FIVE

Brown paced by the wall while the crew looked on expectantly. It was the first day of the dig, and he wanted to give them an idea of what he expected, although most of them knew already. S.L. Burgess rubbed dust from his eyes, adjusted the brim of his hat and waited while Brown spoke about the need for careful digging and the value to science of what they would find. Careful digging. Burgess almost laughed. This was the only careful digging he had ever heard about that involved the use of dynamite.

They were dealing in bulk, Brown said. They were going to cut great hunks of rock out of the sandstone, hunks of rock that contained hunks of mineralized bone. Rather than try to dig out all the scattered bones of the great animals of yore, they would identify their location as best they could and blast out the rocks that surrounded them. They would take the portions of hillside, load them in the wagons and drag them more than one hundred miles away to the nearest train station, where they would be given tickets back east.

"We will excavate what bones we can, but some will have to make the journey encased in the rock that has contained them for so long," Brown told the group. "It will be hard work, but I invite you all to the museum to see the fruits of your labors. Just give us a few years to get it together."

This last was meant to be a joke, and the crew laughed on cue. Except for the students Brown had agreed to take on, all the men in the crew seemed to know their way around a pickaxe, and seemed eager to begin cutting into the rock. The students affected a pose that suggested they, too, were ready. Burgess supposed he looked like all the rest of them. His skin had a built-in tan, but if you didn’t know it was natural, he could pass for one of the crew members who had spent years in the sun, and he had certainly done that, too. His hair was black, but a black that was only a shade removed from brown. His eyes were brown, but a light brown. He did not look like a half-breed Indian. Right now, as far as he could tell, he just looked like a paleontologist.

Brown was still talking when Burgess heard a noise behind him, down on the rutted path that passed for a road. It was the unmistakable clop of horses approaching, a slow clop that suggested they were pulling a heavy cart. He looked back, expecting to see the bone cart Brown had been telling them about. What he saw instead were the upturned faces of three baffled men, staring out from under wide-brimmed hats with mouths agape. The sight of so many men standing around got them excited. They began yelling up at Brown, forcing him to stop his monologue and turn around.

"Hey!" one of the men shouted. They were all thin as sticks, as if they had passed the time with a weight-losing contest. If that were true, this man had won. "Hey! Is the posse already ready to go? We just got here. Can you hold on a little bit?"

"What?" Brown shouted.

"The posse! Is it ready? Are you heading out?"

Brown stared at him in stupefaction for a moment, and then broke into a chuckle.

"You misunderstand, sir," he said. "We aren’t a posse. We aren’t after that Luther Gumpson. He’s all yours."

Now it was Burgess’s turn to be stupefied. He had ridden in last night with most of the crew, bringing supplies, and was not aware of anything going on that might involve posses.

"You should be aware," Brown shouted, "that the Plains Kid, also known as William the Conqueror, is also around these parts, looking for Gumpson. He has blood in his eye, so beware."

The skinny men exchanged glances and then squinted back up at Brown.

"Who’s here?"

"The Plains Kid. A notorious outlaw."

"He ain’t too notorious," the man said. "I ain’t never heard of him."

Brown shrugged.

"Just a warning. You looking to camp around here?"

"Reckon we were."

"I’d prefer it if you moved on down a little. We’re going to be doing a little dynamiting around here. Might be messy."

"Dynamiting!" The men exchanged glances again, glances of wonder. This seemed to impress them. "Can we watch?"

Brown shrugged.

"Not up close, it might be dangerous, but otherwise suit yourself," he yelled through cupped hands.

The men nodded excitedly and then moved slowly away waving as if saying goodbye to old friends. Brown resumed speaking, but was again quickly interrupted by the sound of arriving horses. Burgess turned to look, and saw that this time it was the actual bone cart. Brown waved to the driver and then clapped his gloved hands together, which made a thump that was muffled but still surprisingly loud. Sound seemed to carry farther out here on the edge of the country. It was as if it had so much room at its disposal that it might as well take some of it. Sound was more tentative and apologetic back east; here it was as loud and bright and bold as the sky.

Since Brown was done with his presentation, it was time for work to start. Burgess selected his section of wall and poked it with an uncertain finger. It was sandstone, but there was nothing sandy about it, at least not this part. It was dark blue, almost black, and there was nothing on the surface to indicate the treasures within. Burgess had not dug in this part of the country before, although he had certainly heard about it. He had heard there were places here where the bones stuck right out of the rock, but this didn’t seem to be one of them. Just as well. Finding a fossil that way would take away all the fun.

He was so intent on examining the rock wall that he didn’t notice the approaching footsteps until Barnum Brown was almost right in his face. Burgess stood up straight, startled.

"I’m sorry," Brown said. "I thought you heard me."

Burgess shook his head and smiled. Brown smiled back, a smile that bunched up his cheeks like a squirrel’s and gave some shape to his thin face.

"I’ve met everyone in the crew except you," Brown said. "You must be S.L. Burgess."

Burgess nodded. Brown extended a gloved hand and Burgess shook it with another gloved hand. Two patches of human skin separated by cow skin. Brown’s grip was firm through the worn leather.

