The Dinosaur Hunter(44)

The name she’d forgotten was Tanya’s. I reintroduced them and they both smiled at one another, though not particularly warmly.

Ted climbed up beside us. He was in jeans, a white T-shirt that said BLM in black letters on the back and a blue hat with yellow letters that also spelled out BLM. If I hadn’t known it already, I would have guessed he worked for the BLM. He looked over our dig, then said, “This site will be returned to a natural state after you’re through here.”

“Of course, sir,” Tanya replied in a most sincere manner. I took her response as more or less genetic. If you were Russian, when one of the Czar’s or Stalin’s minions showed up on the farm, you did as you were told and tried to appear grateful while doing it.

Having grown up in the U.S.A. where we don’t much care for government stooges, I came forth with a challenge. “Are you kidding?” I demanded. “This hill is just a pile of mud and rocks. Maybe we’ll throw a few shovelfuls of dirt in our hole.”

Ted ignored me and spoke to Tanya. “I will be inspecting this site after you’re finished. When do you expect that will be?”

“That is difficult to say,” Tanya answered. “Much will depend on how much of the animal we find. You should speak to Dr. Pickford.”

“Where is he?” Edith asked.

“On a walkabout,” I answered before Tanya could. We exchanged meaningful glances, which, upon reflection, was probably not lost on anybody. To change the subject, I told them about our two sickly environmental wackos wallowing back at camp in the cook tent.

“They have a permit to be out here,” Ted said, “but not to collect fossils. I should inspect their packs.”

“I’ve already done it. They had two completely empty plastic bottles of water and that’s about it.”

This made Ted angry. “Out here in this heat with only that small amount of water? What idiots! If they died, it would be my ass.”

For Edith’s sake, I didn’t start an argument with her husband although I could have observed how shitty it was that Ted only seemed concerned about himself, or that he must be a bigger idiot than the Green Planet brothers because he was out here with no water. I offered Edith my canteen. She took it, drank, and, without my leave, handed it over to Ted. Now I would need to boil that canteen. He handed it back to Edith who handed it back to me whereupon I discovered Ted had guzzled every drop. I should have kicked his butt right then. I still regret that I didn’t.

About then, Pick and Laura showed up. Ted yelled, “Hey, you, I want to talk to you!” and scrambled down the hill and took Pick aside. Laura listened in for a moment, then rolled her eyes, and headed in the direction of camp. I didn’t know what Ted and Pick were talking about but Ted seemed to be doing most of the talking. I supposed it might be about Pick taking good care of the BLM, which had been eroded, beaten down, crushed, and flooded by Mom Nature for over 65 million years. We humans can be such idiots about this planet. We think it’s fragile. In fact, we’re the ones who are fragile. We screw up our world, it’ll kill us, and go on as if we never existed.

Edith interrupted my thoughts, “Can I help you dig, Mike?”

“Sure,” I said and gave her the standard introductory course on the proper etiquette of fossil excavation. She took up an ice pick and said, “OK, I’ll dig. You brush.” And that’s what we did for the next hour. When I raised my head, I noticed that Pick and Ted were gone off somewhere. I hoped Ted wasn’t expecting Pick to lead him back to camp. On second thought, I hoped he was.

Edith uncovered some big vertebra and Tanya said we were getting close to the sacrum. “That will be a huge, complex bone,” she said.

“How long will it take to dig out?” Edith asked.

“Two days,” Tanya answered, “maybe three.”

“What part of Russia are you from?” Edith asked.

“Saint Petersburg, actually,” Tanya replied.

Edith nodded. “I went there one summer while I was in college. I was on a tour of Europe and Saint Petersburg was on the schedule. It is a beautiful city.”

“Da,” Tanya answered, “for all but those who must live there.”

“I’m sorry,” Edith said. “I suppose after the Soviet union   fell, it was a difficult time.”

“I was but a child then,” Tanya explained with a shrug. “But being an orphan is difficult at any time.”

“I imagine it is,” Edith replied. Then she asked the question every American wonders about when we meet someone born elsewhere who has come to our shores, apparently to stay. “How was it that you came here?”