Old Earth (12 page)

“That’s the best idea yet.”

“Good.”

Alpert stood ready to say goodbye when McCauley suddenly realized she’d traveled all day and probably needed a hotel room.

“Wait, where are you staying?”

“I’ve taken care of that. Two rooms down.” She turned to the door, delicately removed his underwear and returned it to the chair. “Well, at least one question is answered,” she said coyly.

“What’s that?”

“Briefs, not boxers. Goodnight, Dr. McCauley.”

Sixteen

THE NEXT MORNING

McCauley returned to base camp early at four thirty. Earlier than normal waking time. Earlier, he hoped than Dr. Katrina Alpert’s waking time. Even with the interruption from the interloper he felt renewed with a good night’s sleep.

His team began to rise at 6:30. By 7:15 everyone was wolfing down scrambled eggs, toast and coffee, prepared this day by Jaffe and Rodriguez. Once they finished cleaning up—a shared job—they took to the valley and spread out while McCauley hiked even further into the park. He liked the way the morning shadows played tricks with the rocks, creating very relatable images from a human standpoint: A face that looked like a Sioux chief. Lincoln in his top hat. A galloping horse. The things that gave birth to legends and tall tales.

The Yale professor also studied the strata, hoping something special would call out to him. It was now 8:25.

One thing caught his eye.
Another shadow? A sound?
McCauley stopped and strained to bring the impressions into focus.

He peered at a section of rock he calculated to be about thirty feet above the valley floor, maybe fifty yards away.

He saw some movement.
A coyote? Maybe a bobcat or a deer,
he thought. “No,” he said aloud. Then he hoped it wasn’t a mountain lion. He was alone and certain they were indigenous to the area. But if so, he needed to make sure his people were safe. He didn’t have a gun, which was probably a mistake.

It’s moving again
. McCauley continued to walk, carefully closing the distance. At fifteen feet from the cliff he slowly bent down and groped for something to throw; all of this done silently. A few steps more, while keeping his eyes on the target, he put his hand on a rock about the size and weight of a hardball. Getting up just as slowly, he stretched his arm back, pivoted his body ever so much to the left, narrowed his focus to the area above hidden by shadows, and threw the projectile like he belonged on the Red Sox starting lineup.

It was a difficult throw but it scored a hit directly. Suddenly, a flurry of noise filled the morning air as a family of huge birds took flight.

“Jesus!” he gasped. McCauley immediately recognized the birds as turkey vultures by their dark reddish brown featherless heads and the way they soared with their wings raised in a V.

The birds, very distant cousins of the animals that the students had come to uncover and discover, flew high above the cliffs. McCauley figured they were sharing a morning feast in their nests set within the shady rocks. He knew that while other vultures could kill their prey, the turkey vulture couldn’t. Its claws were too weak to grip live animals, so they scavenged.

Ultimately, it wasn’t the birds that intrigued him. They migrated to the region every year. It was where they were nesting. He ventured forward recalling the Lakota people’s legends about the great thunderbirds depicted in their petroglyphs. Perhaps their drawings were born from finding fossils of a pterosaur in their own time.

McCauley’s pulse quickened as he carefully scaled the cliff. His arms and shoulders ached from yesterday’s golfing, but he paced himself, finding the proper footing and places to hold. A final long reach brought him to a ledge where he was able to stand. Four careful steps laterally, McCauley was at the opening where they birds had nested.

This is stupid,
he thought. Still he was curious enough to enter.

“Hello,” he said. His voice trailed off without even an echo.

He spoke louder. “Hello.” There was a faint return.

“Hello!” McCauley now yelled.

He heard a hello, but it didn’t sound like his echo. It was higher pitched, and the direction was off.

“Hello!” he called out at the top of his lungs.

“Hello!”

It was a woman’s voice. Definitely a woman and not from the cave.

McCauley held onto rock that jutted out and turned his body. He looked around, then downward.

“Jesus!” he exclaimed. He saw Dr. Alpert at the base of the cliff. “Don’t you ever just announce yourself quietly?”

“Like the scorpion said to the frog,
‘It’s just my nature.’”

