Chapter 6
Charlie
With one eye searching for the brown snake, I sprinted across the pit, each step sending up clouds of dust and ancient bones. Where the hell had it gone? Was it still behind me? Watching me?
Don't look back. Don't look back.
I launched for the ladder, grabbed the first rung and the ladder rocked under my weight as I climbed, breathing in ragged gasps.
Where did it go?
Was it following me?
I didn't stop to check.
Sediment rained from above as the ladder ropes scraped the wall, knocking loose chunks of dirt from the edge. The whole pit seemed to sway, the same way it had when it had collapsed earlier. My legs burned. My lungs begged for air.
Almost there. Almost.
A shadow loomed over me.
"Now that's a view worth getting hot and sweaty for," Doug said, voice slick as oil. "Need a hand, sweetheart?"
Shit! He must have heard me scream.
I looked up the pit wall, squinting against the glare. Doug stood at the rim, silhouetted by the sun.
"Wow, Charlie. This is a hell of a find. We weren't expecting this."
We? I couldn't read his face, but the greedy excitement in his voice gave him away. "No. We weren't." I couldn't keep the sarcasm from my voice.
With my heart thundering in my ears, I hauled myself over the edge and collapsed onto the dirt beside his boots.
He wore his usual khaki field shirt with his sleeves rolled and chest unbuttoned, as if he fancied himself as some rugged Indiana Jones knockoff.
Except he was all show and no class at all.
He smirked. "You get spooked by all those bones?"
I glared up at him. "There's a snake in the pit."
Doug's eyes lit up. "What kind?"
"A king brown." Pushing to my feet, I dusted my dirty hands onto my shorts. "It's massive. The bloody thing dropped into the pit right next to me."
He peered into the pit. "Well, well. Look at all those bones we found. We need to get down there and check these specimens out."
We found. Clenching my jaw, I resisted arguing the point. "I don't know where the snake went, but we have to wait until it's gone."
He gave me that infuriating grin. "Relax. It's probably more scared of you than you are of it."
I clenched my fists. "You think this is funny?"
He raised his hands. "Don't stress. I'll get my gun."
"What?" I blinked. "You have a gun?"
"Of course, I do."
"Doug. We're in Australia, this isn't Texas. You can't just carry around a gun."
"I've got a permit." He waved me off as if I were being dramatic.
"You think I'd come all the way out here with no protection?
We've got snakes, dingoes, and worse, poachers.
The minute word gets out that we found these amazing fossils, some bastard's gonna try to haul them out from under our noses. " He winked at me. "Back in a sec."
He strode toward the converted bus site office, moving faster than I'd seen him walk since we had arrived.
I paced the rim of the pit, scanning the bones below for the snake and my heart rattled against my ribs.
I'd never feared snakes until a fellow student got bitten by a red-bellied black snake at my last dig.
Lucas had been in his prime, all muscle and cardio-fit, but within ten minutes of that snake bite, he'd been struggling to breathe.
He'd only survived because a supply chopper had just happened to land at that moment.
They'd had to resuscitate him twice in the air.
He'd gotten lucky.
I wasn't interested in testing my luck with a king brown, which was just as deadly as a red-belly black, but much harder to see.
A few bones shifted near the bottom of the pit.
I squinted at the spot, and the snake slithered between the scattered remnants of an ancient ribcage as if it knew exactly where it was going. It glided past two dinosaur skulls, then paused, flicking its tongue like it could taste my fear.
My stomach twisted.
Doug reappeared at my side with a rifle in his hands.
"Jesus, Doug, that's not a handgun!"
"I never said handgun."
"Who do you think you are? Indiana Jones?"
He winked. "Exactly. Glad you noticed." He gave the rifle a casual swing. "Standard .22. Perfect for scaring off threats."
"Are you seriously going to scare the snake out of the pit?" I clenched my fists. My jaw. My everything.
He peered into the pit. "No. I'm gonna kill it." He lifted the rifle. "Shit! There it is."
"Doug! Wait!" I lunged toward him, shoving his arm just as the gun boomed.
The thundering shot echoed, and a puff of red dust exploded near the ancient ribcage, missing the snake.
He fired again, and the second shot punched straight through the lower wall on the far side of the pit closest to the ravine. A small section of dirt collapsed, spilling into the base of the pit.
