Bestiary

CHAPTER EIGHT

At the top of the page, all in caps, it said FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.

Below that, the press release began: “As part of their ongoing research into the world of prehistoric Los Angeles, paleontologists at the George C. Page Museum of Natural History have made a groundbreaking discovery, one which is sure to rewrite for all time the anthropological record of the western United States.”

Carter’s heart already began to sink.

“A team led by Dr. Carter Cox, Visiting Fellow and head of its Paleontology Field Research Department, has uncovered in an active dig site of the La Brea Tar Pits the fossilized remains of a human being…”

Carter put the paper down and looked up at Mr. Gunderson, the museum director. He was leaning back in his high-backed leather chair, with his hands folded across his belly.

“This hasn’t gone out yet, has it?” Carter asked.

“You haven’t even finished reading it. Go on.”

Carter dropped his eyes to the page again; the glare in the room from Gunderson’s bank of windows — washed at his insistence, according to the scuttlebutt, three times a week — made it difficult to read. The text made it even harder.

“Although the museum already contains over two million finds, ranging from mastodons to giant ground sloths, saber-toothed cats to camels, only once before have human remains been unearthed.”

That much at least was true.

“Known as the La Brea Woman, she was approximately eighteen years old, stood a mere 4’8”, and died, based on radiometric dating, 9,000 years ago. Although the cause of her death and how her remains came to be entombed in an asphalt seep (commonly referred to as tar) are questions that still beg an answer, one thing is now clear.”

Carter could guess what was coming.

“La Brea Woman is no longer alone.”

Why was this starting to sound more and more like a “Bride of Frankenstein” scenario? And did that make Carter the God-defying Victor Frankenstein?

“Discovered in what is known as Pit 91, an open dig site with an observation station open to all museum visitors, these early remains have yet to be dated—” Carter stopped and looked up again.

“It says here the remains have yet to be dated.”

“Which is true,” Gunderson replied.

“But only because they haven’t even been excavated yet.” Carter waved the press release in his hand. “This whole thing is premature. Not only haven’t we removed the fossil, we haven’t even gotten a good look at it yet. It’s still buried in the tar.”

“Dr. Cox,” Gunderson said, leaning forward in his chair now, “we’ve made a marvelous discovery here, and I don’t see any point in hiding our light under a bushel.”

It didn’t escape Carter’s notice that Gunderson had included himself in the discovery.

“Do you know,” Gunderson went on, “what museums and research institutions, just like this one, need to survive?”

Before Carter could tell him — it wasn’t exactly a riddle worthy of the Sphinx — Gunderson went on.

“Money. And do you know what keeps the money flowing?”

“Prehistoric human remains?”

“News. And yes, in this case, prehistoric human remains happen to be the news. Big news, I might add.”

Carter could see his point — he hadn’t been raised in a cave — and Lord knows, he’d spent a fair amount of his own time chasing research grants and funds. But what he didn’t want — what he never wanted — was to go off half-cocked.

“I understand what you’re saying. But couldn’t we just hold off a bit? All I need right now is a couple more people on my crew — experienced people — and some extended hours, a second automated pulley to remove the buckets, maybe even night lights. It’s cooler at night, and we could get some more mucking-out done then.”

“You make my point,” Gunderson said. “Everything you’re asking for costs money. And right now, the museum is strapped for funds.”

Maybe he should have his windows washed only twice a week, Carter thought.

“And we have several grant requests that are currently under review. A discovery of this magnitude, given the proper play, could bring in a lot of additional monies. Not to mention the revenues from increased attendance alone. Can you imagine the number of people who will flock to the observation station to watch this drama unfold?”

Yes, Carter could well imagine that, and it was one of the main reasons he was so distressed at this press release. It was one thing to have a few faces, in a tour group, peering down from the observation platform, but it was another to have a raucous crowd tapping on the Plexiglas windows or trying to shout questions down into the pit. He was used to working in out-of-the-way places — the hills of Sicily, the Utah desert, the rural provinces of northeastern China — accompanied only by his fellow scientists and perhaps a few local workers. He wasn’t yet accustomed to doing his fieldwork in the middle of a city, with an amateur crew, and gawkers wearing iPods and Nikes up above.

