Free Canyons by Gary Paulsen Page B

few shots at probabilities here. Not very scientific but I think helpful. Jump in or correct me as we go, all right?”
    Brennan nodded again.
    “The skull was found in the canyons up by Orogrande.” He named the small settlement on the highway—little more than a gas station—north of El Paso.
    “Near Dog Canyon,” Brennan added.
    “So, Dog Canyon, if memory serves, is one of the last places where the Apaches and the soldiers fought.”
    “Bill said there were several battles there,” Brennan said.
    “Which means we can logically assume that there were probably fights in some of the other canyons—say where you found the skull.”
    “And that it’s an Indian skull …” Brennan cut in.
    Homesley held up his hand. “Not necessarily. We can guess that, surmise that, assume that, speculate that, but we cannot
know
that—not without examining the skull. Correction, without having an expert examine the skull. I’m not an expert at pathology but …”
    “I thought you knew about these things,” Brennan said. “I mean it’s almost like a fossil, isn’t it?”
    “But,” Homesley interrupted, and finished, “I do
know
an expert pathologist. No, Brennan, I do not know about these things.” He smiled. “There are some things even I don’t know.…”
    Brennan frowned. “I’m a little worried about showing the skull to anybody else. Oh, God.” He shrugged. “Listen to me. I sound like I’ve got something to hide. This is crazy—just crazy.”
    Homesley waited a moment, then sat back down at the table. “I know this is all troubling you, but if you’re going to learn anything you’re going to have to get help.”
    “I am. You.”
    “I’m not enough. But if it’s any help this pathologist and I are good friends and I think I can promise you he won’t tell anybody about the skull.”
    Brennan leaned back, waiting, and realized with a shock that he was waiting for a voice in his mind to tell him what to do. Little voices in my mind, he thought—oh good, I’m waiting for little voices in my mind. Oh great.
    None came.
    “All right,” he said, standing. “I’ll go get the skull and meet you at this man’s place.…”
    “Better yet,” Homesley said, rising. “I’ll call him and we’ll take the car and drive down there. It might make it a little easier for you if I’m with you.”
    “What do you mean, easier. Where does he work?”
    Homesley stopped with his hand on the door. “Where a lot of pathologists work—at the morgue.” And he moved out the door.
    Brennan hesitated only for a moment—thought, oh, the morgue, of course—and followed.

15

    The morgue.
    There was a room with metal tables and bright overhead lights and Brennan did not want to be in the room.
    Everything in flat white, with large sinks along the wall and drains all over the place and the constant sound of running water and Brennan followed Homesley into the room and
really
did not want to be there.
    On one table was the body of an old man. He was nude, lying flat on his back with his eyes open staring at the ceiling, his body all sunken and old and very,
very
dead.
    Homesley’s friend—who turned out to be named Tibbets—was tall and thin, wearing a smock spattered with blood and rubber gloves. He was leaning over the body holding a scalpel about to make a cut in the top of the dead man’s stomach and Brennan almost lost his lunch.
    He did not,
could
not turn away—but couldn’t stand it either and he stopped.
    Dead.
    Tibbets looked up, saw them, and stood away from the corpse and Brennan thought, thank you, thank you, thank you …
    “The boy with the skull,” Tibbets said. “The big mystery.” He and Homesley exchanged looks, then Tibbets came forward and took the tennis shoe box Brennan was carrying the skull in.
    “Let’s see …”
    He took the box to a side table so that Brennan—gratefully—had to turn his back on the body.
    Carefully, almost tenderly, Tibbets removed the skull. Brennan