Megaflood

By Thomas P Hopp

MEGAFLOOD tells the tale of two young people, driven from their village for a forbidden love, whose flight from an angry chieftain leads them into greater danger. The story unfolds on two levels, one in the modern world, where archeologists discover an amulet charm on a body unearthed in a coastal bog. The other takes place in the ancient world where a mysterious shamanic spirit describes hardships the young couple faced.
MEGAFLOOD is a multi-layered, spellbinding tale with authentic portrayals of ancient people, modern-day researchers, and the fierce animals that lived alongside humans — mammoths, giant bears, cave lions, and sabertooth cats.

Thomas P. Hopp researched his subject thoroughly to give an accurate portrayal of the people and animals of those ancient times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas P Hopp
• Release date: Apr 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005581183

Thomas P Hopp

Thomas Patrick Hopp routinely imagines the unimaginable. He writes science fiction and mystery thriller novels that draw on his background as a scientist and scholar of the natural world in all its glory and terror. His stories have won multiple literary awards and garnered him a worldwide following. He is a member of both the Mystery Writers of America and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and served for several years as President of the Northwest Chapter of MWA. Tom is also an internationally recognized molecular biologist. He discovered powerful immune-system hormones and helped found the multi-billion-dollar Seattle biotechnology company Immunex Corporation. He advised the team that created Immunex’s blockbuster arthritis drug Enbrel. He developed the first commercially successful nanotechnology device, a molecular handle for manipulating proteins at the atomic level, which is used by medical researchers around the world to study human cells and every major microbe known to science.Tom’s NORTHWEST TALES are thrillers set against backdrops of disaster, whether natural or man-made. Earthquakes, eruptions, and epidemics are grist for these gripping adventures. Tom’s mystery stories follow Dr. Peyton McKean, a super-intelligent sleuth known as “The Greatest Mind Since Sherlock Holmes.” Viruses, microbes, and evil geniuses form the core of his opposition. Tom’s DINOSAUR WARS science fiction stories read like “Star Wars meets Jurassic Park.” Featuring laser-blasting space invaders and huge beasts from the past, they follow Yellowstone Park naturalist Chase Armstrong and Montana rancher’s daughter Kit Daniels, who struggle to survive in a world where dinosaurs live again. Most of Tom’s tumultuous adventures are suitable for readers young and old.

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STORY AREA MAPS

PART ONE: THE BODY IN THE BOG

Chapter 1

Alf Henderson was digging a trench for a new irrigation sprinkler system in his cranberry bog near the hamlet of Chinook, Washington, when his backhoe scoop hit bone. He inspected the gruesome surprise, discovering he had laid bare what looked like human remains. He called the Pacific County Sheriff’s Department to report a homicide. Only one foot of the corpse was showing, but the responding deputy thought its leather moccasin implied a Native American connection. The Sheriff’s Office notified not only the County Medical Examiner, but the University of Washington’s Archeology Department and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Now, three days later, Alf’s morbid discovery had drawn a crowd. Not given to socializing, Alf stuck close to his farmhouse which, like many another country home, was large but dwarfed by a red barn nearby. He kept busy inside the barn’s open doors, tinkering under the hood of the John Deere tractor whose backhoe had uncovered the corpse, while keeping an eye on a group of about twenty people gathered on his bog. Alf’s old black Labrador retriever lazed on the floor of the barn, occasionally glancing at the crowd, sharing his owner’s dislike for the interruption of their quiet life.

Henderson’s farm was a parcel of flat land where Alf’s pioneer ancestors had cleared the forested Chinook River floodplain in the 1880s. Half a dozen football-field-sized rectangles of sandy soil were sunk about a foot below grade and covered with low brushy cranberry vines in the bronzed, red-on-green colors of late summer. The vines were dotted with bright red berries. Where Alf’s land fronted Highway 4, a thick screen of evergreen trees provided the kind of absolute privacy he treasured. But that screen was breached in one place by an up-and-over farm entry built of whole logs. Its green metal swing gate was open and on this blustery, drizzly morning, a rutted lane between two bogs had accumulated a group of six parked vehicles. They were an odd assortment: sedans of various makes and ages and colors, a pickup, a box-backed medical examiner’s van, and a Pacific County Sheriff’s Department SUV. The people were as mixed as their vehicles: young and old, men and women, they were dressed in heavy coats or rain gear. Most wore rubber boots or work boots appropriate for the boggy conditions. The majority were Native Americans; some wearing long braids. One man wore a green-and-tan County Sheriff uniform.

