A Bone to Pick (7 page)

Fog was rolling in from off the water, and the damp air nipped at my ears and seeped inside my sweater. Not far offshore floated an iceberg as big as a ship. I watched it silently pass by.

“Ya should've been here a month ago. There were almost as many icebergs as fishin' ships.”

I leaped off the log and spun around to find the girl I'd met in the Viking sod house. Only now she was dressed like a normal kid.

“That one there's about half the size of the one that sank the
Titanic
.”

“What?” I blurted.

“You've heard of the
Titanic
, right? Sank about six hundred kilometres off Newfoundland's shore in 1912. The berg that sank her was half the size of the one you're gawkin' at.”

“Oh.” I slumped down on the log again.

“Remember me?” she asked.

“Runa, right?” I said. I wasn't much in the mood for talking at that moment and hoped she'd act like an iceberg and float away.

“That's just my work name when I'm playin' the part of a Viking kid. My real name's Louise. So what'er ya doin'?” she pried.

“Just looking.” Obviously, Louise wasn't going anywhere soon, so I finally asked, “What are you doing?”

“I'm scoutin'.”

“Scouting? You mean like ‘Scout's honour,' ‘be prepared,' ‘build your own fire and shelter,' that kind of stuff?”

Louise laughed. “Not that kind of scoutin'. I like to hunt around, see if I can find something old, something the archaeologists missed. Want to look with me?”

I snorted. “You seriously think this place hasn't already been picked over with a magnifying glass?”

“So I take it that means you're not interested. That's fine.” Louise scooted past me and started up the trail. “Too bad, 'cause I found something, and it's pretty big.”

As I watched her go, I suddenly panicked. What if — no matter how slim the chances might be — she really had found something? It might be my only opportunity to do something even remotely related to archaeology.

I jumped up. “Wait. I'll come with you,” I said, trying to sound only a little interested. She didn't stop, just waved at me to hurry. We headed up the same boardwalk trail that led to the main centre.

“We're not going
there
, are we?” I asked, suddenly worried Eddy would see me. If she did, I knew she'd do everything possible to get me to join the group for the lecture.

“Why? Do ya want to go there? They've got Niko Ekstrom talkin' to the archaeology students tonight about Norse sagas. That's a first. They usually ignore us folks who play the part of the Vikings. I guess they don't tink we know too much. So, anyway, ya want to go hear him?”

“Ah, no. I don't want to go. You?”

“No, I can talk to old Niko any day I like. Besides, I've already heard lots of his stories.” She smiled and looked off to the north. “Actually, if you're comin' with me, we're headin' up there.” She pointed to the rocky hillside. “It's a bit of a hike, but I found some cool pictographs.”

“Wait, the Vikings didn't make pictographs.”

Louise looked offended. “The Vikings? Don't be an idjut. Of course, they didn't. They carved rune symbols into stone tablets. It was the First Nations people. They're the ones who left pictographs. Pictographs are —”

“I know what pictographs are,” I blurted, now the one who felt insulted. “They're images painted onto stone surfaces, not to be confused with petroglyphs, which are carvings on stone surfaces.”

“Good thing you're not a complete fool. That gets borin' real fast.”

“Ouch. That hurt.”

Louise laughed while the wind whipped up strands of her long red hair. She turned and began to climb up the trail that led to the hills. “I'm just foolin' with ya, Peggy. One thing I bet ya didn't know was a thousand years ago this hillside was covered in trees and the Beothuk lived here.”

“Well, that makes sense,” I said. “Where I live, it was the Coast Salish who occupied Crescent Beach first. They were there about five thousand years before Europeans arrived.”

“Coast Salish. Huh? I tink I'd like to know more about them people. Fer now let's see what the Beothuks were up to. C'mon, follow me.”

She climbed ahead as nimbly as a mountain goat while I struggled to keep up. As we went higher, the buildings of L'Anse aux Meadows began to shrink in the distance. Funny, I'd come all the way to Newfoundland so I could find out more about the Vikings. Instead here I was on my way to see a First Nations site.

