Bone Hunter (36 page)

Read Bone Hunter Online

Authors: Sarah Andrews

I accepted her gift of warmth and sweetness gratefully, nodded to Ray, and, alone, took my cup to the edge of the canyon to watch the sun bless its deep interior with light and warmth. In such moments lie a magic of understanding and proportion. I loved the earth, and now felt its love for me; felt it in the pull of gravity, smelled it in the scent of pine, tasted it in the pleasure of chocolate, heard it in the sigh of the breeze, and saw it in every tint and hue of color that played across the rock. In the act of caring for it and all its passengers, my universe had widened and grown deeper. For in its beauty lay a depth and perfection of history I could not describe. And in this truth lay revelation, and hope.
My thanks to M. Lee Allison, Utah State Geologist, for exhorting me to write this book. I am indebted also to the following geologists and paleontologists for their technical assistance and insights: David D. Gillette and Janet Whitmore Gillette, Museum of Northern Arizona; Marjorie Chan, University of Utah; Michael Leschin, Cleveland-Lloyd Quarry, Bureau of Land Management; John Horner, Museum of the Rockies; John Bolt, the Field Museum; Robert Bakker; Sarah George, Utah Museum of Natural History; Donald Rasmussen, consulting geologist; Debra Mickelsen, University of Colorado; Matthew James, Sonoma State University; Christine Turner and Pete Peterson, U.S. Geological Survey; Vincent Santucci, U. S. National Park Service; Louis L. Jacobs, Southern Methodist University; and Brooks B. Britt, Museum of Western Colorado.
I wish to thank Doris E. Andrews, Hayward State University; Maria Titze, Salt Lake City
Observer;
Deborah Bodner; and Carol Mapes for assisting me in better understanding the history, faith, and practice of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints.
For their technical contributions toward the greater accuracy of this text, my thanks to Sonoma County Assistant District Attorney Greg Jacobs; Eddie Fryer, Federal Bureau of Investigation; Chris Kappler, Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department; Sarah Davis; and Priscilla Kapel, Bioenergy Balancing Center.
I am grateful to Jon Gunnar Howe, Thea Castleman, Mary Madsen Hallock, and Kenneth Dalton (a.k.a. the Golden Machete Critique Group); and to Eileen M. Clegg, Clint Smith, Marjorie Chan, Marilyn Wessel, and David Gillette for their spirited and insightful critiques of the completed draft.
My thanks to my editor, Kelley Ragland, for her usual excellent editing and to all the folks at St. Martin’s Press for championing this book through the publishing and marketing process.
My thanks to my son, Duncan Brown, for reminding me that the ossified brains of grown-ups can get them stuck in intellectual ruts. And, as always, my thanks to my husband, Damon Brown, for his unstinting support and good humor while being the artist’s husband.
ST. MARTIN’S PAPERBACKS TITLES
BY SARAH ANDREWS
 
Only Flesh and Bones
 
Mother Nature
 
Bone Hunter
 
An Eye for Gold
 
Fault Line
 
Killer Dust
 
Earth Colors
BONE HUNTER
“Andrews makes the most of her paleontological background. She clearly knows her subject and, unlike many crime writers, she does not use the surroundings merely as window dressing. The novel is, in addition to a fine mystery, a lively exploration of the high-stakes world of dinosaur research and perceptive rumination on the debate between science and creationism.”
—Booklist
 
“Geologist Em Hansen’s adventures become more and more intriguing with each new book … A most fascinating tale.”
—
Romantic Times
 
“Appealing characters and fluent prose.”
—
Library Journal
 
“The fifth Em Hansen novel is a fabulous blending of science and sleuthing that readers will fully relish … Sarah Andrews may be writing the best scientific mysteries this side of the medical thriller.”
—Harriet Klausner,
Painted Rock Reviews
 
“Memorable … BONE HUNTER knows its stuff when it comes to weaving the geology of [this] state into a crime as plausible as today’s headlines.”
—
Salt Lake Tribune
ONLY FLESH AND BONES
“Her tale contains a canny, entertaining mixture of elements … . The intersections of new money and old ways of living in the West find a convincing chronicler in Andrews.”
—Washington Post Book World
 