Alf’s ditch had been expanded into a ten-foot-wide excavation several feet deep. Here a man and a woman in yellow rain slickers knelt at the center of what was now an archeological dig. They worked side by side using whisk brooms and other hand tools to clear away bits of sandy peat from the dark brown bones.

The remains lay belly-down in the mire, flattened by layers of sediment that had covered them more than two feet deep. From the point where the backhoe’s scoop had struck one ankle, the coroner’s team had used shovels and trowels to cut away the sandy soil and expose parts of the body, but when the ancient nature of the corpse became clear, they had turned the site over to the archeologists. Still hidden here and there by sand, the body was stretched oddly across the ground, arms and legs splayed. It looked less like remains carefully laid in a grave, and more like a dead carcass sprawled where it fell.

Leon Curtis, the University of Washington Archeology professor in charge of the excavation, wore a yellow raincoat, rubberized coverall pants, and a sou’wester hat. His black rubber boots and gloves were spotted with dark mud and reddish peat juice. Muck even smirched the thick blond curls of his medium-length beard, and there were several spots on his wire-rimmed glasses as well. Another person might have been annoyed by the mess, but Professor Curtis—a large, Kodiak bear of a man considered digging an enjoyable part of the discovery process.

Working beside Leon was a young woman similarly attired in yellow rain gear. Ann Butterfield was nowhere near as massive, nor as muddy as Curtis. In fact, she was incongruously unsullied in this place of death and decay. Her face, haloed by the folded-back brim of her golden sou’wester, was clean and, in fact, positively luminous with the excitement of discovery. Freckles on her nose and cheeks danced as she smiled and chatted with Leon. Her shoulder-length auburn hair was tied back to keep it free of the mire. A newly minted PhD, Ann had recently defended her doctoral thesis, Ancient Human Remains in Seattle Earthquake and Tsunami Deposits. Those graduate studies had been overseen by Professor Curtis, and she had been glad to join her mentor in this new endeavor.

While Leon finished clearing the torso, she kept busy at the head, delicately removing bits of soil with a miniature trowel and a soft-bristled paintbrush. Once she had the head completely cleared, she sat back on her rubber booted heels. This would make a wonderful postdoctoral project, she suggested.

Yes, it would, Ann, if the tribes allow us to study it. He cast a worried glance at the crowd. They tend to insist on reburying things as quickly as we dig them up. This time around, no one is quite sure which tribe the body belongs to. Half our problem is knowing who to negotiate with.

Do you think Peyton McKean can help us solve that problem?

Without a doubt. He’s developed a new DNA test that can match Native American remains with their tribes of origin. He glanced at his wristwatch. I thought he’d be here by now.

The man they referred to had just driven 170 miles from Seattle, south on Interstate 5 then west on Highway 4, under skies alternating between heavy cloudbursts and glaring sunbreaks. A light drizzle speckled the windshield of his gray Lexus sedan as his cell phone, clipped to the dashboard, directed him to his destination. So far, his trip had been somewhat of an odyssey. Either the weather or the remoteness of the highway had caused his Google Earth connection to blank out, occasionally for minutes at a time. Not as gifted a navigator as a genetic engineer, he had taken some wrong turns, which got him off this morning’s timeline and more than a little exasperated.

