Ted Kosmatka - Prophet of Bones

“All people.”

“Not all people.”

“Well, most people,” she said, then kissed him again. “So this is our secret, just between us?”

He nodded. “Top secret.”

“A girl could get a reputation,” she said.

“Not from me.”

“You’re very convincing.”

“My lips are sealed.”

“Then just this once, okay?” She unhooked her overalls and let them fall to the grass. “Just this one time.” Her bare breasts swayed in the moonlight, full and heavy. He touched her. She moved against him, skin on skin, and then her mouth found his, and they sank onto the grass.

Paul skipped the manual labor the next day. The sun blazed down and his head throbbed a dull hangover, reminding him that last night hadn’t all been a dream. He kept an eye out for Margaret, but she hadn’t emerged from her tent yet. Instead of heading to the sieves, he made his way up to the cave and stepped into the shadows. The sudden coolness was almost analgesic. He moved to the back, to the place where a bamboo ladder jutted from the ground.

He looked down at the men working thirty feet below. There were three of them. They’d excavated most of the bones that Paul had samples for and would soon be digging deeper, looking for more. The men at the bottom of the pit wore hard hats. Flashlights lit the base of the hole. The sound of the generator rumbled in the distance.

Paul tried to imagine the weight of all that dirt pressing down. He tried to imagine the processes that could have painted the bones with soil, layer after layer, year after year, until thirty feet of the world stood atop them. The floods, and the mud, and thousands of years.

James found him standing there. “A Catholic priest was first to dig here,” he said, leaning over to glance down into the hole.

“When was that?”

“Oh, it was a long time ago—middle of the last century, after the Dutch first started trying to convert the island’s heathen population into good, God-fearing folk.”

“A priest archaeologist in the 1800s?”

James scratched his copper-wire beard. “Well, he wasn’t called an archaeologist, mind, but he did do a wholly inordinate amount of digging for a fella with eyes turned skyward.”

“Did he find anything interesting?”

“Stone tools, charcoal, a few bones. Father Theodor Verhoeven. He’s been dead now a long time, and his work has been mostly ignored.”

“He found bones? Like these?”

“Not like these. He didn’t go that deep. The bones he found were more normal. His work probably would have been completely forgotten if not for the attention the cave is getting now.”

“What about his other work?” Paul asked. “Did that go better than his digs?”

“Converting the heathens, you mean? Marginally better, I suppose.”

Paul watched the men dig. Flashlights wavered at the bottom of darkness.

“Indonesia is one big mosaic now,” James said. “Part Muslim, part Christian. All of it layered over the older ancestor worship and various other animist traditions. In some remote villages, they sacrifice pigs on Christian holidays.”

“One religion absorbs the traditions of another.”

“That’s one way to put it,” James said.

“And how would you put it?”

“I’d say one religion eats another. Means about the same thing but has a slightly different inflection. It’s like one of the origin stories you still hear in the highlands—the first man having come from the ashes of burned bamboo. They still tell that story, though after the missionaries, they were kind enough to change his name to Adam. Flores is one of the religious borders. Always has been. There’s been fighting in the Moluccas and Sulawesi. Bloody business. Maybe Gavin told you.”

“He told me there was some trouble.”

“And more coming, likely. And that was all happening before they even dug here,” James said. “Lately it’s been worse.”

“It’s just a research dig,” Paul said.

“No such thing, these days. Between you and me, the sooner we’re done, the better.”

“Do digs like this end?” Paul asked.

“There’s bedrock down there somewhere.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

“So these samples,” James said, gesturing toward the pit. “You’re sure you can make ’em talk?”

“They’ll sing. And it’s more than just the DNA. There’s also stable isotope analysis of bone matrix collagen.”

“And this tells you what?”

Paul shrugged. “Lots of things. Ancient diet, trophic level, variation by latitude.”

James nodded, taking this in. After a long pause, he asked, “Did Gavin ever tell you what this place was before?”

“Before it was a cave, you mean?”

James smiled indulgently. “After it was a cave, before it was a dig.”

“No.”

“They used it as a school.”

“This place?”

James nodded. “Father Theodor, before he starting digging, taught school here for the local village children.”

Paul looked down into the pit. “A place of learning, still.”

The next morning started with a downpour. The dig team huddled in tents or under the tarped lean-to near the fire pit. Only James braved the rain, stomping off into the jungle. Paul watched him disappear into the undergrowth.

Gray clouds obscured the mountainside. The sieving crew made strong coffee and chewed betel nuts.

Gavin found Paul in his tent. He stuck his shaggy head under the tent flap. “I have to go back up to Ruteng.”

“Again?”

“There’s been an issue,” Gavin said. “I’ve received some troubling news. You want me to take the samples with me?”

Paul shook his head. “Can’t. There are stringent protocols for chain of possession.”

“Where are they now?”

Paul patted the cargo pocket of his pant leg.

Gavin seemed to consider this for a moment. “So when you get those samples back, what happens next?”

“I’ll hand them over to an evaluation team.”

“You don’t test them yourself?”

Paul shook his head. “I’m the sampler. I can assist in actual testing, but there are rules. I test animal DNA all the time, and the equipment is the same, but genus Homo requires a license and oversight.”

“All right, mate, then I’ll be back tomorrow.” Paul followed Gavin to the jeep. There, Gavin surprised him by handing him the satellite phone. “In case anything happens while I’m gone.”

“Do you think something will?”

“No,” Gavin said. Then: “I don’t know.”

Paul fingered the sat phone, a dark block of plastic the size of a shoe. Something had changed. He could see it in the older man’s face. He considered asking more but didn’t.

Gavin climbed into the jeep and pulled away. Paul watched the vehicle struggle up the muddy track heading to town.

An hour later the rain had stopped and James was back from his excursion in the dripping jungle, smiling ear to ear. He returned to camp covered in mud but otherwise none the worse for the wear.

“Well, will you look at that,” James said, holding something out for Paul to see.

“What is it?”

“Partially eaten monitor.” His face practically beamed. “A species only found here.”

“Partially eaten? You know, I would have shared my lunch.”

The smile grew wider. “I’d have to be pretty hungry to take a chomp of this bit of jerky. A few bites, and it would likely be my last meal. Lots of nasty bacteria in these things, starting with their mouths. That’s how they kill their prey, you know. They bite and then follow. For days, sometimes. Eventually, the bacteria does the job, and they move in for the kill.”