The Find by Kathy Page Read Free Book Online Page B

collaboration between our two institutions... She explained that she aimed to commence in June and would like them to put in joint applications to National Geographic, NFS and CFS as a matter of urgency; she was preparing the application and would be able to send him a draft for his input very soon. Please, Mike, she concluded, contact me at your very earliest convenience so that we can agree upon the details of the approach.
    As she left her office, Greta, one of the year’s volunteers, emerged from the library. Dressed in sun-bleached clothes and scuffed field boots she looked like the spirit of the place, but, she said, it was her last day.
    â€˜Come back next year,’ Anna told her as they shook hands, and she added that it would be a very good one: though this was not the way, later, that she would think of it. Neither good nor bad could encompass the experience: it was like one of the vanished creatures she studied come to life, an amalgam of teeth, wings, scales, claws, a huge beast that materialised suddenly ahead of her in a woodland clearing, both magnificent and terrifying. But at this point, life was still more or less normal, and that evening she drove her mother up and out of the canyon to one of their favourite viewing spots. They sat in the last of the sun’s brightness and ate still-warm deli chicken, while with each mouthful the earth tones in the valley below grew deeper. A breath of air caught the wisps of hair around her mother’s face.
    â€˜Gorgeous, darling,’ Grace said, waving at the view. The way things looked — that they should be interesting, if not beautiful, mattered very much to Grace. Because of her hands, she could no longer paint the way she wanted to and her career, just as it had taken off, was at an end, even though paintings themselves changed hands at ever-increasing prices. She still thought in pictures; she exclaimed over colours, pointed out contrasts, drew her daughter’s attention to the exact way light changed. Recently, she had taken up photography. When Anna talked to her mother about the find, she took pains to give the right kind of visual detail.
    â€˜Covered in gold! How wonderful.’
    â€˜Pyrites. But you know, we’ll have to remove it during preparation, so we can see the structure of the bone. That’s beautiful too. More so, even. Like bubbles, or honeycomb. And, of course, that’s where the information lies. The thing is, once it’s exposed to the air, pyrites can cause the specimen to degenerate. And, you see, it tells us nothing about the—’
    â€˜The trouble with science is that so much destruction seems to be involved, and all in the name of information .’ Familiar territory, this: Why not leave things as they are? Does one need to know about something’s insides in order to love it for what it is or does?
    Smiling, Anna took her mother’s hand.
    â€˜You’ll love it when it is articulated.’
    â€˜I expect so,’ she said, ‘but, darling, imagine it gold as well . Gold leaf. Even spray paint. Why not?’
    They heard the yowl of coyotes somewhere in the distance and when the sun finally disappeared, the whole town, the entire valley, was for a moment or two, empty of human noise.
    Please , Anna had written in her email. But Mike did not reply.
    Andrew Bellavance, on the other hand, was very forthcoming. His company was always happy, he said, to be associated with projects that brought positive benefits to the local community and showcased the company as a responsible part of it. They could grant outline permission, had no objection to Special Heritage status for the riverbed area, and were keen to consider to help further. He could put her in touch with a contractor they used for airlifting who might also like to be involved. What kind of payload would they need? He would see what he could do.
    Perhaps Mike had some family or personal problems: it would explain everything.