Old Earth (13 page)

• • •

McCauley spread more than $1,400 over his three credit cards. The cashier at Ranch and Farm Ace Hardware Store on Harmon Street in Glendive couldn’t have been happier.

The biggest expense was a National Parks approved DuroMaxXP4400E four gallon gas generator. The power source would feed portable lights and fans for hours. Also on the shopping list, four two-story First Alert metal folding ladders, hard hats for everyone, twenty high beam flashlights with extra batteries, ten twenty-five foot extension cords, five fuse protected power strips, fifteen electric lights with clips, and three hundred feet of rope.

“Okay, two more stops before we call it a day.” McCauley drove to a liquor store on South Merrill and Reynolds Market over on West Bell.

Finished with the errands, McCauley finally provided a hint of what was going on. “Okay, I think we’ve got enough to get a good way’s in.”

“Tell us more about this cave,” Chohany said showing increased interest.

“It’s actually not all that unusual. Over near Billings, Pictograph Cave State Park has more than one hundred rock paintings, the oldest dating back to two thousand years ago. Scientists have pulled out thirty thousand artifacts from stone tools and weapons, but the artwork holds the clue to understanding how natives lived, hunted and survived.”

“That’s all well and good, Dr. McCauley,” Rodriguez offered. “But I’ve seen far older pictographs in my country. I came here to find dinosaurs.”

“We all did. I’m hoping the cave will let us go further and maybe deeper into the past than we otherwise would.”

He recounted the Native American legends of the thunderbirds and dinosaur-like monsters, which, as incredible as they sounded, foretold actual discoveries that wouldn’t come for centuries. “You can read about it on other cave walls across the state. So, maybe we’ll find something that gets us closer to the dinosaurs we all seek through fossils embedded in the cave walls.”

McCauley had them fired up. The team was eager to start.

“We’ll begin with first light tomorrow. Tonight, a cookout and beer.”

Cheers broke out.

• • •

Facing an early morning, the students hunkered down by 10:00
P.M.
They were all up seven hours later. Considering their SUV would not get them to the valley floor, they divvied up the equipment. What they couldn’t carry in their backpacks went into old fashioned wagons which McCauley had picked up at local thrift shops the first week.

By 6:45
A.M.
they were below the site.

“The first thing we’ll have to do is get the turkey vultures out,” he said. “Who’s good at
Angry Birds
?”

It actually took a dozen rocks to get the entrance clear. The next problem was to make sure they didn’t return. That required some of the team’s clothes and straw and twine they’d gotten from the hardware store. The result was a very comical scarecrow to be sure, dressed in a red bra, black briefs, a cowboy hat, and high-heeled shoes Leslie had no idea why she brought. To a turkey vulture that lacked a sense of humor or fashion sense, it looked threatening enough.

McCauley was first up, scaling the rock with one of the folding ladders stuffed in his backpack. Once above, he carefully secured the ladder to a rock with grappling hooks and lowered the rungs to the team below. Then he tossed down a rope. Tamburro attached the scarecrow. McCauley hauled it up.

“Okay gang, now the rest of the gear.”

The generator and five gas cans remained on the ground under a large picnic table umbrella. They plugged in the extension cords and power strips and fed them up by rope. Lights, shovels, picks, hardhats, and tarp followed.

Then it was time for the first four students. They’d drawn straws. Chohany, Tamburro, Jaffe, and Trent comprised the lead team, along with McCauley and Alpert. The students kept their backpacks relatively light as they climbed the metal links. Each carried more bottled water, walkie-talkies, first aid kits, digital cameras, painter masks, and gloves.

“Ready to see what we’ve got?”

A resounding, “Yes!”

McCauley called to Lobel below. “Fire up!” The generator began to rumble. Rodriguez checked the power, flicked the circuit breaker, and the first light turned on. Chohany acted as photographer and quickly clicked off six pictures.

Tamburro automatically shouted the way McCauley had before. He chose
echo
instead of
hello
.

“Tom and Al, start laying down the tarp. Might not need it further in, but the bird shit is awful right here. Masks and gloves, everyone.”