"What the hell are you doing? You're going to bring the whole damn side down!" I shouted.
He fired three more times. Two tore through the wall again, and the other shattered a massive hip bone.
"Doug! You bloody maniac." I punched his bicep. "You're destroying the fossils!"
"Relax, sweetheart. I got it." Doug lowered the rifle and grinned. "Check it out. That snake's stalking days are over." He peered into the pit, admiring his kill shot.
My stomach churned. As much as that snake terrified me, I hadn't wanted it dead.
And I sure as shit didn't need Doug thinking he was a hero.
I glared at him. "You just destroyed a prehistoric pelvic girdle, you idiot.
Now I can't analyze how that dinosaur walked. Do you have any idea what you've done?"
"I got the snake, though." He smirked.
I released a breath through gritted teeth and stormed around to the far side of the pit, needing space.
Thanks to Doug's idiotic gunfire, the fragile wall between my fossil pit and the sheer drop into the ravine now had three bullet holes in it.
Just get back to work, Charlie. Don't look at the dead snake.
Returning to the ladder, I climbed down, keeping my gaze on the rungs, refusing to look toward the snake's bloody body. But I couldn't block out that faint metallic tang mixing with the musty scent of dirt and fossils.
At the bottom, I skirted the blood-splattered section and focused on the larger skull with the jagged teeth that I'd been admiring earlier. I needed to calm my heart, refocus, and breathe. This discovery was mine.
Behind me, the ladder creaked. I turned as Doug appeared at the rim, rifle slung casually over one shoulder like a damn action hero reject. He climbed onto the ladder and descended a few rungs, stopping just above the embedded skull. I watched his face for any trace of awe.
Doug whistled. "I reckon this is a baby Australovenator."
"That was my working theory." It was a guess. But it was going to be mine to confirm, not his.
"This alone is going to make my funding partners very happy." He didn't even try to hide the gloating in his voice.
I clenched my jaw. Of course, he'd make this about money and his precious network of buddies. Doug had published landmark papers, led dozens of international digs, and built a reputation as one of the most respected dinosaur experts in Australia. He had tenure, institutional backing, and decades of connections to fall back on. He didn’t need to do any digging work.
So while he kicked back in air-conditioned comfort in the bus, I was the crazy woman in the blazing heat, swatting away flies and doing the actual digging.
Doug descended the rest of the way and stepped onto the pit floor, his boots crunching over fossils. He turned in a slow circle, taking in the wall-to-wall scatter of bones. "Holy hell," he muttered. "Do you know what this is?"
"A pitfall trap." I crossed my arms. "Similar to Naracoorte, but mine is more complete."
He nodded as if he'd been the one to figure it out. "Correct. Well done. Only our pit is far more accessible than Naracoorte, making excavation easier and less costly."
Doug crouched beside a massive skull, and his khakis pulled tight at his knees.
A shadow swept across the pit floor. I looked up.
Those clouds were rolling in fast and black.
We needed tarps over these bones now, but when Doug grabbed a brush from my kit without asking, I squatted, too.
No way was I leaving him alone with my find.
The earthy scent of sunbaked sediment mingled with the artificial bite of his cheap deodorant.
He swept debris from a rib bone bigger than my whole leg. "This is incredible."
"I know." My voice came out tight. "When I uncovered that Australovenator skull, I thought I was—"
"We need to catalog everything," Doug cut in, scanning the pit. "See how deep these layers go." He turned toward me, smiling as if he'd just scored the final goal in a game he barely played, and placed his hand on my shoulder. "I knew this site would be a winner."
I stiffened. "Really? You never told me you believed this site would be a success." I shrugged off his touch.
"Of course, I did. Back in Brisbane. I fought to get this dig off the ground for us."
I bit my tongue, resisting the urge to say you fought for the credit, not for me.
After years of lectures, late-night research, and a string of failed field trips that had given me nothing but sunburn, blisters and more debt, I'd wanted this. Needed it. And now he was going to take it from me just like Marcus Webb had.
"We make a great team, Charlie." He flashed his signature grin.
White teeth, fake confidence, cologne-commercial charm I used to find attractive.
Before the late-night "mentoring" sessions.
Before the too-long shoulder squeezes and lingering eye contact.
