mastered the maze of ravines. I was startled when he raised a hand and came to stop.
“Voices,” he said.
What I thought was breeze became garbled human speech. Then came the soft whinny of a horse. I thought: Indians.
I didn’t know much about Indians. The only one I’d ever seen, at a circus back home, turned out to be a man in face paint who was actually speaking Latvian. But I’d read plenty of magazine stories about Red Cloud’s War. The Fetterman Fight. The Hayfield Fight. The attack on the new railway lines. At school we talked about the ambushes. And the scalping. The Indians were savage. They were fearless.
Then, unmistakably, I heard singing. Down here in the coulees and defiles it was hard to tell where sound came from. It bounced around the slopes, drifted overhead like mist, and then eddied back from another direction entirely.
With Father and Ned, I scrabbled up a sandstone rill. Crawled across the flat summit on our bellies. Down the other side we could see the meandering river. Along its bank were dozens of uniformed men arranging wagons, building a corral for horses, pitching tents. Enough blue uniforms and flashing gold buttons to make you think they were establishing a fort. A couple fellows were setting up a big cookstove. Then my eyes caught Rachel, helping pitch a tent with her father, driving in a peg with quick steady blows.
I shouldn’t have been, but I was: I was happy to see her. Very happy. I looked at Father’s grim face.
“Well, we knew this was coming,” he said, “but I didn’t think he’d have the temerity to set up camp a few miles from ours.” He stood tall. “I’m going down to confront the scoundrel!”
“Is that a good idea?” I asked in alarm.
“I won’t have him here on my doorstep. This is the New Jersey marl pits all over again!”
“Yes, but what will you—”
Futile. My father was already striding ahead, and it was all Ned and I could do to keep up. We couldn’t have made a very dignified entrance, skidding and lurching down the butte toward their camp. One of the Yalies spotted us first, shaded his eyes, and let out a loud cry.
“It’s Professor Bolt! Everyone, Professor Bolt’s here too!”
More and more people gathered at the edge of the camp, watching as we stomped across the grass. When we were close enough, I saw a smirk on Professor Cartland’s face. And then my gaze found Rachel beside a tall officer, in the split skirt I’d seen her making on the train.
“Cartland!” my father called out. “How astounding to see you here!”
“Bolt, what do you make of these yes yes remarkable badlands?”
My father was hardly ten feet away, but he was still shouting as if from a great distance. I started to get even more worried.
“You must have passed our camp!” my father said.
“We did, and exchanged pleasantries with your man.”
“Then you’ll know we’re prospecting here and plan to do so for some time. I hope you’re not intending on setting up here.”
I saw the journalist, Mr. Landry, his eyes bright, take out a notebook.
Cartland forced a laugh. “If I’m not mistaken, Bolt, you have no deed to this land.”
“Surely we can be gentlemanly about this,” said an officer—a lieutenant I think, by the chevrons on his jacket. “It seems to me there’s plenty of rock for everyone.”
“It is difficult to be gentlemanly,” my father countered, “with a fellow who rides the coattails of another man’s discovery.”
“I believe we heard about these hunting grounds at the same time,” said Cartland. “From your guide, Ned Plaskett.” He pointed at Ned. “You are Mr. Plaskett, aren’t you?”
Ned hung his head, looking thoroughly whipped.
“For simplicity’s sake,” said the lieutenant, “why don’t we each take a side of the river, and then we won’t be tripping each other up. The terrain seems just as interesting either side, yes?”
“I can agree to that, certainly,” said Cartland.
“That might be a—” I began, but Father cut me off.
“No!” With his dusty hair spiking up, his clothes chalky and skin smudged, he looked like a crazed hobo. “I won’t have my movements restricted by an interloper.”
“Professor Bolt,” said the lieutenant, “you might take a bit of comfort in our presence, being so close to Indian territory.”
Father waved a hand. “I’m not at all worried about Indians.”
“So your alternative is that yes yes we both have free run over these badlands?” Cartland said.
I could tell my father had just realized his mistake. But he was too pigheaded to backtrack. Cartland had a small army working for him.
My father conjured his smile and stood taller and spread his arms. “That suits me very well.”
Cartland tilted his head. “We are bound to get in each other’s way.”
