Old Earth (4 page)

McCauley stood up, reached for his briefcase, and started for the door. “I’ll be at the gym if you need me.”

McCauley, had upped his routine to get in shape for the summer. He added weights to his training, jogged, and biked to shave off the New Haven winter pounds. It wasn’t as easy at thirty-six as it used to be, but it was more necessary for the dark-haired, six feet one inch, 205 pound former Eagle Scout from Scranton, Pennsylvania.

He’d grown up digging for Susquehannock and Lenape arrowheads in the woods near his home. Now he was digging for deeper, older finds in God’s country.

“Oh, and you better tell those pups that they need to get in shape, too!”

• • •

McCauley typically exhibited a flamboyance that was sound-bite worthy when the History Channel, National Geographic Channel, BBC, or Discovery Science needed a handsome go-to expert in the field. He gave the same sense of enthusiasm to his students. Though he talked about being political, he was bad at university politics. He hadn’t attracted serious grant money in three years and he wasn’t connecting well with the new department chair who was looking to make institutional changes.

Job pressure was building. It didn’t help that he had no significant other in his life to take him away from his work.

McCauley liked to say his last girlfriend died one hundred forty million years ago, but reeked of bad breath. However, that wasn’t completely true. A few years ago, before he came to Yale from Harvard, he was involved with a grad student who became a Boston attorney. They broke up and now that he was in Connecticut and Katie Kessler moved to Washington where she was working for the Supreme Court, he knew they’d never get back together. More importantly, he heard that she was seriously involved with a Secret Service agent.

So Quinn McCauley threw himself into his work, the ever-punishing “Publish or Perish” treadmill, and his summertime excavations which could dry up if he didn’t “win more friends and influence people” in his own department.

There was another issue he had to consider. Science was under siege and evolution was increasingly a hot topic. As a result, fewer checks were being written for anthropological and paleontological work by the government, let alone by corporations or foundations.
The long tail of the dwindling resources?
It seemed like dinosaurs were going to stop making noise even to kids.

How many more years until the virtual end to research?
McCauley mused.
Three? Five?
That would put him at roughly the same age as the legendary competing paleontologists Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh were more than one hundred fifty years ago. True colleagues at first, they named amphibian fossil findings after one another,
Ptyonius marshii and Mosasaurus copeanus
, respectively. However, their relationship fell apart when Cope rushed to publish his work on a new species shipped to his office from Kansas. He called the finding
Elasmosaurus platyurus.
In his haste, he accidentally or mistakenly reversed the position of the head to the tail of the vertebrae. Marsh identified Cope’s error and published a correction. This destroyed their relationship and created a scandal in the new field of paleontology that had only been so named decades earlier.

What would be McCauley’s bragging rights? As he peddled his exercise bicycle at Yale’s Payne Whitney Gym, he wondered if this year’s exploration would reinvigorate both his department’s support in him and his own belief in himself. And what about his legacy? Would he ever discover his own evolutionary branch that might add true knowledge to the genealogical tree?

Strictly out of frustration, McCauley stopped biking and leaned over the handle bars. He was beginning to think that just wasn’t going to happen. That paleontology was just getting old.

Gotta dig out of this hole
, he thought.

Five

LONDON
TWO WEEKS LATER

Whoever was in charge of
The Path
had the responsibility to pass on the knowledge in the event of something unexpected. Martin Gruber had done so. Now, with the end in sight, he publicly announced his retirement as editor-in-chief of
Voyages
.

He told the staff that Colin Kavanaugh would soon be taking over as publisher. To Kavanaugh, the public statement meant he’d immediately assume more oversight of the magazine and undoubtedly be subject to Gruber’s lectures up to the bitter end.

“Colin, come in. Please, please, come in.”

It was time for another.

Kavanaugh had been called; no, summoned. He was called when Gruber needed a companion; he was summoned for everything else.

“Good day, Mr. Gruber.” Kavanaugh carried galleys under his arm. He placed them on the work table in the far end of Gruber’s office.

