matter of hours? His crew had been digging around in the region of the hand, the fingers that Carter had once felt entwined in his own. But they hadn’t expected to see the skull for some time; Carter had figured it was still at least a foot or two down.
The body must be lying almost horizontally in the tar.
“What do we do now?” Miranda asked.
Up above, Carter could see the remaining spectators being herded out of the observation platform; he could also hear some muted protests.
Claude and Rosalie waited, with Miranda, for orders. And Carter gradually focused his attention again on the blackened skull. He rubbed a clean rag across his forehead to mop the sweat from his eyes; the temperature today was in the eighties, and in the bottom of the pit at least five or ten degrees hotter than that. The surface of the tar looked more fluid than usual; it reminded Carter of the expression used by fishermen to describe a spot where fish were active; they called it “nervous water.” This looked like nervous tar.
“Let’s keep the suction hoses away from the quadrant,” Carter said. “And start a new bucket for anything you glop out now; we don’t want to lose anything that might turn up, no matter how insignificant it might look.” Carter knew from experience that tiny shards of diseased bone, the pulpy parts of leaves, even insect exoskeletons, could still be found and extricated from the pits. The asphalt, immiscible in water, impregnated everything, staining it black or brown, but protecting all the organic compounds that might have otherwise been leached out and run off by groundwater or replaced during petrifaction. The asphalt, deadly to so many creatures for thousands of years, could also preserve them in a way no other medium could; as a result, the fossils found here, and almost nowhere else, included the auditory ossicles of mammals, the delicate bones of birds, beetle wing covers that retained their iridescent hues. Fossilized wood from the pits looked fresh when it was broken in two, and if you lit it with a match, it would burn.
The four of them went back to work, under a kind of constrained silence. The nearness of the skull, its empty orbs, its black and grinning teeth, made any kind of conversation feel… disrespectful. Even sacrilegious. Carter had to keep his eyes on the close work in front of him, still struggling to free the hand he had felt days before, and he was nearly succeeding when he heard, off in the distance somewhere, strange sounds that he couldn’t identify.
First, it was like chains being rattled and shaken.
Then more shouting, in words that made no sense.
And then Claude, his eyeglasses glinting in the sunlight as he looked up at the back wall, cried out, “Carter! Look!”
Carter turned, just as a man — Geronimo, in his buckskin jacket — clambered onto the steel ladder that led down into the pit. He was chanting something — no doubt in some Native American tongue — and swiftly descending the rungs. When he was a few feet from the bottom, he abandoned the ladder altogether and leapt to the wooden boards that ran around the perimeter of the pit. Carter felt them lurch and buckle under his own feet.
The guy must have been released by the security guards — were they nuts? — and then come back to vault over the rear fence surrounding the enclosure.
But what was he supposed to do now? Carter jumped to his feet, his hands dripping tar, and shouted, “Get the hell out of here!”
“No!” the man shouted back. “These are the bones of my people!” He walked stealthily in a pair of moccasins down the wooden catwalk, toward the quadrant where they were working.
Carter quickly stepped past Miranda to cut him off; Rosalie and Claude stood, in shock, on the other side of the grid. Carter wondered if he should be picking up a weapon of some kind. But what — a bucket of tar?
“You can’t be down here,” Carter said, hoping to calm him down.
Geronimo threw his black braid back over his shoulder and lifted his chin in defiance. “You leave,” he said, “all of you. Now!”
“That’s not going to happen,” Carter said.
“Yes, it is,” Geronimo said, and for the first time Carter saw what he held in one hand — a hunting knife with a gleaming blade.
Miranda must have seen it, too, and screamed.
“Carter, look out!” Claude cried. “He’s armed.”
Worse than that, Carter could see that he was utterly unhinged. The look in his eyes was black and fierce and beyond reason; his throat muscles were flexing against a necklace of turquoise stones.
“Okay,” Carter said, putting up his hands in a placatory gesture, “why don’t we all stop what we’re doing, and go back up top? We don’t need to talk about this down here.”
Geronimo came one step closer and swung the knife in a broad, flashing arc.
Carter fell back, bumping into Miranda. “Go to the other side,” Carter said to her over his shoulder. “Go up the stairs to the observation deck.” It was how they usually came and went, on a narrow set of wooden steps. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Claude stooping to a bucket, and Carter said, “No, don’t do anything. Just leave — all of you. Right now.”
Rosalie was the first to turn and scurry toward the steps, but Claude waited.
“Just do what I’m telling you,” Carter said.
Geronimo was getting what he wanted, so far. Some of them were leaving. He stood on the catwalk, one foot on either side of the suction hose, his chest heaving. He kept his eyes on Carter.
“Miranda,” Carter said, in a low voice, “go around the other side. Get out.”
“I’ll call the cops,” she said.
Good idea, he thought. But what was he going to do until then?
Miranda came out from behind Carter, and Geronimo flicked his gaze her way. It might have been something about her blonde hair, the tight T-shirt and shorts, but something suddenly set him off. His lips curled in an angry snarl.
“I saw you on the TV — you’re the bitch that started this!”
He made a move to head her off, and Carter had no choice; he lunged forward, grabbing the hose between Geronimo’s feet and yanking it up. Geronimo teetered back, but immediately regained his balance, slashing at Carter now and catching him on the forearm.
The sight of the blood, dripping down Carter’s arm and into the black tar, seemed to momentarily rivet him.
Carter saw the gash, but he felt next to nothing; the blade was so swift and so sharp and his adrenaline was so high.
But he knew he had to get out of there, fast; Rosalie and Claude were already out, and Miranda was thundering up the steps in her heavy work boots.
He glanced up at the observation deck, hoping to see a cop or security guard.
But all he saw was Rosalie’s ashen face, calling out something he couldn’t hear.
He simply had to make a run for it; he feinted to one side, enough to make Geronimo move a few steps to the other side of the grid separating them, then bolted for the ladder on the back wall. If he could just scale it fast enough…
But Geronimo was too quick; Carter hadn’t gone more than a few steps when his attacker was on him. Carter had to stop and wheel around. He caught the hand holding the blade, and forced it back.
“You disgrace my ancestors!”
Carter pressed him back; the catwalk shuddered under their feet.
“You’ve got to die!” Geronimo shouted again, the spit flying into Carter’s face.
They were both struggling to keep their balance on the narrow boards above the tar. Carter didn’t dare let go of his arms; the rage in his eyes boiled like fire.
And suddenly, the hand with the knife wriggled free. Geronimo smiled — and Carter slugged him so hard he went reeling back, his moccasins scrabbling on the wood. For a second, it seemed as if he would manage to stay upright, but then he tilted back and toppled into the pit with a thick, wet splash.
The tar spread like a wave to either side, then sloshed back.
Geronimo hung there, on top, like a leaf on a stream.
Carter bent double, breathing hard.
