The men in the Grand Central Hotel that night had bathed, and were wearing the cleanest clothes they owned; Johnson recorded in his journal that “it was amusing, to see these hard men preen and puff up their chests while they tried to eat their soup without slurping.”
But there was a good deal of tension in the room as well, which was increased when Black Dick went over to Miss Emily’s table (the object of all eyes was dining alone) and introduced himself. He offered to escort her around the town that evening; with admirable poise she thanked him but said she would be retiring early. He offered to assist her in finding her brother; she thanked him but said that she had already had many offers of assistance.
Dick was being watched by all the others, and knew it. He sweated; his face turned red and he glowered.
“Seems I can’t be of help to you, then, is that it?”
“I appreciate your courteous offer, I surely do,” she said softly.
Dick appeared somewhat mollified as he stomped back to his table and huddled, commiserating, with his brothers.
And there the matter might have rested, had not Miss Emily turned to Johnson, and said in her sweetest voice, “Oh, are you the young photographer I have heard so much about?”
Johnson said he was.
“I should appreciate seeing your gallery of pictures,” she said. “Perhaps my brother is among them.”
“I will be happy to show them to you in the morning,” Johnson answered, and she responded with a graceful smile.
Black Dick looked fit to kill—Johnson, in particular.
“There is no greater pleasure than to win what everyone desires,” Johnson noted in his pages; he went to bed a happy man. He had become accustomed to sleeping in the room next to the stacked crates, accustomed not only to the fine powder that fell from them and dusted the floor, but also to the tomb-like darkness of the room itself and a strange sense of intimacy to be sleeping with the bones of the great creatures themselves. And of course the immense teeth, the teeth of actual dragons that once walked the earth. He found their presence oddly comforting.
And tomorrow would bring his appointment with Emily.
But his happiness was short-lived. Emily was disappointed by his pictures, not finding her dear brother among them.
“Perhaps you could look again,” he suggested. She had gone through them very quickly.
“No, no, I know he is not to be found in these.” She prowled his shop restlessly, looking around. “Have you shown me all you have?”
“All I have taken in Deadwood, yes.”
She pointed to a corner shelf. “You haven’t shown me those.”
“Those are from my time in the badlands. Your brother is not among those plates, I assure you.”
“But I am interested to see. Bring them here, and come sit beside me, and tell me about the badlands.”
She was so charming he could not possibly refuse her. He brought down the plates and showed her his pictures, which seemed now to belong to another lifetime.
“Who is this man with the tiny pick?”
“That’s Professor Cope, with his geological hammer.”
“And that beside him?”
“That’s a skull of a saber-tooth tiger.”
“And this man?”
“That’s Cookie. Our teamster and cook.”
“And this? Is he standing with an Indian?”
“That’s Charlie Sternberg and Little Wind. He was a Snake scout. He died.”
“Oh dear. And this is the badlands? It looks like the desert.”
“Yes, you can see how eroded it is.”
“How long did you spend there?”
“Six weeks.”
“And why would you go to such a place?”
“Well, where there is erosion, the bones stick out and are easier to uncover.”
“You went there for bones?”
“Yes, of course.”
“How very odd,” she said. “Did bones pay you a lot?”
“No, I paid my own way.”
“You paid your own way?” She pointed to the desolate picture. “To go there?”
“It’s a long story,” he said. “You see, I made a bet at Yale and then I had to go.”
But he could tell she was not listening anymore. She thumbed through the glass plates, holding each to the light, glancing quickly, going on to the next.
“What do you hope to find?” he asked, watching her.
“It is all so strange to me,” she said. “I was merely curious about you. Here, put them back.”
As he replaced them on the shelf, she said, “And did you find bones?”
“Oh yes, lots of them.”
“Where are they now?”
“Half were taken down the Missouri River by steamer. I have the other half.”
“You have them? Where?”
“In the hotel.”
“Can I see these bones?”
Something about her manner made him suspicious. “Why would you want to do that?”
“I am just curious to see them, now that you have mentioned them.”
“Everyone in the town is curious to see them.”
“Of course, if it is too much trouble—”
“Oh no,” Johnson said. “It’s no trouble.”
In his room, he opened one crate for her to see. Some gritty dirt fell to the floor.
“That’s just old rocks!” she said, peering at the pieces of black shale.
“No, no, this is a fossil. Look here,” he said, and he traced the shape of a dinosaur leg. It was a perfect specimen.
“But I thought you had found old bones, not rock.”
“Fossil bones are rock.”
“There’s no need to snip.”
“I’m sorry, Emily. But you see, these things have no value at all in Deadwood. They are bones which have lain in the earth for millions of years and which belonged to creatures long gone. This bone is from the leg of an animal with a horn on its nose, like a rhinoceros, but much larger.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“That seems wonderful, Bill,” she said, having decided to call him by that name. Her gentle enthusiasm touched him. She was the first sympathetic person he had come across in a long time.
“I know,” he said, “but no one believes me. The more I explain them, the more they disbelieve. And eventually they will break in and smash them all, if I don’t get out of Deadwood first.”
And despite himself, tears rolled down one cheek, and he turned away, so that she would not see him cry.
“Why, Bill, what’s the matter?” she said, sitting down close to him on the bed.
“It’s nothing,” he said, wiping his face and turning back. “It is just that—I never asked for this job, I just came west and now I am stuck with these bones and they are my responsibility, and I want to keep them safe so the professor can study them, and people never believe me.”
“I believe you,” she said.
“Then you are the only one in Deadwood who does.”
“Shall I tell you a secret of my own?” she said. “I am not really an orphan.”
He paused, waiting.
“I am from Whitewood, where I have lived since the summer.”
He still said nothing.
She bit her lip. “Dick put me up to it.”
“Put you up to what?” he asked, wondering how she knew Dick.
“He thought you would confide in a lady, and tell me what the crates really contained.”
“So you said you would ask me?” he said, feeling hurt.