But he calmed down when he entered Chinook, knowing Henderson’s farm was just ahead. Chinook is a pleasant little town on the banks of the Columbia River, a few miles inland from where the mile-wide river empties into the North Pacific. Chinook was once a tribal center whose cedar longhouses lined the shore for a mile at the Columbia’s confluence with the smaller Chinook River, a salmon-spawning tributary. Here, Chief Comcomly had graciously hosted Lewis and Clark at the culmination of their overland odyssey from Saint Louis. Nowadays nothing remains of the native village—aboveground. Chinook is now home to the great-grandchildren of American pioneers who settled the area after smallpox, measles, influenza, and liquor annihilated most of the original inhabitants.

Like many Northwest coastal towns, Chinook had a mossy maritime charm. Under a misty blue sky with billowy clouds scudding overhead, McKean drove slowly past a marina where rock jetties had replaced the sandy canoe beach of the native community. He lowered his window to inhale the estuarine salt air and listen to mast rigging slapping in a southwest wind that had crossed the entire Pacific Ocean, coming ashore fresh and unsullied after a four-thousand-mile journey. He rolled past a mix of newer buildings and old-timey shops, food marts, and a fine old turn-of-the-twentieth-century whitewashed church with a steeple. After a similarly whitewashed grange hall came a brick Fire Department building, and rows of modest homes—many of which had car-and-boat garages larger than the house.

Once out of town and back at highway speed, McKean’s luck with the GPS proved short-lived. The phone’s link broke again on the verge of guiding him to his destination. Moments later the display reappeared with its blue dot blinking at the end of the route map. Immediately the female voice said, Turn right, right here!

McKean saw nothing but a little dirt track beside the highway. He threw on the blinker signal and stomped the brakes, putting the car into a controlled skid on wet pavement. He was complaining to the machine voice that he’d like more warning next time when the words caught in his throat. In the rear-view mirror a colossal motor home, brakes slammed, was skidding toward him in what would be a fatal collision—for him!

He wrenched the wheel right, floored the accelerator, and fishtailed off the pavement at high speed, bounding onto the dirt road. The motor home skidded past, inches from the Lexus’ taillights, the driver no doubt cursing McKean as he struggled to keep his rig on the highway. He got almost sideways but steered out of it and rolled away with his airhorn blasting.

McKean was not out of danger. The wretched little driveway was just two sandy ruts crossing the grassy shoulder at right angles. Before and after those ruts, the highway ditch brimmed with rainwater. The Lexus went up on its left wheels, and for an instant McKean envisioned himself submerged upside down, tugging at his seat belt. But the wheels smashed down, and the car stopped upright, rocking on its springs. McKean tried to curse but could only gasp for breath. His white-knuckled hands seemed welded to the steering wheel.

After a moment, he switched off the cell phone, and restarted the engine. He rolled forward to a screen of evergreen trees with an up-and-over farm gate. He rolled through and continued onto flat farmland with low brushy foliage dotted with bright red berries.

Vaccinium macrocarpon, McKean tapped his brain’s encyclopedic knowledge base. Cranberries. This is the place.

He followed the rutted lane and parked behind the Sheriff’s car. He got out and stretched his lanky frame. A chill on the west wind made him turn up the collar of his olive-green field coat. He put on a canvas fedora to fend off a light sprinkling of rain, stepped down onto the bog and went to join the crowd at the edge of the pit. He paused a moment with hands clasped behind his back, sizing up the scene. When he moved to enter the pit, the deputy briefly challenged his credentials, but then touched the brim of his Smokey Bear hat and acknowledged that Dr. Peyton McKean had been expected. As McKean stepped down into the soggy trench, Curtis rose with a grin, ungloved a hand and extended a big, warm paw. Peyton McKean! I’m so glad you could come. Any trouble finding the place?

None worth mentioning.

Come and meet our experimental subject.

This isn’t a very likely place for an Indian burial, McKean remarked. Who would come to the middle of a bog to bury someone?

Good observation, Peyton. Northwest tribes revere their dead. But I’m sure there’s a logical reason for the body’s location.

