Into the Badlands

Paranoid? How many judgments did Alex Blake intend to throw around? “It’s something about you.”

“I see. I can take a certain amount of unpleasantness but you’re part of a team. This kind of behavior could sabotage the museum’s work if it goes on too long. Care to have it out?”

That would be some conversation…make that some outburst. “There’s nothing to have out.”

“Then I suggest you hold your bitterness toward me in check. I wouldn’t want it to be a barrier to the way the museum functions.”

It was a threat. How on earth had she gone from being Bruce’s anointed successor to being seen as an expendable liability?

She stood as straight as she could on her sprained ankle. “I’m not confident that you have this museum’s best interests at heart, Dr. Blake. If you don’t, you can expect a lot more than a few hostile words from me. So it’s really up to you how well the museum functions.” She wished she could stalk out of his office, but lopsided hopping was the best she could do….

Dear Reader,

I’ve gone three times to the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta, and although I just got back from the third trip, I already want to go again. The place fascinates me. From small pieces of smooth shale bearing detailed imprints of tiny organisms that lived more than five million years ago to huge-jawed carnivores that make you gulp even now, the museum explores the variety and complexity of living things. There’s a time line in the layered hills and hoodoos nearby. You can see dark shale deposits where the skeletons of marine reptiles might be found, lighter shale where tyrannosaurs might lie and the thick K-T boundary containing iridium from a meteor that may have contributed to the dinosaurs’ extinction.

During the drive home after my second visit, I began planning Into the Badlands. The museum in the story is a fictional place, and some details of the surrounding area have been changed to suit the story’s needs, but the qualities I find so intriguing—the exotic terrain, the anticipation of discovery and the dedication of the people who search for clues to our planet’s distant past—are part of the daily lives of paleontologists Susannah Robb and Alexander Blake.

I’d be glad to hear from you. You can reach me at P.O. Box 20045, Brandon, Manitoba R7A 6Y8 Canada.

Sincerely,

Caron Todd

Into the Badlands

Caron Todd

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

THE BONEBED LAY in a narrow, winding gully in the Alberta badlands, edged by layered hills and eroded hoodoos. Susannah Robb worked in the shade of an orange tarpaulin surrounded by members of her team and a dozen children—dinosaur enthusiasts who had signed up for two weeks at the museum’s science camp, eager for a chance to dig at a real paleontology quarry.

She had found the fossil site that spring, after hiking along the same dry riverbed where she’d walked many times before. Nearly at the point of returning to the museum for the day, she’d sat on a boulder to rest, and looked down to see part of a hadrosaur skull protruding from the wind-worn rock at her feet. Now there were bones everywhere, nearly spilling out of the ground, helped by each gust of wind and every rainfall.

With an ungloved hand, she brushed debris from a tibia that peeked through the crumbling sandstone. “This is a beauty.”

Her assistant didn’t look up from the trench he was digging on the other side of the fossil. “It’s in great shape,” he agreed. James had been working for Susannah off and on for five years, as his studies allowed. This summer he was running the science camp, as well.

She let one fingertip drift over the huge specimen, tracing its curving line, feeling gravelly rock matrix, fine dust and solid fossil. Like a psychic trying to sense someone’s whereabouts or history from an article of clothing, she rested her hand on the sun-heated leg bone. She imagined the powerful muscles that had driven it, contracting and expanding with leisurely heaviness during the animal’s constant foraging, then letting it explode into desperate flight when a predator appeared at the edge of the herd.

Cretaceous herbivores were Susannah’s specialty. The contradiction of their power and vulnerability had drawn her to them. They could have easily crushed a human, if a human had existed to get in their way, but their only real defense was that they traveled in herds. Good for the species; not so good for the individuals whose capture and demise allowed the others to escape.

“I think we’re going to find a complete skeleton here, James.”

“Are you backing that opinion with anything more than wishful thinking?”

She reached for the clipboard that held the project’s grid maps. “Look what we have so far. There’s the skull, the spinal column—”

“A few sections of it, anyway.”

