The Anomaly(10)

“Wow. You’re prepared to go there? That way lies ‘the tribes weren’t the first people in North America, so they should stop whining about their land rights.’ You really want a piece of that? You’re braver than I thought.”

“Of course not. Some of the reports could have been concocted by settlers who were trying to undermine Indian claims to be the most significant inhabitants. Which a number of Native American myths also do, by the way—consistently mentioning red-haired, fair-skinned ‘culture bearers’ in prehistory. Though naturally,” I added quickly, “it’s hard to tell how reliable our records of their oral histories are.”

“Nicely dodged, again. Carefully not saying anything. Again. I’d love to ask whether you wanted coffee or tea. My guess is you’d wind up with both. Or neither.”

“Look, screw this,” I said. By now my voice had gotten loud, and I saw Ken glance over in our direction. “You said you wanted to do a genuine piece of journalism about the show. This kind of bullshit isn’t how you deal with a fellow professional.”

“But you’re not a professional,” she said calmly. “Except in the limited sense that you eke a living out of it. No, I’m not an epistemo-whatever-the-fuck. And you have zero qualifications in archeology or anything else. You’re a cut-and-paste merchant who qualifies every assertion with ‘Could it possibly be that…’ or ‘This has led some to wonder if…,’ so in the end you never actually say anything.”

“I’m just—”

“And I don’t think you even believe any of it. That’s the worst part. You don’t really think there’s an alien spaceship in Area 51. You don’t think we’re ever going to find Noah’s Ark. You just know a good fairy tale when you see one, and you’ve developed the knack of selling secondhand snake oil to the drooling imbeciles of the interwebs.”

“And how does that make me different from you? Your stuff’s hardly Pulitzer bait, is it? ‘Ten Reasons Why Nobody Hires Jessica Biel Anymore.’ Classy, important think pieces.”

This evidently hit a nerve. “I’m writing material of greater substance these days.”

“A couple of unpaid op-eds in the Huffington Post make you neither Woodward nor Bernstein.”

“Noted,” she snapped. “And now we’re speaking of real journalists, does it bug you that Kristy’s doing so well?”

“Kristy who?”

She hesitated. Then rolled her eyes. “Ha ha. You know which Kristy. Your ex-wife Kristy.”

“Define ‘well.’”

“Seriously? Everything she types immediately syndicated across the world before she lifts her dainty hands from the keyboard. One of the most-viewed TED Talks of all time. Just listed in the Top Fifty Female Opinion Formers in the USA—okay, only at number forty-three, but still. Over a quarter million Twitter followers. Off at the moment doing something super-worthy about permafrost in Alaska. So petite and skinny-fit that she vanishes from sight when she turns to the side. That kind of doing well.”

“Certainly sounds like it bugs you. So much for the sisterhood, huh.”

“You’re really kind of an asshole, aren’t you.”

“It’s been said.”

“Seriously. Does it bother you?”

“Being an asshole? No. I’m used to it.”

She just looked at me and waited. “Not at all,” I said. “Kristy deserves every success. She has real and valuable opinions. She has integrity. She’s the smartest person I’ve ever met.”

“So how come you split, if she’s such a peach?”

“Because none of those things are true of me.” Everybody was standing now at the SUV with backpacks on, ready to roll and clearly waiting for us. “It’s time to go.”

She smiled at me, head cocked. “I’m surprised. I thought you’d be harder to knock over than this.”

“No, I fall down easy,” I said, suddenly feeling very tired. “My trick is I generally get back up.”





From the files of Nolan Moore:





GRAND CANYON, THOMAS MORAN, 1916





Chapter

6



Twenty minutes later we’d started the descent. After the steep initial section—during which I’m not ashamed to admit I kept one hand on the wall most of the time—the path gradually snaked back and forth as we headed slowly downward, the team soon a straggling line along the trail. We all wore backpacks and were carrying additional weight in the form of equipment, notably a shit-ton of camera batteries, and so everybody was pretty focused on their feet, looking up only occasionally to gawk at the extravagant beauty of the canyon.

I was some way behind the rest of the group, walking by myself. I wasn’t being a prima donna. I just didn’t want company. I wasn’t fuming or nursing bad thoughts about Gemma, either. I knew perfectly well that she was right. In some ways, to some eyes. Including my own.

Though I’ve been interested in weird history and the unexplained since I was a kid, I’m not an archeologist. Until three years ago I was in the movie industry. Or near it. I was a screenwriter, which is to “being in the movies” what waiting tables is to attending the party. I worked hard and earned some money and jumped through all the right hoops. I tried. For years.