McKean exchanged hellos with Ann, remarking, Your eyes have a strikingly brilliant amber color. I’d love to get a DNA sample to study the pigmentation genes producing such rare beauty. That left Ann sputtering and blushing, but McKean was already on to the next thought. He scanned the crowd with a sardonic glint in his eye. It looks like the curious outnumber the competent, as usual."

The dark brown, shriveled, half-fleshed remains gave off a repellent stench combining the odors of rot and peat. Puddles of water around the corpse were surfaced with rancid oil slicks. McKean leaned close despite the smell. Hmm, he said. Fairly well preserved.

The peat seems to have tanned it like leather, said Ann.

The work of humic acids in the bog water. McKean minutely examined what had once been human but now was a flattened, shriveled, blackened mat of hide, hair, and bones. The mess was disgusting, but nevertheless delighted McKean. There is much more here than I expected to see. The body is clothed!

The torso is covered by a sleeveless tunic, Curtis said. A heavy animal hide with long dark fur, belted by a leather strap at the waist.

What’s this? McKean pointed at the corpse’s right foot. A mukluk boot?

That’s right, Peyton. Long fur on the inside. The other foot is bare, but it might have lost its boot when the leg was broken. It’s twisted at an unnatural angle because the shin is fractured—twice—and not by the backhoe.

This is reminiscent of similar finds in Europe. McKean gazed up at the passing clouds thoughtfully. Most were murder victims or executed criminals, tossed in bogs rather than buried.

And like them, said Curtis, this one’s got signs of physical abuse. Arms, legs, ribs, all broken by an incredible number of blows, before he or she was dumped in the bog.

McKean moved to the head, where Ann continued her delicate task of removing tiny bits of soil. The skull lay on its side, and McKean called out the injuries as he inspected them. Cheekbone crushed. Right brow ridge smashed. Jaw broken. Teeth knocked out.

An incredibly brutal beating, Leon said. Which plays havoc with our forensic anthropology methods. How can we reconstruct the appearance of a face that is so utterly destroyed?

All very problematic, McKean agreed.

Just your kind of case, Peyton.

McKean smiled. Precisely. How much anthropometric data have you gathered?

Not much. We haven’t gotten a good measurement of any part of him. Partly due to his clothing, partly due to his contorted posture, partly due to all the fractures.

You just said, ‘him,’ McKean noted. So, you’ve established the gender?

I take it back. I guess I keep thinking of it as a ‘he’ because I hate to think of a woman beaten so brutally.

Are you sure the wounds were from an assault?

Not really. No one knows quite what to make of it. Trampling by a large animal?

Or ritual mutilation of a sacrificial victim, McKean suggested. Perhaps the torture of a captured enemy?

Ann said, I keep thinking it’s a flood victim. We’re on a flood plain, after all.

Even a flood shouldn’t do this much damage, said McKean. Should it?

Your guess is as good as mine, Curtis replied.

I prefer not to guess, especially regarding gender. Have you looked at the, er—? McKean pointed where the bottom of the tunic covered the pelvic region.

Curtis chuckled. We’ve lifted its skirt, if that’s what you’re getting at.

And?

Under the tunic is a leather breechclout.

Prehistoric underwear. McKean bent and lifted the edge of the tunic to reveal nothing more than another matted, stiffened piece of clothing.

And lying on its belly as it is, Curtis said, we get no clues from the chest area.

Any weapons on or near the body?

Curtis winked a bespectacled blue eye at McKean. That keen mind of yours is always one step ahead, Peyton. Artifacts would go a long way toward identifying the gender, wouldn’t they?

Answer: yes. And in estimating the body’s antiquity.

I’m afraid nothing has turned up, so far.

McKean glanced again at the crowd. Artifacts might help resolve the tribal affiliations of the corpse, too.

We’ve already got four tribes involved, Peyton. And a dispute about which tribe can claim the body. That’s why we need your DNA expertise. You did bring your sample collection kit, didn’t you?

I never leave home without it. McKean pulled a plastic freezer bag out of an ammo pocket of his field coat. It contained test tubes and gadgets for DNA sampling.