“We haven’t dug far enough to find the rest, but it’ll be there.”

“No ribs, yet.”

“But the legs have begun to appear. Look at the way the bones are lying. There’s form to it—they’re not just scrambled like most of the others.”

James nodded slowly as he studied the drawing. “That would be great…exciting for the kids, too.”

With a soft groan, Susannah straightened her back. “I’m getting old.” Her age was usually the last thing on her mind, but her most recent birthday had startled her. Thirty-three little flames gave off a surprising amount of heat.

James grinned. “That’s okay. I like older women.”

“Too bad for you. I’m no cradle robber.”

“You wouldn’t be stealing.”

Susannah smiled tolerantly and stepped out from under the tarp, stretching to loosen stiff muscles. James followed, brushing sand from his bare knees.

“It must be forty degrees out here today.” She threaded her fingers through French-braided hair, lifting the dark strands to cool the skin underneath. In seconds, that slight relief was erased by the burning sun. Despite the August heat, she wore khaki slacks and a long-sleeved loose white shirt to protect her skin. “The kids are wilting.”

“I’ll take them for a swim soon,” James promised. Not far from the camp there was a swimming hole, a loop in the Red Deer River shaded by wolf willows. The children spent most afternoons there, and returned to the quarry in the cooler evening.

Susannah pulled a watch out of her shirt pocket and checked the time. “Could you sketch in that tibia for me, and paint on the preservative? I need to get back to the museum. I told Bruce I’d be in by one o’clock.”

“Did he say he’d have news for you by then?”

“He hasn’t said a word. I promised to help him get some paperwork done.”

“We’re all rooting for you, if that makes you feel any better, Susannah.”

“It does. Thanks.” Watching her friends waiting to hear if she was the new head of dinosaur research was even harder than waiting herself. It couldn’t be much longer before they all heard. Bruce was leaving Friday, just four days away.

SUSANNAH SWUNG OPEN her office door, rippling papers on her bulletin board. As she went by, she straightened one, a crayon drawing of a tall, thin stick lady with a long black braid, wide gray eyes and a big smile. It was labeled Auntie Sue and signed “XXX OOO Tim,” in spidery letters that careened across the page. Tim was her best friend’s five-year-old. Diane’s office was just across the hall.

While she waited for her computer to boot up, Susannah started a pot of coffee dripping and checked her answering machine for the morning’s messages. There was just one, from a Calgary television producer named Sylvia Hall. The message didn’t give any details. Curious, Susannah sat at her desk to return the call.

Ms. Hall’s voice was calm and confident. “I saw a piece in the Herald about your hadrosaur quarry. It sounds fascinating. I’m not exactly sure where it is, though. The article was a bit mysterious about that.”

“We don’t publicize the locations of our quarries,” Susannah explained. “Fossils can be surprisingly fragile, so we like to restrict traffic, even foot traffic. Unfortunately, sight-seers have been known to make off with whatever they can carry.”

“I understand. Could we bring a camera out there in a week or two? Of course, we’d be careful to keep the location secret.”

“I’d be glad to show you around.” Susannah began to jot notes on a pad of paper beside the telephone. “We’ve barely started, though. By next year we’ll have more concrete information—”

“My viewers are fascinated by the process. They don’t need to wait for the results. You’re part of the story. Picture this—one of those gigantic old bones upright against the sky. A petite paleontologist standing beside it proudly—”

Susannah put down her pen. “I’m not all that petite.”

“You get the idea. We want to capture that eureka! feeling when you find something wonderful, the adventure of the experience—”

“Adventure?” Susannah repeated mildly. “The most exciting thing I’ve done out there lately is try escarole on my tomato sandwich. It was kind of bitter.”

There was a pause. “I sense you have a problem with the concept, Dr. Robb.”

“What you’re describing is entertainment, not science. That’s not my style.”

The producer’s cool voice encouraged Susannah to be reasonable. “Why shouldn’t my audience be entertained by your science? You’ll catch their interest, they’ll want to visit your museum—”

It was exactly the kind of thinking that got under Susannah’s skin. “When we’ve had a chance to assess the significance of what we’ve found, I’ll be glad to do a program.”

