Humphrey had a pretty good idea about what was happening within the locked Number Two examination room which was near the tiny and cluttered space that served as a receptionists’ area. The short little barks and tiny moans he could make out through the hollow-core plywood door did not sound at all like any of the patients who normally visited this particular clinic. So he waited. He sweated lightly and paced slightly—more of a nervous shifting of his bulky weight from leg to leg sort of thing, and he listened anxiously to the soft noises which occasionally escaped from around the frame of the door that he stood so apprehensively beside as well as the more alarming raucous he could hear growing in volume mere yards away on the other side of the receptionists’ space. He checked his watch again, having to squint as usual at the well-scratched glass lens before determining he had waited just a shade too long. There was a pretty little pygmy goat with a greenstick fracture impatiently awaiting the continuation of his services only three doors down, and when one of the white-smocked receptionists poked her head groundhog-like above the counter to see if he had yet made his announcement, he inhaled deeply, squeezed his myopic eyes tightly shut, then banged abruptly with his fist against the door and twisted the latch for effect.
He had not been aware that the lock had not caught properly the last time the door had been closed, nor had he thought he might find himself deposited rather suddenly into their midst; the slender, conservatively attractive senior veterinarian still buttoning her blouse as she turned to glare at the intruder, the tall trim veterinary
student going crimson and turning away to awkwardly tug his zipper back up into place. Dr. K. Humphrey Gordon,
D.V.M felt his own face flush and ashamedly bowed his balding head.
“Well?” snapped McQueen, making both Humphrey and the kid flinch with the sharpness of her tone.
“Ab, uh-I, there-”
The nosy little receptionist herself made an appearance in the doorway to declare, “There’s a kid with an Irish Setter that’s been struck by a car. Would anyone care to do anything about it?”
Lillian lifted an eyebrow at Humphrey. “I-I-I have a goat,” he stammered, scurrying back to his own
patient’s care.
It was the student who bolted out of the room and took the shortest possible route to the waiting room by
vaulting over the nearby prescription counter, jogging the few steps through the reception area, then using the
corner of a desk to launch himself over the check-in counter to land face-to-face with a distraught teenaged male.
The kid was too upset to be impressed by the student’s dramatics and turned his body enough to gesture to the cold
tile floor where a glossy pile of rusty silk fur was quickly going glassy-eyed. McKenna could see that the dog was
beyond saving even as he dropped to his knees, lifted the muzzle a little and pushed his own mouth over the
animal’s cold nose, securing the lax jaw shut with his long fingers, then administering a blast of warm breath. The sudden rush of air expanded the chest just fine, but leaked back out quickly with a sickening bubbling sound like a teapot of water just beginning to simmer. A thin trickle of watery blood traveled down the lolling tongue and he could plainly see that the hairless flesh encircling the animal’s motionless amber eyes was extremely pale. Still hunched tensely, longish strands of blond drooping with dampness past his puckered forehead, the young man tried one last breath, aware it was far too late, but his lingering embarrassment over having been caught in the act and his anger at his lover’s flippancy drove him to try and produce a miracle for this poor dog’s kid.
It was no use. The creature was quite gone. As he gently lowered the greying russet head, only then did he finally note the odd, boxy, broken shape of the body where ribs had caved in to puncture lungs and a hip jutted oddly instead of laying flat. Massive internal injury. The death, though by far not the first he had witnessed or been a part of, nevertheless brought on a wave of numbing, internal pain that clenched his thin chest and twisted his
gut.
The kid squatted beside him to softly murmer, “You did what you could.”
“I...am sorry....” It wasn’t enough, but what more could he offer?
A feminine voice above them said gently, “C’mon, Alex...let’s go home.”
He rose slowly to his full height amidst a chorus of disappointed groans and clucks from the various other
pet owners awaiting their turn with a doctor or assistant, watched the young couple lift the limp body and make
their way out of the crowded clinic, the dreaminess of shock slurring their movements. For the space of a heartbeat
the room actually seemed silent, but then the normal ambiance of excited dogs and frightened cats took over. Just
as the heavy front doors were swinging back into their frame, abruptly cutting off the sounds of the grey city
beyond, a woman’s voice rang loudly out, “Somebody here got a dog that was hit by a car?”