I’d also like to see a carbon-14 date, Curtis added.

That can be arranged. McKean knelt near one exposed forearm and spread his sampling kit on a clean white lab cloth. It included several clear plastic test tubes with orange plastic screw caps, some sterile plastic bags containing forceps, scissors, probes, and cotton swab sticks. He put on a pair of purple rubber gloves and prodded a fingertip at a fractured bone protruding from the forearm. This bit right here seems loose.

Can you get a useful sample from that? Ann asked.

Almost certainly. McKean took forceps from the sterile bag and gently probed at the jagged bone.

Curtis said, It was touch-and-go, getting the Shoalwater Tribe’s approval for this test. Theirs is the nearest reservation, and they have a small population of Chinook descendants among their enrollees. The Tribal Council is willing to let us take a sample as long as Peyton McKean is the one who takes it. But this crowd keeps growing, and not all of them like the idea.

Among the native group, reactions varied. Several nodded at McKean approvingly. Others muttered among themselves and scowled.

Let’s hope reason prevails, McKean probed his forceps into the shattered end of the ulna. America’s past is more convoluted than anyone guessed. Many tribes have moved from their original homelands either historically or prehistorically, so the question of relatedness is rarely simple. This is especially true for the most ancient remains—like these.

That’s why, Leon continued for Ann’s benefit, I urged Peyton to create a reliable DNA-microarray chip test for tribal genetics, one that could determine the affiliation of any Native American skeleton found anywhere on the continent. So far, his test has succeeded beyond everyone’s expectations.

Except my own, McKean murmured absentmindedly as he used the forceps to draw out a little chip of bone. Dropping it into a plastic tube, he sealed the screw cap tightly.

Curtis went on, Archeological sites and museums everywhere are demanding Peyton’s tests.

McKean smiled ruefully. "Of course, my bosses at Immune Corporation filed patents in the company name. So, they’re not really my tests."

Well, you’re the inventor.

Indeed, I am. Just not the financial beneficiary. But who’s complaining?

Sounds like you have a right to, Ann said.

McKean moved back to where she worked. Doesn’t the head give any clues as to gender?

You would think so. But have a look.

What skin remained on the cheeks and forehead had shriveled onto the bones, making it difficult to imagine the person’s appearance in life. Furthermore, the taut skin had left the teeth exposed in an eternal grimace.

Long hair on the head, McKean observed, but no sign of whiskers.

Either female, Curtis replied, or a clean-shaven male.

Some Native American men plucked out every whisker, Ann added.

So, we can’t figure out the gender that way, said Leon. But your DNA tests will do the trick, won’t they, Peyton?

Answer: yes. The Y chromosome is key. Its presence confirms masculinity, its absence indicates femininity.

I hope you’ll have better luck than the Pacific County Medical Examiner’s Office, said Ann. They did the preliminary excavation of the body. Sent a hair sample for testing, but the state labs told them the DNA was ruined by acids in the bog. No useful DNA at all.

A bone sample is the better choice, said McKean. DNA locked in bone is much more resistant to degradation.

Too many whites in that grave, a gruff voice interrupted. Not enough Indians.

Chapter 2

Curtis glanced at the man, who had come to the edge of the pit, and sighed. Peyton McKean, meet Rick Wallacut.

Chinook Indian, full-blooded, Wallacut pointed a thumb at his chest, where a turquoise-and-silver medallion hung, shaped like an eagle with spread wings. My people were happy here until Lewis and Clark came along and started screwing things up. The glare in his eyes gave the feeling that, if they needed a hostile Indian, he would gladly fill the role. He had his jet-black hair in two long braids topped by a black ball cap with an embroidered eagle feather on the front and Native Pride written on the bill. He wore blue jeans and work boots, and a blue-jean coat. Strapped over his shoulder was a round, tambourine-shaped rawhide drum, painted with another image of an eagle—Thunderbird, perhaps. Nothing I’d rather see than that hole filled in and those bones left alone forever!