“Right. After the scorpion bit the nice frog that had just given him a lift to the middle of the river. Remember, they both sank and died.”

“Whoops, bad metaphor.” She smiled. “I believe you were saying hello to nothing in particular.”

“Yes I was. And if you keep quiet I’ll be able to make a scientific observation.”

“Well, don’t let me stop you,” she shouted back.

“Later.”

“Me later or whatever you were going to do later?”

“Try both.” He climbed down, brushed himself off and began to walk away. McCauley was not happy. It was going no better than the night before.

“Whoa,” she said, doubling her pace to catch up.

“Dr. McCauley, please.”

He stopped, but kept his back to her. Once by his side she picked up where she left off.

“I’d really appreciate it if you’d make this easier. I’ve come a long way to…”

“To spy. To judge,” he said staring her down.

“To evaluate, doctor. And so far I’ve seen you with golf clubs in a cushy motel room rather than on a cot at your camp like everyone else. Today, you’re off gallivanting, not supervising your students. I just…”

“Came the wrong day,” he interrupted. “How about I give you a call when we discover something worthy of an academician of your stature?”

“I’m a scientist like, you, Dr. McCauley.”

“Well, at last a positive acknowledgment. Will that appear in your evaluation?”

“It will. And if you want to know the truth, I had a really nice summer trip planned. But my dean handed me a ticket to Montana. If you think I’m happy about this, you’re mistaken. I expected time at the ocean.”

“You’re a few million years late.”

“What?”

He gave a sweeping motion across the landscape. “Back in the day, there used to be a great inland sea right here. Perfect for kicking back, putting on a bikini, and soaking in the rays.”

Alpert automatically made sure all the buttons were fastened on her loose white cotton shirt and she was otherwise put together properly. Proper was the right term and the right British term. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She wore perfectly pressed khaki shorts, a white cotton button down shirt and work boots with a high sheen polish.

He continued walking. She kept pace with him now.

“Dr. McCauley, I’ve read your file. I know your work. You could probably teach until the dinosaurs inhabit the earth again. At issue is your research output. You haven’t made any significant contributions in years. You know that as well as I do. Your department is, shall I say, rethinking your ability to attract serious research funds.”

He stopped again and squarely faced her. “So this is really all about my ability as a rainmaker?”

“Well,” she stuttered, as if thinking about the possibility. “No, the quality of your research. Like everything else, money is attracted to success. Washington, London, Tokyo, Beijing, Yale. It’s all the same.”

“Right,” he replied sarcastically.

“Look, I’m not comfortable with my role any more than you are at being held accountable.”

“So what should we do, Dr. Alpert?”

“We could start over. Let’s have a real conversation instead of sparring like Mothra and Godzilla.”

“They’re not dinosaurs, doctor.”

“And neither are you, Dr. McCauley.”

• • •

Minutes later, they were back at base camp. McCauley had waved off his grad students who wanted to know what was happening. At this point he couldn’t objectively or fairly explain.

He held the tent flap open for his visitor, set two folding chairs around a bridge table next to his cot and said, “Let the inquisition begin. Water?” he offered reaching into a small refrigerator powered by a gas generator.

“No thank you.”

He grabbed one for himself. “Can the condemned man have one?”

She laughed. “Help yourself.”

They began to discuss a wide range of issues, avoiding anything personal. The talk moved from recent lackluster government interest to how fewer and fewer corporations and foundations backed paleontological work, and onto the pressure research institutions faced. The deeper the conversation, the more McCauley began to see that Dr. Katrina Alpert was not so different from him. She’d spent years in the field before finally deciding to create a comprehensive dinosaur database going back two hundred years, something sorely missing and uniquely fundable.

“I figured it was where the money was,” she admitted. “And I went for it.”

The dialogue served to reset their relationship which made them both feel better.

After forty-five minutes Alpert ran out of questions. McCauley had one. “So what’s next?”

“I’d like to check out of the motel. Think you can find someplace for me to bunk?”

“Really, with us?”

“Yes.”

“There’s room in the women’s tent.”

“That was what I had in mind. Okay then?”

“Okay, Dr. Alpert.”

