The Anomaly(17)

It did not.

We went back upriver again, then down again, then paddled back up until we were in the middle of the search area.

Nothing. Merely a lot of striated rock, pitted, pocked, and striped and—after a while—really not very interesting at all. This whole process took over two hours, most of it conducted in harsh sun.

And there was no damned cavern.



Usually when this happened there was a sense of the team being thwarted together—shucks, well, we tried: Onward and upward. I don’t know what was different this time but it felt like it was only me being proved wrong, in the company of people who were being fairly patient about it despite noses and foreheads now sunburned to crap.

I stood on the last attempt, so Pierre could film me gazing up at the towering wall. This just made me feel even more like I was out on a dumb limb by myself.

We finished, and Ken asked if I wanted to go again. I shook my head, sat down, took out a cigarette, and lit it.

“Don’t start, Dylan,” I said. He’d already stopped me doing this on several occasions. He elected not to this time.

The already precarious morale in the boat dropped further as people accepted it was also clear that we weren’t getting back to the hotel tonight. Some of the team seemed to regard the prospect of another night in the canyon with equanimity, even enthusiasm in Feather’s case. Others less so. Molly, usually stoic in the face of adversity, was suffering disproportionately from the ministrations of mosquitoes. She viewed the prospect of more of the same with zero joy.

“There’s simply no way we can get back to civilization today?” Ken asked.

Dylan shook his head. “Not a chance.”

Ken nodded decisively. “In that case I have adjusted my goals, as follows. I need a drink and a piss, and then several more drinks. You’re either with me or against me. Bearing in mind I sign the checks, I’d advise you all to be with me.”

People muttered assent and made an effort to cheer up.

“Hey, we tried,” Pierre said.

“I know,” I said. “And thanks.”

Ken clapped me on the shoulder. “You know what we need before we call it a day, mate. And do it in one take, eh? I really do need a piss.”

Ken and Pierre swapped positions so Pierre could shoot sitting down, keeping the camera low so the canyon wall looked even more gargantuan behind me. Molly knelt on the next bench and held the boom mike over my head. Her forehead looked like someone had taken a blowtorch to it.

“So,” I said to camera, with my best oh-well-never-mind smile. “It seems this is another of those mysteries that will remain unsolved—at least for now. Regular viewers will know that’s the way it goes sometimes.”

“Pretty much always,” Molly muttered. Gemma sniggered from the front.

I ignored them. “And that’s okay. It really is. Because what matters most, what empowers us to grow and develop not just as individuals but as a culture, is never the finding of things. The finding isn’t important. It’s that…we continue to seek.”

By now I could see, out of the corner of my eye, that Gemma was actually mouthing along to the words. I wondered if there was any chance I could get away with shoving her off the boat. And whether it might be worth doing anyway.

“I’ve shown you the original newspaper report,” I went on doggedly. “You’ve heard the story of Kincaid’s cavern. It’s up to you now. I can’t tell you what to think—but I can ask you to think. To keep asking questions. Do you believe you’re being told the truth about America, and the prehistory of mankind? Are you happy about the way conventional science dismisses any idea that doesn’t fit a neat and tidy narrative? If not, let me know via Twitter and Facebook. And most of all—”

“Wait,” Pierre said.

I looked up from the lens and stared at him furiously. If he’d screwed something up technically it meant a redo on this whole embarrassing piece-of-crap sign-off, and I honestly wasn’t sure I could be bothered.

He’d raised his head from the viewfinder, however, and was looking at something behind me. “What’s that?”

“The same shit we’ve been staring at pointlessly all afternoon,” I said. “Fuck is wrong with you, Pierre?”

“No,” he said, pointing. “Up there.”

I turned and tilted my head to follow the line of sight indicated by his finger. High, high up on the striated rock face of the wall of the canyon was…more rock.

“Seriously, Pierre. If you’re trying to be funny you’re missing it by a country mile. Screw this. We got enough. I’ll cap it with something when we’re back on dry land.”

“Hang on a sec, though,” Ken said, standing. “Oi, boat bloke—try to keep us steady.”

“Ken, I’m having something of a sense of humor failure here, in case you hadn’t noticed, so—”

“Shut it, Nolan. Look.”

I turned around. Ken was pointing at the rock wall, toward an area about a quarter of the way up, to the side of a long splatter of stain across the layers of sediment—a patch that looked as though someone had thrown an enormous cup of coffee across the canyon wall.

And there, for a moment, smack in the middle, was a very small darker patch.

“It keeps disappearing,” Pierre said. “It’s very small. And as the boat moves, the light changes on it.”