The Night Visitor (18 page)

Flye, who had hardly been listening, interrupted. “Me and the Silvers, we're big chums, you see. It didn't start out that way. The old man—his name's Moses—he set me up for a fall.
Hid
a little arrow point in the sand I was siftin'. If I'd a kept it—and it was a pretty thing and probably worth a twenty-dollar bill if you know where to sell such stuff—if I'd a kept it he'd a fired me sure as it snows in December, But I turned it in. So now he knows I'm honest as the day is long.”

Moon sighed. “Days get kinda short this time of year.”

Flye chuckled, then nudged Moon with a sharp elbow. “Yessir, I did the right thing. And now the old man—why, he'd trust me with his false teeth. And me an' Delia is special friends.”

Flye must be exaggerating. “She's taken a liking to you?”

“Didn't I tell you?” Flye said through a series of coughs. “We is
chums.”

“You told me, but what I don't understand is,” Moon mimicked Flye's nasal drawl,
“why
you is chums.”

Flye blinked. “Why? Because she's sweet on me, that's why.”

It was clear from the Ute policeman's expression that he believed this claim to be salted with fool's gold.

“Well, I can
prove
she likes me. Miss Silver told me what her daddy was up to. That he was gonna plant that little arrowhead
and see if'n I stole it. And it wasn't even a real Indian arrowhead; she made it herself.”

“Seems to me,” Moon observed, “she must've had you figured for a thief. If she'd thought you were an honest man, why warn you about the plant?”

Flye—who had not considered the matter from this perspective—looked somewhat crestfallen. But only for an instant.

“But,” the Ute admitted generously. “I guess the young lady must be a little bit fond of you. Otherwise she wouldn't have gone to the trouble to save your job.”

“Women,” Flye said smugly, “takes to me like flies to honey.”

Moon might have observed that flies took to items far less fragrant than honey. But he'd said enough already. “The Southern Ute Police Department is pleased that you've found honest employment, Mr. Flye. Just see that you don't pull any fast ones. It would make me look bad for cutting you loose. Then I'd have to come and find you. And,” he added darkly, “I'd come all the way to Arkansas if I had to.” This was an exaggeration. By about a thousand miles.

Horace Flye winked. “Hey… you know me.” If his aim had been to comfort Moon, the arrow veered somewhat wide of the mark. The wiry man stubbed out the cigarette butt on his brass belt buckle, then ground it under his heel. “We'd best be gettin' back inside. I don't think it'll look too good, me spendin' so much time jawin' with a cop.”

“Well,” Moon said equably, “I wouldn't want to tarnish your reputation.” He followed Flye back into the tent. Moses Silver, his daughter, and Robert Newton were at the card table, examining Polaroid photos. Cordell York was in the sandpit with the fossil bones.

“That long tall drink of water with the bones, he's Dr. York,” Flye whispered hoarsely to the policeman. “He's a real high-and-mighty sawbones from somewheres back East, but they say he knows all about a elephant's teeth. You show him a molar, he'll tell you the critter's license number and what he had for breakfast.”

A single brownish-yellow tusk curved upward. Like a
beckoning finger. Moon decided to have a closer look. Cordell York was using a short, stiff-bristled brush to clear sand from a long jawbone. The teeth were enormous, and covered with curly ridges. Moon watched for several minutes and was not challenged by York. Neither was his presence acknowledged by the surgeon.

But a man could only look at a pile of old bones for just so long. Moon stole a glance at the young woman at the card table. Pretty thing.

As if on cue, Vanessa reappeared from the shadows. And reclaimed her rights at Moon's arm.

“So. You get along okay with Mr. Briggs?” Moon grinned. “I think he kinda likes you.”

“He lusts after me,” she said. “I think he's very cute. And awfully smart. Well-dressed, too.” Vanessa leaned her head on his shoulder. “Does that make you jealous?”

“Now I think about it, I guess it does. You never said anything that nice about me.” He assumed a sad face. “A fella likes to be told he's cute. And smart. And well-dressed.”

“Charlie, I'll try to think of something nice to say about you. But only if you'll say something just as nice about me.”

He nodded. “Sounds like a square deal.”