“We’ll have a simple rule, then,” said my father. “Lieutenant, I’ll trust you to enforce honor in these matters. Whoever f
inds bone first, that site belongs to him alone. And the other party will keep well away.”
“Agreed,” said Cartland, unable to hide his smirk.
“The finder will claim it with a stake and flag. My color will be white.”
“Ours blue,” returned Cartland.
“Good!” shouted my father, turning. “We will leave you to your labors!”
“Found anything interesting yet, Bolt?” Cartland called after him.
“Not yet,” he lied. “Early days yet.”
I glanced quickly over at Rachel, and I never thought it could be so thrilling just to have your gaze met and held a few seconds. Then I followed my father back to where we’d picketed our horses. We were silent until we were well out of earshot.
“After we quarry out the monoclonius,” I said, “should we strike out farther upriver?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” said my father.
I said, “He has twelve students—and dozens of soldiers.”
“The soldiers wouldn’t know fossilized timber from a femur. And I doubt his students know much more.”
“He can be a lot more places at once. We should’ve split it up.”
Silence from my father. There was as much chance of budging him as one of these massive buttes. It was a big blow, Cartland showing up so close at hand, but I couldn’t help feeling glad. There would be so many more chances to see Rachel.
Plaskett mumbled, “Professor, I feel just terrible about this. This is my fault.”
I felt sorry for him, he looked so miserable. I wished Father would show him some Quaker mercy. Or any kind of mercy. But he was oblivious, ranting inside his own head.
“It’s not your fault, Mr. Plaskett,” I said, giving my father a look. “If we’d replied to you faster, this wouldn’t be happening.”
“You mustn’t chastise yourself a second longer, Ned,” Father said magnanimously.
“I’ll make it up to you in industry, sir.”
“We’ll need all of it,” my father said. “The game’s changed now. He’s got the numbers, but we have speed on our side. Cartland’s a plodder. He’ll quarry out, crate them up, and send them back east. He won’t write them up and name them out here.” Father grinned. “But we will.”
Even when standing, my father was in motion. Swaying from side to side, as if testing his center of gravity, hands thrust deep into his pockets, nodding, looking at the ground, peering into the sky. His mind a steam engine of activity.
Now his face took on a foxy look of mischief. It was impossible not to smile and be swept up in the tidal pull of his excitement.
“As of tomorrow we’ll split up, claim as many sites as we can. Stake every bit of bone you see! Then we’ll dig just enough so I can write them up. We name them, we claim them. You see? We’ll telegraph our finds from Crowe to the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society.”
“And they’re ours!” I said, understanding.
“In print!”
“And it doesn’t matter if Cartland finds the same creature back east in his crates. He’s too late!”
My father nodded. “That is how we’ll beat him.”
11.
AT WORK IN THE RUINS OF THE WORLD
WHEN THE STONE HIT MY SKIRT, I turned and saw Samuel, and my first thought was: Finally.
I’d been working my way along the base of a butte, searching for bone shards. The ground was cluttered with an astonishing variety of rocks and bits of dead vegetation, but my eyes were patient. After years exploring the woods and hills of Connecticut, I was reasonably good at finding hidden things.
Samuel was leaning out from behind a stack of stone, waving at me to join him, before disappearing from sight. I turned and looked up at Daniel Simpson and Hugh Friar, my two chaperones—though I felt I was really chaperoning them, since their prospecting skills were very basic. They worked along a ledge higher up the butte. There was a soldier, too, who seemed content finding the highest point nearby and scanning the horizon.
“I’ll be a few minutes,” I called out.
Over the past couple days I’d learned this was the simplest way of letting them know I had to relieve myself and was going to disappear for a while.
Hugh glanced over his shoulder and gave a curt nod. Daniel told me, as usual, to watch out for rattlesnakes.
My pulse beat hard in my throat as I walked toward the outcropping and rounded the corner. There was Samuel, his face now stubbled and deeply tanned, but the eager warmth in his eyes unchanged.
“Sorry about the rock,” he said quietly, grinning. “I tried a bird whistle but you didn’t notice. This is the first time I’ve seen you in a smaller group.”
“You’ve seen me before?” I said, pleased. So this wasn’t just a chance meeting.
He nodded. “I wanted to say hello, but I didn’t think I’d be very welcome. There were so many of you, trailing after your father!”
I groaned. “He made us troop around in a big stupid clump the first five days, so he could teach everyone how to tell bone from rock and fossilized wood. Most of them are still having trouble.”
