September 1989
Glowing down upon the desert land, Alan gazed at the cobalt blue sky as the stinging heat from the sun thrust itself upon his neck. He grabbed the battered, army green sun hat from beside him, shook the falling grains of sand from it, and reluctantly pulled it down on his head. Without seeing his reflection, he knew it made him look like his Great Aunt Miriam, but he was also aware that the late summer Montana sun was not to be messed with. One of these days he'd get around to buying a decent hat, rather than just borrowing and losing different shapes and styles of head gear from people at the site.
A voice carried over on the slight, summer breeze. Alan gazed to his left and saw a small, stocky man waving at him. Shit. The new students arrived today. As Dr Grant glanced down at his watch, he realised that he was supposed to be back at the main camp almost an hour ago. Sighing, he pulled himself up onto his feet and held his hand up, signalling he had seen the man gesticulating manically at him. He looked at the dig site, annoyed that he would have to leave and nodded to his colleagues that were still working, motioning for them to continue the work.
As Dr Grant approached the flapping man, he could see the furrows of his forehead. Mason Fowler oversaw the finances of the dig and Alan often found him in his trailer, head buried in account books, tapping furiously away at a calculator. The site received a lot of money from various universities and colleges from around the country for their students to attend a training placement at the site. They had the personnel and land to ensure the highest quality training, and as such were paid a substantial amount by the institutions to mentor and train the students, providing them with the most thorough experience possible. Alan knew that the universities would certainly have something to say if they were to receive feedback from the trainees about being left to wait for their induction, roasting in the heat.
"It's past eleven and I've got five students boiling away like lobsters in the midday sun," Mason started bleating, as Alan approached. The older man looked a blushing shade of pink himself.
"Calm down, Mase," Alan replied, handing the other man his handkerchief to wipe his dripping brow. "You'll pass out in this heat. Especially with your Maine roots. Where's your hat?"
Glaring upwards, Mason gestured to the offending item on the top of Dr Grant's head. Alan felt himself go a slightly sheepish pink. "Ahh…yeah, sorry about that," he replied with a lopsided smirk, as he removed the sun hat and placed it upon the other man's thinning hair. "Anyway, if the kids can't take sitting under a canopy for thirty minutes, nibbling on some of Sue's sandwiches, then they're probably not gonna handle the next few weeks all that well, " he continued, bringing the conversation back to the reason they were bickering in the first place.
"They're not exactly kids, Alan," Mason responded, rolling his eyes at his colleague's continued distaste for this part of his job. "There's no first year undergrads this time, so you can leave your disgruntled and scary professor act in the sand, thank you very much!"
At hearing that news, Alan felt a small sense of relief as he made his way to the Jeep. It wasn't that he hated teaching; just that he hated teaching those students fresh from high school, who still required babysitting and needed his approval every minute of the day. Sure, all the trainees still had that to a certain degree, even the PhD students who were experienced professionals in their field, but at least they had a little initiative. Last year they'd almost lost a contract with a university when he'd made a student cry by shouting at him. In his defence, the eighteen year old kid had messed up the simplest of tasks and cost them a whole day's work. Mason had to take the kid into the medical trailer and spent three hours calming him down and convincing him that there was no need to contact his course coordinator.
Alan jumped into the passenger seat of Mason's car, ready for the short drive back to camp. As much as he made his friend's life difficult, he knew that Fowler was right. They did need the money for the dig. Donations were sporadic at best, and running a whole site without knowing when you were going to make more money was a stressful situation. It was also a part of the job, but Alan knew that a consistent amount of money coming in every period helped sustain the work and gave Mason a decent night's sleep. As long as this batch of students didn't touch anything they weren't supposed to, and kept out of his way, he could put up with them for a few weeks.
As the Jeep neared the camp, Alan could make out the tents and trailers that made up the residence and workspace of the workers and volunteers of the dig site. At the end of one site, was a large white tent, serving as a mess hall, meeting room, lecture theatre or whatever else was needed.
Mason pulled the car into a space next to Alan's own battered Jeep. He'd caught a lift up to the site with Josh, one of his more conscientious workers. He knew leaving the dig in his hands gave him piece of mind, but he'd still rather be up there than scoping out the new recruits. The two men made their way into the tent. Alan glanced around at the small group of people that had littered the inside. Sitting at one table were three guys, in their early twenties, if he were to guess, supping on a beer each, laughing and joking like this was a Club Med vacation. Great. They were going to turn his site into a frat party. It wasn't as though Alan and the rest of the crew didn't spend time unwinding with a beer and some music at the end of a long day; but certainly he expected more of the new recruits to at least appear professional.
