Read The Canyon of Bones Online
Authors: Richard S. Wheeler
The Canyon of Bones (18 page)
I
t was oddly quiet. No breeze penetrated here. There was nothing to say. They stood side by side, studying an elongated skull that rose only a little out of the sandstone in which it was embedded, revealing perhaps ten percent of its mass. But it was enough. The ancient jaws held monstrous teeth, each larger than a man's hand, and shaped to pierce. The powerful jaw could catch large prey if indeed the beast was a meat-eater.
t was oddly quiet. No breeze penetrated here. There was nothing to say. They stood side by side, studying an elongated skull that rose only a little out of the sandstone in which it was embedded, revealing perhaps ten percent of its mass. But it was enough. The ancient jaws held monstrous teeth, each larger than a man's hand, and shaped to pierce. The powerful jaw could catch large prey if indeed the beast was a meat-eater.
A huge eye socket, the hole larger than a human head, peered up at them. Slabs of humped skull bone formed a lengthy nose. The back of the skull stopped abruptly, almost as if broken off. Behind the skull, the spinal bones lay disordered, half buried in the stone. From the vertebrae rose flat-topped dorsal ribs, with smaller curved ribs below. From there, the fossil vanished into the stone, only to reemerge ten feet farther along. There were more vertebrae all in disarray, beyond the imaginings of the most learned doctors of nature. But here were giant ribs, familiar bones now that spoke of the chest cavity. And an array of tiny bones that formed forepaws.
These were so small that Skye could not believe they belonged to the same animal. Maybe this was all an ancient boneyard, the grave of all sorts of strange beasts.
These were so small that Skye could not believe they belonged to the same animal. Maybe this was all an ancient boneyard, the grave of all sorts of strange beasts.
There was a pathway that took them farther along, a path worn by countless visitors. A pathway recently used, with faint imprints in the dust. Next was a few square yards of disorder, a great jumble of ribs and vertebrae, and then odd-shaped pelvic bones, broken into several pieces, mostly buried in rock. And then the shocking thing: monstrous leg bones, each taller than a tall man, mostly buried in rock, but the outlines visible. These were impossible bones, larger than wild imagination could fathom. Bones of an animal as tall as a house. And a few yards away, a well-preserved three-toed foot, a bird's foot, delicately formed but still a pedestal that could support this monster. Beyond was a scatter of other bones, smaller and smaller, yard after yard, as if this strange beast had a twenty- or thirty-foot tail.
Skye had been here before, and now had the same response as before. Did this come from God?
Now he watched Mercer; watched the man visibly abandon the notion that this was a carved shrine, some religious artistry worked by an ancient sculptor. This beast had perished beside a river or on a beach and had been gradually covered with sand, and over aeons had become a fossil caught in sandstone until some giant upthrust had pushed this rock high, and erosion had worn through the sandstone and bared these unimaginable things.
Mercer took off his hat. He was not smiling this time.
“How old, do you think?” he asked.
Skye shook his head.
“There's more,” Victoria said. She led them silently along
the worn path that skirted the sandstone outcrop, until they came to another ledge jammed with bones, these disordered so much a mortal could hardly put them together to mean anything. But there they were, a carpet of bones, mostly broken into small pieces, and yet parts of a beast as formidable as the more complete skeleton they had just visited. But no, this was not the same beast, for when they came to the skull, or the fragment left of it, they found a peculiar horn rising from its snout, a blade where no blade should be, an illogical blade that would serve no fathomable purpose. So here was another monster of the deep, another nightmare to float through a man's soul when sleep beckoned.
the worn path that skirted the sandstone outcrop, until they came to another ledge jammed with bones, these disordered so much a mortal could hardly put them together to mean anything. But there they were, a carpet of bones, mostly broken into small pieces, and yet parts of a beast as formidable as the more complete skeleton they had just visited. But no, this was not the same beast, for when they came to the skull, or the fragment left of it, they found a peculiar horn rising from its snout, a blade where no blade should be, an illogical blade that would serve no fathomable purpose. So here was another monster of the deep, another nightmare to float through a man's soul when sleep beckoned.
“How would you like to run into one of these on your path?” Winding asked.
“Why are they here?” Mercer asked.
Who could say? The sandstone overhang protected them; that was all Skye could make of it.