The glances cast the veterinarian’s way were quite hostile and one small nearby mongrel even began to growl. McKenna spun on his heel, jaw clenched, to see her nonchalantly attempting to replace the carved barrette he had given her in her freshly combed hair. Furious, he stalked toward her, snagged her by the crook of one arm, and lead her brusquely back the way she had come, finding the same examination room still unoccupied and thrusting her forcefully within. Before he could close the door over completely and make sure it was latched tight, she began her attack.
“What do you think you’re doing dragging me back here like some stubborn mutt on a short leash? We
must maintain an appearance of professionalism at all times, Geoffery!”
He had never known such anger before. “How professional is it to tempt me into a little pre-lunch quickie
while dying animals are lying all over the waiting room floor?”
She crossed her arms and transferred her weight to one hip. “Dying animals all over? I counted one, Geoffery! One big old dog beyond saving. Probably a breath away from death when it was brought in here. Besides, up until the interruption, I don’t remember hearing you complain.”
He found it difficult to contain his rage, especially since, laid back as he normally was, he had never been so overwhelmed by it before. Rather than respond to her immediately, he looked away with his face lowered and tried to concentrate on quieting his rapid breathing and heartbeat.
She took the opportunity to switch gears. “It was nice of you to try and help,” she cooed, sidling up to
him. “You did what you could.”
His voice was a little raspy when he said to her, “It was pretty bad...shattered ribs, collapsed lung...there really wasn’t anything else that could have been done to save him.”
She smiled at him. “So, why did you even bother?”
Her cold logic was a part of her he had often tried, but always failed to get used to. Even when true , her words could come out sounding quite heartless. “That kid’s eyes Lil...he still had hope....”
“You’ll see lots of eyes like that once you’re on your own. Lots of sad eyes and broken hearts. It’s all a part of the job, kid. You did what you could.”
“I had to. I couldn’t not respond to a creature in need....”
She missed the cutting edge of his remark completely. “You won’t be able to save every animal that crosses your path. I don’t care how good you become. You know that already, Geoff. You just learn to accept it as fact and hope for the best with the next one.”
He walked over to the sink and took a paper cup from the chrome dispenser so he could rinse his mouth of the lingering flavor of dog.
She hopped up on the edge of the examination table and offered him a bittersweet smile he ignored. Dr.
McQueen, forty-one years old and therefore twenty years Geoff McKenna’s senior, was a beautiful woman in a
somewhat plain way. She never wore makeup or lacquered her short, neatly trimmed nails, her simple haircut was
always either straight to her shoulders in casual moments or held away from her oval face and long neck with a barrette or tieback as it had been for most of the day, and she favored plain canvas Keds over a pair of more sophisticated dress flats even when suited in linen or silk which she preferred when teaching her medicinal knowledge to a group of dewy-eyed animal lovers at the nearby university. As always, a number of the new students would invariably drop out once it sank in that they couldn’t save every fluffy kitten, every playful pup brought their way with a dilemma. McKenna, however, despite his strong emotions towards and the rapid bonds he formed between himself and virtually every animal he endeavored to treat, was persistent enough in his pursuits and brilliant enough to go far in his chosen field. Already her star pupil had presented her with a plausible theory he had formulated for treating some of the more common viral infections seen in cats and dogs by extracting a
certain protein from the invading virus itself and altering it slightly before re-introduction to the animal host so
that the tiny antagonists would abandon their normal mission in order to attack and destroy themselves.
She had initially noticed him for his handsome looks and quiet, intelligent demeanor. She had fallen for his sincerity and youthful zeal. “Put it out of your mind,” she coaxed, drawing him to her in an embrace once he had ventured within her reach. The light odor of perspiration on him mingled with the light, woodsy musk of his
aftershave served to reignite her desire as she wrapped strong legs around him.
Geoff leaned away from her before she could taste of his lips. “Where were you this morning? I woke up alone.”
She seemed suddenly aloof. “Oh, didn’t I leave a note for you? Faculty breakfast meeting? Sorry about that.”
“You attend a lot of meetings.”
“I’m a busy and important woman.” Because she disliked where this was heading, she countered with,
“You’ve seem distracted lately.”
“Distracted?”
“You mislabeled some parts on that dog skeleton on your quiz yesterday. You mixed up heartworms with tapeworms in the first section, and recommended amoxycillin as a cure for ear mites in the last section.”
The tall youth shrugged and offered a disarming half-smile. “I was thinking of you.” Which was true , though he had not at the time been considering Lillian in a very flattering way.
She wasn’t so easily charmed. Releasing him from between her thighs, she slid from the countertop and smoothed out her well-creased slacks and pristine white lab coat. “There is nothing going on between Raymond and I.”