Crisply Ms. Hall said, “That’s science, dusty chalk on a blackboard science. I’m afraid that’s not my style. Give me a call if you change your mind.” There was a click as the phone disconnected.

Susannah sat back in her chair, fuming. Was there any chance she was wrong to resist pop paleontology? Maybe inaccurate publicity was better than none…she knew her cautious style didn’t attract a large audience.

Pushing the conversation from her mind, she clicked on the computer screen to open one of the files Bruce had asked her to handle. He wanted to drum up funding for a closed-circuit television system in the lab that would give museum visitors a technician’s-eye view of fossil preparation. Funding was only part of the problem. Charlie Morgan, the museum’s head conservator, opposed the idea. Of course, Charlie was chronically opposed to new ideas. She could almost see his point on this one. The system would be great for visitors, but you’d hesitate to blow your nose or scratch an itch with the world looking on.

“Susannah? Got a minute?”

Kim Johnson, a student who was getting field experience at the Bearpaw Formation quarry, stood hesitantly at the door. Her slight build and willowy arms suggested she should be waving a fan, not swinging a geologist’s hammer, but sharp eyes and a delicate touch with fragile specimens made up for her lack of muscular strength. For one distracting moment, Susannah imagined her on a television screen dwarfed by a King Kong bone. I know somebody who can make you a star…

“Come on in. Taking a break?”

Kim sat on the edge of a chair across from Susannah’s desk. She glanced at the open door and lowered her voice. “I wanted to talk to you about Bruce’s party.”

“How are the plans coming?”

“We’ve got a couple of problems. The baker’s having trouble with the cake, for one thing. He says the tyrannosaurus either falls on its snout, or its head falls off. He wants to do a centrosaurus.”

“Bruce is a carnivore specialist. It’s got to be a tyrannosaur.”

Kim nodded. “I know, but he says a centrosaur stands on four short legs. It’s got a good base.”

“What if the T-Rex attacked a centrosaurus?”

“And it could hold the T-Rex up,” Kim said quickly. “That should work.”

“If it doesn’t, we’ll just say the centrosaurus won.”

Kim laughed. “Okay, could happen. I’ll suggest it.” Her smile faded. “The other problem is with the decorations. Paul’s insisting on an idea that probably goes too far.”

“Again?” Paul was the field technician who helped run the Bearpaw Formation quarry, but he didn’t let his responsibilities interfere with having a good time.

“He wants to lie down in the tyrannosaur exhibit, splashed with ketchup, with a spotlight on the whole tableau. I thought you might not want him to do it, in case the T-Rex got damaged.”

“Bruce would love it. As long as Paul doesn’t try to climb into the skeleton’s jaws, it’s all right with me. You don’t look happy with the idea, though.”

Kim hesitated. “It’s not that.”

“Is something else worrying you?”

“I’d like your opinion…” Kim’s voice trailed off.

Susannah waited.

“I don’t want to make trouble for anyone.”

“No, of course not.” What could be wrong? A dry bank account? Unsatisfactory field experience? Gossip at the quarry? The Bearpaw team was having an unproductive summer; tempers might be fraying. Even small problems could become irritating when a team worked for a long time under a hot sun.

After another moment of uncertainty, Kim seemed to make a decision. “You know, I think I should try to handle it myself first. It’s kind of embarrassing to come here and make a fuss, and then duck out.”

“Don’t worry about it. We can talk later if you change your mind. In the meantime, tell Paul he can go ahead with his bloodthirsty scenario.”

Kim dredged up a smile. “He’ll be so pleased. And I’ll stop at the bakery on my way to the quarry. Thanks, Susannah.” She left the office, still radiating worry.

Moments later, footsteps sounded in the hall, and Bruce appeared in the doorway, bearded and shaggy haired. When Susannah saw his face, her stomach began a free fall.

He got right to the point. “The board has gone with someone else, Susannah. Alexander Blake. Heard of him?”

