‘Someone’s coming,’ she said.
‘Joe,’ said Dad. ‘We’re lucky to have had this long.’
He went on working. A few minutes later the truck appeared, nosing its way through the hummocks and scrub below the outcrop. It stopped and several people climbed out. Dr Hamiska pointed and gave instructions and then the others started to unload while he came striding up the slope with Dr Wessler trailing behind him.
Dad had stopped work to watch him come.
‘By the way,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t show anyone your sketch for the moment, and don’t say anything about those marks on the scapula. I’m not trying to hide anything, but I can do without a lot of crazy unsubstantiated theorizing till we’ve got a bit more to go on.’
As soon as he was in earshot Dr Hamiska stopped and flung up an arm as if he was posing for a war memorial.
‘I can call spirits from the vasty deep,’ he cried.
‘I’ll settle for a cold lager,’ said Dad.
Dr Hamiska loosed his great laugh, strode on and peered in under the awning.
‘Terrific, Sam,’ he said. ‘You must have been sweating your guts out. Found anything new?’
‘Nothing much. Some shell-fragments. That lizard there. I’m getting on fairly fast now I’ve got the spoil cleared. The layer above the tuff seems to be only about twenty centimetres deep.’
‘The land was rising. The lake would have dried out.’
‘Possibly. What was that about spirits?’
‘I put a call through to Craig. I wanted Amanda to know her trip out here wouldn’t be wasted.’
Dr Hamiska glanced at Dad to see how he’d take it. Dad stiffened.
‘You told Amanda what we’d found,’ he said flatly.
‘Naturally. She has a right to know.’
‘You want the world’s press flooding out here?’
‘Who said anything about the world’s press?’
‘Amanda will have been on to the agencies within ten minutes of getting your call.’
‘Oh, Sam, Sam. You suppose I didn’t tell her not to spoil Craig’s big day with a premature announcement? I’m not telling the media anything till I’ve got a whole skeleton to show them.’
‘Supposing it’s there.’
‘Of course it’s there. But meanwhile I’ve got to strengthen Amanda’s hand so that she’s in a position to fight her corner for funds inside Craig. And that’s just what I’ve done. She called me back. She’s still coming Thursday, of course, but now she’s bringing John Wishart with her!’
Dad looked at him and sighed, as if it was the worst news he’d heard for months. Dr Hamiska responded with another bellow of laughter. Baffled, Vinny looked at Dr Wessler, who was standing beside her, smiling thin-lipped, like a spectator enjoying a sour sort of comedy.
‘Dynamic Dr Amanda Hutt,’ he said, ‘is the recently appointed head of the palaeontology department at Craig Museum. John Jedediah Wishart Junior is the Museum Director, the big cheese.’
‘The absolute Gorgonzola,’ cried Dr Hamiska. ‘So you see, Vinny, it’s up to you now. You must work your magic for us again.’
Not wanting to make things worse for Dad, Vinny managed to smile.
‘I’ll do my best,’ she said.
‘Of course you will. I’m relying on you. What shall we have? A tibia, do you think, Fred?’
‘How about an artefact?’ said Dr Wessler, joining in the tease of Dad.
‘Oh, yes! Vinny, would you please see that in addition to a further selection of hominid bones your father unearths a primitive but unarguable example of a stone tool.’
THEN
IT WAS LIKE living in a dream, alone at the water-caves, just the six of them and the baby, no clamour, no quarrels, no scurry, no press of bodies to lie down among at night, no song to wake to in the morning. The rhythms of their normal life were so strong in them that as the moon reached full they woke at midnight and all except Presh went down into the high tide to hunt for shrimps, though there were none here. They returned and huddled in the cave, mourning their loneliness and the emptiness of stomachs used to being crammed at this hour.
They’d piled a bed of seaweed for Presh near the mouth of the cave, where the rising sun struck in to warm him as the day began but climbed out of sight before its heat grew too much to bear. Most days Li would untie the bundle round his leg and she and the other females would inspect the swollen limb, and stroke it for a while, and then Li would fasten the bundle again. As she became more skilled she was able to reduce the padding. The swelling subsided, and soon Presh could hunker himself about without much pain, and lie in the water during the heat of the day. Till then the females brought water in their cupped webbed hands to wet him, as they’d have done with a sick baby.
It was always poor foraging in the bay, and worse so soon after the tribe had passed through, so they foraged in turn along the outer shore. Hooa, bewildered by the change, was inseparable from Ma-ma, and Rawi usually went with them, so Li foraged with Goor. At first Goor had been almost as bewildered as Hooa, but realizing that he was the only healthy male in the party had given him confidence, especially when he was away from Presh’s commanding presence. Unlike some males he was generous in sharing the food he found, and not too old, after feeding, for catch-as-catch-can and diving games along the rocks.
Li was poised twenty feet above clear water when she saw the dolphins. She hadn’t expected them here. In her mind they belonged with the other bay, but now five of them were coming towards her in formation, surging out of the water with arched backs and then plunging under. She dived, crying Follow to Goor as she fell, and raced to meet them.
Before she’d dived she had seen the spattered surface in front of them, where the shoal they were hunting broke through in panic flight. By the time she was nearing them Goor had caught her up, and the shoal must have seen the two bodies in the water as two more hunters ahead. It swung aside, now heading directly for the bay. Where the rock spit loomed it might have turned again, but the leading fish saw the single channel of clear water ahead and took it, and the rest of the shoal, bound into formation by instinct, swirled through behind them.
The dolphins were unable to follow, but Li and Goor, racing along behind them and now wild with the thrill of the hunt, splashed across the bar and harried the shoal around the bay, yelling Come-help to the others. Goor actually managed to grab a fish and fling it out on to the rocks, and Rawi caught another, but the rest of them had no luck and simply rushed and yelled and splashed, keeping the fish in a state of panic until the leaders found the entrance of the bay and headed through.
The dolphins were waiting for them. Deliberately, as if they were used to this way of hunting, they raced past the shoal, turned it and headed it back towards the bay. Li and the others, gasping at the entrance, saw the catspaw ruffle in the water racing towards them and waited ready. As the shoal rushed through, packed by the narrows into an almost solid mass, they were able to snatch fish after fish and fling them over their shoulders to flounder on the rocks. Then they plunged into the bay, and knowing now what they were doing harried their prey around along the shore and out again into the open sea where the dolphins waited.
Twice more the cycle was repeated before the remains of the shoal escaped, scurrying along below the southern crags. As Li stood panting on the rock spit, two of the dolphins came cruising through the clear water beside her. All around her lay dead and dying fish. She picked a couple up and flung them out, and the dolphins rose and took them just as they hit the surface. Almost at once the other dolphins arrived and hung below her, waiting expectantly. Ma-ma, Hooa and Rawi were already harvesting the fish on the other side of the entrance. Goor was carrying one up for Presh. The ones this side, Li felt, were rightly the dolphins’ share.