“Andrews handles [the] possibilities with a sure hand as she introduces an endless supply of secondary characters whose company is a delight. Thoughtful and uncertain, Em is especially appealing as she makes the quiet point that murder involves more than flesh and bones … After a few more cases, geologist Em Hansen may be as tough as the best of her sleuthing peers, but her vulnerability offers singular pleasures to current readers.”
—
Publishers Weekly
 
“[A] fine mystery with an edgy and vulnerable heroine … There’s action and passion, introspection and suspense. Em is smart company, and we learn her mind and heart along with her.”
—Booklist
 
“In the fourth book in the series, Andrews moves away from the rig to issues of mothers, daughters, and ranch life. But she continues to tell a good story.”
—New Orleans Times-Picayune
 
“A slick, endearing heroine … We tore through this novel.”
—Seventeen
 
“Em Hansen is one of the most interesting characters in recent mystery fiction—a strong woman with believable weaknesses and none of the smugness or coyness which bog down other, better-selling series heroines.”
—
Amazon.com
’s Mystery Editor
 
“One of the finest elements of an Em Hansen mystery is female characters who are strong, independent and intelligent … [a] marvelous mystery.”
—Douglas
(Wyoming)
Budget
MOTHER NATURE
“Complex and engaging … Snappy dialogue and fully realized characters, especially the immensely appealing Em, turn the field of geology into a fascinating background for a mystery.”
—Publishers Weekly
 