“Does this release,” he said, “mention Miranda Adams?”

“No,” Gunderson said, “who’s Miranda Adams?”

“She’s the young UCLA grad who actually first found the fossil.”

“I thought you did.”

“Not without her help.”

Carter could see Gunderson’s gears turning. How did this affect the story? Did it needlessly complicate it? Did it somehow lessen the museum’s role?

“The news media would love that,” Carter threw in. “A young woman, planning a career in paleontology, stumbling upon something so startling.”

Gunderson pursed his lips and nodded. “Is she still working on the site?”

“Yes.”

“She attractive?”

Carter should have seen that one coming. “Yes.”

“Let me run this by the PR people. You could be right.” Gunderson’s phone rang; he glanced at the flashing light. “I’ve been expecting a call; this could be it.”

Carter stood up, the press release still in hand. “Can you at least give me a few days to proof this before sending it out?”

But Gunderson had already picked up the phone and swiveled his chair to face the sparkling windows. He was saying something about a future exhibition; please, Carter thought as he folded up the release and stuck it in his pocket, don’t let him be planning the “La Brea Man” exhibition quite yet.

That afternoon, he’d planned a special treat for Miranda Adams.

As she had been the first to come upon whatever it was still lurking in the muck of Pit 91, Carter thought it would be a good idea to give her a firsthand tutorial on how the process worked. If she was thinking about becoming a physical anthropologist, there’d be no better introduction than this.

He’d arranged to meet her in the interior garden of the museum — an enclosed space where visitors could walk through a lush, verdant landscape, not so different from what it had been in the prehistoric era. Today, the garden was almost untenanted, apart from an elderly couple speaking German, and that Native American man Carter had seen at the observation window of Pit 91 many times before. Once you saw him — laden with silver and turquoise jewelry, a long black braid hanging down the back of his buckskin jacket — you didn’t forget him. On at least one previous occasion, as Carter recalled, he’d become obstreperous with a museum docent and had been escorted off the grounds. Right now, he was just muttering to himself as he stared down into the running stream that coursed through the garden.

The security staff, Carter knew, had code-named him Geronimo.

When Miranda breezed in, twenty minutes late, Carter quickly escorted her down into the bowels of the museum, where few ever went. Down here were long, linoleum-floored corridors, with endless rows of numbered metal cabinets, each one divided up into a dozen separate drawers containing different plant and animal fossils from the region. Excavation had been going on since the turn of the twentieth century, and with such success that the area had actually lent its name to an age — the Late Pleistocene time in America, when man first appeared in the New World, had been officially designated the Rancholabrean Land Mammal Age.

Miranda wasn’t really dressed for this excursion; the air down here was kept cool and dry, and she was wearing a light cotton blouse and a pair of culottes. Carter should have warned her in advance to wear a long-sleeved shirt, or even a sweater.

“Spooky down here, isn’t it?” she said, as their footsteps echoed in the empty hall.

“Why would you say that?” Carter replied facetiously. “Underground, almost alone, surrounded by thousands — millions — of bones, from ancient animals that once hunted humans for lunch.” A fluorescent tube hissed and flickered overhead. “And don’t forget the state-of-the-art technology.”

At the end of the corridor, Carter stopped at a cabinet like all the others, bent down, and slid out a wide, shallow drawer. In it, Miranda could see a collection of artifacts, all of them looking, even to her less practiced eye, man-made.

Carter slid the drawer entirely clear and carried it to a steel-gray examination table. There were several stools, and Miranda perched herself atop one of them.

“Who made these?” Miranda asked, just to prove she knew that much already.

“La Brea Woman,” Carter said, “the one and only human so far found in the La Brea Tar Pits. And she was found in 1915. Now you may have come upon the second.”

“That’s not really true,” Miranda said, though she couldn’t restrain a bashful smile. “I only said there was something there. You’re the one who found it — and knew what it was.”

