TWO

Barnum Brown studied himself in the lavatory mirror. His entire world had come unglued, become disrupted, almost ceased to exist, yet he looked exactly the same. Strange how that should happen. He would have thought the death of his wife would leave some physical mark, yet it did not, not so much as a scratch. His mind howled with loneliness, yet two inches away there was nothing at all on his face to mark her passing.

His jaw was still firm and tight, and when he clenched his teeth he could see the muscles twitch behind his cheeks. His nose was still aquiline. At thirty-three, he had the beginnings of bags under his eyes, but they hinted at hard-won knowledge and lent him an air of solemnity, not sorrow. His gaze ascended to his round, nearly hairless skull. The death of his hair had preceded the death of his wife by some time. He had to admit to himself that there were times that he mourned the pending extinction of the modest brown covering that used to adorn his head, but on the other hand he felt his head was so finely balanced that the fuller hair of his youth was not something to miss. He sometimes imagined that some far-future paleontologists might dig up his milky skull and declare it to be the perfect specimen, and perhaps it would never even occur to them that fur should be added atop such a well-shaped bone structure.

Time to abandon these thoughts of death, hard as it was to do in a building full of bones. Brown wet his fingers lightly and patted his face, taking care to let no water run down his neck and under his stiff collar. It might feel good—New York was absolutely roasting under an early summer heatwave—but it would play havoc with the careful starching.

Brown flicked his fingers dry and stepped back into the hallway of the American Museum of Natural History. All the fabulous dead beasts in the museum’s collection were out of sight on the other side of the suite of rather drab offices never seen by the tourists. The creatures of yore and lore stood proudly in the open air, while he, who had put many of them out there, walked through dim lighting and bland corridors that would not have looked out of place in an insurance building. Such was the price of progress, he reasoned.

He opened his office door and regretted it instantly once he saw the face of Miss Lord, his secretary.

"I’m sorry, sir," she said in a hurried, worried tone. "She insisted she had an appointment with you."

He had almost forgotten about the crank, but now she had made it all the way into his inner sanctum. He should have lingered longer in the bathroom, although he doubted it would have made any difference. This was not the sort of woman who would give up and go away quickly.

"It’s all right, Miss Lord, I’ll handle it," Brown said, which did not seem to lessen her distress.

The woman’s back was to him when he entered his office. He had half expected to catch her snooping around in his desk drawers, but she sat quietly in one of the fine oak visitor’s chairs, contenting herself with examining his favorite paperweight, a clear half-circle of glass formed around what looked like a stone drinking straw.

"That’s a fossilized interior piece of horn from a dinosaur called Triceratops," Brown said as he entered.

The woman nodded as if that was the sort of greeting any man would give upon entering a room. She gave the horn core a last look and stood and turned to shake his hand as he approached.

"They have been found in Montana, I hear," she said, an answer that surprised Brown a little. He knew from previous (and unfortunate) correspondence that this woman was keenly interested in dinosaurs, but he did not realize her knowledge had some depth as well as breadth.

"Yes, that’s true," he said, as he took his seat and faced her across the sea of papers and knickknacks that occupied much of his desk. His working surface might look cluttered to untrained eyes, but he knew where everything was.

"My name is Alice Paul," the woman said. "I indicated to you by letter that I would be coming for this visit."

"Yes, you did," he replied blandly.

Mrs. Paul did not look particularly insane. She was perhaps in her mid-forties, but appeared to be in excellent health and would have looked a great deal younger if her hair were less enthusiastic about displaying its many silver strands.

"I understand you are thinking about going back to Montana to look for further dinosaurs."

Brown nodded with exaggerated solemnity.

"Yes, ma’am, I think I will. That is my job."

"Did you read the magazine I sent you?"

Brown sighed. In two days’ time he was going to lead a sizable paleontological dig in the Hell Creek formation of Montana. Preparing for that was difficult enough, given the still-primitive condition of the area. He really did not have time for this, too.

"You’re a talented writer, and perhaps you will give H.G. Wells a run for his money, but really I prefer to read scientific articles," Brown said.

"So you think I made it up," Mrs. Paul said.

Her tone of voice was not at all angry. Brown laughed, although he hadn’t intended to. One had to be careful around lunatics. He had been led to believe they did not have senses of humor about themselves.

"You mean you didn’t? Mrs. Paul, your article—what was the title?"

"Bone Wars."

"Yes, very catchy. Your story told about Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope, and how they competed with creatures from outer space to dig up dinosaur bones in Montana some three decades ago. Does that sum it up adequately?"

"Well, it’s a little artless, but yes," Mrs. Paul said. "Thirty-one years ago, to be exact. 1876."

He leveled his world-weary eyes at her, so she could see he was a serious man not given to this sort of fun and games.

"Mrs. Paul, Mr. Cope and Mr. Marsh were esteemed giants in my field of science, that of paleontology. Their stature has only grown after their deaths. Now, your article was accurate in its portrayal of the unfortunate bone-digging feud they carried on, but these were very proud men, Mrs. Paul. If they thought they had been the first to come across life that had originated off of our planet, I can assure you we would never have heard the end of it."

The woman nodded slowly, as if ready for this argument. She bent down low, to match his level gaze. It was going to be a long day.

"Consider this possibility, Mr. Brown. If Marsh had breathed a word of this, Cope would have branded him a lunatic in the papers the very next day. Marsh would have done the same thing if Cope had tried it. It’s one thing to take credit for old bones you dig up. People will believe that, you can show them proof. They had no proof of these creatures, and neither Cope nor Marsh were going to say one blessed word about them for fear of what the other might do."

Well, she did have a point. Neither man was ever big enough to let his competitor forget a mistake.