“Mother Nature
is an intriguing who-done-it. However, what turns this into an interesting tale is the deeply developed characters (especially Em) and the brilliant insight into geology. Surprisingly, the geological aspects of the story are … extremely fascinating.”
—Midwest Book Review
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Anyone interested in conspiracies will enjoy the story of how this book came to be written. It began as I was attending the 1997 meeting of the Geological Society of America (held that year in Salt Lake City). Utah State Geologist M. Lee Allison buttonholed me and said, “You ought to write a book about fossil theft and set it in Utah. Just think of it—you can have a dinosaur on the cover, and the book will sell like hotcakes.”
Lee is a smart man. In an era of dwindling fiscal support for even such essential government agencies as the Utah Geological Survey, which Lee heads, he had grasped the fact that in order to do his job, he must communicate with the public he serves—that is, inform them of what he has done for them lately. The more people he can hornswoggle into doing this work for him, the better. “Here’s my E-mail address,” I told him. “Send me your ideas.”
Lee delivered. He provided me not only with the virulent germ for the plot of this book—the Sue
T. rex
case—but also with most of its red herrings and the murder weapon. And Lee didn’t stop with E-mails worth framing. He introduced me to
a host of key sources, first and foremost among them David D. Gillette, Utah’s State Paleontologist.
The next event in the conspiracy occurred a month later, when Sonoma State University department chair Tom Anderson invited me to teach the “Dino” course during the 1998 spring semester. I thought, Great, I’ll get paid to research the book. But I thought I would learn about dinosaurs, not people.
About halfway through the semester, a visiting lecturer gave an interesting talk. I must expurgate specific references so I don’t get sued, but I can diagrammatically state that the lecture was based on physical evidence that had recently been discovered by foreign researchers. When I asked this American how he’d gotten his evidence, he said, quite matter-of-factly, “I had a photograph smuggled out of [their country].” The man smiled proudly, and added, “And I scooped them. Got it on the cover of [a famous magazine] before they got their story in [another famous magazine].” The sound that immediately followed was the thud of my chin hitting the floor. This man had just blithely admitted that he had committed theft. A moment later, as I began taking notes on his speech patterns, I noticed that the string of coincidences leading toward this book was getting unusually long. And it got a whole lot longer.
The mystery writer as mystic.
I have long been fascinated by the systems of belief—perceptions of truth—we humans construct and live by. A mystery about people who study dinosaurs seemed a good arena in which to examine these beliefs. Being confronted by the evidence of dinosaurs’ bones, we are compelled by the machinery of our imaginations to construct theories about them. And because dinosaurs grew to fabulous sizes but left few clues other than scattered bones from which to construct our beliefs about their origins and fates, they epitomize the mysterious and unexplained.
I had an agenda in writing this book. Scratch that—I had
several. First, I wanted to vent my spleen regarding the propagandistic and often paranoid blather that has been leveled at me (and countless colleagues) by certain creationists who know nothing more about me than that I am a scientist. I say “certain creationists,” because most appear to believe I am entitled to my constitutional right to believe whatever I believe, so long as I don’t infringe on their rights to peace, freedom of religion, and reasonable things like that.
I respect all who are conscious of what they believe. Consciousness does not come easily.
My goal and agenda in writing this book, beyond constructing a few hours of entertainment for the reader, was the more personal pursuit of examining the similarities and disparities between scientific and religious beliefs and practices. Approaching this task with the habits of a scientist, I gathered evidence, stated a theory (the two are more similar than dissimilar), and set out to test it. I was immediately at odds with myself, and therefore knew I was on to something. I must state that this method of testing my hypothesis was entirely unscientific, guided not by any empirical testing but, instead, by that within me which I shall identify as the artist’s gut sense of accuracy. To explain that any better would fill a book on its own, so forgive me if I just move along with what I learned from this exercise.
Outwardly, I discovered that laypeople know little of the mechanics of the scientific method. By extension, I fear that likewise they know little of the mechanics of their own religious belief system, even if their central belief happens to be the null hypothesis, which simply stated is, God does not exist. To illustrate what I mean by that, let’s consider how many people who believe that: “If God existed, God would not allow the terrible things that happen in this world to happen.” The logic behind this statement is self-serving. The subject first sets a definition of God (all-powerful), then delegates all responsibility
to God and has the temerity to erase God’s existence basd on performance of this impossible job. Anyone who’s ever worked in management knows that when accepting responsibility, one must also demand commensurate authority to define the job; even then, one must put up with endless criticism from underlings who, due to lack of experience, cannot perceive the true nature of the job. To believe that God does not exist, the subject of the belief has first defined for himself what God must be like.
As I learned about dinosaurs by teaching about them, the students in my dinosaur class became research subjects for my deeper agenda. I announced to them that I was teaching a certain system of beliefs, and that if they did not agree, I would respect them for that, but I wanted them to understand something about the research techniques, intuitive practices, and deductive logic that go into constructing the theories and proofs that embody the scientific method. I said, “I don’t care if ten minutes after you walk out of my final exam you forget every polysyllabic dinosaur name I teach you. What I care about is that the next time you watch a program about dinosaurs or any other scientific matter on TV, you have a clue whether the people interviewed are presenting carefully researched deductions, or simply bullshitting you.”
This agenda struck most of the students in the room as somewhat unusual. Some of them smiled, some played hooky, some snoozed, and some whispered who knows what to the kid in the next seat. To my horror, most who spoke up wanted to know what isolated facts they must memorize in order to pass the next test. But one came to me about halfway through the term and asked to interview me for a paper he had to write for his English class. It quickly emerged during our conversation that he had been raised in a fundamentalist system of beliefs and was trying to come to some sort of accommodation between this foundation and what he wanted to build on it.