The plastic helped. It took some of the grossness out of the initial ten feet. But not all of it.

“Disgusting,” Chohany complained.

Fifteen feet in, the cave floor was not as bad. They stopped and tapped a hook into the rock and hung a second light.

So far, the only good part was the cooler air that flowed from deeper within. Dr. Alpert wished she’d had a thermometer to see how quickly the temperature was going down while her blood pressure was going up. This clearly wasn’t her line of work.

Seventeen

APRIL 12, 1633
PALACE OF THE HOLY OFFICE
ROME, ITALY

Galileo was now sequestered in the Dominican Convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in the Piazza Minerva, the site of the hearings. Here he was afforded far more comforts than any other prisoner in the long and brutal history of the Inquisition. Instead of serving time in a basement dungeon, he was considered a guest; a most special guest whose conviction without torture would benefit the Church more.

Chronic bad health still plagued him. Failing sight, persistent discomfort from arthritis and ongoing sciatic nerve pain continued to break his spirit. Still he hoped he could square his views of science with their theology through lithe rationalization.

Galileo had written about controversial things: the way of the world and the way he saw the solar system. Scientific fact to the learned and enlightened; sacrilegious postulates to many in the Church.

He had allies and enemies. The Collegio Romano had honored him for his astronomical discoveries. The Inquisition declared that his views violated Scripture.

Investigators dug back into twenty-year-old, self-incriminating correspondence the accused had written to University of Pisa colleagues and twisted his more recent publications into damning testimony.

Galileo Galilei’s observations of the earth, moon, planets, and the sun, his arguments about tidal motion, his
Discourse on Comets
which disputed Jesuit views, his position on sunspots printed in
The Assayer
and his
Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
were beyond the pale for Pope Urban VIII and his cardinals.

Galileo now stood before his accusers as a heretic. They were clergymen, but he saw no mercy in their eyes.

“As you face us on this first day of your testimony, Galileo Galilei, be of sound mind that you have taken a formal oath,” stated Fr. Carlo Sinceri, the Proctor Fiscal of the Holy Office. “You are compelled to tell the truth before this court of Inquisition for now and for all time.”

The court was comprised of the sternest looking men he had ever faced. Chief among them, Father Vincenzo Maculano da Firenzuola, Commissioner General—the lead prosecutor.

Galileo nodded. “I do so agree.”

“Do you wish to offer an opening statement in your defense?” Sinceri said, bearing down on the old scientist.

“I do. I view this as an enlightened opportunity to discuss my writings and stated
opinion
of the sun’s stability and the earth’s motion. It was decreed by the Holy Congregation of the Index that this opinion is repugnant to Holy Scripture and is admitted to only as supposition. I wish to discuss that.”

“And since you so freely embrace the word
opinion
, has your opinion changed with time?” Sinceri demanded.

“Yes, Your Eminence. I have been thinking continuously and directly about the interrogations that have preceded this session. Accordingly, and with true forethought, I reread my
Dialogue
, which over the last three years I had not even looked at. I wanted to check very carefully whether, against my purest intention, through my oversight, there might have fallen from my pen not only something enabling readers or superiors to infer a defect of disobedience on my part, but also other details through which one might think of me as a transgressor of the orders of the Holy Church. Being at liberty, through the generous approval of superiors, I started to read it with the greatest concentration and to examine it in the most detailed manner. Not having seen it for so long, I found it almost a new book by another author.”

Galileo’s shut his eyes in an attempt to hide his inner thoughts.

“Now I freely confess that it appeared to me in several places to be written in such a way that a reader, not aware of my intention, would have had reason to form the opinion that the arguments for the false side, which I intended to confute, were so stated as to be capable of convincing because of their strength, rather than being easy to answer.”

With that statement, Galileo admitted his guilt before Papal authority, though in a qualified manner. For the sake of the Inquisition he was repentant and humiliated. To himself, he had lied before God. Eternal punishment would come, not for his beliefs, but his recantations.

