There was only one thing to do. He would have to wear his regular glasses with the snap-on shades. Adam hated the way he looked in the thick glasses — like an owlish nerd a couple of pounds short of a bushel — but he’d never get to his destination at this rate. He needed a rest, a drink of water, and a peek at the map. There was a gully just ahead and a large culvert under the road. The end of the culvert was pretty depressing — littered with plastic bags, Styrofoam cups, and candy wrappers — but it was sheltered from the sun and wind and was quiet except when a vehicle thundered overhead.
Adam crawled in, took his lenses out, squirted lukewarm water into his parched mouth, put on his glasses, then lay back in the dust with his head on his pack and studied the map. He had just passed Monarch, which meant he still had another seventeen kilometres to go until he reached Lethbridge, then another thirty to Raymond, twenty-eight to Warner, and he would be practically there. Adam had cycled ninety-seven kilometres since seven o’clock that morning. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, and he still had seventy-five to go!
How could he have been such an idiot, wasting his time and energy like this? It was crazier than imagining he could get up onstage and be a rock star. The people in charge at the dig probably wouldn’t even give him the time of day, never mind an invitation into their private world.
Still, he had come this far. “Best foot forward,” he muttered with a groan.
All he could glimpse through the round porthole end of the culvert was sorry-looking pastureland with a lot of eroded patches and hills and gullies. Here and there in the sparse grasslands prickly pear and wild honeysuckle grew. The desert scent of sagebrush permeated the wind. The countryside he was in was the perfect habitat for rattlesnakes, black widow spiders, and scorpions. He shivered and checked himself for anything that crawled. Then he stood, tucked his paraphernalia into his pack, lifted his bicycle, and climbed back to the road.
It was 6:20 p.m. when Adam got stiffly off his bike in Warner to ask directions of a man who was getting out of the cab of a tractor-trailer truck parked beside a café.
“Twenty-eight kilometres to the turnoff — dirt road going across a field,” the truck driver said. “Big farm owned by Hutterites. Black Angus cattle — a granary in the distance.”
Adam used the café pay phone to call home collect and told his mother he was there, or at least pretty close. By 7:23 he could see the cattle, the granary, the dirt road, a newish barbed-wire fence, and a chain-link gate. Closed. Padlocked.
He wheeled his bike into the ditch and dropped it. Sitting on the low bank, he flopped back onto the grass and stared at the sky. So was this it — locked out without a single human being in sight? What now? He couldn’t stand the thought of getting on that lousy bike and heading home. His stomach was tied in knots and his head felt as if it were stuffed with old socks.
Singing? Was that singing he could hear? Adam jumped to his feet and held his breath. There it was again! He could see the singer now, straightening up from a crouched position on the other side of the fence and examining something in her hand.
“Hey, there!” he called. “Wait a second, will you?”
She turned and stared at him. “Who are you?” She walked toward the gate. Her dark hair, falling loose from one big braid at the back of her head, was silver-grey with dust and her cheeks and nostrils and the corners of her mouth were streaked black. She wore dark-rimmed glasses and carried a white canvas bag with a drawstring and the words ALBERTA GOVERNMENT printed on the side.
Adam realized he was gawking. He glanced away, then back at her. “I’m Adam. Pleased to meet you, um, what did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t say, and what are you doing here? This is a high-security area. Are you with the press or TV, because if you are, you might as well bug off. Nobody’s allowed past that gate without credentials.” She slipped her wrist through the drawstring of her bag, put her fists on her hips, and studied him intently.
Adam figured she was probably no more impressed with his appearance than he was with hers. His only hope was persuasion. “I’m not with anybody, unless you count mosquitoes and horseflies. I’ve been on my bike for —” he shrugged “— it seems like a couple of hundred years. All I want to do is see the dinosaur nests. Just see them, that’s all. I’ve got a letter of reference from Dr. James Lawson. He works at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller.”
“My, I’m impressed!” the girl said with a playful smile. “You’re still not going to get in.”
“Darn!” he muttered gloomily. “Oh, well, I guess this trip’s not a total waste. Maybe I’ll go home and write a travel article — ‘Roadside Ditches Between Calgary and the Milk River Ridge: Explore the Fascinating Habits of the Litterbug.’”
“Complete with a ‘Not to be Missed List,’ I suppose? Things like pepperoni pizza crusts, watermelon rinds, plastic baby bottle liners ...” She smiled again. Her teeth were very white framed in that grimy face.
“You got it! I could draw all that. That’s why I want into the dig, so I can draw it.”
“You draw? With a pencil or something?” She raised one hand and made drawing motions in the air with her thumb and forefinger.
He nodded.
“What kind of stuff do you draw usually?”
“Dinosaurs.” He kicked at the ground. “But I guess it was a crazy dream to think I might get to see the nests and make some sketches.” He shook his head angrily. “I’ll just get going then ...” He stared dejectedly at a meadowlark singing its flutelike tune from a fencepost. Dumb bird! Wasting its energy trying to sound cheerful in the dust-bowl capital of the world.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “Let’s see the letter.”
He shoved it through the gate, and she read it quickly.
“How do I know this is for real? Where’s your art stuff ?”
“In my pack. I’ll get it. Don’t go away.” Maybe there was some hope, after all. If only she liked his sketches ...
“Don’t rush,” she said. “It’s too hot.” She swung the canvas bag back and forth slowly.
Adam unzipped a clear plastic case, pulled out his pad, and held it up so she could see as he turned the pages, holding them gingerly at the corners.
“Yeah,” the girl said with a nod. “You do draw. Watch out, though! Don’t get them dirty.”
Adam slipped the pad back into the case, then flipped up his sunglass shades and peered through his thick lenses without even thinking about looking like a nerd. The girl wore heavy grey knit socks, hiking boots, denim shorts, and a long-sleeved khaki shirt. Around her waist was a belt with various weird tools attached to it. She jingled and clattered as she moved, and puffs of dust seemed to surround her like Pigpen in the Peanuts comic strip.
At the same time she was quite obviously sizing him up, and Adam wondered what she was thinking. She wouldn’t call him handsome or a “hunk” — that was for sure. He wasn’t very tall, 1.7 metres, to be precise, and he was heavy-set. His legs and arms were muscular, his face was round, and he had thick blond eyebrows that grew right across the bridge of his nose. His eyes were hazel. He liked his hair. It shone reddish-blond in the sunlight, had a slight natural curl, and was very thick and coarse, so he always felt a little taller when it was freshly shampooed.
Oh, and the freckles! His arms, legs, and face swarmed with freckles that hatched in the sunshine like mosquito larvae.
The girl was staring at the ground, obviously thinking hard. “Maybe I could get you in. Just for a day or so,” she said, the frown of concentration on her forehead accentuated by streaks of dust.
“You think so?” A burst of energy flooded Adam.