Mary was careful to touch every bone she could reach. She ran her small brown hand over the rock, her fingers into creases and over bulges, as if the bones were there to give her strength, and the more she touched them the stronger and wiser she would be. Victoria frowned. For her, the bones were sacred relics of her own origins, for she was one of the people of this bird. But Mary saw these bones her own way. Skye smiled at her and she smiled back. Touching the bones was giving medicine to her and she was harvesting the strange powers that lay within them.
“Many more,” Victoria said, pointing. Indeed, the trail ran another fifty yards through the mortuary of giants somehow trapped here and hidden from air and sun and wind until recent times.
Slowly Mercer hiked to the end of the bone yard and retraced his steps back to the monster that lay almost intact, the very first they had seen.
“So you suppose the earth, the whole universe, is very old?” he asked. “I mean, hundreds of thousand of years. Maybe a million years. Do you imagine that God is recent; the universe is older than God?”
Skye smiled. “That sort of thing is beyond me.” He would not speculate on things that seemed forever beyond understanding.
“Well, I've seen the bones,” Mercer said. “Now let's measure them. As it happens, the length of my belt is exactly a yard, and I've marked off feet on the belt. It's my wilderness measure.”
He pulled the belt from its loops. There indeed, on its interior side, were foot markers, and half-foot markers, and a set of six inches marked in some sort of ink or dye.
“How am I going to record all this when I lack so much as paper and pencil?” he asked.
It was a good question.
“I will bring your robe. We will put the marks on the robe,” Mary said. The Shoshone was dealing with the bones a lot more easily than Victoria, who turned tight and silent and maybe angry.
Skye watched Mary head back to the travois. But Mercer was already heading for that giant skull.
“I say, Skye, I owe you an apology. I didn't imagine these bones could be real. Just a mystery or some madman's art. Not something that taxes my limited grasp of geology. Not something that turns my world, my theology, my universe, inside out. I'm glad you brought me here.”
That was the thing about Mercer. He was always redeeming himself. Skye nodded and smiled.
Mercer crawled up on the shelf and began measuring. Victoria looked ready to explode. He ran his belt over the skull and finally pronounced his verdict “Six feet four inches from the extremities.” Then he measured the eye socket. “Over a foot No make that fifteen inches.” And then he measured the largest of the exposed teeth. “Can you imagine it? Eleven inches or so!”
Mary returned with the robe, some reed paintbrushes, and the small sack of ochre greasepaint These she handed to Victoria. “I do not know how to make the marks,” she said.
“Don't give it to me,” Victoria snarled. The explosion was so dark and pained that Skye and the men paused.
“We'll be leaving directly, Victoria,” Skye said. “We will be very respectful and do no harm.”
Victoria sullenly turned her back on him. Skye had never seen her in such a state, and it worried him.
“Oh, not quite that fast, Mister Skye,” Mercer said. “I'll want some sketches. Blast it for not having paper. But I'll do what I can on the back of the robe. What else can a man do?”
Mercer laid the robe, hairy side down, directly on the bones and began the slow process of painting line drawings of what he saw. There was little room left on the robe, which now was filled with stick figures and pictographs. Mary cheerfully helped him but Victoria stormed away.
Skye saw the depth of her anguish and headed her direction, catching her at last well out of earshot of the others.
“He will doom us,” she said. “He has no respect.”
Skye didn't argue.
“That is the Mother of my people. That is the great bird that came out of the heavens and gave birth to my people. That is the bird the ancient ones, the storytellers, speak of. We are the people of the great black bird. And whoever touches those bones will perish.”
Skye didn't believe the legend. It was ingrained deeply in her very soul but he could not share it with her.
“You and I have not touched the bones or shown them disrespect,” he said.
“But Mary has! And so have the white men.”
“What will happen, Victoria? What does the legend of the Absaroka say?”
“We should not even be here. We should not even approach these bones without a purifying. A sweat and the smoke of sweetgrass and gifts to the spirits. You saw the gifts as we came here, bundles given to this spirit. The spirits of these birds are here. They are offended. Now we will perish, all of us, and I am at fault. I brought you here. I am a daughter of the People, a daughter of these ancient ones. They are my fathers and my grandfathers.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I'll fetch Mercer and the rest. We'll leave the grandfathers alone, Victoria.”
“It is too late.”
Skye left her and went back to the bones, now resting in deep and cool shade under the sandstone ledge. Mercer was busy painting ribs and vertebrae.
“I don't know what half these bones are,” he said. “How am I going to persuade anyone I ever saw them? London is a city of skeptics. The Royal Society is a body of squinting old men.”