“We’ll share the record books,” Carter said, “and only after we do know what we’ve got.”

He lifted one of the items, a rough-hewn stone, from the tray. “Ever seen one of these?”

Miranda had, but only in a slide from one of her UCLA lectures. “It looks like some kind of grinding stone.”

“Very good,” Carter said. “It’s called a mano. But do you notice anything else about it?”

He handed it to her, and Miranda examined it more closely. The stone was chipped and scratched. “It’s in pretty bad shape?” she guessed.

“You’ve just won the washing machine,” Carter said. “It’s been deliberately defaced.”

“Not by a staff member, I hope.”

Carter smiled. “No, the damage was done thousands of years ago, by one of the original aboriginal people. We think that it was part of their burial practices.”

He put the mano back, and gave her a broken basalt stone the size of a brick. “See that kind of notch in the stone?”

She did.

“This is called a cogged stone. It might have been used for weighting down fishing nets, or it could have been used with digging sticks; we really don’t know.”

“It looks kind of ornamental to me.”

“Say, anybody ever tell you that you could be an anthropologist? There’s a theory that cogged stones were used for some kind of ceremonial or symbolic purpose.”

Miranda was very pleased with herself, and she glanced up at Carter.

“One more,” he said, “before we move on to the main attraction.”

He held up an abalone shell and said, “This might have been part of La Brea Woman’s business.”

“She sold seashells?”

“Not exactly, but she might have traded to get them.”

“For jewelry?”

“Nope, this was a practical woman. She used shells like these for scooping up the hot tar and transporting it.”

“What’d they use it for?”

“All sorts of stuff. It made a good adhesive, and we’ve also found it on the remnants of early canoes; tar was good for waterproofing.”

Carter pushed the tray to one side of the table, then retrieved another, equally wide but deeper.

Deep enough to house the skull of the woman herself.

Miranda, he could tell, was impressed. And that was a good sign. If you were going to work in anthropology or paleontology, it was good to have a sense of wonder; most of the scientists he knew had never really lost it. No matter how many digs they went on, and how many bones or fossils they recovered, there was always something miraculous and breathtaking about it. Especially when the bones were those of an early hominid.

The skull of the La Brea Woman was small — she’d been diminutive by modern-day standards, standing well under five feet tall — and osteologic studies, based on the skull and the dozen or so other skeletal fragments that had been recovered, had revealed not much more about her. The pelvic bones did suggest she’d already given birth. But there was one thing that was not in any dispute.

“How come there’s a different-colored patch here?” Miranda asked, indicating a section on top.

“Because her skull had been crushed,” Carter replied.

Miranda paused, and brushed a wisp of blonde hair out of her eyes. “Do we know how?”

“It’s possible it happened during the excavation; the left side of the lower jaw is also broken.”

Miranda, hearing something in Carter’s voice, said, “But you don’t think so.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You think she was… murdered?” It was odd, but Miranda had to wonder for a second if a person could be murdered long before that crime might have technically existed. Was there some anthropological term for the killing of a prehistoric human?

“I think she was struck with a heavy, blunt object,” Carter said. “The discolored patch on top is plaster; it was used to fill in the missing portion of her skull.”

He looked steadily into the empty eye sockets and the gaping jaws. In today’s world she’d been only a teenager, but in the ancient and dangerous world in which she lived and died — was she a sacrifice of some kind, or a casualty of war? — the La Brea Woman was well along in life. A natural life that was, in the famous formula of Thomas Hobbes, nasty, brutish, and short.

Little different, Carter thought, from the life led by La Brea Man, who’d stretched out a poor, solitary hand to him from the depths of Pit 91.

“I’m getting kind of cold down here,” Miranda said, with a visible shiver.

And Carter nodded; she wasn’t reacting to the temperature alone, he knew. He put the specimens away and said, “Let’s go back up into the sunlight, shall we?”

Miranda nodded eagerly and clung like a puppy to Carter’s side until they were once again in the atrium garden, with nothing but blue sky and palm fronds overhead.