The Night Visitor (41 page)

“You need me for anything else?”

“No, Daniel. You can get back to your work.” Whatever that was.

The Taos Pueblo man slipped through the office door and was gone.

Charlie Moon smiled and shook his head. Daniel Bignight was a good, reliable officer. But it was amazing what a man could hear on a dark night. When the north wind howled in the pines.

B
ECAUSE OF THE
sensational nature of the subject matter, the very existence of the gathering was a secret. Which, quite naturally, guaranteed that word of it would get out. And those notables who did not receive invitations, though highly displeased, were also intrigued. A few made discreet inquiries about attending. But attendance at the meeting was by invitation—very sorry, but no exceptions can be made.

Cordell York had taken great care in preparing the invitation list. The guests were a stellar array of world-class scholars, among the most glistening apples on the tree of knowledge. Handpicked not only because of their unquestioned expertise in various arcane specialties, but even more for their considerable influence in their respective communities of paleontology, archaeology, and anthropology. If they said a thing was so, few of their peers would dare voice a
doubt. But there was risk involved. If these giants so much as smiled at a fellow scientist's claim, the pygmies would laugh out loud.

Every bit as important as the scientists were a pair of writers representing the journals
Science
and
Nature.
These sober scribes would interpret this evening's drama for those who funded grants, reviewed scholarly articles for publication, and made decisions on issues of promotion and tenure. These observers were loved and courted, feared and shunned. An unknown drudge's reputation could be established by gracious praise—an established luminary's light forever dimmed by malignant twist of phrase.

Rich Colombian coffee and delicate French pastries had been served. The guests muttered among themselves about why such an unprecedented meeting had been called. And why Moses Silver and his daughter Delia were present. Though they had been largely forgiven for the lurid stories in the popular press about their supposed mammoth kill site, the Silvers were the cause of much whispering. And some thoughtful speculation. It seemed unlikely that folk of such modest accomplishment would be among the invited guests. So the Silvers must be a part of the mystery. Perhaps it had something to do with their infamous mammoth dig. Had the missing flint implement been recovered? Without that notorious artifact, there was no shred of indisputable evidence that the Silvers had an absurdly old human kill site. Even with the flint blade, the claim of a thirty-thousand-year-old human kill site in the Americas would remain highly suspect in some quarters. It just didn't fit all the other evidence… or the conservative mind-set. There was, the orthodox camp would point out, always the possibility of some sort of accidental association between fossilized bones and more recent human artifacts. For example: some hundreds of years ago, a burrowing animal may have disturbed the site—moving a more recent artifact near a much older fossil bone. It had happened before. At best, such speculations could delay general acceptance of findings for decades. At worst, Moses Silver's hopeful view would simply be dismissed as insupportable—and forgotten.

But, someone suggested, perhaps the Silvers had found another flint implement among the fossil bones. When buttonholed and probed with sly questions, father and daughter were equally tight-lipped, offering only smug shrugs.

Robert Newton was cornered by a paunchy anthropologist from Southern Methodist University. What gives, Bob—are you in on this? Newton had been characteristically terse. One must wait and see.

And so there were incessant murmurings, knowing looks exchanged. There had been a series of perfectly absurd (but delectable) rumors. These were the favorites:

    
(a) One of Moses Silver's graduate students had found a perfectly preserved woolly mammoth under the Alaskan permafrost.

    
(b) Delia Silver had discovered a huge cliff dwelling in southeast Utah; skeletal remains abounded… and there were hundreds and hundreds of black-on-white Anasazi pots.

    
(c) Indisputable skeletal remains of a Clovis big-game hunter had been unearthed by a back-hoe operator who was making trenches for irrigation pipe in a Delaware cherry orchard owned by Robert Newton.

And the list went on.

But on one issue, there was no doubt. Whatever the reason, Cordell would not have summoned them here without good cause. Something was up. Something
big.

Cordell York was quite at ease; and well he should be. The surgeon-turned-paleontologist was in firm control of the agenda. It was not by chance that the gathering was in the spacious library of his lovely home.

Moses and Delia Silver were pleased to have Cordell take the lead. It would not do for either of them to trumpet their findings before a covey of such skeptical competitors. Robert Newton—who was easily intimidated by pizza delivery boys, wiseacre freshman students, and elderly nuns—was certainly not equipped to stand before this suspicious crowd of self-important
academics and do what must be done. He'd never carry it off.

Delia whispered in her father's ear. “Are you all right?”

The old man nodded, but his hands trembled with a nervous palsy. All of his professional life, Moses Silver had dreamed of such a sweet rendezvous. Now that the hour was upon him, his flesh fairly crawled. What if something went sour? But the encounter could not be put off any longer. The preliminaries were over.

It was time to do or die.

At precisely 8
P.M
., Cordell York went to the head of the long oak table, and gently tapped a wooden pointing stick on its surface. A half dozen conversations were immediately hushed. Those among the distinguished company who were still standing promptly found their seats. He was that sort of man.

Now, the game was about to begin.

York—an ardent devotee of baseball—saw himself standing alone on the mound. His pitching arm long and limber. Nerves cold as a well-chain. Nonchalantly, he rolled the leathered sphere in his hands. Cast a cold, insolent stare at these so-called heavy hitters. He sneered, wound up for the first pitch …

York's deep voice was like velvet, his toothy smile brilliant. He beamed at his audience. “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. It was very kind of you to come on such short notice, particularly with the holidays virtually upon us.” York nodded to indicate the man seated at his left hand. “I'm sure you all know Professor Robert Newton.”

There were smiles. Everyone did. Bob Newton—the leading expert on butchering of ice-age animals—was extremely competent. But so very hesitant to take a stand. In fact, he was known widely as a WWOF. Wishy-washy old fart.