"You talk as if you knew them, Mrs. Paul," Brown said, trying to figure out a way to cut this meeting short.

Mrs. Paul sat back in her chair. He had to admit she did not look the sort to spin wild fantasy stories and publish them in the rag press.

"You didn’t read the article all the way through, did you, Mr. Brown?"

He gave a weak smile.

"I’m a very busy man, Mrs. Paul."

"Did you read any of it at all?"

"I did read some. I skipped around. It was . . . interesting."

"Do you remember a young man in the beginning by the name of Al Stillson?"

"I believe so, yes."

There was some sort of youth in the story by that name, he recalled.

"Had you read more carefully, you would have seen that Al Stillson was really Alice Stillson. My maiden name is Stillson."

"Oh."

It took him a long moment to realize what she was saying.

"So you were there? You were there with Cope and Marsh?"

Mrs. Paul smiled, a smile that quickly became weak and wistful and then fell away entirely.

"Yes. Everything in the story happened. I saw some of it and pieced some of it together afterward. I was there. It was the best time of my life, and the worst time."

"How so?"

"Again, you should have read it all. I fell in love with a man there. An Indian man, sort of. There was a lot of Indian action back in those days, Mr. Brown. My beloved was killed, and I miss him to this day."

Brown leaned back in his chair. She spoke her painful words plainly, yet they hit him as if each sound carried an electrical charge. Thirty-one years, and yet she mourned still. Did it never end? Would he be this way, too, three decades hence? The burden seemed unthinkable, but Brown kept his face impassive.

"I did love him. And I love my new husband, too."

He was not sure how that answer made him feel, and stayed silent for a moment.

"That’s very nice, Mrs. Paul, but I really have things to do, a great many things," he finally said.

Mrs. Paul stood and leaned over his desk, placing her hands on stacks of paper, shifting things out of order.

"I don’t think you should go," she said, her passionate side having completed a victory over her dispassionate side. "Mr. Brown, every single thing I wrote in that story is real. Those creatures will be back, they may already be back. And they want those bones."

Brown stood as well. He had a height advantage, he might as well use it.

"I work for the American Museum of Natural History. I can assure you, Mrs. Paul, that I want those bones too. And I will have them. Now please take your fairy stories and go home."

Her face turned crimson, but she waited to speak until her natural paleness returned. He sat back down, wishing that she was gone. Not go on the trip? It was impossible. He had to get away from his house, had to combat his newfound hatred of death by going far away to seek evidence of deaths long since occurred. He would go mad if he stayed in New York, which already bore an uncomfortably close resemblance to a concrete mausoleum.

"I am sure you are sometimes a nice man, Mr. Brown, but I did not come here for your sake."

Brown rolled his eyes, unwilling to humor her any longer. He could give her his empathy but not his time.

"Why, then, I ask, in God’s name, why are you here taking up my time?"

"I’m afraid for my son. He is a scientist, too. He is going with you."

Well, this explained a good deal. He imagined that her son the scientist would be mortified to find his mother spouting about creatures from outer space. Perhaps the young Mr. Paul should take up with Dr. Freud in Vienna as a vocation.

"I do not believe there is anyone named Paul on my trip."

"He is not named Paul. His last name is Burgess."

Brown scanned the paperscape of his desk and located a list of the scientists and assistants who were signed up for the trip. An S.L. Burgess was indeed supposed to link up with them once they reached Montana.

"S.L. Burgess?" he said. "I admit I have not met him."

"Sitting Lizard Burgess," Mrs. Paul said, and tears came to her eyes.

That must have been the name of his father. Brown felt a faint twinge of guilt for not reading her story more closely. He had scanned it in haste, letting his eye linger on only the more outrageous parts, missing the human element altogether. So Sitting Lizard Burgess was the son of her dead Indian lover, going back to where his father had perished. No wonder his mother had gone so far out on her mental ledge.

"Mrs. Paul, if your son has made the decision to dig with us, I can do nothing to stop him. He must be of an age where he can do what he wants. I will assure you I will take no undue risks, but I can promise no more."

Her eyes dried remarkably fast. She reached in her bag and produced another copy of her wretched manuscript.

"Take this with you. You have to promise me," Mrs. Paul said, and her eyes would not let him argue. "Promise me. Take it and read it carefully this time. They could be out there again. I have already lost one man over those stupid bones, and I don’t want to lose another."

She kept her gaze locked on him for what seemed like minutes, and then finally recovered her manners.

"I suppose you have many things to arrange. Thank you for meeting with me today."

"My pleasure."

"You’re a charming man, Mr. Brown, but a bad liar. Please take my article with you. Read it."

"I will read it. All of it," Brown said, words that he hated to let past his lips.

She extended her hand for a curt handshake, and then she was gone. Brown ran his fingers across his head and sat down behind his desk, sighing. Perhaps some other person who had taken leave of their senses would soon come in and order him to commit the King James Bible to heart backwards, and he would have to promise to do that too since he was in such an agreeable mood.

He picked up the copy of the Wild West Weekly that she had left behind. "Amazing absolutely true activities in the Wild West!" it proclaimed. "On what was witnessed in the wilds of Montana, where famous men of science cavort with Wild Indians and Creatures from beyond God’s Earth!" It was festooned with lurid line drawings of dinosaurs, poorly posed and overweight, clumping around on stumpy legs like reptilian elephants. They were even less accurate than the bovine Iguanadon that Gideon Mantell had conjured up in England, and that was more than eight decades ago, before anyone knew any better. The story "Bone Wars" took up nearly the entire paper, page after page of tiny print separated by tiny lines. He would go blind halfway through it, but he said he would read it, so he would read it. Maybe after that he could use it for a pillow.