The Find (16 page)

‘How much time do you have?' Swenson got to his feet. ‘I have no desire to waste mine talking to people who refuse the evidence of their own eyes, and prefer to believe the earth was made by a raven breaking open a clamshell. They can sit there if they want. You can waste your time if you want. It's a discussion that could take
decades
, so long as someone funds it!' He made to stride off, but stopped and turned to face the others again. ‘That's if you've
got
time,' he said to Anna, ‘between whatever you're doing with him—' he jabbed his finger at Scott. ‘I am going to get on with what I am here for,' he told them.

Akira and Maiko sat straight-backed, conveying by their very stiffness how appalled they were, and for a moment, Anna felt, things were so dreadful that it would not be impossible to laugh.

‘I am sorry for this unpleasantness but glad that we have Scott here,' she told them. ‘This is a difficult situation, but we have someone with St'alkwextsihn heritage we can consult.'

Maiko smiled, and turned to Scott as if she expected him to make some kind of speech.

‘Wait a moment. I didn't grow up on the reserve. My mother never even applied for status,' Scott told Anna. ‘She left—'

‘It's really good to have you on the team.' She gestured back at the site, at the people, everywhere, sitting like human rocks. ‘There must be some kind of agreement we can come to. All I want is to see what's here.'

She wanted to see what was there, to unwrap the gift in stone. Swenson wanted to get the cliff out of the way, prove his point about gliding, get his name on the find in as big a way as he could. If you knew how far he would go, then he was easy to hate, but
what do I want
, Scott asked himself as he tipped the last drops out of one of their plastic water carriers. He wanted a good time. The best possible out of a shared occasion or situation: it was what had kept him with Mac, wanting it to work out, somehow. He wanted Anna Silowski to have what she wanted, the huge winged lizard freed from the rock, reassembled and resurrected; he wanted her burdens to be lifted from her, and sometimes he wanted to put his arm round her, but because of what Swenson had said, could not. But at the same time, he wanted the St'alkwextsihn to get
their
way:
we
,
us
,
our
, he half-thought as he followed Anna back to the site, and wished there was something in between
theirs
and
ours
.

Anna crouched awkwardly in front of Coxtis' canvas stool. The crowd, bar a couple of kids, fell silent; Swenson's team was still working and the tap of their hammers and the whine of the angle grinder continued as they spoke. She needed him to listen to her, yet why should he?

‘May I show you what we are doing and tell you what it means? Just one or two people to begin with, since it's very delicate.'

Alan Coxtis conferred with the elders to either side of him, and then rose and helped them to do likewise, slipping his hand under their elbows, allowing himself to be used as a steadying post once they were up. He ducked under the ribbon, agile despite the beginnings of a pot belly. He held the ribbon up for the two who followed him: John Fleet, a tall, greying man and a more rotund, much older man with a walking stick, Ben Tate. Scott stood behind Anna, she could feel him there; the rest of the team, finding themselves suddenly part of a larger drama, sat like sculptures of themselves: Greta leaned back into Jason. Felix, chisel still in hand, his long legs crossed at the ankle in front of him. Lin sat straight-backed, as if meditating, Akira and Maiko stood solemnly behind her.

She wanted to give them the best picture she could: the warm sea filled with extraordinary life forms. The pterosaur taking off from a cliff riding thermals, swooping to feed, rising again and then circling to land.

She showed them a drawing, explained about the fourth finger supporting the flight membrane. She brought over the piece of exposed bone that Jason had cracked open that morning, took them up to the head area and explained exactly how they were excavating beneath it, trying still, to keep it in one piece and how people are coming from all over the world to see the specimen. She introduced them to Maiko and Akira, all the way from Japan, who smiled and stepped forward to shake hands.

‘It's the first pterosaur ever to be found in this bed of rock and that is why it's of huge, international scientific importance.' As if the words coming from her mouth were traffic at an intersection, Alan Coxtis raised a hand to signal
Stop
.

‘It is also Big Crow, the bird ancestor,' he said. After a moment or two, the shorter of the two elderly men continued:

‘After the flood came, and Big Crow snatched up the last surviving man and his woman who had a child in her belly. He was going to devour them, but the man promised that they would not fish above second bend in the river, and that every time they had a catch, they would leave fish on the stone for Big Crow, and that all their children and their children's children would do the same. Do you remember this?' he asked, with the ghost of a smile, looking over Anna's shoulder to where Scott stood.

‘I think so,' Scott said, and stepped forward into the small circle.

‘Anna,' he said, ‘go on.'

‘That's a fascinating story. And what's so very interesting,' she pointed out, ‘is that it has a flood in it, because the geological record indicates that this area has indeed been flooded at various times, including during the late Cretaceous — though that was long before people existed, of course. Sea levels were rising then in response to atmospheric conditions. And the other connection is that you see the birds as having ancestors, and maybe that idea is rather like the idea of evolution.

‘But you see, if we don't remove it now, it will be destroyed. Water and grit grinds away the softer rock and these concretions here get loosened and then carried away when the river is full and they're soon broken and dispersed and once they're dispersed, we can't—'

Again, the stop sign, the pause.

‘Our culture is not very interested in preservation,' Alan Coxtis said. ‘We're more interested that things should be where they belong.'

There was applause from the crowd then, a ripple that seemed to spread from front to back. And Anna knew without Scott telling her that she had to go on, find better things to offer.