He wanted to depart from his parents’ conservative idea of training as a dentist and instead take the more uncertain, more artistic path of becoming an architect. He wanted to know how I juggled the rationalist thinking of scientific training with the extrarational experience of the spirit which I encountered in writing.
It was clear to me that this young man was entering a crisis of faith. I was impressed that he’d found his way there so young, and I told him that, in my experience, creative work requires that one be willing to embrace such ambiguities as he was noticing and follow them through to the truths hidden within them. I told him also that because he was asking the questions he was asking, I had no doubt he would be successful. God only knows what that success may hold.
Ambiguity is a seed from which great understanding can grow. The ambiguity between scientific and religious beliefs is young. A mere century and a half ago, most scientists were, in fact, clergymen. Consider Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, a humble monk. It is only since the time of Darwin, a heretic who suggested that change occurs through time within living populations, that an argument has arisen between those who believe in this change (evolution) and those who believe that the stories of the Bible are literally true (special creation). What is true? And are we deterred from uncovering truth by what we believe?
Carol Mapes, one of my advisers on matters Mormon, listened with great interest to what I was struggling to understand through constructing the plot of this book. I led her through the story, then said, “I’m surprised to find that it’s a book about a liar. Also, I’m having trouble understanding where the Mormon church stands on certain beliefs, such as the origin of the earth.” I went on to describe the trials and travails of Nina, whom I felt had a lot to tell me. I thought that the pressures of emerging into the “real” world might push Nina to a crisis
of faith. Carol said no, that Nina would be “a good girl” and go right back home. I stared at Carol rather blankly, because my own mind is wired more for defiance than compliance.
Carol said, “Sarah, you don’t understand what blasphemy is, do you?”
I thought I did, and said so, but Carol said, “No, it’s clear to me that you don’t. Let me explain. Suppose you adhere to the beliefs of a religion. You have given up something—made a personal sacrifice—to do this. Say sex, or certain other pleasures or comforts. Then someone comes to you and tells you that it’s all a sham. You react emotionally. You feel that your beliefs have been blasphemed. You get it? It’s like a betrayal.”
It took me a while, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew that she was right, and that the fact of how blasphemy works stood at the center of this book and of what I was struggling to understand by writing it; that when people have adhered to a belief on the strength of blind faith alone, they feel betrayed, and, worse yet, humiliated by the very idea that what they have sacrificed to support that belief is in vain. Note that I am not talking about the
definition
of blasphemy—an irreverence or deviling of God or anything else held sacred—but about how it
functions
.
My realization of the way blasphemy functions led me to a partial disproof of my theory that scientific and religious faith and practice are similar. Scientists may hotly disagree when their beliefs are challenged, and can grow quite emotional, but they do not accuse one another of blasphemy. Scientists do not accuse each other of blasphemy because in the practice of science, it is assumed that the truth is not known, and efforts are directed toward uncovering it. This is done by forming theories—false gods, if you will—and trying to disprove them. The scientific method is, in fact, a system that encourages blasphemy—or shall I say heresy, which is a more dignified form
of challenge—through an institutionalized testing of beliefs. At its best, the scientific method leads us to the discovery of truths, or at least closer to them, and often toward a profound perception and admiration of the Divine (read Albert Einstein, or Stephen Hawking). At its worst, the scientific method grows stodgy and collapses into a sheltered workshop for poorly socialized intellectuals. Many religions, by contrast, grow up around truth and accompanying rules revealed through an adept (Jesus, Mohammed, Joseph Smith), and, as the religion becomes institutionalized, the object becomes to accept on faith these truths and rules and adhere to them. At its most benign, surrender of individual wills to a religious ideal or leader leads toward enlightenment. At its worst, it becomes contorted and precipitates wars, or implodes into mass suicides, as happened in Jonestown. Before I enrage my readers with these generalizations, let me hasten to point out that I speak of religious practice, as contrasted to spiritual practice. Spiritual practice, more like scientific practice, usually leads the devotee through a process of refinement and clarification toward a perception of ever larger and more universal truths.
The scientist as mystic.
Much that fuels the plot of this book springs from the gentle fact that scientists believe their colleagues are telling the truth as they know it. Scientists do not like being told they’re wrong, and much less do they like to face the public humiliation of having it proved to them. They are no different with regard to the emotions behind these reactions than a member of any other culture, religion, or sports team. But because they presume everyone is playing the same game by the same simple rule—tell the truth as you know it—they do not gore each other with ancient jawbones over such humiliations; instead, they bear up, examine the evidence, draw their own conclusions, and take their medicine when the time is ripe. They do
not consider challenges to their beliefs to be blasphemous, simply because, as with spiritual devotees, their faith lies more in their process than in their beliefs.
My husband once told me about scientific experimentation that apparently demonstrates that the human brain is hardwired to construct a context of logic—for example, a cause-and-effect linkage—about every experience it encounters. I think this is an important theory to consider, because it would mean we are compelled to interpret every experience we have, regardless of how incomplete or even misleading the data, and regardless of how sorely we are limited by the facts of who and what we are. The consequences of such an urge to interpret our experiences would impact every system of belief we have, be it scientific, cultural, religious, or even spiritual. The authors of the U.S. Constitution must on some level have known this when they guaranteed a separation of church and state.
I am pleased to live in a country where each one of us has a chance to have his or her own thoughts, and follow his or her own heart to a place of truth.
With best wishes for a happy new millennium, Sarah Andrews

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