Every Hidden Thing (11 page)

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 finds 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.”

W
HEN 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.

And then he kissed me.

The entire world became the wide warmth of her mouth, the secret, thrilling taste of her. Heat galloped through my body.

She leaned back. “Is this how you kiss your other sweethearts?”

I liked the notion she might think me worldly, but I said, “You're my
only
sweetheart,” and kissed her again.

Overwhelming: just the fact of being so close to her, all the things my eyes had been desiring from a distance. Her cheek and nose and brow all grazing mine. The smell of her skin and hair. I kept my eyes open. My hands touched her face, holding her close. Her cheeks were scalding.

“Gently,” she murmured against my lips.

I wasn't aware of being rough, but I tried to kiss her more softly.

“I've wanted to do this for so long,” I said.

“Gentler,” she said again, and this time I was annoyed because she was making me feel like a slobbering dolt.

“As if you've been kissed a hundred times before!” I said, breaking off.

The fact was, my own experience was tragically small, even though I'd got the craving early. When I was seven I'd wanted to kiss girls. During a picnic I'd invited Abigail Sims into the bushes behind the gazebo. It was shady and hidden and smelled like dog pee. Without asking, I pushed my mouth against hers. But she clamped her teeth together, and I bruised my lips against them. It wasn't a pleasant experience, and she wouldn't sit near me anymore. After that, I had many flirtations—girls liked my sweet talk—but the only kisses I was allowed were on the cheek. Just this year, there was Rebecca, who was sleek and dark haired and said she was “exceedingly fond” of me, but she wouldn't even let me lift her hair so I could kiss the nape of her neck.

Rachel touched two fingers to her upper lip. “You've chafed me.”

“Maybe you're too delicate.”

She laughed. “I'm certainly not that. You're rough. And you smell like bacon grease.”

I'd stopped noticing. “It keeps the bugs away. I've got some in my pocket if you'd like to try. Looks like you could use it.”

“How kind of you. No thanks.”

Even though her face was dotted by mosquito bites, her skin looked smooth and tanned—much nicer than when I'd first met her in Philadelphia. Altogether she looked less dowdy. Hair looser, dirt on her skirt and hands. It suited her.

Tentatively she stroked my stubbly jaw. I'd never been touched like this, and it was wonderful. She moved the pads of her fingers along my upper lip.

“I'd like to shave you.”

I shook my head, laughing. “You really are odd.”

She said, “I should be getting back, or they'll come looking.”

“Yes,” I said, and our lips found each other again. Her hands slid up my chest to my neck, and into my hair. I was trying to kiss her slower and more gently.

“I've got to go,” she said, pulling away.

“Go then. But when will I see you again?”

“That's up to you.”

“Father's got us quarrying in the morning, and prospecting afternoons. Tomorrow if I can get away!”

She laughed at my eagerness; it was the closest I'd come to seeing sheer delight in her expression.

“Where will you be?” I asked.

“The same general area, I think.”

“I'll find you.”

“Will we have a secret signal?” she asked teasingly.

“I'll try the bird whistle again.”

“Let's hear it.”

Softly I whistled. She grimaced. “No wonder I didn't hear it.”

“Then I'll have to keep throwing stones at you!”

She closed her fingers briefly in my hair, and then walked back toward the Yale students.

I woke with the bird's dawn chorus, as if I couldn't wait to start thinking of him.

I went to the flaps of my tent and opened them to the still-dim sky. How I loved that promise of light in the east. I lay there on my stomach, watching, wondering what the day would bring.

My heart contained a double happiness. I was here in these badlands, getting to do what I'd always longed to do, and was eager to dress and eat and strike out into the buttes and ravines; and yesterday I'd had my first kiss.

I liked having my hands in his hair. It was thick, a bit coarse, but my fingers got deliciously tangled in it, and I could flex them and feel like I was holding all of him somehow. Best of all was the way he looked at me, his warm-eyed look that made me want to tell him everything.

I could still feel his skin, the small spikes of his stubble. His kissing was hurried and too hard. So his actual kisses did not please me much, but him wanting to give them to me did very much.

I'd never thought I'd get to hold something so warm and solid and good. I didn't even mind the bacon smell—

And at breakfast ate more than usual, grinning to myself.

My pony was saddled and ready before Hugh's or Daniel's, and I made sure Papa noticed. “Just waiting for Hugh and Daniel,” I said casually.

And then, finally, we struck out. Papa had methodically assigned each group different areas to prospect, and every day we were responsible for making a map of what we'd covered.

So we set out in the same direction as yesterday, picketed our ponies near a pond, and walked into the ravines. After that, my entire concentration was focused on the rock, checking the ground for shards that might hint at something higher up, sweeping the rock faces for glints of bone.

An hour in, Hugh thought he found some.

“I think that might be limestone,” I said. In fact I was sure it was glacial-erratic limestone but was trying to be polite. It was completely the wrong color and texture to be bone.

“No, that is definitely bone,” Hugh said, not even glancing at me—which I found infuriating. He took a stake from his tool pouch, knocked it in, and tied a swath of blue cloth around it. “Done.”

“We'll let the professor decide later,” Daniel Simpson replied, trying to be diplomatic.

“Of course,” I said. It would only look better for me when Papa glanced at it, sighed irritably, and told Hugh to remove his stake.

We worked on. Crossing a narrow ridge between two flat buttes, I caught sight of something sticking out from one of the steep slopes, about four feet down.

“Hold on,” I said, crouching.

It protruded in a dark shallow V shape, which suggested to me a joint. And a joint meant articulated bone—two bones
connected—which was what every fossil hunter wanted most to see. It meant it wasn't just some stray bit of bone. It was probably part of something much bigger, hidden inside the rock.

“It's wood,” Hugh said, turning away.

“I don't think so. I want to take a closer look.”

“Too steep,” Daniel said.

“Wood,” Hugh said again, and kept going. Daniel followed. They just assumed I'd fall in obediently behind them, like a little puppy.