Glancing around Alan saw a young blonde woman, glasses perched on her nose, one hand threaded through her hair and the other resting on her chin as she absentmindedly nibbled her index finger. She was glancing down, enthralled in a book. Next to her, a short lady with frizzy brown hair was slouched in her chair frustratingly swatting at a fly while looking like she was going to pass out from the heat.
Mason cleared his throat, "Right, ladies and gentleman, if I could have your attention," he chirped in a cheerful voice, passing Alan a bottle of water from the cooler as he spoke.
Alan perched himself on the edge of the table, resting his leg on the bench as he unscrewed his bottle and took a long sip. Even in the relative coolness of the canopy tent, the beads of sweat on his forehead were relentless. Like he suspected, the Frat Pack were taking their time in finishing their conversation and still weren't paying attention. Frizzy Flyswatter was still swiping away furiously, but Blonde Glasses had closed her book and was now looking towards them. At him, specifically, with a pure and positive smile on her face. Alan blamed the weather for an increase of heat in his cheeks but couldn't help himself at giving a small twitch of the lips back, as he started to pick at the label of his bottle.
"Boys, come on please, Dr Grant's a busy man and has to get back to work," Mason stated, trying to put on a stern front. Alan already had little respect for the young men.
"Welcome," Alan started, "I'm Alan Grant and I'm pleased to have you on my site." He was neither pleased, nor he thought a very welcoming sight, but he knew Mason thought first impressions counted. "Mr. Fowler will go through all the details of your induction with you this afternoon, I'm sure, but I just wanted to meet you and let you know some of my expectations."
Alan could feel Mason tense up at the side of him, as if willing him to leave it there while no one was in tears. Alan glanced at his friend, hoping that he could reassure him. He and Mason had countless arguments about this. He didn't understand how Mason thought he was going to turn into a giant teddy bear, just because he had students around him.
"Firstly," he said, speaking up a little so they could all hear him over Frizzy Flyswatter's frantic fanning with a magazine. "I expect you all to be here at 9am sharp, ready to go. We don't have time to keep on shuttling back and forth to collect latecomers. Either you're here at nine, or you might as well go home, because you won't be allowed on the dig site that day."
Alan could see the Frat Pack glance at each other. Apparently work was going to cut into their hangover time. "Secondly," he continued, "Once on the dig site, you don't do anything, you don't touch anything, you don't even breathe on anything unless you've been asked to by me or one of my crew. This is not negotiable. You do as you're asked otherwise you're off the site and you'll spend the rest of your time with us working as a runner and file clerk."
With that, Frizzy Flyswatter slowly stopped her fanning and looked like she was going to vomit. The Frat Pack's loud and boorish attitudes had now turned meek and submissive. Blonde Glasses was still looking directly at him and had gone back to gently nibbling her finger. She didn't look afraid, in fact she seemed to find his whole speech a little amusing, if the twinkle in her eye was anything to go by.
"Lastly," Alan sighed, replacing the cap on his water and placing the bottle and the peeled label down on the table. "Of course we want you to ask questions and learn while you are here, but at the same time, this isn't a nursery. My staff and I aren't here to hold your hand and look over your shoulder every minute of the day. We will give you a task and expect you to show some independence with doing it. No one's going to be bringing around trays of water and canapés; it's your job to ensure you take care of yourself. The heat is not sympathetic, don't come crying to us if you've passed out because you didn't have the sense to wear a hat. "
Out of the corner of his eye he could see Mason stifle a laugh with a poorly disguised cough as he gently pulled down his own recently recovered hat. "Right," Alan exclaimed as he pulled himself off the bench and made his way toward the edge of the tent. "Good luck." With that he made his exit and left Mason to spend the afternoon with the students. The overwhelming heat hit the back of his head after only a few strides and he instantly regretted not stealing back Mason's hat for the afternoon.
The next day
7.30am
Alan gently parked his Jeep and exited the car. He had already been at the site for a few hours this morning, basking in the quiet luxury of his work. He'd popped back to the base to have a quick glance at the monthly accounts and he started to stride towards Mason's accommodation. He quickly glanced towards the mess tent, noticing that someone was already in there. He slowly stepped towards the area until he recognised that it was one of the students. Against his better judgement, he entered underneath the canopy.