She nodded. Alexander Blake was a high-profile kind of a guy. Anyone who dug up bones for a living had heard of him. Although she hadn’t seen him in more than ten years, the man had got in her way a few times.

“He’s a little older than you are,” Bruce said, “a little more experienced. Well traveled, good contacts. I made it clear what I wanted, but they had their own ideas. I don’t know—maybe it’s for the best. You came awfully close.”

Close? Susannah looked away from Bruce’s sympathetic eyes. “We’ll be lucky to have someone of Blake’s caliber here.”

IT WAS NEARLY NINE o’clock when Susannah finally let herself into her small cedar house. She had showered and eaten dinner at the museum, then poured her frustration into Bruce’s paperwork and got it done.

She moved quickly past the unconcerned eyes of relatives who stared from a family tree of photographs on one wall of the living room, then the unperturbed residents of a large aquarium that separated the galley kitchen from the dining area. She filled a glass with filtered water from the fridge, and drank thirstily before turning to the aquarium. She hardly noticed the fish pounce when she sprinkled flakes of food and some freeze-dried shrimp onto the water’s surface.

In what way was she inadequate? Knowing she was Bruce’s choice, the board had looked past her to a stranger. Timid. That’s what Blake had thought of her. Did the board agree? Was she too mild, too immersed in her own work, too female, too tall, too short, too young? Bruce had said it might be for the best. Did he doubt her ability to do the job?

Tired, but too tense to sleep, she went out onto the screened porch and sank into a wicker chair big enough to curl up in. She looked past the river that meandered behind the house, and watched as the setting sun turned the sandstone and ironstone of distant hoodoos gold and pink. Glossy blue-black swallows swooped to and from nests in the river’s bank, chestnut breasts and forked tails flashing.

There was a photograph she couldn’t get out of her mind, a picture illustrating one of Blake’s magazine articles. It showed a tall, sandy-haired man standing perfectly at ease in the hot sun and red sand of the Gobi Desert. He had a geologist’s hammer in one hand, and an open, boyish grin on his face. Huge white ribs curved out of the sand behind him. Susannah kept trying to file the photo away, under something harmless and dull like “miscellaneous.” Tuck it into the folder, close the drawer and forget about it. But the damn thing wouldn’t stay filed.

Staring into the gathering dark, she thought of the confusing summer she’d worked with Alexander Blake at an Australian quarry thirteen years before. He’d been a graduate student from the University of British Columbia then, assisting the leader of a joint Canada-Australia dig, but no one would have known it wasn’t his quarry. He was the kind of person who always seemed to be in charge. He’d probably advised his kindergarten teacher on the finer points of printing.

It had been her first quarry, her first trip outside Canada, the first time—the only time—she’d met a man like him. With the overbrimming confidence of someone who apparently had never done anything awkwardly and for the first time, he had noticed her just long enough to issue a damaging assessment of her performance.

She could take the disappointment about the job. She knew she was still young to head a research department. In a way, it was better not to have administrative distractions just when the hadrosaur quarry was looking so promising. It might even be interesting to work with Blake again. He might have changed. Maybe that photo was an old one, and really he had a potbelly and a mellow disposition and five kids.

Her smile faded. It was more likely that he hadn’t changed at all.

CHAPTER TWO

SUSANNAH WAS ALONE in the museum. Except for Charlie, of course, down in the preparation lab, always up to his elbows in work when most people were just pressing the snooze button. She’d come in earlier than usual, anxious to finish her report on the hadrosaur quarry. Almost the minute he’d got the job, Alexander Blake had sent a fax saying he wanted summaries of all the museum’s current projects on his desk when he arrived. There was less than an hour to go, and her report wasn’t anywhere near ready.

She swiveled her chair toward the window, turning her back on the computer screen and its constantly flashing cursor. Outside, the grassy hills edging the badlands rolled on for miles. Cars were beginning to arrive, almost as steadily as if there was going to be a wedding, or a funeral. She could see gradually smaller clouds of dust all along the road from town.