So much could be done electronically, but Gruber liked mulling over hard copy.
That’ll change.

“Good day,” the old man said.

The nearly forty-year age difference always brought a profound level of formality. It seemed all the more appropriate in the eighteenth century building on Monocle Street, and all the more correct considering Gruber’s failing health.

“Good day, sir.”

Martin Gruber slowly stood and walked to the window. He looked down at the people three flights below.
Little people who know little
, he thought for a moment. He drew the heavy, red velvet curtains shut and returned to his austere seventeenth century oak desk.

“Soon this will be yours. Of course, assuming you still want it.”

“Without a question.”

“Without questioning,” Gruber corrected. It was one of his grammatical distinctions. One of many.

“Without questioning.”

“You’ll tell people this was a desk once used by Pope Clemente IX in the seventeenth century.”

“With pride.”

“They won’t care. But you, as successor must hold to convention. Trust me, the trappings keep you focused. Study everyone. Take interest in them. As Machiavelli warned, ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.’”

Kavanaugh frowned.

“Oh, I see I struck a nerve. Yes, you will have enemies. Some in your very midst. Others in the far corners of the world. And the irony of it all is they’ll never know they’ve become your enemy.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“All accomplished with utmost…” Gruber waited for the younger man to fill in the word.

“
Secretum
,” Kavanaugh replied thinking
Here we go again
. He ran his hand across his scalp, something he did when he was annoyed.

Martin Gruber pressed an app on his smartphone which activated a high frequency audio signal.

“Do you hear that? Of course you don’t,” Gruber continued. “I’ve been assured from the security experts you hired—yes, I speak with them, too—that the activated inaudible tone will defeat even the most sophisticated microphone plants and,” he laughed, “give any dogs in the neighborhood a terrible headache.”

Kavanaugh believed him. The octogenarian was always tinkering; working on making things more secure, more secretive.

“Now sit.”

Kavanaugh settled into the only chair facing the historic desk. Gruber cleared his throat, a signal that the rest would become very serious.

“We may only have a few more weeks, Colin.”

“Please, sir, don’t say that.”

“It is the truth. We work in truths. An old man forgets much of his yesterdays, but sees his tomorrows clearly. My vision is not blurred. You are there. I am not.”

“Yes, sir,” Kavanaugh said. He wished he had come up with a better, more thoughtful reply. But Gruber was looking tired. He studied his mentor.
Thinner today than yesterday. Yes, soon.

Gruber inhaled fully. It seemed to energize him right before Kavanaugh’s eyes.

“Ah, but I have one more edition to put to bed.” Gruber was referring to the fall issue on the Caribbean. “Let’s get on with the work.”

• • •

NEW HAVEN, CT

McCauley grabbed an oven-roasted turkey hoagie from the Book Trader Cafe on the Yale University campus and brought it back to his office. He logged onto Pandora’s Frank Sinatra channel, always his default when he had important things on his mind. It relaxed him.

Where? Exactly where this year?
he thought as he took a satisfying bite of his dinner. He studied a topographical map of Montana with three strategically placed push pins indicating the final areas he was considering. Beside each pin was a yellow sticky note with numbers 1, 2 and 3.

McCauley had put through the paperwork months ago for three potential sites; all offering interesting challenges for his students and the potential for a cool find or two. State park commissions had already given conditional approval for each location. But he still needed to complete the application process. They were due in Billings in just five days.

At the end of last summer, McCauley had flown over the area and found each attractive for different reasons. Site 1, Hell Creek, Montana, was noted for its mudstones and sandstones dating back to the end of the Cretaceous period, with fossils of triceratops, tyrannosaurus, and Ornithomimids.
Interesting.

Site 2, further east, had real possibilities. It was just outside of Glendive, MT.
Maybe,
he said to himself.

Site 3 was north, part of a pre-historic riverbed and was certain to garner great finds just a few feet down. But he found that less challenging.
No adventure.
He figured there’d be initial excitement, then with the same results week after week—boredom.