"Hi", he quietly said, careful not to startle Blonde Glasses, who again had her head in a book. He didn't quite meet his objective, as she jumped a little, eyes wide until she slowly recognised where the voice had come from. She took off her glasses and used the weight of them to keep her book open on the right page and gave him a gleaming smile.
"Hey," she replied softly. They seemed to be looking at each other forever, until Alan finally snapped out of it.
"So, what are you reading?" he asked, hoping to get a semblance of professionalism back into the encounter.
She picked up her glasses and showed him the front cover of the book entitled 'The Key Features of Evolution' by J.L Hadley. Alan smirked, "An excellent choice! James does a great job at taking a quantitative approach to taxonomic and morphologic rates of evolution."
Ellie frowned slightly at his response, "To be honest, I'm not impressed. He seems to be coat-tailing on Lakeland Smith's ideas behind species extinctions and their causes, without the body of knowledge of fossil life." Alan raised his eyebrows at her lack of fear in delivering her viewpoint, smirked and nodded his head.
"That's an interesting perspective, Miss…" Alan tailed off, slightly panicking that he should know the young woman's name.
"Sattler," she replied, wiping her hand against her top before holding it out to him. "Ellie," she continued slightly shyly. Alan gingerly took her hand and softly shook, holding on a moment too long before releasing it.
"Alan," he responded to her introduction. She grinned back at him, seemingly finding amusement in his name. He wrinkled his forehead in confusion.
"Yes, I know, "she replied. "I picked up that much from your whirlwind of an introduction yesterday. Can I ask you? Is it by chance that you try to scare everyone in a ten-mile radius?"
"No, it's a deliberate effort," Alan said, playing along with her teasing. "I try to get at least one person to quit before the day's out. Did it work?
"Well, Austin, Lloyd and Zach, weren't entirely impressed with you, but then I think you took their failed attempt at mock masculinity down a peg or two," Ellie retorted, brushing her fringe out of her face. "And I think Rebecca is more likely to quit due to a combination of allergies, heat stroke and giant monster bug attacks than your speeches. So unfortunately, you're stuck with all of us."
Alan was beginning to think that it would be worth it. Ellie was bright and funny and knew what she was talking about. He felt comfortable chatting with her; usually he loathed having to make conversation with anyone new. Or really anyone at all. "So you weren't suitably intimidated by my induction speech then?" he retorted.
Ellie huffed out a laugh, "No, no. I've heard a lot of induction speeches through my under grad and masters. I'm a little immune to them now. Although, I think I liked yours best. You focused on what you expect. A lot of other site runners name check other people in the business. Try to convince us they're so much better!"
"Oh really?" said Alan, a little surprised at her candour. He leaned in conspiratorially, "I ever get mentioned?"
"Always," Ellie grinned as she leaned in closer. "I think your students aren't the only ones a little intimated by you."
"But not you," he responded, with more of a statement than a question.
Ellie leaned back in her chair, slightly biting at her lip, before looking Alan straight in the eyes, "No. Not me."
Alan cleared his throat, before standing up and brushing imaginary lint of his shirt. "So…uh… Ms Sattler," he started, trying to get a semblance of professionalism back into the conversation. This woman was slightly ensorcelling him already, after only a few minutes conversation and he could hear Mason's voice in his head begging him to retreat now, before it was too late. "I have to say I'm impressed so far with your punctuality and your, uh, reading…that's also good." Alan knew he was scrambling now and by the twinkle in Ellie's eye he had his suspicions she knew too. He nodded his head at her as a signifier of his goodbye and turned towards the exit of the tent.
"Hey, one second!" Ellie called out, prompting Alan to stop his retreat. He turned back around to find her rattling around a brown bag. She removed the item she was looking for and gently walked up to Alan, holding out her hand.
"For you," she said, motioning to the light-tan fedora she was holding. "I wouldn't want you to pass out in the unsympathetic heat," she smirked, mimicking his words from yesterday. "Go on, try it on."
Alan tentatively took the hat. His mind was scrabbling for an appropriate regulation about accepting gifts from students, "Ms Sattler, this really is very kind, but I'm not sure if…"
"It's a hat, Dr Grant, " she said, emphasising the formality of his name. "Not a briefcase full of money."
Ellie folded her arms as a signal to Alan that she wasn't going to take the hat back. Alan slightly chuckled as he rested the hat on his head. "You are very tenacious, Ellie. How does it look?"
Stepping forward, Ellie slightly adjusted the fedora. "It looks great, Alan."