She missed Bruce already. After the farewell party on Friday, complete with Paul in his role as a dinosaur’s meal and a chocolate T-Rex that leaned heavily on a helpful vanilla centrosaur, he’d left with hardly more than a wave, suitcases visible in the back seat of his car. He’d seemed glad to go.

Now everything would change. Blake would take Bruce’s chair at the conference room table, armed with plans she knew wouldn’t be good for the museum. How could she go to his meeting this morning, listening meekly, when everyone knew she’d expected to get the job?

Abruptly Susannah turned off the computer, without bothering to save the changes she’d made. She wouldn’t sit timidly waiting for Blake’s arrival. There was plenty of work to be done at the quarry. Why should it stop just because a new staff member was coming to town?

She hurried to the closet for her backpack, always filled with water bottles, sunscreen, insect repellent, a hammer, chisel and brush. Halfway to the door, she stopped. The way was blocked by her closest friend, Diane McKay.

“Hey, Sue.” Diane sipped coffee from a mug that had World’s Greatest Mom emblazoned on its side. Dark smudges underlined her bleary eyes. “Ready for today?”

“Nope.”

“Me neither. I keep wondering if I’ve turned in all my samples to the lab, if Tim, when I let him play computer games, deleted all my notes…you know how it is.”

“Like Cinderella waiting to meet her stepmother for the first time.”

Diane smiled. “Will he be mean? Will he make us work too hard? I’m hoping he’ll be like Bruce was, and just leave us to get on with our work, but what are the chances of having two decent bosses in a row?” She started across the room. “Can I take the comfortable chair?”

“Help yourself.” Susannah didn’t move from her spot near the door. “You look as if you’ve been up for days.”

“Just about. I drove all night from Mount Field, got home in time to have breakfast with Richard and Tim, then felt my way here.” Yawning, she sank into the upholstered chair behind Susannah’s desk. “I still can’t believe you didn’t get the job. We all thought you were a shoo-in. Nobody knows this area better than you.” She took a long, restorative gulp of coffee.

Susannah smiled fondly at Diane. They both knew Blake was more qualified. “Dr. Blake has a few things going for him. He’s worked at all the major quarries…he’s been published in all the major journals…he’s been on the Discovery Channel and The Learning Channel and a couple of major networks. The board probably thought he’d do a better PR job. I’m terrible at hooking people’s interest. Look at our articles. Mine are as dry as sandpaper, his are pure entertainment.”

Diane nodded. “Tim loved the one about Blake and his team stumbling across Paleolithic cave paintings by accident while they were looking for fossils.”

“Exactly. Wherever he goes, he and his sidekicks always have adventures.” Susannah heard a trace of resentment in her voice and tried to cover it with humor. “Just call him Indiana Blake.”

“He won’t stay long, Sue. He’ll get bored in no time. Then our employers will wonder what on earth they were thinking and do what they should have done in the first place.” Diane noticed Susannah’s backpack. “Are you going somewhere?”

“To the quarry. James has his hands full out there.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Blake won’t care where I am.” Susannah lifted her hand in a quick wave. “Good luck today.”

She hurried downstairs and out the back door to the staff parking lot. She chose her usual field vehicle, a faded blue pickup truck that tended to be temperamental. The engine’s irregular rasping didn’t start a moment too soon—as she steered out of the parking lot, a black Dodge Stealth glided past her. Susannah caught a glimpse of the man inside. She got an impression of height and strength.

Sending up clouds of dust that obscured the Stealth’s reflection in her rearview mirror, she accelerated. The old Ford rattled over the narrow access road, turned onto a gravel road and continued through a treeless landscape, past arid fields dotted with rhythmically dipping oil pumps.

When she was out of sight of the museum, she drove more slowly, unhappy eyes on the lookout for potholes and prairie dogs. She was already having second thoughts about playing hooky. Provoking her new boss might not be a wise strategy.

After a long ten miles, Susannah turned onto an uneven rock-strewn track leading into a gully. She stopped beside the science camp’s school bus and sat for a moment, fascinated as always by the extraterrestrial appearance of the deeply rilled hills and time-carved hoodoos.