Geoff had wondered otherwise, though he had yet to actually accuse her of such. “I’ve seen you together in
the dining hall-”
“He’s a fellow vet for chrissakes,” she complained, suddenly aware that the room’s wastebasket wasn’t in its exact place by the wall, that the sink was now spotted with water droplets and ought to be wiped out. “We graduated together and now we teach at the same school. Am I supposed to pretend he doesn’t exist? Would you prefer I be seen around campus with you?”
He frowned. “I also saw you in his car that night at-”
“I told you it had started raining while I was inside the deli, and I had parked a block away. He came in to
pick up some baked ham or something and offered to drive me back to my car, okay?” Lillian smiled and chuckled
at her young paramour. “Come here you jealous male. Could I hide it if I was seeing Ray? From you—the man who
can sniff out something wrong from half a mile away? Kiss me.” He did, but she could sense his preoccupation again. She sighed. “Well, since you’re in a mood anyway, I’ve got some bad news.”
“Hmm?”
Lil fished deeply in her long coat’s pockets until she came up with two plane tickets. “I can’t leave today.
Something’s come up. You will represent me, won’t you dear?”
Suspicions heightened, McKenna’s brow knit. “Something like what?’
“I’ll have to explain it all after I’ve met back up with you. I’ll only be one day late. You can take care of
yourself in that time, can’t you?”
“Alone?” he asked. “In Montana?”
“Safer than here in New York. Just a day. Tell me you aren’t upset.”
Outraged was the word. “I don’t know these people, Lil! Why can’t I wait a day, too?”
She pouted, adopting her best innocent little girl expression. He despised her when she did that—it always
worked. “Oh, Geoffery, do you know how much it cost me to cancel and rebook my flight? Unless you could afford
to rebook...” she trailed off wickedly, knowing the farm boy from just outside of Kingston wouldn’t even be a
student of hers without her own financial support.
“Fine, Lillian. I’ll await you there. They know I’m only your student, don’t they? That I know nothing about digging up bones?”
“It’s called paleontology, dear, and I’ve told them you are my assistant. Someone named Havilland will pick you up. I think his name is James...or Jack. You can study or something to entertain yourself until I arrive.
Don’t you go flirting with any pretty little Montana girls while we’re apart.”
Geoff grunted neutrally. “Are we still having lunch before my plane takes off?”
“Don’t be silly. You saw that crowded waiting room. I can’t leave Humphrey and Debbie and Lois alone.”
She graciously slipped him a twenty dollar bill. “Go get yourself a hamburger and a good paperback to
read. It’s a long flight west, young man.”
McKenna gave his instructor a perfunctory kiss on the cheek, then returned to the noise and clamor of the
waiting room to retrieve the packed duffel bag and black case he had left there.
II
The flight had gone slowly for the young man who hadn’t slept well the night before due to his anticipation of the impending journey and the resulting weariness from his late evening exertions with his prurient pedagogue. He had dozed but little in the uncomfortable seat on the plane as well as in his lover’s luxurious bed.. In the bed he had awakened cold and alone in grey early morning light. On the Boeing jet he had wakened each time to a set of disquisitive brown eyes staring relentlessly his way from over the back of the seat ahead of him. Would the child ever find distraction from his apparently wildly entertaining features? He’d fashioned a serviceable paper airplane from a wrinkled magazine page, but the child had neither accepted nor even acknowledged the existence of the offered bribe. So McKenna napped but twice, briefly, then spent the remainder of his airborne journey concentrating upon each complimentary peanut he chewed while contemplating the drastic alterations of the land disappearing beneath large, silvery wings.
Upon his disembarkment, McKenna had hoped the placard with the hand-lettered name “McQueen” printed carefully across it was being held by a chauffeur, though even a student from some local Montana school would suffice. Instead, the short, wiry man with the leathery, well-tanned skin proved to be a pilot, and he did not
offer to assist Geoff with his luggage while he led him briskly through the busy airport, down to a lower, seedier
level, to his small, single-engine plane.
Personal belongings were stowed in the narrow space behind the tape-patched seats where a dingy, dented toolbox held reign along with some unidentifiable objects McKenna assumed were necessary for maintenance of
the tiny craft. They consume weak coffee and bland doughnuts in silence in one of the smaller snack shops in the
bowels of the airport, but it seemed to Geoff that the pilot was more absorbed with abstract matters than intentionally rude or apathetic.
