Page 12 of Badlands

“I doubt it,” said Nora. “Unless it were attached to a shaft.”

Nora kept flipping through the photos and suddenly stopped at one.

“You think it’s coincidence, then?”

Nora didn’t answer. She stared at the photo. It was another picture of the point, taken at a distance, showing the scattering of bones among the sand and rocks of the desert.

“Nora?” Corrie asked.

Nora continued staring at the photo, enlarging it with her fingers.

“You there, Nora?… Hello?”

“I’m coming in,” said Nora. She glanced at her watch. “Should be there by… five.”

“Coming in? You mean, here? You want to see the point in person?”

“I’ll explain when I get there.”

She signed off and looked up to find Tappan staring at her.

“What’s this?” he asked. “You just finished convincing me to stay an extra day—and now we’re leaving?”

“I know. I’m sorry. There’s something in that photo that I’ve got to see.”

“Corrie can wait another day.”

“Corrie can,” said Nora. “But I can’t.”

8

THIS WAY,” CORRIEsaid, opening the door into the lab for Nora and then leading her over to a broad table covered with plastic evidence bags.

“That’s a lot of evidence,” Nora said, staring at the array. It looked like Corrie had taken everything in sight—including half the terrain.

“I may have gone a little overboard,” said Corrie, flushing slightly. “I just didn’t want to miss anything. Let me get the spearpoint out for you.” She rustled around among the bags and pulled one out.

Nora leaned over, faintly curious—but far more interested in something else she’d noted in the photographs.

Corrie unsealed the bag and, using rubber-tipped tweezers, took out a three-inch spearpoint and placed it on an evidence tray. She moved a magnifying glass over it for Nora to use.

Nora bent down and peered at the point. It was very finely flaked from white Pedernal chert: fluted but not stemmed, in perfect condition.

“Just as I thought,” she said. “Folsom. Ten thousand years old.”

“Folsom?” Corrie asked.

“The Folsom people. They hunted prehistoric bison with it.” Nora felt a rising impatience. “Now, there’s something else I want to see.”

“Hold on,” said Corrie. “Any thoughts on how it might be connected to the body? It was lying right where we found the bones.”

Nora paused. “Was she carrying it in her pocket?”

“She had no pockets. She’d taken off all her clothes.”

“What?”

“This is confidential, but she’d hiked out into the desert, taking off her clothes piece by piece, before ultimately dying. I wondered if this point might have had something to do with it. For example, could somebody have stabbed her with it? Or could she have been using it for defense?”

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