But that was pretty typical of the young woman. She was Indian in her ancestry, on her mother's side. Her good-looking but intense face, black hair, black eyes and dusky complexion sometimes reminded Helen of a cartoon version of a Foreign Spy. Natasha, with a rural Montana accent.

To make the absurdity perfect, Jackie was a graduate student in engineering-and shared with Joe a fascination with space exploration. Her looks and liking for dramatic gestures aside, the young woman was about as down-home American as anyone could get.

Despite her intentions to become an astronaut, Jackie shared Joe's longstanding side interest in paleontology. That interest, as with Joe's, had been triggered years before by Helen herself-but not as a student. The first time Helen had showed up in the area, she'd introduced herself to the Secord family since they were one of the largest landowners around and she needed their permission to conduct digs on their property.

Their daughter Jackie-then eighteen years old and a high school senior-had promptly attached herself to Helen as a combination guide and gofer. Since then, Jackie had become one of Helen's main local contacts and a constant, helpful presence at the digs. She'd developed into a top-notch amateur paleontologist, in fact, and usually tried to spend at least part of her summers on one of Helen's digs.

"What's with the 'Dr. Sutter' business, Jackie? It's been 'Helen' for years, remember?"

Jackie grinned. "I figure I gotta practice up on my formalities. I'm not all that far behind Joe when it comes to getting my doctorate-and God help me if I start breezily referring to the head of my committee as 'Frank.' So what's up for this year?"

"Same as ever," Joe said, coming in after Helen. "Spend a couple months working ourselves to death to dig out a few fossils just like the ones everyone else has. Write some papers about them that no one but us and the reviewers will read. Then Helen and company write another grant proposal."