“You fly?” he was asked after the older gent had kindly picked up the tab.
“As pilot? No.”
“You might today,” he was told, and though he tried to detect it, he was unable to tell if the pilot was
joking or not.
III
All told, the second leg of his flight proved exceptionally uneventful. The weather remained clear and
uncomfortably hot. McKenna had needed to fish for his sunshades and loosen a few buttons on his shirt in the noisy
Cessna even though the pilot had cracked what few windows he could and turned on a small, dust-webbed fan to
circulate the dry air. The northern Midwest did not resemble his beloved New England in the faintest. Here were
vast expanses of grassy plain scabbed with broken rock, the occasional patchy carpeting of trees. All this they
bypassed for a more arid stretch of landscape and before long they flew over raw spots of desert and noticed the
first buttes and mesas sawtoothing the distant horizon. The pilot offered Geoff half of a mustard and Spam
sandwich, but the nervous veterinary student’s stomach wasn’t taking the flight well, so he declined politely,
though he did accept a sip from the Thermos thrust in his direction. Weak, lukewarm beef broth greeted his
parched tongue. The salty liquid was soothing and settled well.
Because he knew next to nothing about paleontology, thinking it was just archaeology focused on big, long dead reptiles, McKenna was relieved to see the airplane bank and circle over a small town near a thin trickle of silver that passed for a river rather than just land on a stretch of desert near some kind of dusty, God-forsaken
encampment in the middle of absolutely nowhere. “This is?” he called hopefully, then had to repeat himself over the roar of the Cessna’s engine.
“I land here,” the pilot shouted back.
They came down easily, bumping gently along a stretch of mostly rock-free road. The aircraft taxied over to the vicinity of an antique-looking service station with a badly rusted metal sign hanging from the eaves proclaiming the sale of kerosene, gasoline, and avgas. Engine silenced, the pilot leaped lightly from his seat and abandoned his passenger while dust disturbed from the landing of the Cessna finally blew over the craft in a choking tan cloud.
Geoff finished coughing and sighed. He had two decent-sized bags with him and neither was overly lightweight. Attempting to mimic the shorter man’s graceful disembarkment, he managed to drop painfully from the plane upon one knee, then loudly conked his skull on the underside of the right wing when he tried to recover.
The entire vehicle shook from the blow and Geoff abruptly realized what a flimsy little scrap of metal and bolts it was that he had just flown in. None of this was doing his stomach any good. He had enjoyed little opportunity to fly
yet in his life, but during those few flights there had always been at least one smiling stewardess on board,
complimentary salted legumes, a card with multilingual instructions to be enacted in the unlikely event of an
emergency. “Co-pilot,” he muttered, continuing this train of thought aloud while tugging his luggage from the
back of the tiny aircraft, “at least one of those. Emergency exits. Bathroom.” Oh—why did he have to remind
himself?
A noise alerted him. He extracted his head from the plane’s interior in time to become enveloped in another thick cloud of airborne dust. Once he’d finished hacking he noticed the girl staring at him. She was petite,
but curvy, well-bronzed by the sun, and topped with a thick mop of burnished copper ringlets. “This isn’t yours, is
it?”
He blinked grit from his eyelashes. “The airplane? No.”
“I didn’t think so.”
She looked like she was waiting for something, so he cleared his throat and said, “I’m Geoffery McKenna...Dr. McQueen’s assistant?” Her lack of recognition at either name embarrassed him. “Look, I’m here as a representative of Dr. McQueen of New York. I need to locate-” He stopped. She’d burst first into a broad grin,
then giggles.
“I know. They sent me to pick you up. C’mon.” McKenna struggled to tug his duffel bag free of the Cessna. It was obviously caught on something. When she noticed he wasn’t following, she pried open the pilot’s door and squeezed easily into the plane’s interior to free his bag. “Snagged by the tool chest. There. You’re all right. Follow me.” She rounded the craft in a flash, ignoring his feeble protests when she hefted the heavier of his two bags and made off with it in the direction of a dust-covered post-office style Jeep. “Stay here,” she ordered,
carelessly dropping his bag by the passenger’s side. “Door’s unlocked.”
He took that to mean he was permitted to begin loading his belongings on board. McKenna sat on the
uncomfortable seat of the Jeep for nearly twenty minutes waiting for the girl to return. Sweat poured into his collar as he fantasized about a refreshing cool shower followed by a long nap in a pleasantly dark, air-conditioned room.