"It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Brown," Burgess said, trying to make his voice sound respectful but not obsequious, just one scientist speaking to a colleague of a higher stature. "I’ve heard great things about you."

Brown shrugged off the compliment and looked away.

"Well . . ."

He couldn’t think of anything else to say, and Burgess saw that he was genuinely embarrassed. He would not have expected embarrassment to come easy to a halfway famous scientist like Brown, but here was the knight-errant of the American Museum of Natural History, averting his eyes, smiling like a schoolchild getting a compliment from a teacher.

"So," Brown said after a moment. "S.L., how did you get interested in paleontology?"

This was a strange question, and now it was Burgess’s turn to have trouble thinking of something to say.

"The usual method, I guess. Started digging things up in the yard and then didn’t know when to quit."

Brown laughed.

"I know all about that."

"How did you get involved in paleontology?"

"The same way, generally. My family has some land in Kansas. We used to farm but we’d also dig up coal and sell it. I got used to digging things up. Then in college I narrowed that a little bit and got interested in digging up dinosaurs."

"I guess you have to be really interested in this to come out here," Burgess said, indicating the barren landscape beyond the rocks with a sweep of his hand. He noticed a gaggle of people in the distance, beyond the bone cart, looking at them. To be such a deserted area, this place was getting crowded.

"I think you’re right," Brown said. He seemed distracted.

Burgess started chipping aimlessly at the rock, assuming that Brown was done chatting and was ready to move on. He didn’t. Burgess looked back at him. Brown was just standing there, chewing on his lower lip, looking at the rock as if expecting Burgess to unearth a dinosaur bone any second.

"I’m glad I finally ran into you," Brown said. "I—well, there’s no easy way to say this. I talked to your mother. She came to see me in New York before I left."

Burgess stopped chipping. Well, he shouldn’t have been surprised it had come to this. He told her not to tell anyone her story, but she had not only published it, she had gone to talk to his boss. He was thirty-one years old—just a year or two younger than Brown himself, judging by his looks—and she worried over him like he was a kid.

"Well," Burgess said. "That must have been interesting. What did she say?"

"I suspect you know."

"I believe I do."

"She expounded on some incidents she had published in an article in the Wild West Weekly. I have read part of the article and may read it again. It’s very interesting."

"I have read it myself. Yes, I would say interesting is probably the word for it."

Burgess struggled to keep his face as expressionless as possible. He would speak to Mr. Brown about his mother as if speaking of some distant acquaintance only dimly remembered.

"So—you don’t believe it’s true. You’re out here to dig bones, not to hunt for creatures from space."

Burgess looked at Brown sharply.

"I am out here because I want to dig up dinosaurs, sir, and nothing else."

His mother had done it this time. All his years of work gone up in smoke in the eyes of perhaps the most distinguished bone hunter of all. Still, Brown should know his work. He should not be asked these questions.

"I have gone on paleontological expeditions with Charles Sternberg and his sons," Burgess said. "He was mentioned in my mother’s article and he knows who I am. He never said anything about anything from outer space, much less people from there."

"Did you talk to him before the article came out, or after?"

Burgess struggled to keep the rising anger from his voice. He was a serious scientist, not some college kid. He should not be asked these questions.

"Before. The article is recent and I have not been on a dig with him for several years. But he knows who I am and he never said a word."

"Your mother must have spoken to you of this when you were growing up."

Burgess gave Brown a level look.

"It came up. But she didn’t dwell on it."

"You can see why I would want to come talk to you about it," Brown said, a note of apology and embarrassment in his voice. He obviously did not want to anger one of his crew on the very first day of a major dig. On a paleontological dig, people were like members of a small community.

"I do," Burgess said. He resumed chipping absently at the rock as he spoke, his words coming in time with the pick’s cadence.

"I would have done the same if our roles were reversed. But I can assure you, Mr. Brown, I am not out here looking for any creatures from outer space. If I find any, I will tell you, but I am here as a scientist and nothing else."

Brown nodded quickly, too quickly, obviously relieved.

"I have wasted your time long enough, Mr. Burgess," he said. "I think I’ll be moving along and see how the others are doing. It looks like our college students are going to need a bit of handholding this summer."

Burgess laughed, probably more loudly than he should have, to show that he and Brown were back on a professional basis, with no secrets between them. He nodded at Brown and then looked down where his pick was hitting the rock. A tiny spur jutted from the rock, a coffee-colored stab too smooth to be rock. He could not tell what it was, but it stuck out against the dark rocks like a fly in water.

"Mr. Brown," he said, and Brown turned back around.

Brown saw what he was looking at and advanced on it without a word. He was a bloodhound on the scent, a shark heading for a school of fish. Brown knelt before the bit of bone and ran his right index finger gently across it. It stuck out one and a half inches, nearly two, and that was enough. Brown turned his face up to Burgess’s and split it with a grin.

"Good grief, Mr. Burgess. You have found something already. Imagine what you could have done if I hadn’t been distracting you."

Despite himself, Burgess felt heat in his face, and thanked God for his dark skin which made it hard for Brown to see him blush.