Marlin sighed in his patronizing way. “I have a thousand dollars that says you will not go.”
Marlin had been losing the attention of the table, but he got it back with that one. A thousand dollars was a great deal of money in 1876, even from one rich boy to another.
“A thousand dollars says you won’t go west with Marsh this summer,” Marlin repeated.
“You, sir, have made a wager,” I replied. And in that moment I realized that, through no fault of my own, I would now spend the entire summer in some ghastly hot desert in the company of a known lunatic, digging up old bones.
Marsh
Professor Marsh kept offices in the Peabody Museum on the Yale campus. A heavy green door with large white lettering read Prof. O. C. Marsh. Visitors by written appointment only.
Johnson knocked. There was no reply, so he knocked again.
“Go away.”
Johnson knocked a third time.
A small panel opened in the center of the door, and an eye squinted out. “What is it?”
“I want to see Professor Marsh.”
“But does he want to see you?” demanded the eye. “I doubt it.”
“I am replying to his notice.” Johnson held up the newspaper advertisement from the week before.
“Sorry. Too late. Positions all filled.” The door panel snapped shut.
Johnson was not accustomed to being denied anything, particularly a silly trip he did not want in the first place. Angrily, he kicked the door. He stared at the buggy traffic on Whitney Avenue. But with his pride, and a thousand dollars, hanging in the balance, he got control of himself, and knocked politely once more. “I’m sorry, Professor Marsh, but I really must go west with you.”
“Young man, the only place you must go is away. Go away.”
“Please, Professor Marsh. Please let me join your expedition.” The thought of his humiliation before Marlin was awful to Johnson. His voice choked; his eyes watered. “Please hear me out, sir. I’ll do whatever you say, I’ll even provide my own equipment.”
The panel snapped open again. “Young man, everyone provides their own equipment, and everyone does whatever I say, except you. You are presenting an unmanly spectacle.” The eye peered out. “Now go away.”
“Please, sir, you have to take me.”
“If you wanted to come you should have answered the advertisement last week. Everyone else did. We had thirty candidates to choose from last week. Now we have selected everyone except— You’re not, by any chance, a photographer?”
Johnson saw his chance and leapt at it. “A photographer? Yes, sir, I am! I am indeed.”
“Well! You should have said so at once. Come in.” The door swung open wide, and Johnson had his first full look at the heavy, powerful, solemn figure of Othniel C. Marsh, Yale’s first professor of paleontology. Of medium height, he appeared to enjoy a fleshy, robust health.
Marsh led him back into the interior of the museum. The air was chalky and shafts of sunlight pierced it like a cathedral. In a vast cavernous space, Johnson saw men in white lab coats bent over great slabs of rock, chipping bones free with small chisels. They worked carefully, he saw, and used small brushes to clean their work. In the far corner, a gigantic skeleton was being assembled, the framework of bones rising to the ceiling.
“Giganthopus marshiensis, my crowning achievement,” Marsh said, nodding toward the looming beast of bones. “To date, that is. Discovered her in ’74, in the Wyoming Territory. I always think of her as her. What is your name?”
“William Johnson, sir.”
“What does your father do?”
“My father is in shipping, sir.” Chalky dust hung in the air; Johnson coughed.
Marsh looked suspicious. “Are you unwell, Johnson?”
“No, sir, perfectly well.”
“I cannot abide sickness around me.”
“My health is excellent, sir.”
Marsh appeared unconvinced. “How old are you, Johnson?”
“Eighteen, sir.”
“And how long have you been a photographer?”
“A photographer? Oh, uh—from my youth, sir. My, uh—my father took pictures and I learned from him, sir.”
“You have your own equipment?”
“Yes—uh, no, sir—but I can obtain it. From my father, sir.”
“You are nervous, Johnson. Why is that?”
“I’m just eager to go with you, sir.”
“Are you.” Marsh stared at him, as if Johnson were a curious anatomical specimen himself.
Uneasy under that stare, Johnson attempted a compliment. “I’ve heard so many exciting things about you, sir.”
“Indeed? What have you heard?”
Johnson hesitated. In truth, he had heard only that Marsh was an obsessive, driven man who owed his college position to his monomaniacal interest in fossil bones, and to his uncle, the famous philanthropist George Peabody, who had provided the funding for the Peabody Museum, for Marsh’s professorship, and for Marsh’s annual field trips to the West.
“Only that students have found it a privilege and an adventure to accompany you, sir.”
Marsh was silent for a moment. Finally, he said, “I dislike compliments and idle flattery. I don’t like to be called ‘sir.’ You may refer to me as ‘Professor.’ As for privilege and adventure, I offer damned hard work and plenty of it. But I’ll say this: all my students have come back alive and well. Now then—why do you want to go so much?”
“Personal reasons, si— Professor.”
“All reasons are personal reasons, Johnson. I’m asking yours.”
“Well, Professor, I am interested in the study of fossils.”
“You are interested? You say you are interested? Young man, these fossils”—his hand swept wide, gesturing to the room—“these fossils do not invite interest. They invite passionate commitment, they invite religious fervor and scientific speculation, they invite heated discourse and argument, but they do not thrive on mere interest. No, no. I am sorry. No, no, indeed.”
Johnson feared he had lost his opportunity with his chance remark, but in another swift change, Marsh smiled and said, “Never mind, I need a photographer and you are welcome to come.” He extended his hand, and Johnson shook it. “Where are you from, Johnson?”
“Philadelphia.”
The name had an extraordinary effect on Marsh. He dropped Johnson’s hand, and took a step back. “Philadelphia! You—you—you are from Philadelphia?”
“Yes, sir, is there something wrong with Philadelphia?”
“Don’t call me ‘sir’! And your father is in shipping?”
“Yes, he is.”
Marsh’s face turned purple; his body shook with rage. “And I suppose you are a Quaker, too? Hmmm? A Quaker from Philadelphia?”
“No, Methodist, actually.”
“Isn’t that very close to Quaker?”
“I don’t think so.”
“But you live in the same city that he does.”
“That who does?”
Marsh fell silent, frowning, staring at the floor, and then he made another of his abrupt turns, shifting his bulk. For a large man he was surprisingly agile and athletic.