Sacks of groceries were thrust abruptly into his arms. The girl raced off for more while the startled student tried to
find room for everything.
“Didja pump gas?” she queried upon her return.
“What?”
She groaned, tugging him bodily from the shade within the vehicle. “You pump. I’ll rearrange this stuff.
You don’t really think I’d have driven all the way out here and not bought more gas, do ya?”
He shrugged, bewildered by her casual demeanor. “Ah...how much gas?”
“Topper.” Big brown eyes squinted in his direction. “How many digs have you been on?”
“None?”
She nodded, puckering her full lips. “I’d say that’s about right. Sheesh.” Before he had finished filling the tank completely, she’d settled herself into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
“Hey!” McKenna yelled with alarm. He mentally urged the pump to work faster, clumsily re-hung the nozzle, gave the revving Jeep’s gas cap a few twists, then made a mad dash for the passenger’s seat. The girl let out a wild laugh as she accelerated, making him lean from the speeding vehicle to grab his flailing door and shut
it. “You’re dangerous!”
“No, I’m Sally. Sally Satterfield. One of Dr. Strasberg’s students and assistants. Nice to meet you,
Geoffery McKenna.” She offered him one hand while steering with the other.
“Likewise,” he muttered, slightly dazed.
IV
By now his discomfort had shifted completely from his stomach to his bladder. Should’ve relieved myself back in town when I had the chance, he thought, bouncing up and down in tandem with Miss Satterfield and her rather
ample breasts as she navigated seemingly by landmarks alone out into still hotter and drier country. Despite his urgent need to release fluid, the searing temperature forced him to consume even more. Sally forbade him to touch the small container of orange juice or the bottled water. He had to slake his thirst with rapidly warming beer.
“...in that respect, I guess we’re alike,” she continued animatedly, veering frequently from some road
visible only to her whenever she turned toward her captive to emphasize some point with both hands or her eyes.
“I’m broke, too. The scholarship only covers a fraction of my expenses. Did you say you have one, too?”
McKenna had been eyeing rock formations, tumbled scrub...anything which might afford him a moment’s
privacy in a pinch. “I beg your pardon?”
She whined, “Just say ‘what’, Geoff. Go on, say it...no...say ‘huh’. Can you do that for me? Huh?”
He said quizzically, “Huh?”
“Never mind. Loosen up. You didn’t pack suits, did you? We get dirty out here. You spend all day removing dirt and debris from around old bones, then try wearing it on yourself for awhile. You’ll loose those New England mannerisms pretty quickly out here, too. It’s all very casual and relaxed...even for science. Can you relax, Geoff? You do know how, don’t you?”
Not with a bladder on the verge of exploding, but he declined to share that thought with her.
It wasn’t much longer before they were able to make out the trailer and tents and the dusty vehicles comprising the paleontologists’ campsite. There was the one late-model trailer and one mini-camper hitch, two pickup trucks, another more popular style of Jeep, and two ancient-looking motorcycles also replete with equipment-hauling hitches. Three tents marked the ground like dusty, olive-colored pimples. They were extremely low, barely two and a half feet from the ground at the dome tops, but sprawling. Sally explained that although they occasionally inspired bouts of claustrophobia, these tents were the best they had tried thus far when it came to weathering the strong and often gusty winds which were an unavoidable part of the Montana badlands.
The place was also completely deserted.
“They’re probably off celebrating,” Sally replied when Geoff pointed this out to her. “Reed thinks he may
ave uncovered a new animal, and I’d say this is a pretty good indication that he’s right.”
“Reed?”
“Dr. Strasberg. I told you it’s casual, Geoff.” she pulled up before the large trailer, hopped nimbly from the Jeep, then toted two of the bags of groceries inside. On her way out for the next armload, she noticed him struggling with his own bags again. “Oh, no. You don’t think you’re bunkin’ in there, do you?”
“Not the guest quarters?” he tried dryly, hopefully.
Sally rolled her eyes. “That’s Reed’s place. Not much room for anything besides him and his equipment. Bones everywhere. Tools. More dust. You will be rooming at the bee-yew-tiful Shack Out Back.”
He repeated, “Shack Out Back?’
She handed him grocery bags and pointed him toward the trailer door. “Set these inside.”
He hoped the little chores he was performing now weren’t prognostic of things to come. Not that he minded assisting wherever he could.... McKenna simply had little desire to prove his ineptitude at the science of
paleontology. Once within the cooler atmosphere of the trailer, he peered about blatantly, answering Miss
Satterfield’s disapproving stare with, “Bathroom?”