He chuckled softly. This was probably welcome news to him.
“But then we started seeing your white flags staked everywhere, and Papa was fuming about how you were trying to claim the entire badlands for yourself. So yesterday he finally split us into smaller groups and told us to start hammering our own stakes.”
“I’ve seen a few blue flags,” he said. “I’m sure there’ll be plenty more.”
We looked at each other awkwardly.
“I didn’t know about Plaskett,” I said. “My father never told me that’s why we came out here. But we certainly weren’t following you—”
He held up his hands. “I know—”
“He didn’t know about your expedition; he didn’t think you had the money to mount one.”
“It was my father’s own fault,” he said. “If he’d replied sooner to Ned, he wouldn’t have written to your father at all. He heard about these badlands fair and square.”
I’m not sure he really believed this, but it was kind of him to say. I realized I was angry—not at Samuel, but at my father because I doubted his motives. At the very least, he’d known Bolt had hired Plaskett to prospect for him here in these badlands. There was no law against Papa coming here too, but it seemed a bit sneaky. I was starting to wonder if part of his reason was simply to confound Bolt. Not that Bolt didn’t want to do exactly the same. . . .
I looked carefully at Samuel. “We’re not spying on each other anymore, are we?”
He shook his head emphatically. “You?”
“No.”
“So it’s all right to tell each other things? We won’t tell our fathers?”
“Everything stays with us,” I agreed. “What our fathers do has nothing to do with us.”
I felt a secret delight saying these words; I felt like I was making, or at least choosing, a world for myself.
He smiled. “Good. I wasn’t very good at spying anyway.”
“I noticed. What about your rex?” For the past week, waiting and hoping for him to find me, I’d wanted to ask him about this.
He let out a big breath. “It wasn’t the rex. It’s a completely different kind of dinosaur. We’re still quarrying it out. It’s like a giant rhino. Horned! And”—he fanned his hands behind his head—“a big bony frill on its skull.”
“Teeth?”
“Definitely an herbivore. I think the rex must’ve attacked it. That’s why its tooth was there. It got broken off in the femur. Must’ve been quite a fight.”
I couldn’t wait any longer. “I found a tooth of my own.”
His expression didn’t disappoint me. He stared, then leaned toward me urgently.
“What kind? Where?”
“From a carnivore.” And I described it and how I’d found it on the funeral platform.
His eyes widened, and I suddenly regretted telling him that last part. Maybe he’d think
differently of me now. Maybe he’d be right to. For an uncomfortable moment he studied me. Was it shock? Admiration?
“I’d’ve done the same,” he said. “Draw it for me!”
Relieved, I traced the outline in the earth.
“That’s the actual size?”
“Very close.”
“Incredible,” he said, shaking his head. “Ours is a bit longer, and it’s not silvery black, but— do you think?”
I’d wondered precisely the same thing. “From the same set of jaws as yours?”
Eagerly he nodded. “Say it attacked the other dinosaur, lost the tooth, maybe lived a long time afterward, and died somewhere else. Wherever it was the Sioux man found it.”
“Our whole skeleton might be there.”
Our. The word had come without any forethought. I’m not sure if he even noticed. His eyes were darting now, trying to keep up with his thoughts.
“If we could find out—” he began.
“Where the Sioux man got the tooth?” I was shaking my head. “The lieutenant won’t go near them. Even without the army, the fact is we . . . well, we sawed off their heads.”
“You what?”
“Not me personally! But my father did, to study them. I tried to stop him.”
He exhaled. “Probably best not to bring it up with the Sioux. I wonder if they found the tooth here in the badlands. Or somewhere else entirely?”
“Imagine if we could find it,” I said.
“That would be something.” He looked at me, his eyes fierce with excitement.
I felt my cheeks heat up. “I’ve been wanting to tell you since the moment I found it.”
“I want to kiss you,” he said.
Surprise jolted through me. On the train I’d wondered if he’d wanted to—and decided no, he was just a little drunk, and naturally emphatic. And how could he want to kiss me right now? Right after I’d told him about chopping off heads and grave robbing?
Startling myself, I said, “Who’s stopping you?”
We were in the middle of nowhere. All the rules we’d brought with us from the East had frayed like cobweb, mile by mile along the tracks.