Fortunately for us, Curtis replied, the Shoalwater Tribe calls the shots in this area, and they’re okay with this.

Chinook Tribe had federal recognition here until George W. Bush took it away, otherwise I’d be telling you to get lost.

Rather than picking a fight, McKean said testily, you could help us determine the body’s origins by giving a sample of your own DNA. I’ve got a kit right here to take a swab from your cheek. He patted the other ammo pocket of his coat.

No way, Wallacut scowled. White people have already taken too much from Indian people, like our land, our language, our self-respect. Now you want my genes, too? Forget it.

That’s a shame, said McKean. It would be the easiest way to get a match if, as you say, your DNA is full-blooded Chinook.

"Oh, it’d be a match all right, if I gave you my DNA. But that’s not gonna happen."

You’re blocking the quickest route to the clearest answer.

No, I am not. There’s a clearer answer. That body is on traditional Chinook land, even if a white farmer owns the place now. I say, if it’s on Chinook land, it’s as good as Chinook, no need for DNA at all. Just get him back underground as soon as we can, buried with all the respect he’s due.

Or she, McKean corrected. Wouldn’t you even like to know the gender?

Nope. All I want is respect for our dead.

Suddenly, Wallacut spotted a man crossing the cranberry field and his dark angry eyes lit with vindictive pleasure. "Well now, this is one white guy I am glad to see."

Not so fast, Doctor McKean! the newcomer called as he approached.

Charles Grayson, McKean muttered when he got a look at the man.

A long black Lincoln Town Car had pulled in as they talked with Wallacut. Now, as Grayson pushed his way into the group of bystanders, he clearly didn’t fit in. He was dressed in a fine charcoal overcoat, a dark fedora and black Italian shoes covered in clear plastic shoe wraps. His eyes were hidden by dark sunglasses and there was a pugnacious jut to his jaw. We meet again, he said venomously, —over another native grave.

I think not, McKean stared hard into the glare of Grayson’s sunglasses.

How do you figure?

Last time—not native. This time—not a grave.

We’ll see about that. And I’ll be on the lookout for any little violation of NAGPRA. He pronounced it nag-prah.

You have already made me painfully familiar with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, McKean muttered.

Federal law dictates what can and can’t be done with native graves, Grayson grinned, chewing gum. If I’d caught you red-handed with the things you took from that grave at Neah Bay, you’d both be doing some serious jail time.

Sorry we disappointed you, Curtis said, drawing a disdainful glance from Grayson.

Fortunately for us, McKean said, the court ruled that a Spanish explorer’s letters couldn’t represent a Native American artifact.

Grayson shrugged. Court didn’t rule in my favor. But if they had, you two guys would still be wearing stripes.

The man was buried in a stone tomb! Curtis muttered.

Buried in a cedar box in that stone tomb. That, I’d say, is a native burial.

Reasonable minds may differ, said McKean.

Well, I don’t see your mind as reasonable.

Nor I yours.

Leon Curtis chuckled bitterly, Such are the complexities of modern archeology.

And modern tribal law, McKean added.

And modern crime, Grayson fumed.

What brings you here, anyway? Curtis asked him.

Him. He pointed a thumb at Wallacut standing beside him. Called me two days ago. When he mentioned the name Peyton McKean, I dropped everything and got here fast as I could, as in, just now. And what do I see but the same guys who violated NAGPRA in Neah Bay and got away with it. I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

Are you sure you’ve got jurisdiction?

Sure as I need to be. I’ve got a temporary restraining order from the Pacific County Courthouse. He pulled a gray envelope from an inside pocket and waved it at them. I’m here to make sure nothing leaves this grave. No bone, no hair, no nothing. He pointed at a corner of the freezer bag jutting from McKean’s coat pocket. Is that what I think it is?

McKean resisted, What do you think it is?

Don’t play games with me, Doc. He turned to the cop standing nearby. You got jurisdiction here?

Sure do.

Well, don’t you think this man is disturbing a locked-down death scene investigation?

Well, I guess…

"No guessing. I can attest to the fact