She bent double and her laughter made him tinge slightly red. “The world is your toilet. Just stay clear of the tents and the digs and you’ll do fine. However, if you insist on a more conventional method, the women use a
little portable chema-potty. I can show you where it is, but you’ll have to whistle on your way so you don’t startle
anyone. Fair warning. You can whistle, can’t you?”
Geoff nodded, already on his way to find a large rock or similar object he could safely take a leak behind.
“I thought so,” the paleontology student murmured, enjoying a good long look at his buttocks before he’d
made it through the door. “Mmm,” she said to herself, grinning as she unpacked a paper sack of goods. “He is
going to be a lot of fun.”
His assumption proved correct. There was indeed a tiny bit of a structure behind Strasberg’s trailer.. A
time-worn, sand-buffed, and well-weathered shack of sorts—perhaps somebody’s meager dwelling once. A miracle it remained erect even on such a day as this, McKenna mused, with an occasional light breeze to ruffle his hair. If little else, it was shade from the relentless sun now above and just behind him. A quick glimpse within showed it housed a low, crudely fashioned table, a rather primitive attempt to construct a shelving unit, two opened cots, a folded cot, a small woven trunk missing its lock, and a single large clay pot or bowl. The walls were hung with heavy, natural fiber blankets and even a Native American tapestry or two. Certainly it was more homey than any of the futuristic-looking survival tents. He wondered how it happened to remain unused by the diggers for storage or
dwelling.
Behind the shack was a convenient sharp rise in the land, resultant in a miniature cliff or plateau not more
than eight feet high at its crest. He was now out of sight of the vehicles and tents, therefore he assumed it finally safe to relieve himself. It was while he still arced a stream, however, that he happened to notice the extra shadow.
Geoffery McKenna glanced quickly over his shoulder in embarrassment. He didn’t cease his activity—he couldn’t at this point. Besides, whomever the intruder was had probably seen everything. The interloper proved to
be maybe three feet high, maybe four years old. The clothing and haircut were no help in determining the sex of
the child. He hoped he was gazing at a little boy. He hoped this wasn’t the tot’s favorite place to play.
“Hi there,” he managed gently, stooping to gather some grit and sand after zipping up. “What’s your name?” McKenna rubbed his hands with the gathered dust to cleanse them. The child mumbled some reply around the chubby, brown fist he held pressed to his slack lips. Geoff squinted as he allowed the remaining sand to cascade through his fingers. “Did you say, ‘Benjamin’?” When he lifted the child, he could make out his own reflection clearly in the huge, liquidy, black coffee eyes. Then, at the sound of some distant cry, the eyes glanced away, distracted.
“Oh boy, it’s Benji,” Sally exclaimed, though her tone, as she approached, was anything but cheerful. “I see you’ve found our resident mascot.”
“Whose is he?”
The young woman shrugged. “Rainbow Possum claims him. ‘course she claims to be full-blooded Indian, too, but nobody I know is fooled.”
The bronzed child could easily pass for some young warrior escaped from some reservation or encampment. His shiny black hair, though streaked with dust, went well with his ruddy brown complexion and the soft, beaded tunic and brief leggings he wore were probably deerskin, maybe even antelope. “Father?” queried Geoff.
“Oh he was probably one of the local natives all right. Probably got drunk and hooked up with Rainbow one night behind the saloon back in Snakebite and never saw her again. Snakebite’s pretty small, and Rainbow handles all of the local entertainment if you know what I mean.” McKenna understood, but he really wanted to know if it was okay to set the child back down again to roam free or not. Disgust evident in her voice, Sally continued, “You’ll meet her soon enough, I’m sure. There’s not a man around here she doesn’t know like the top of her mattress.” He noticed that not once since the subject of Miss Possum had come up had Miss Satterfield
allowed her gaze to meet his own.
“Do you know if she’s about? Should I put Benji in a tent?”
“Let him wander. He’s not too bright and doesn’t talk much, but the kid’s got chutzpah out the wazoo.”
McKenna joked as he set the boy gingerly upon his feet, “Well, I hope he’s not contagious!”
Sally’s tension broke and she finally met the young man’s sparkling blue eyes while giggling along with him. Abruptly, they heard the same cry which had originally distracted Benji from the newcomer. It sounded less
animal-like now and more like human laughter. A woman’s squeal of delight. He prepared himself to meet the
infamous Madam Rainbow.
