Girl Out of Water(53)

“And where exactly is here?” I ask as we pull into a small lot filled with a few cars, mostly SUVs and trucks.

“Definitely the coolest place in Nebraska.” He shuts off the ignition and adjusts his black-framed glasses. “And I would know since I’ve made it my life’s calling to find the coolest place in each and every state I’ve ever lived in.”

“Cooler than the river?”

He gives me a pitying look. “Compared to what I’m about to show you, that river is a speck on the galactic spectrum of super cool shit.”

Despite Lincoln’s assertion, I’m doubtful. There’s nothing here but baked dirt and grass, and a short walk from the car, two structures—one that looks like a giant airplane hangar and the small, squat building in front of it.

“Come on.” Lincoln hops out of the car. I start to grab my purse and the bags of food, but he glances at me and says, “Leave the food for now. You’ll want to see this first.”

? ? ?

The smaller building has wood siding and a sign that reads Ashfall State Historical Park Visitor Orientation Center.

“A historical park.” I turn to Lincoln as we walk toward the glass doors. “For our grand adventure, you’re taking me on a school field trip?”

“Have faith, surfer girl.”

The inside of the building is freezing. My skin prickles. I tell Lincoln I’ll wait for him outside while he buys our tickets. I grab for my wallet to offer him some money, but I must have left my tote bag with my phone and wallet in the car. I consider going back to grab my phone, but maybe it’ll be nice to spend a couple hours without it, without my fingers unconsciously pulling up another slew of pictures of my friends.

Lincoln comes back outside a few minutes later and guides us toward the airplane hangar-like building. We pass a few people on the concrete path that connects the two buildings. Everyone looks like they live on the road—sunglasses, fanny packs, worn-out shirts featuring American flags and bald eagles. They take their time walking the short path, pointing out hills and sparse trees in the distance like they’re noteworthy sites.

As we near the hanger, I read a sign. Hubbard Rhino Barn. A barn? Did Lincoln take me all the way out here for just some glorified petting zoo?

Before I have a chance to ask, he pulls open the tall door and says, “After you.”

I step inside.

“Oh shit,” I say.

“Whoa,” I say.

“What?” I say.

It takes a while to comprehend what’s in front of me. Light pours in from large, rectangular windows, sun-flooding the enormous room. A short, fenced-in walkway keeps everyone on an elevated path above a giant, dusty pit that takes up the majority of the space. Inside the pit are life-sized animal molds. No, not animal molds—animal bones. Hundreds and hundreds of animal bones poke out of the ground like they tucked in for an afternoon nap and woke up eras later.

A few people with badges crouch inside of the pit, brushing dust away from the bones with cautious, gloved hands.

I turn to Lincoln and find him already looking at me. “What is this place?”

“Didn’t you read the sign?” He grins. “Ashfall Fossil Beds.”

My hairs rise at the sight in front of me and the story Lincoln tells.

Twelve million years ago a volcano erupted in Idaho.

The eruption spread ash and powdered glass, far and wide—all the way to a watering hole in northeastern Nebraska. The animals grazed on the ash-infused grasses and drank the ash-infused water and breathed the ash-infused air and died an ash-infused death. The ash continued to blow, covering their bodies and preserving them in a twelve million-year-old ecological bubble. This site was founded decades ago when someone discovered the skull of a juvenile rhinoceros peeking out of a cornfield.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Lincoln finishes. I continue to peer out over the 3-D fossilized remains, the rib cage of an ancient rhino tucked against the hoof of a three-toed horse. I’ve never seen anything like this. Maybe if I’d taken up Dad on that DC trip offer, I would have seen some dinosaurs at the Smithsonian. But not like this, not animals in their natural habitat, still preserved in the ground millions—millions—of years later.

“When we moved here, I was sixteen and actually really upset about a move for the first time,” Lincoln says. He keeps his voice low, and our shoulders press together as we watch people cautiously brush ash off the unmoving animals. “I loved traveling and discovering, but I’d finally settled down in Raleigh. I’d made some great friends, and I wanted to graduate with them. Mom felt awful that I was so upset, so she did her research and brought me here. And I fell in love with the place. Kind of hard not to.”

I wonder what it must be like to have a mom who cares you’re upset and tries to make it better.

He points at the remains of one of the rhinos, leaning a bit closer to do so, providing more heat than the twenty-foot windows baking us with afternoon sunlight. “Some of these guys still had grass in their mouths. Just up and died midchew. This part of Nebraska used to look like the East African savannas. It’s surreal. There’s so much of the world I want to see. But here—here, I can see the past.”

As Lincoln says this, I imagine myself back in Santa Cruz, out on the water, surfboard beneath me when a storm of ash sweeps in, a thick cloud of choking gray dust, suffocating me, sealing me in my own giant watering hole so that millions of years from now aliens will stare at my skeleton and talk about how amazing it is that I’ve been preserved so well.