“Time for us to leave, Mister Mercer. This is a holy place.”
“Leave! I just got here. I don't have much to dig with, but I'm going to take a tooth. That'll shake a few timbers.”
M
ercer began hunting for a tooth he could pry out with his belt knife but Skye tried to stay him.
ercer began hunting for a tooth he could pry out with his belt knife but Skye tried to stay him.
“Mister Mercer, don't. This is sacred to Victoria's people. And other people who live here.”
“Skye, it's nothing but a boneyard. Bones scattered everywhere. I plan to take a few with me. It'll be my contribution to science.”
“Mister Mercer, let's think about this. If you took a tooth back to London they'd say exactly what you said before you got here. It's a fraud. Someone carved it. A few fossil bones won't make believers of them.”
Mercer grinned. “Have to try, Skye. This is the biggest find of my life. My Lord, this'll make me a Knight of the Garter. Sir Graves Duplessis Mercer, K.G.” He laughed. The idea tickled his fancy. The ancient order was the highest civil honor the crown could bestow and entitled the recipient to be called “Sir,” and to add the K.G. after his name.
So Mercer was hell-bent to make himself a knight. Skye
chose another tack. “Mister Mercer, this is a holy place. If you pry up bones it would be no different from someone sacking Westminster Cathedral for relics.”
chose another tack. “Mister Mercer, this is a holy place. If you pry up bones it would be no different from someone sacking Westminster Cathedral for relics.”
“Oh, pshaw, old boy. The cathedral's a work of man. This is just an old boneyard that got covered with sand, and eventually the bones fossilized. Now, that's not a bit like someone walking into a cathedral and digging up a dead king or duke or two to steal a molar.”
“I'm afraid it's just like that. For people who find their religion in nature, this is their cathedral. Those prayer bundles hanging from the limbs over there are oblations, sacrifices, gifts to the spirits here.”
Mercer listened impatiently. “Well, I'll carve a few bones anyway and no one will know the difference. Why aren't you curious? Why aren't you excited? The biggest bloody bones in the universe. We've found a monster! Why aren't you dancing? Itching to share this treasure with the whole world? I am all of those things. What do you think these bones are? What sort of beast? I'm absolutely at a loss. A bird? Three-toed feet, eh? A lizard? How do you make out the little front paws and giant rear limbs? Is this some sort of giant kangaroo? By gad, Skye, these beasts are something unknown. Unimagined. Maybe the bones of a dragon? Who would have thought that Mercer would find a prehistoric dragon, eh? But the reality is, sir, that this monster from the deeps is nothing known to mortals. Not a bird nor a lizard, not a mammal nor a fish. This monster will shock the world, shock every single member of the Royal Society. What shall I do? Pretend that these are nothing, not worth the attention of science, not worth bringing to the attention of civilized people?”
Skye tried again, quietly: “As a favor to me and a favor to Victoriaâ”
Mercer shook his head. “We'll not impede science. Nothing will come of it. I've seen superstition on every continent I've visited. I've seen strange rituals, sacrifices that civilized people abominate. I've seen strange peoples worship a stone or a toad or cut open a carp to examine its entrails. I've seen a thousand religions and superstitions and this is just one more in the long parade.”
“Then do this: Be an observer. Leave them alone. Don't dig them up. Measure them. Record them. Sketch them. Gather witnesses. I'll verify what you record. I'm sure Mister Winding will. But leave the bones alone. If you leave the bones unharmed, I believe you will leave here unharmed. If you harm these, I cannot say what will happen or which of us might get hurt. Maybe all of us.”
But it was over. Mercer was shaking his head all the while that Skye pleaded with him. The adventurer had already made up his mind and no argument could stop him.
“Lend me your hatchet and your axe, Mister Skye.”
“No, you're on your own.”
“I'll use our knives if that's all that's available to us. It'll take longer, that's all. Some good hot fires over these bones will crack rock and loosen the bones. That and some careful digging. I'll get some bones, whether or not you're here to help.”
Mercer smiled, that bright, relentless smile that announced he was going to have his way no matter what. “I refuse to argue. If you feel so strongly about it, we can part company here, Skye. I can make Fort Benton on my own. It's simply upriver. Winding and I'll go there after we're done. I'll send you a letter of credit for services rendered, care of the factor at Fort Laramie, or whatever you choose. What was it? A hundred pounds? Yes, and well spent. I'll thank you for services rendered. You and your lovely wives. Excellent service, Mister
Skye. You've been a fine guide and companion, and here we are. This is the finest of all my discoveries on four continents and nothing will put me off.”