Within minutes Louise was so far ahead I'd lost sight of her. But now and then I heard her calling my name, so I continued to follow her voice. When I arrived at the top of the hill, there was a large rock overhang. Out of breath, I sat down to admire more icebergs floating in the distance.

Then Louise called my name again. This time it sounded hollow. “In here, Peggy. I'm in the cave.”

I turned toward the sound of her voice, which came from a small opening at the base of the rock. It was hidden so well I would never have noticed it on my own.

Just before I stuck my head into the narrow entry a startling thought crossed my mind. This would be a perfect place for a wolf or bear den. “Louise? I don't think this looks safe.”

“Hah. I didn't take ya fer a coward!”

That stung. “I'm not a coward. It's called being cautious. Sorry that I'd rather not be some bear's dinner when it finds me here.” I heard my voice enter into the cave and echo. Before it even finished reverberating, Louise's giggles echoed back at me.

“Don't be silly. It's safe. I checked already. If this was a bear's den, then why isn't there any dung or bones from animals eaten? I promise there's nothin' like that here, but I guarantee you'll want to see what is.”

Only a bit reassured, I edged into the narrow entry not much wider than a street manhole. I followed the light coming from Louise's flashlight. “How did you ever find this?” When I came into the main cavern, a chill went up the back of my neck.

“Cool, eh?” said Louise.

Without looking at her I could tell she was smiling — and no wonder. The walls of the cave were covered in pictures. They were simple stick figures, and though they looked really old, their rust-red colour was still vivid.

My entire body shivered as the idea sank in that I was looking at real cave paintings left by real First Nations who lived a long time ago. Just how long ago I couldn't tell. “Who else knows about this?” I asked quietly.

“Well, let me see … there's me and then there's you. That makes two altogether.”

“Are you serious? You mean no one else has any idea this place exists?” I murmured.

Louise nodded, then handed me her flashlight. I shone it from top to bottom and side to side. Not that I was any kind of expert in cave paintings, but some of the drawings appeared to be connected, as if they were telling a story or an event. There were lots of human figures, but in two distinct styles. One type had tiny bean-shaped heads, while the others had large heads with pointy chins.

“Do ya tink these guys are aliens?” Louise asked, indicating the figures with the pointed chins.

“Aliens?” I snickered. “That's some type of boat they're in, not a flying saucer.”

“It must be a canoe,” Louise said.

“Nah, I've never seen a canoe that long. Have you?” I asked aloud, though I was really talking to myself. “Those look like oars, not paddles.” Next to the pointy-chinned people were lines with pointy tips shooting in two directions — like arrows.

“What do ya make of this picture — two humans, one big and the other small?” Louise asked.

“Could be a parent and child,” I suggested.

“Maybe, but what's that? Some kind of animal?”

“It's got to be some kind of animal. I wonder why in the next picture it's lying beside one of the humans.”

“Yah, and then in the final picture the little one's inside the boat again, like it's sailin' away.”

“I don't know anything about the Beothuk people,” I said.

“They died out after the Europeans and Mi'kmaq people pushed them out of their coastal territory. There's a story called
The Last Beothuk
.”

“I remember learning that in school. Her name was Shanawdithit.”

“That's right,” Louise said. “She was the last known survivor of the Beothuks.”

“Did they encounter the Vikings?”

“Oh, sure. The Vikings had a name fer them, too — skraelings. That's a Norse word for ‘savage.'”

Louise and I sat quietly, thinking and observing. Finally, I asked, “How'd you find this place, Louise?”

“I was out scoutin' last week and saw a rabbit disappear into this hillside. I thought it was a warren and wondered if there were some babies inside. Instead of it being a small openin' fer rabbits I realized it was big enough fer me to fit through. I didn't have a flashlight, so I came back a few days later. That was the first time I saw the pictographs. When I heard ya were interested in archaeology, I knew I had to show ya … so ya can help me.”

“Help you? To do what?”

“Help me study this place, of course. This is goin' to be the kind of thing that'll make us famous — like Louis and Mary Leakey. I bet they'll call me Louise Leakey — get it Louis, Louise?”