‘Where things belong,' she said, ‘is what I'm interested in too! The way I see it, what we have here is a creature that belongs in a piece of deep time which we're trying to illuminate and to learn from, and also one that belongs in a series of relationships to other creatures of the same era, and before and afterwards. And although I found it, it most definitely doesn't belong to me. It belongs to no one and everyone at the same time, and so it seems to me that means that it belongs in the museum, where not just scientists, but anyone who wants to can see it.'

‘It belongs where it is. The things in museums are twice dead,' the taller elder said. ‘Even the stories they write on the walls there are no longer alive.'

She wanted to say yes, the pterosaur was very dead, and maybe was dead twice or even three times over — but still it was part of the history of life, and that in its way was a sacred thing. She wanted to say that she felt as if she meant well. But suddenly she could find no more words.

Coxtis smiled; his eyes remained serious, but not, she felt, hostile in a personal kind of way. She could like him, despite the trouble he was bringing her.

‘You must understand,' he said, ‘artefacts are found in museums, scattered all over the world — things taken without permission, and things many of us no longer know how to make. Cedar baskets, beadwork, ceremonial masks. Museums are where they put the remains of what has been overrun.' It was true, of course. But did she personally have to suffer for it?

‘I do see that,' she began, ‘but at least, there is a pretty good record.' She realised as she spoke, where the conversation would go: to the general continuous overrunning of everything by time, geology, and the endless random creativity of evolution, versus the specific overrunning of one group of people by another, who were resisting. Who, for good reasons of their own, had picked something she very much wanted to focus that resistance upon. Here quite simply, were a group of people who thought completely differently to her and somehow they must agree.

‘I think you see where we are coming from,' Coxtis said just as two RCMP officers, their armpits circled dark grey and their faces running with sweat, ducked under the tape and asked where was Dr Swenson? Jason went to fetch him.

‘Hey, Baz,' Scott said to the broadest-shouldered of the two officers, the young one with a shaving cut on his cheek, ‘this is quite a situation!' and Baz looked away, at his feet while the other officer pulls out a notebook. He wrote down Coxtis' words:

‘This is a non-violent protest against the removal of Big Crow Ancestor from our traditional lands.'

‘Big Crow is showing himself to us now, to tell us,
Courage! Stick to your path
.'

‘We're doing everything we can to sort this out,' Anna said, and the constable wrote that down too. For a brief moment it seemed to Scott that everything had come to rest briefly in a strange kind of equilibrium out of which anything could arise. His heart was thumping as he put his hand on Anna's shoulder, which for a moment or two, she allowed.

‘Please drive me to town, now, Scott.'

There were vans and trucks parked by the river and lining the turn off. All the way back to town they passed makeshift signs directing people back to the Big Crow Protest. Scott parked in the Save On parking lot, bought two ice-cold waters and waited while she made calls. To Mr Bellavance:

‘Would you consider talking to them, Andrew? They'd appreciate it, I'm sure. Well, maybe you can think of— I do appreciate that, Andrew. I can see your position.'

To the museum:

‘The police got them to move back a little but they're going to be there every day. Brian, I feel it is my fault, because I— No, he didn't. He's taking quite a strong position.' Her voice deepened as she spoke.

‘No, they won't. No. Part of their mythology. According to the map and the GPS both of the specimens are on CanCo land, but they disagree with the map. I don't think they'll just tire of it and go away.'

He sat next to her, listening, ready if required but not sure what he could possibly do to help. He thought how he should perhaps call Mac, could get his own cell phone out, but it didn't seem like the moment: the two of them, side by side, each with their own emergency, jabbering into a bit of plastic. He imagined his father sitting in the big, clean meeting room at Phoenix House, wanting a drink but not getting one and having to listen to someone else talk about how low they've sunk…or, white and shivering, being taken in a group to the swimming pool.

‘Physically, they aren't doing anything except sit there and I suppose we
can
continue, but— Brian, this really is a very difficult situation— would you consider coming meantime to see for yourself? Of course I can cope, but I think we should. Okay, I'll keep you posted.'

‘They'll have a meeting about it
next week
,' she told Scott. ‘Next week! And so meantime, I'm on my own with this. We'd better get back.' Scott made the mistake of turning on the radio: ‘Big Crow is not just a clash of interpretations,' a female reporter was saying, ‘but also a—'

‘Clash of interpretations?' Anna turned toward him as if he'd said it. ‘Surely there's a difference between science and storytelling?'

‘I don't think that matters,' Scott said. ‘The St'alkwextsihn have been ripped off. And from their point of view, you're way, way nicer than Dr Swenson, but you're kind of saying the same thing. You wanted my advice— well, I guess you'll have to offer something.'

He felt her looking at him as he drove.

‘Brian suggested we could give them some kind of panel on the final museum display!' she said. They both laughed. ‘So,' she said, ‘this is Big Crow, where you grew up—' and he had a sudden memory of the schoolyard, felt again the awful despair of being there.

When she asked him to pull over, he stopped in a patch of shade. The brush by the roadside was beginning to yellow in the heat, but the conifers were deep green against the sky. It was very quiet without the engine and general clatter of the van moving along.

‘About earlier…'Anna said, ‘…when you— I don't want this to get out of control, and not just because it's work. Look at what Swenson said — that's not going to make life easy. So can you promise not to touch me again? It's not professional. Please don't argue with me.'

‘Okay,' he said, and shrugged. He did not want to make things worse. She was utterly impossible, yet at the same time, she made him feel totally woken up.

‘Have you thought what you are going to do after this?' she asked as he started up again.