Father Maculano nodded with utmost satisfaction and excused the Church scribe.

Galileo watched the secretary leave.
Will they sentence me to death here and now?

Maculano leaned across the table, projecting his supreme authority. “A very good position to take. Skillful. I would expect nothing less from a mathematician who seeks to equal things. But now in camera, without notes taken for which we shall deny, let us discuss the past, the present and the future, of which there is likely little for you. The number of those days is yet to be decided. It is in God’s hands. But the past holds much interest for us. A most interesting past —truth be told.”

The priest stared cruelly.

Galileo recognized where this was going. He had attempted to cover his steps. Apparently he hadn’t succeeded.

Eighteen

MONTANA
PRESENT DAY

It took a moment for everyone’s eyes to adjust through the smartphone camera flashes. As they popped, shadows appeared and disappeared. Quartz, mica schist and other crystalline metamorphic rocks sparkled and shimmered, then faded. Small creatures froze mid-flight, then scurried off.

Seconds later, they understood why Quinn McCauley had been so curious about the cave. It offered pure wonder and excitement. A long tunnel into nothingness lay ahead. What could be more inviting?

“Okay, enough gawking gang. We do this carefully. Last time I read your bios, none of you were seasoned spelunkers.”

“Nor you, doc,” Cohen countered.

“Damned straight. So it’s inch by inch, one step at a time. We lay lights out every ten feet and we never go beyond the last light we put up. If you’re not comfortable, you stop and leave…with a partner. Not alone. You never go off by yourself. Understood?”

He received unanimous consent.

“Mr. Tamburro, you’re principally a geologist, correct?” McCauley asked.

“That I am.”

“Anyone else with comparable credentials?”

“I ultimately plan on going for a second degree in geology,” Chohany stated.

“Okay, you partner up with Rich. Mr. Tamburro you are hereby appointed CEO and president of all things rocky. The stability of the walls. The strength of the ground. The safety of the passage. The two of you—rope together. We’ll be holding the slack, and there will be very little. Al and Tom, they don’t call it a lifeline for nothing. Gloves on and grab the line. You hold them. Dig your feet into the ground or brace yourself.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Dr. Alpert looked worried.

“We explore a little farther. If nothing looks good, we stop. If it feels dangerous, we leave. But let’s see. Okay?”

There was nervous affirmation.

“Just in case, anyone know
Help!
in Lakota?” Tamburro asked as he tied the rope around his waist.

For the record it was
anáuŋjkičikšiŋpi
.

• • •

The first minutes were slow going. They made certain that lifelines were attached correctly and that the electrical wiring and lights were out of tripping range. Every step was measured and documented.

Twenty feet in, Tamburro held them up. “Stop!” He put his arm out, preventing Chohany from taking another step.

“What?” she didn’t see what was ahead.

Tamburro pointed down.

“Do…not…move,” he said. “Doc, we need more light here.”

“Coming.”

McCauley caught up. Alpert remained behind. Tamburro shined his flashlight into what appeared to be a hole large enough to fall through. “Tunnel stops and there’s this drop,” he said.

“Got it,” McCauley acknowledged. To everyone else he added, “Make sure you hold the line, guys. Looks like it’s a good fifteen feet. We’ll need a ladder and more lights.”

“I’ll get the stuff,” Trent said.

“Not alone. Wait. We’ll do this in an organized manner.”

Meanwhile, Chohany examined the tunnel walls short of the hole. Something caught her attention directly above the opening. “Hey Dr. McCauley, check out the chisel marks up there. Native Americans did this. But why?”

McCauley raised his flashlight to a petroglyph on the cave ceiling. It appeared to represent a meandering map with a figure of a tribesman against a deep dark tunnel. It was less crude, more illustrative than most ancient cave drawings, and for that reason intriguing. He took a series of photographs and cursed the fact that Pete DeMeo was away and couldn’t do some basic research back at school.

With a decision point ahead, McCauley ordered everyone out. They’d break for lunch, take stock of their supplies, then explore further if possible, switching out Trent and Jaffe for Rodriguez and Cohen.