Vanessa frowned with concentration. “Let me think… hmmm.”

She seemed, he thought, to take a long time.

“You're taking a long time.”

“It's only because I'm trying to think of some way that you're… well, really
special.
Something that distinguishes you.”

“Then don't let me hurry you.”

“Okay, here it is. You're
taller
than most men.”

“Thanks,” he said. “So are you.”

She pinched his arm. Hard.

Well, a man could only stand so much fun. And business was business. He'd had his talk with Horace Flye, which was what he'd come here for. And twenty minutes of watching a grown man brush sand off an old jawbone was sufficient for the day. It was getting close to suppertime. And nothing very interesting was happening here.

The man in the sandpit paused in his brushing. “My God,” Cordell York muttered. And he was an agnostic.

At the card table, three scientists' heads turned simultaneously.

Moses smiled at his colleagues. “Cordell rarely gets excited. But give him a few old teeth to examine… well, I tell you, his talents are wasted as a surgeon. Dr. York should have taken up dentistry.” He chuckled at his joke.

“Come here,” York said. He said it softly. But it was a command.

Delia Silver abandoned a pile of photographs she'd been labeling. The young archaeologist was followed by Robert Newton, then by her father.

York was on his knees in the sand, his pale face inches from the jawbone. “Look,” he said urgently, “look… look …” Like the lone shepherd who has seen the Archangel, and called others from their flocks to behold the heavenly vision.

Delia slipped lightly into the excavation. “What is it
, Cordell?”

He pointed.

The silence in the tent was perfect.

Moon squatted in an attempt to get a better view.

Horace Flye stood behind him.

Vanessa McFain could see nothing worth causing a commotion about.

Ralph Briggs had emerged from the shadows.

Moses Silver took off his spectacles and polished them with a cotton handkerchief. “Well, Cordell, don't keep us in suspense. What've you found? One of the teeth have a gold filling?”

The tall man shook his head in wonder. “Come and see.”

Delia turned to her father, who was leaning forward, blinking through his trifocals. “Daddy,” she said. “Oh, Daddy …”

Moses grunted as he lowered himself into the excavation.

Delia moved aside to make room for her father.

York pointed with the tip of the brush handle.

Moses lay on his belly, his spectacles almost on the fossilized jawbone. “Oh my… oh my.”

Lodged under the long slab of bone was the unmistakable edge of a flint implement.

Moses put a finger close to the marvelous find, but touched neither flint nor fossil bone. “Photographs,” the old man said hoarsely, “we must have photographs. And soil samples around the artifact.”

Delia was already scurrying away for a tripod-mounted camera. Her hands trembled as she loaded a roll of high-resolution black-and-white film.

It was at this moment that Nathan McFain stormed into the tent. “Vannie,” he shouted to his daughter. “I've a notion to drive over to Arboles and get a gutful of Mexican grub. You and Charlie Moon want to come along?” He noticed the antiquarian. “Oh… hello there, Mr. Briggs. You can come along too, if you're hungry.”

Briggs, if he heard the halfhearted invitation, ignored it.

Vanessa looked over her shoulder at her father. “Daddy. They've found something.”

McFain surged forward toward the excavation, almost toppling one of the flood lamps. “Found what?”

Moses blinked up at the landowner, and raised a palm up to keep him at bay. “Our colleague. Dr. York, has discovered what appears to be a flint implement lodged under the left mandible. This will be a very delicate operation. The removal process will take some time to complete. We must have complete silence. All those not involved in the work must stand well clear of the excavation.”

Nathan McFain—annoyed at being ordered about on his own property—nevertheless yielded. He backed away muttering something about eggheads and interlopers and who'n-hell-do-they-think-owns-this-land.

Moon and the McFains waited with the antiquarian while flash lamps popped.

Horace Flye was busy with many small errands. The dental pick and horsehair brush were used with great delicacy by Professor York. He had made the discovery; it was his singular honor to begin the delicate process of exposing the artifact.