“You could try Katrina.”

“Not sure I’m ready to do that.”

“I’d rather be seen as a team member instead of hit man.”

McCauley smiled. He liked that idea a whole lot better, but he just wasn’t sure about her yet.

• • •

While Alpert returned to her motel, McCauley spent time with his grad students, examining their cache of fossils that would make them happy but still wouldn’t add to the greater good. Nonetheless, it was important to give them positive feedback to encourage them. More than anything else, he was a great teacher and mentor.

Ninety minutes later, and without telling anyone where he was headed, McCauley returned to the area that had sparked his curiosity. Once up, he crawled through the entrance. It was stinky and sticky, making the on-ground excavations a pleasure by comparison. Four feet into the darkness, he yelled, “Hello” at medium volume. This time his voice echoed back. He wondered why it was always “Hello,” as if someone was going to say, “Yes, I’m here. I’ve been waiting for you. Where the hell have you been all these years?” And when it wasn’t hello, people just tended to yell “Echo.” That was his next call.

“Echo,” This was at the top of his lungs.

This return astounded him. “Echo” bounced off the rock walls changing volume and pitch. With it, the legends of the badlands came to mind again. Lakota storytellers had recounted tales of ancient creatures that roamed the earth and ruled the skies eons before Lewis and Clark explored the area, or discovered a dinosaur skeleton near the Missouri River.
How did they know? Faint echoes of the past in the winds?

McCauley crawled further and sat up. He took out his iPhone, engaged the flashlight app and saw what looked to be a faded cave painting on the wall.

Lakota.

He turned off the flashlight, switched to camera, aimed at the rock and took a flash picture.

“Jesus! Are you trying to blind me?”

“Holy shit!” he exclaimed. He turned to the silhouetted form of Dr. Alpert, backlit well inside the cave entrance. “There you go again!”

“Sorry, just looking for you.”

“How the hell?” he asked

“Hey, this isn’t my first rodeo,” she said, substituting a western drawl for her British accent.

“Alright, but can you back out carefully now?”

“Why?”

“Because I need more than an iPhone picture or flashlight app.”

“It’s just a cave,” she said.

“Probably,” McCauley answered. “But you never know. It could be my vindication?”

“You wish,” she joked.

Once on solid ground she saw how disgusting they both looked. “This is why I got out of the field.”

“I’ll introduce you to the badland’s best friend.”

“What’s that?”

“The hose. It’s cold, but it’ll wash off most of the crap. Maybe now you’ll understand why I wanted a tub at the El Centro!”

“Trust me, that’s off the evaluation.”

McCauley was finally feeling a bit more comfortable with Dr. Alpert. “Come on, let’s clean up.”

Back with the others McCauley clapped his hands to get everyone’s attention.

“Gentlemen. Ladies,” he said. “A few things. Gather around.”

The team converged.

“Time to formally introduce you to Dr. Katrina Alpert. She’s sticking with us for…”

He wasn’t sure. “How long, doctor?”

“Maybe a week, give or take a few days. But please, treat me like one of the team. Nothing special.”

“Believe me, we have nothing special here,” Jaffe said for the group.

“No Marriott points,” added Chohany.

Alpert laughed. “So I heard.”

“Dr. Alpert is from the very prestigious Cambridge University. So show some respect.”

“Doc, she smells,” Jaffe joked.

“So will the rest of you. I found a cave down the line. We got a few feet in and this is what we look like coming out. But there was a Native American cave painting. There might be more. Who’s up for checking it out for a day or so? You never know.”

“Excuse me, Dr. McCauley, but didn’t Dr. Alpert come to check you out?” Jaffe asked.

“As a matter of fact, yes. But this way we’ll keep her busy and maybe she’ll forget.”

“No chance,” Alpert joked.

“Seriously, I’m beginning to think she’s a good egg. She traded in a summer vacation for a trip back in time with the likes of us. Consider her a friend…after she hoses down, of course. Then, who’s up for a ride into town?”

“Why?” Leslie Cohen asked.

“Shopping. We’re going to need a whole helluva lot of extra equipment, and”—looking at Alpert and himself—“a lot of tarp.”