Dragons Teeth Crichton 2017 (WWT)

“How can you say that? Look at him bargaining there, haggling over every dollar. At this rate
they’ll be at it all day.”
“Yes,” Emily said. “Yet I’m sure Wyatt could conclude the deal in five minutes, if that was what he
intended.”
Johnson stared at her. “You mean . . .”
She nodded. “I’ve no doubt he’s wondering why you are sitting here while he stalls Professor
Marsh for you.”
“Oh, Emily,” he cried, “I could kiss you!”
“I wish you would,” she said softly.
“Too many things were happening at once,” wrote Johnson.
My head was fairly spinning with these developments. I hurried outside with Emily, and postponed
kissing her in order to send her off for a hundred-pound sack of rice, a bolt of tarp cloth, and a longhandled
shovel. Meanwhile I hastily obtained the requisite large rocks, which fortunately were near at
hand, remnants of the blasting that had been done to erect the new Platte bridge.
He found yet another Chinese laundry and paid a small sum to use the fire and iron kettle with which
they heated water. He spent three hours boiling fresh rice paste, making sure the concoction was
gelatinous enough, and clutching the rocks with bamboo laundry tongs and dipping them into the pasty
ooze, coating them. When they were dry, he poured dust over them, to make them suitably grimy. Next
to the heat of the fire, they dried quickly. Finally, he removed the precious bones from all ten crates,
and placed the new stones in the old crates, closing them carefully so that there would be no marks
indicating they had been opened.
By five that afternoon, he was exhausted. But all of Johnson’s fossil bones were safely hidden in
the back of the stable, wrapped in tarp cloth and buried under a pile of fresh manure, the shovel
hidden in the straw with them and the substitutions set out with a tarp covering, as the originals had
been. Earp and Marsh arrived soon after. Marsh grinned at Johnson. “I expect this will be our last
meeting, Mr. Johnson.”
“I hope so,” Johnson said, with a sincerity Marsh could not have imagined.
The division was begun. Marsh wanted to open all ten crates and inspect the fossils before
dividing, but Johnson steadfastly refused. The division was meant to be between him and Earp, and it
would be done randomly. Marsh grumbled but agreed.
Midway through the process, Marsh said, “I think I had better look at one of these crates, to satisfy
myself.”
“I have no objection,” Earp said. He looked directly at Johnson.
“I have plenty of objections,” Johnson said.
“Oh? What are they?” Marsh asked.
“I’m in a hurry,” Johnson said. “And besides . . .”
“Besides?”
“There’s your father,” Emily prompted him suddenly.
“Yes, there’s my father,” Johnson said. “How much did Professor Marsh offer you for these stones,
Wyatt?”
“Two hundred dollars,” Wyatt said.
“Two hundred dollars? That’s an outrage.”