“Famous? Hmm.” A little fame would be nice after all the rejection I'd had since coming to L'Anse aux Meadows. I pictured Robbie's face green with envy. Then, suddenly, my mind snapped back into shape as I heard my conscience calling me. It sounded an awful lot like a particular white-haired grandma known by some as Dr. Edwina McKay.

“This is an amazing place, Louise. I bet they'll want to name it after you — like Cave Louise or something. But we can't keep this to ourselves. It deserves experts, a plan, sophisticated technology, and we'll need to —”

“Blah-blah-blah. That's just the kind of thing Professor Brant would say. I never thought I'd get all that preachin' from someone my own age. I'm startin' to tink it was a big mistake to bring ya here.”

Being compared to a stuffed shirt like Professor Brant was more than I could bear. “Yaow! Would you quit that? I'm nothing like Brant. I just think that —”

“They'll just take over and we'll have no part of it. Not only that, I guarantee they'll take all the credit fer findin' this place, too,” Louise said, scowling.

“My friend Eddy's not like that. In fact, everything I know about archaeology and excavating she taught me. And thanks to her I've done lots.”

“Lots?” Louise looked doubtful.

“Okay, three excavations, but that's not the point. Two kids — as brilliant as we might be — shouldn't just launch into an excavation without the help of someone who knows what they're doing. We could be responsible for losing important information.”

I agreed with Louise that Professor Brant wasn't someone who would let a couple of kids be part of an important excavation. But Eddy wouldn't let him take this away from us. Would she?

“It's getting late, Louise. I say we sleep on it.”

“Okay, but before we go there's something else ya should see. And I tink ya might finally agree this is too big to hand over to them bossy old folks.”

She turned around and shone the flashlight at the base of the cave where there was a small indentation. At first it seemed like a pile of random hand-sized boulders, but when I looked closer I noticed the rocks were actually organized into a sort of tiny pyramid.

“Do ya know what it is?” Louise asked.

I got down on my haunches and studied the neat pile of stones. It only took a minute for the light to go on.
“
Holy crap! This is big, Louise. Really big!”

“Told ya, didn't I?” She smiled smugly.

“This rock cairn could be a burial marker. I read about them in —”

“
Dig
magazine? Yah, I read the same article. A little small fer a human burial, don't ya tink? On the other hand, maybe some ancient Beothuk buried his pet dog here.” Louise howled at the idea.

“Right, like they really went to all this trouble to bury a dog.” I was annoyed. “Louise, get a grip. Look around you. This place was made for a very specific reason. It was likely a sacred place to the early people. That's why they left all these pictures. They wanted to record their history or mark an important death.” I could imagine a shaman standing in the same spot, performing a ritual. “This cairn might be marking someone's cremated remains … or maybe it's a child's burial.” We both fell silent and studied the cairn.

“Obviously, this is a sacred place,” Louise said. “And I tink together we're capable of excavatin' this site by ourselves. Of course, we'll tell people about it once we've done the dig. We can even hand it over to the hob snobs from the field school if ya like, or to yer friend, Dr. McKay.” Louise stood and pulled something from her pocket. “What we need are some photos of this place. Then I can upload them and see if I can learn something about their style and the meanin' of the images.”

Before I had a chance to register what she was doing, she held up a camera and snapped a picture of the cave wall. “Stop!” I screeched at her.

She stepped back and scowled at me.

“The flash damages the pictographs. We need a low-light digital camera that won't harm the pigment in the paint.”

“Fine, but ya don't have to yell! You're not goin' to turn all bossy on me, are ya?”

“I'm not trying to be bossy, Louise. But didn't you think about what kind of damage the flash would do? I mean, it's like basic Archaeology 101 stuff. C'mon, get with it.”

Louise's face glistened pink. “Barney in the gift shop's a photographer. Maybe he'll have an idea where I can get a camera like that. Meanwhile, since you're so smart, ya can come up with the tools and a plan on how we're goin' to excavate this cairn.” Louise turned so we were eye to eye. “Just remember — if those old fogeys from the field school find out about this place, it'll be off limits to us. Ya want that to happen?”