Before I realized his help came with strings and expectations I had no intention of tying myself to.
Doug wasn't stupid. Arrogant? Yes. Entitled? Absolutely. Predatory? Without question. But not stupid. He knew exactly how far to lean over the line without tipping.
He stood and brushed the red dust from his hands like he'd actually done some digging. I rose, too, and forced my expression to be neutral before I said exactly what I was burning to say.
"I'll grab my kit." He ran his hand through his perfectly styled salt-and-pepper hair in a move straight out of a goddamn shampoo commercial.
"Doug, we need to protect this site from the rain." I pointed at the black clouds that were getting darker by the second.
"These bones aren't going anywhere. I want to catalog the bone dispersion, see how deep these layers go. I think our discovery might eclipse South Australia's."
Our discovery?
"You mean my discovery," I blurted before I could censor myself.
He blinked. "Pardon?"
I gestured to the scatter of bones around us. "This is my find."
He laughed, a patronizing, you'll-learn-someday kind of laugh that made my skin crawl. "Come on, Charlie. We're a team. Without me and the funding I secured, we wouldn't be here."
My jaw ached from clenching.
"Yes, I understand that," I said, keeping the anger out of my voice by sheer force of will. "But I chose this site. You haven't even gotten your kit bag out or dug a single layer since we got here. I uncovered these specimens. At least give me credit for that."
He tilted his head, smile turning smug. "Out here, it's not about who finds the first bone. It's about how we combine our resources to uncover specimens as good as these."
"Doug." I planted my hands on my hips to steady the tremble. "You've spent the last six days in the air-conditioned site office, napping, emailing, and doing God knows what. Why can't you just acknowledge that I discovered this?"
He chuckled and patted my shoulder again. "You've got passion, I'll give you that. But you still have a lot to learn."
He turned and headed for the ladder. "I'll be back in a minute. Start brushing that skull over there," he added, pointing as if this was his classroom. "When I return, I want to see if you can identify the species." He climbed out of the pit.
My heart pounded, my teeth ached from clenching, and my fists were so tight my short fingernails dug into my flesh. I felt as if I'd just been robbed in broad daylight. Every part of me burned with anger and adrenaline. This was my discovery. Not his. Or the university's. Not anyone's. Mine.
I wanted my name in the history books. Not tucked into a footnote as "research assistant" or "junior member of the team."
Just my name.
But if Doug kept this up, I'd be lucky to get a mention at all.
Overhead, thunder cracked across the sky, and the sound echoed down the pit walls like a warning.
Shit! That storm was definitely coming this way. I exhaled the fury raging inside me. I needed to calm down and get to work.
Lightning forked across the sky, and thunder boomed again less than five seconds later. Damn. The storm was less than a mile away. And it was moving fast.
I needed to get as many of these fossils photographed as I could before the downpour repositioned these bones.
Raising the camera, I snapped photo after photo, shifting around the perimeter of the pit, working methodically despite the rising wind and the sizzle in the air.
Dodging around the snake carcass, I avoided the blood splatter.
I still couldn't believe he'd done that.
Though at least I didn't have to worry about getting bitten.
I kept clicking, documenting everything. Each rib arc, each vertebra, each exposed claw. Because if the storm hit hard enough, these photos might be the only proof of what this pit had looked like when I'd found it.
Doug climbed back into the pit and stepped between two femurs longer than my body, dropping his kit bag onto the floor as if he already owned my discovery.
A fat raindrop splattered across a backbone the size of my fist. Then another. "Shit. That storm's moving fast."
Doug's eyes flicked from the bones to the sky, then to me. "Worried about getting your hair wet?"
"No." I glared at him. "I'm worried about these fossils. We need to cover them, Doug."
"They've been here for thousands of years, sweetheart. They're not going to wash away."
Sweetheart! I clenched my jaw. What an asshole.
I didn't mind working in the rain. I actually preferred it over the blistering heat.
But what worried me more than anything was the integrity of this pit.
It was my fault that the pit was exposed in the first place.
But after Doug's idiotic gunfire had blown gaping holes straight through the wall that faced the ravine, the whole thing was even more unstable.
I tilted my head to the sky. Menacing clouds churned above me in greenish-gray swirls that folded in on themselves, getting ready to explode.
One hard burst of torrential rain, and we could be in real trouble.