The Dinosaur Hunter(45)

“I was sent here to work,” Tanya answered.

“Work on what?” Edith asked.

“Just work,” Tanya said.

Without skipping a beat, Edith asked, “Were you a prostitute?” and the entire world, or so it seemed to me, went silent except for the wind through the grass.

Ray and Amelia were looking shocked at Edith’s blunt question but Tanya remained perfectly composed. “Yes,” she said. “That was what they wanted me to do. But I had other plans.” She narrowed her eyes. “What gave me away?”

“Well, you’re lovely, for one thing. But, as Mayor of Jericho, I receive FBI bulletins about how criminals over here promise Russian women that if they come, they will work as nannies or maids but are instead forced into the life. We’re supposed to report any suspicious activity. I’m glad you were able to escape.”

“I escaped because I had a dream and that was to be a paleontologist. Someday, that is what I will be.”

“Yes, well, good for you.”

Edith went back to digging and then, one by one, the rest of us did, too. Afterward, after Ted returned without Pick but with the two Green Planet brothers, Edith stood up, brushed herself off, and said, “I guess it’s time to go. Good luck. I hope you find all of it.”

“Oh, we will,” Tanya said. “If all of it is here.”

“Bye-bye, Mike,” Edith said.

“I’ll walk you down the hill,” I told her and I did. Halfway down, I stopped her and asked, “Why did you say what you did to Tanya?”

“Mike, I knew what she was and she knew I knew.”

“But she isn’t anything. She might have been brought over here for that purpose…”

“Please, Mike,” Edith interrupted, “I thought you used to be a cop. Where’s your antenna for this kind of thing? Of course she worked as a prostitute. Probably for a few years. They hook these girls on drugs. You know that.”

In fact, I did. I had been called to take home more than one strung-out Russian girl procured by a studio boss who was having second thoughts. The girls were hooked by their pimps, then had to keep working to pay for their addiction, a vicious cycle. Tanya had broken free, somehow, which made me respect her all the more.

“Don’t be cross with me, please, Mike,” Edith said. “I am in no way condemning this girl. She is obviously very smart and very brave. She did what she had to do, then got away. I hope you two enjoy each other. I just wanted you to know what she was before you got too far.”

I wasn’t cross before but I was now. “I don’t think I need you to protect me from women, Edith.”

“A couple of marriages would say otherwise,” Edith replied.

“Yeah, well, how about Cade Morgan?”

This surprised her. “What about Cade Morgan?”

“You two, you’re…”

She darted her eyes toward Ted who was looking at his watch. “Just shut up, Mike. Just shut up.”

“Listen…”

“We have nothing more to say.”

Edith climbed down the hill where she had to catch up with Ted who was already walking back toward wherever they had left their truck. The Green Planet brothers were trailing behind him. I guessed they were going to catch a ride into town. Edith had to run to catch up with Ted but he never looked back. A great guy, that Ted.

That night around the fire pit, Pick made an announcement. “I want to wrap up the Trike tomorrow. I know we have a lot of work to do on it and we’ll get to it, eventually, but for now I want to move to the Blackie Butte site.”

This upset Amelia. “But I hate to leave Big Ben!” she cried.

“Do you think he’ll be lonely without us?” Ray sniped.

“Shut up, Ray. I’m going to miss that old thing.”

Laura was sympathetic. “It is not unusual to begin loving the animal we dig up. They become very real to us. That’s why almost always we give them names. It hurts when we find a broken bone or some other evidence of a violent end.”

“It’s just an old pile of bones,” Ray groused.

“That’s because you don’t have any feelings or imagination,” Amelia accused.

“I do, too. I feel that my mother needs me to stay here and help her run the ranch. I also imagine you’re a nut case.”

Well, if we wondered how our two teenaged love bugs were doing, that answered that. Ray and Amelia started sulking and Pick said, “Laura will be in charge of wrapping up the Trike site. Mike, would you help her? Ray and Amelia, you’ll go with Tanya and me to Blackie Butte and help carry our tools and equipment over there. We’ll also be moving our camp site.”