Now York looked to the father-daughter pair on his right. “And you all know Professor Moses Silver, a very distinguished member of our community.”

There were nods and mumblings. Distinguished? Well, hardly. True, Moses was competent enough. But he'd spent his career digging up rather mediocre stuff. Such an unlucky fellow. Pity… but you made your own luck.

“And his daughter Dr. Delia Silver, an archaeologist whose knowledge of lithic artifacts is second to none.”

There were more perfunctory nods and polite smiles. Except from a scowling elder who considered himself clearly this young woman's superior in the understanding of stone implements.

“Now,” York continued, “we'll get directly to the business at hand. You are all well aware that the Silvers have recently begun work on a new mammoth find in southern Colorado.”

“We've already read all about it in
Time
magazine,” a Smithsonian paleontologist muttered. This brought guffaws of laughter.

York chose to ignore the jibe. “What they have is a fine specimen of
mammuthus columbi.
Adult male. Aside from the fact that the skeletal material is well-articulated, the find initially appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary. Not until some rather provocative incisions were discovered on the left femur.”

Everyone knew about the so-called butchering marks. They also knew that the mammoth fossil was definitely over thirty thousand years old—two millennia before humans had arrived on the continent. So the marks must have been made by nonhuman predators. The missing flint blade was probably placed under the mandible by a prairie dog. What was Cordell York getting at?

York smiled sharkishly at Robert Newton. “Bob, would you care to comment upon the marks?”

Newton, who had been munching a sugary French pastry, stood up. He wiped at his chin with a linen napkin, looked up and down the table at faces turned expectantly toward him. “I have made a thorough study. There can be not the least doubt—these are indisputably butchering marks. Made by a flint implement. Probably a bifacial.” He sat down. And proceeded to finish his pastry.

This announcement produced raised eyebrows, sidelong glances at other colleagues, and other expressions of disbelief. Had poor old Newton finally lost his senses?

York clapped his hands lightly and smiled affectionately at his elder colleague. “Bravo. A brilliant, decisive report, Bob.”

Robert Newton, who was more at home with fossilized bones than with live humans, did not perceive the gentle sarcasm. The old gnome smiled appreciatively. He had traces of powdered sugar on his mouth.

There was a titter of laughter.

A fat old professor from Cornell was not amused. He grunted to get York's attention.

The surgeon acknowledged him with a slight nod.

“It's almost Christmas, and I've got six grandchildren waiting for me at home,” the archaeologist grumbled. “I think most of us have already heard about these
supposed
butchering marks on a thirty-thousand-year-old mammoth thigh bone. We've also heard about this mysterious flint implement you found under the jawbone. I, for one, am quite eager to examine this… this
artifact.
But it seems to have disappeared.” He smiled coldly at Moses Silver, who was about to rise from his seat.

York held Moses back with a warning glance, then addressed the surly professor from Cornell. “We all share your dismay at the disappearance of this remarkable artifact. But events have overtaken us. The existence of the flint blade… is no longer of any very great importance.”

The gathering's attention was galvanized by this last statement.

On the table at York's hand was a black plastic box; it had the appearance of a television remote-control unit. He used this to switch on a transparency projector. He pressed another button; a white screen unrolled behind him. A third electronic command gradually lowered the ceiling lights.

Cordell York stood in the glare from the projector, his face a ghostly white. It was a full ten seconds before he spoke, and his voice was barely audible. “Late last month at the McFain mammoth site a most remarkable discovery was made. While my status there is little more than that of an interested observer, I have been singularly honored. Moses Silver has asked me to present a brief report for your benefit.”

All along the great oak table, the tension increased.

The journalists from
Nature
and
Science
struggled to scribble notes in the dim light.

Now York's voice rose a few decibels. “You are all aware of the dating on this specimen of
mammuthus columbi.
Thirty-one thousand years before the present, give or take a few decades. The original dating has now been replicated at three first-rate institutions. There can be no question of its accuracy.” He turned to show his fine profile. “Ladies and gentlemen… under the pelvis of the mammoth, we have found the fossilized skeleton of a human being.”

Most were stunned into utter silence by this pronouncement. But not all.

“Bullshit,” someone whispered hoarsely.

“An intrusive burial,” another doubter snorted.

Then others found their voices. The buzz rapidly grew to an outraged roar.

Cordell York held up his hands to still the tumult. “Please. One at a time.”

They were silenced. But a dozen hands shot up.

York nodded at the representative from
Nature.
“Yes, Delbert?”

“This is such an astonishing revelation… I hardly know what to say. But I'm sure we'd all like to know more about the human skeletal remains. Is there any chance that the burial was intrusive? Could the human bones have been put in place thousands of years after the mammoth died?” Like at least twenty thousand years later.

York smiled. “You will recall that I said the human was
under
the mammoth pelvis.” It was more satisfying to feed it to them nibble by nibble.

The writer from
Science
asked the obvious question. “Have the human skeletal remains been dated?”

York assumed a look of innocent surprise that fooled no one. “Oh… did I forget to mention the dating? Do forgive me.” As if he did not trust his memory, York referred to a flimsy sheet of paper. “The human remains are, statistically speaking, no different from those of the
mammuthus columbi.
Approximately thirty-one thousand years.”

There was an audible gasp from the assembly.

For almost a century, the 11,500-year-old spear points found near Clovis, New Mexico, had been accepted as the
earliest date for human presence in the Americas. It had taken years of painstaking work at the Monte Verde site in Chile to push that date back just another thousand years. There were those, of course, who believed the Monte Verde complex contained human cultural materials that were much older. But such interpretations did not meet with the approval of the orthodox community.