No, she wasn’t fooling anyone if the woman he saw heading toward the campsite was the one who claimed to be full-blooded American Indian. She was of average height, a little on the stocky side, with shoulder-length light brown hair streaked with sunny blonde highlights, peeling noticeably from a sunburn, and bespectacled with thick glass lenses surrounded by bright red frames.
“That’s not-” Geoff began.
“No. Robin Alaimo. Don’t let her fun-loving nature fool you—once she gets down to work she’s very intense.” A rather ugly young man with receding, free-flowing blond hair like a horse’s mane grinned widely as he listened to Robin make some humorous comment or joke. “Oliver Forsythe. Total jerk.” Next in view was a thin, reedy-looking man with a mustache, a dead cigarillo caught between yellowed teeth, and a floppy, dust-coated fedora perched upon his head. “Errol Rudnor. Mysterious adventurer. Actually, he works in a pharmacy with his father part-time. He’s only twenty-seven. Looks ancient though, don’t you think?” A tall, muscular man with thick dark hair and exaggerated features could be seen wielding an astonishing load of heavy tools and equipment slung over one meaty shoulder in a square of sturdy canvas. “Hercules there is called Claude Lisberger by those of us who
know him. The black guy is Ethan Hayward, the Korean guy is Randall Bonnyfeather—he might have some Indian
on his father’s side with a name like that, but I’m not sure...the evil-looking guy is Gene Goorwitz, and the
basketball player is Tom Avery.” Geoff lifted his eyebrows. She insisted, “He’s very tall, but he really does play! He’s in school on a basketball scholarship, but his true love is poking around in the earth with all the rest of us. Ah—there’s Reed and Jack. C’mon, I’ll introduce you.”
She trotted over to her instructor’s side while McKenna strolled without hurry in her wake, covering the
same distance in the same time with his much longer, stronger legs. He offered an obviously pale and rather smooth hand along with a polite smile to the bearded paleontologist. “Reed, uh, Dr. Strasberg, this is Dr. McQueen’s assistant, Geoffery McKenna.”
“Geoff,” grunted Strasberg, nodding.
“Dr. Strasberg,” replied McKenna, nodding back as he withdrew his ignored hand.
Strasberg pegged McKenna for a flake. “Ah, right,” he said neutrally. “Where is Dr. McQueen?”
“Dr. McQueen has been delayed and will arrive tomorrow.”
“What time is he landing?”
“She should land about the same time I did today.”
“She?”
“She,” confirmed Geoff.
Strasberg frowned. “Are you...certain?”
“That she’s a she?” Jesus, thought Geoff, I’ve only been sleeping with her for the last eight months!
“Quite certain, Doctor.”
Something in McKenna’s voice tipped the scientist off. He grew a cocky half-smile, then scowled instead and squinted around for Satterfield. “Sally?”
“Reed,” she responded smartly, planting herself before him.
“Did you let Rocco know?’
“...uh...,” Sally said.
“Damnit. Flynn? Ride out and see if you can catch him. Let him know he’ll have to wait out at the airport in Billings again tomorrow. He’d better not try and charge us twice the price for avgas again....” The man Sally had pointed out as Errol Rudnor nodded silently, then sprinted off for one of the Jeeps.
“Fill ‘er up!” reminded Sally.
Strasberg told her, “You can pick her up tomorrow since you did such a good job bringing in Mr. McKenna here. Did you get everything on the list?”
“Yep.”
“Budweiser, pretzels, cigars?”
“Oh, shit.”
“Which one?’
“Cigars.”
The older man groaned. “Send a girl to pick a man’s necessities. Jack!”
“Yes, sir.” Jack was just above average height, with a long fleshy nose, a pockmarked but friendly face, light grey eyes, and short wavy red hair. as he stood at attention before his superior, Jack gave his metal-framed
glasses an extra push up along the slop of his prominent proboscis.
Strasberg patted the kid’s shoulder fondly as though the younger man was a favorite hound. “Can you help us out?”
“Do what I can, sir.”
Geoff saw an exchange of green. Jack nodded and dashed off, hot on the heels of some elusive cigar shipment. Then the professor and scientist clapped a beefy arm around Geoff, startling him, pulling him tightly against his side like a long-lost son. He even called him that. “Son, you have arrived at a very momentous occasion. A new chapter in the relatively brief history of the science of paleontology. Today history has been made. Nice to have you around for it.”
McKenna recalled something Sally had mentioned to him. “The new dinosaur?”