Minutes stretched into hours. As the tedious work proceeded, dozens of photos were made of the stone implement
in situ.
Delia made standard shots with the 35-mm film camera and close-ups with a high-resolution digital camera, whose output was immediately fed by Robert Newton into a laptop computer and displayed on a dazzling color screen. Each grain of sand near the flint implement was removed with enormous care and placed into small plastic bottles which were duly capped, labeled, and recorded in Moses' excavation logbook.

It seemed to the scientists that the work was moving far too quickly. Something might be missed.

The lay observers thought the work was taking an interminable time.

Finally—it was well past midnight—the artifact was removed from its niche under the mammoth's jawbone. Cordell York held the astonishing thing in his hand. He cradled the few grams of chipped flint like he was protecting the Hope diamond, and posed with a toothy grin as still more photographs were made. Then he offered the artifact to Moses Silver. This was appropriate protocol; Moses was chief scientist on the dig. The old man sat on the edge of the excavation, staring with childlike wonder at this marvelous find that would change his life.

But not quite in ways that he imagined.

Finally, Moses offered the treasure to Robert Newton, who had hardly said a word since the thing had been discovered.

Newton frowned thoughtfully, and murmured, “One is simply astonished …” He passed the implement on to Delia Silver—the expert on lithic artifacts. She gingerly placed the flint blade on a paper napkin on the card table, then instructed Horace Flye to bring a floodlight to illuminate her work. She made careful measurements with a plastic caliper. This was a long (thirteen point two centimeters) flake of material that had been struck from a large core. She weighed the blade on a balance scale, and dutifully entered the data into the logbook. This done, Delia began to study the artifact with a large magnifying glass.

Looks like Sherlock Holmes, Charlie Moon thought.

The implement had been pressure-flaked on both faces. And the pink flint was absolutely beautiful. Workmanship
was adequate, but hardly brilliant. Even so, the slightly crescent shape of the blade was striking. Like nothing anyone had ever seen from the Paleolithic. Unlike Clovis or Folsom, it would be impossible to classify this artifact into a neat niche. She spent some minutes examining the carefully flaked surface.

Delia's father was fidgeting at her shoulder. “Well?” Moses said.

She barely heard his voice. This was absolutely incredible.

“Well?” her father pressed.

“It's a complex pink flint,” she said in a monotone. “With several quartz inclusions.”

“We should be able to identify the origin of the material,” Moses said hopefully. “There are several quarries of pink flint in Nebraska. And some in Wyoming.”

“It's not from those quarries,” Delia said with an air of finality.

Her father smiled. She was irritated that he would venture to make observations about an area where she was the expert. “But it's clearly a skinning knife,” Moses said.

“Yes,” she said. “A skinning knife.”

The rancher, who was watching over Delia's shoulder, mumbled to himself. “Well, I guess it's a pretty important find.” A magnet to draw busloads of well-heeled tourists to the future McFain Museum.

Ralph Briggs whispered in Nathan's ear. “That is rather an understatement, my dear fellow. This artifact will set North American archaeology completely on its head. An implement of undeniable human manufacture in close association with thirty-one-thousand-year-old mammoth bones is proof positive that human occupation of the Americas occurred far earlier than the Clovis culture.”

“So this flint is… valuable,” McFain said. And licked his lips.

The antiquarian nodded. “Indeed. One could hardly put a value on it.”

Cordell York—the discoverer of this treasure—cleared his throat. “I suggest that we present this artifact to the lithic research laboratory at the Smithsonian. They are among the best in the business, and will be able to analyze it for …”

“I'll hand-carry it to them,” Delia said quickly. “I'd like to be there when they perform their analysis.”

Heads nodded sagely in agreement. All were pleased that Delia Silver did not exert her clear prerogative to perform the definitive analysis of the most important flint artifact ever found in the Americas. She was not only a very competent archaeologist; Delia was an internationally recognized expert in the manufacture of lithic implements. And knew more about flint quarries than all of your Smithsonian experts put together. But the scientists understood that it was a political necessity to bring in independent investigators to analyze such an important find. When the word got out, the McFain mammoth site was going to be a very controversial subject. It would help clinch their case if other recognized experts (and potential critics) were involved at the earliest possible time. This was, after all, why the Silvers had invited York and Newton to inspect the excavation.