McCauley finished chewing another bite, quickly catching a piece of turkey as it dropped out of the bun. He did it instinctively, like the first baseman he’d been in Little League, high school and college. He still had a quick hand and a great throwing arm.

He swallowed the last of his sandwich, studied the map again and pulled the pin and paper off Site 3.
That makes it easier. Down to two
.

The music on his computer segued from Sinatra to Dean Martin, Dean Martin to Matt Monro, a crooner considered the British Sinatra. The “From Russia to Love” theme broke his concentration.

“Pete!” he shouted. “Need a little help.”

DeMeo left his adjoining office and was at McCauley’s side in seconds.

“Ready.”

“I’m torn between Sites 1 and 2, but drawn more to 2. Give me arguments why we shouldn’t go there.”

“You want them right now?”

“Yes.”

“Site 1 is better. Earth that you can dig and geological footprints evident everywhere. Perfect grazing grounds. And that means perfect remains.”

“I know. But the strata at 2 appeals to me.”

“Harder. More challenges. Cliffs and valleys. You’ll need better equipment. More money.”

“Forget the money. If I made my decisions on money, I would have stuck with baseball. ”

DeMeo had heard the stories about the Red Sox looking at the young McCauley. They even made an offer his junior year at Harvard which he turned down.

“Let’s sleep on it for a few days. See what you can come up with.” After a pause he added, “And while you’re at it, find out why the Brits had this thing about Matt Monro.”

• • •

LONDON

Kavanaugh was amazed at how quickly Gruber was able to shift gears. He would have to master the art as well.

“The St. Lucia photographs are exquisite,” he said leaning over Gruber’s computer screen. “They capture the beauty of the Grand Pitons.” Kavanaugh cycled through the pictures. “Check out this angle. It’s extraordinary.”

Gruber agreed.

“As I recall, you were there years ago.”

“Yes, my boy. It was your first year working directly with me and your calls to the Ladera Hotel were quite intolerable. Am I right?”

Kavanaugh had to laugh. “Of course you are. You didn’t get out much after that trip.”

“I suppose I became too accustomed to sleeping in my own bed. Unusual for a publisher of a travel magazine.” Gruber laughed. “But as you’ll see, there are so many other things that will require constant attention.”

Gruber recognized the real intent of Kavanaugh’s comment. “Ah, but I see you were trying to test me.”

“Sir?”

“My memory. You were testing my capacity. Did I remember the trip?”

“I don’t know…”

“Oh you were. And rightfully so. You’re beginning to understand that
everything
is a test. A test of knowledge. A test of resolve. Tests of commitment and faith. A test of your will.”

Kavanaugh stroked his hairless head again.

“But I digress,” he continued. “Show me more of the issue that will be dedicated to my memory.”

• • •

NEW HAVEN, CT

McCauley was reviewing his charts. They were anything but exotic, five-star vacation spots. These required the latest in rugged all-weather camping gear: everything from tents to sleeping bags, iridium satphones to walkie-talkies and the basics: backpacks, picks and shovels, bubble wrap, and plastic bags. A lot of plastic bags.

He made notes and then roughed out a draft of an email to his department chair; a formality which he hated.

Dear Dr. Cutler:

Thank you again for your support and the department’s underwriting for this summer’s field research. I would have written sooner, but I’ve been putting the final details together on our research expedition. To that point, I am still deciding between two locations in Montana’s dinosaur alley based on government satellite photographs and my staff’s research. I’ll let you know when I come to a final decision. It appears, although I can’t be certain, both sites have unique strata that could lead to new discoveries, potentially trapped within Mesozoic to Paleozoic Era layers. If so, we might see remarkable research coming from our work. Of course, I’ll file regular reports. Enjoy Nova Scotia. Respectfully, Quinn McCauley, PhD.

McCauley closed his eyes and shook his head.
No. Too many mights, maybes, and coulds. Besides, he’ll never read anything I send from Montana.
He hit delete.