“New is not the word,” Miss Alaimo interjected. “In this field it never is.”
“And this time,” the older man confided to him, smiling with great pleasure and deep satisfaction, “neither is dinosaur.”
McKenna didn’t understand. “You’ve discovered...a new living animal?”
Sally shook her head, eyes skyward.
Strasberg released him and took a step back. “There’s more in the dirt than dinos.”
Geoffery smiled weakly.
The paleontologist mentally dismissed the new kid. Perhaps McQueen’s idea of an assistant was someone who toted tools, but didn’t dig. Goddamned golf caddie, he thought with some bitter amusement. “Anyway, that’s why we’re celebrating tonight. Toss back a few beers with us, Geoff. Maybe I’ll get drunk enough to think I like you.” He smiled graciously to the laughter of his own assistants.
Geoff watched him go, deciding he didn’t care too much for Reed Strasberg, either. The man was too full
of himself. Almost embarrassingly flamboyant. Excellent at dissecting an unfamiliar personality within the first
few minutes of banter, Geoff was often dead-on with his assessments. What did a paleontologist know anyway?
Digging up old bones was hardly a science—it was little more than playing in a sandbox! Not a real science like
animal medicine. Brittle mold bones were one thing, but trying to accurately diagnose a cat that can’t describe its own symptoms, can’t tell you exactly where it hurts and to what degree, then correctly identifying the dilemma and rectifying it in the shortest time possible—that was true beauty in science, but McKenna knew he could never convince an overinflated, egotistical chauvinist of that. Lillian McQueen on the other hand—well she took no bullshit from anybody. He couldn’t wait until her arrival the next afternoon. She’d take this Dr. Strasberg down a peg or two!
V
McKenna’s sleep was fitful. It wasn’t just that he’d been thrust into an unusual situation in unfamiliar
surroundings, but he’d been subjected to all sorts of weird noises and odd sensations during the night. He almost
came to believe what Robin Alaimo had told him earlier about the shack being haunted by the old miser who’d built it and supposedly died inside of it.
He had declined to participate in an evening of merriment and drunken revelry, preferring the sober
observation of a great mind like Strasberg drinking himself into the shallow depths of insipidy. Jack had returned with a plump baggy of marijuana and the slovenly vision of Ms. Rainbow Possum. The tawdry woman had looked McKenna up and down, licking her full, but desert-chapped lips. The gaze of pure revulsion she received for her efforts had outraged her at once, yet left her highly intrigued. Since he wasn’t drinking or smoking and carried a
distinctive educated and well-mannered air about him, Ms. Possum had generously bequeathed him the care of her son for the evening, then slunk away amidst a small band of revelers, casting him a backward glance to indicate she still might consider him for other possible favors later on. Geoff’s lip had curled into an uncharacteristic sneer. He liked kids, though he had little reason to believe Rainbow deserved to proclaim herself the mother of any innocent small child.
Despite the babble of the inebriated, he had drifted off in his assigned quarters quickly, staring thoughtfully at little Benjamin asleep upon the nearest cot. During the night he’d experienced troubled dreams of things he’d heard were bad in this part of the land: scorpions. Were there any scorpions as far north as Montana?
He didn’t know, but he resolved to give his shoes a thorough check before stepping into them first thing in the
morning. Rattlesnakes. This far north? Again, he was doubtful. Best to ask on the morrow. Coyotes. But they never
attacked man, right? Wolves did. But rarely unless cornered or provoked. Bears? Best not to even speculate on
them. He slept fitfully imagining all of these beasties and more softly bumping the corners of his flimsy shack,
stalking along the roof, scratching lightly at the walls and door to see if anybody was at home, delicately nuzzling
his bare toes in wonder of how juicy they might be. Once or twice, upon awakening, almost convinced his dreams
were reality, he could have sworn there was something up on the roof, beyond the walls, beneath his cot. Nothing
there. And when he’d tried to fall sleep once more, he’d heard a low, soft keening sound on the night-time wind.
Something eerie and definitely not human. Shuddering, Geoff finally dropped into an exhausted slumber in which he dreamed of great grey pillars reaching into the sky. As they passed close by, he could feel the warmth of the animals which they supported and belonged to, could perceive the great weight and swaying masses above him,
recognized the horrific possibilities of the monstrous tails so near to his head. The brontosauruses moved slowly off across moonlit plains and a lone Indian, very near, turned a quarter profile toward him to watch Geoff from the corner of his eye.
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