Skye. You've been a fine guide and companion, and here we are. This is the finest of all my discoveries on four continents and nothing will put me off.”
Skye saw that this was how it would end. He eyed Mercer and Winding, thinking of all they had been through, the fire, the loss of all equipment, the odd quest for sensation, and now the sacrilege. Of course Mercer didn't see it as sacrilege, and for that matter Skye didn't either, but over his long years in the wilds he had come to understand how his wife's beliefs governed her life, her choices, her tastes and feelings and very character, just as his own faith, however residual it might be, governed his own.
“Very well. I'm sorry to part company with the mission incomplete. I had hoped to deliver you safely to Fort Benton and with ample material for you to write about. There's one thing more, sir. I should like a receipt or financial instrument.”
“But there's not a sheet of paper here, Mister Skye.”
“You may write it on my robe, sir. And sign it.”
“Well, that's fine, I'll do it. I'm a man of my word and you'll have your receipt for services performed, even if we're parting a few dozen miles shy of our destination.”
Skye nodded. There was always that redeeming quality about Mercer. Mary, who had followed the conversation, was already heading back to the packs to fetch Skye's robe, and now she returned with it and spread it on the sandy pathway before the terrible bones.
Mercer knelt, and with his stick brush and little sack of greasy paint, dated and began his instrument. For services rendered, Mister Barnaby Skye shall be entitled to one hundred pounds, to be collected at an exchange of his choice. Signed this day, Graves Duplessis Mercer.
It took a while. Scratching text with a fibrous end of a stick
required time. A midday brightness began to flood the canyon and its flat, even throwing light upon the great field of bones under the sandstone overhang.
required time. A midday brightness began to flood the canyon and its flat, even throwing light upon the great field of bones under the sandstone overhang.
“There you are. Present this at a post and they'll aim it toward Barclay's Bank in London via Hudson's Bay or Chouteau and Company.”
Mercer lifted the heavy robe and handed it to Skye.
“I will do that.” Skye lifted and settled his old top hat, as he always did when at a loss for words. “We've been through a lot together, sir. I wish you a safe passage home.”
“Wish me a boatload of bones, Mister Skye!”
Victoria sprang at him, bristling, saying not a word, her glare so fierce that Skye wondered whether she would strike the Briton.
“We will never see you again. No one will ever see you again,” she said.
Mercer, used to more politic language, was plainly at a loss for words but he nodded and bowed slightly.
But there were tears in Victoria's eyes. It was not just anger, but some anguish, some deep sadness that was moving her now.
Skye slipped over to her, wrapped an arm over her shoulder, but she violently shook herself free. Just then, white men were her enemies.
He hoped this great sadness would repair swiftly. There was little to do but collect Jawbone and lead his family and horses away from this quiet canyon off the Missouri River, and hope the high plains and wind in the waving grasses would brighten her heart.
An odd cloud drifted overhead, a momentary gray on a dry, brittle autumnal sky. An equally odd roll of distant thunder slipped into the canyon, muffled and low, as if it had come
from a great distance, maybe aeons away through time and space. Victoria stood rigidly, hearing things that Skye could not hear, and then she stared long and sorrowfully at Mercer. For her, the gods had spoken.
from a great distance, maybe aeons away through time and space. Victoria stood rigidly, hearing things that Skye could not hear, and then she stared long and sorrowfully at Mercer. For her, the gods had spoken.
Skye thought maybe the gods had spoken to himself as well, for the odd cloud was vanishing before his eyes and there was naught but hard blue heaven at last from one rim of the canyon to the other. Maybe, when they reached the high plains, they would discover the odd cloud drifting away.
Things did not feel right. He furtively eyed Mercer, wondering if he would be the last person ever to see the explorer alive. And Winding. He collected Jawbone, whose flesh shivered when Skye touched it. What was the matter with the horse?
He mounted, and felt the horse turn leaden under him, devoid of all energy. Mary seemed cheerful enough, but Victoria looked small and shriveled, temporarily an ancient woman as she collected her horse and made sure the travois were readied.
Then, softly, from some other passage into the river canyon mounted Indians came in a long file, all of them painted in ghastly fashion. There was no escaping them. The newcomers took in Mercer and Winding as well as Skye's party, and continued toward them, never pausing. Some wore black on one side of their head, red on the other. All were hideously painted. And for the life of him, Skye could not make out the tribe.
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