“Holy shit boss…do ya think…” Larry shrugged as he looked at Jack.
“Looks that way Lar, might have been chasing something and as I don’t see any tracks pointing back, I’d say,” he leaned over the edge and looked below “down there somewhere lies some unfortunate dinosaur.”
“Think more than one?” Sam asked.
“Doubt it Sam, at least here. Only one set of tracks.” he grinned “But doesn’t mean we slack off.” Jack sat on a smaller tree that had been pushed over farther back on the path.
“Guys, the way I see it, this plateau is about five miles long and maybe two to three miles wide.” it was obvious to them their boss and friend was thinking on the fly.
“I’ll let the professor explain his theories to you, but personally…” Jack was obviously puzzled “I mean, come on, living dinosaurs up here?”
“Wasn’t the theory in the books that they were trapped here back when the earth rose during massive quakes?” the fourth man started to assert.
“Pete look around.” Jack waved his arm in all directions “Too small of an area to be populated by things this size.” he sighed “If there is one, there’d have to be at least another. Those things last night were carnivores, carnivores need something to eat. I’m guessing that they’d need something other than those little raptors…and there didn’t seem to be a lot of those around either.”
“Little?” Sam chuckled “Christ boss, they were taller than I am.”
“Not to something like a T-rex or whatever made this path. Look guys, what I’m trying to say is…this ecosystem up here isn’t conducive in supporting beasts large enough to exist up here for several millennia. If they had, we should be tripping over old bones and skeletons, does anyone see any bones or skeletons?”
So what do we do now boss?” Larry asked. Larry was Jack’s second in command, and had a sheepish look as he usually did when he was puzzled and obviously had no ideas forming in his mind.
“Back to the ledge guys and then we’ll see what the professor wants to do. It is his expedition; his and Doc’s money that hired us, it’s up to them.”
Sam nodded “Ok boss, but if we do come back…what say we make smaller camps in the roots of those monster trees.” he pointed to an unusually large tree which nearly dwarfed the others from where they were.
Jack smiled and nodded “Agreed. Even that big beast couldn’t knock them over…Hmmm, these are different from the ones we found on the other side of the plateau…which is also a puzzle.”
Larry walked next to his boss as they headed back toward the old camp that wasn’t too far from the ledge “How so boss?”
“Why are these monster trees only around this side of the mesa? Have you seen any near the camp? Or how about the jungle we clawed our way through getting to the base? Remember we hit the mesa just about where that bastard fell this morning, it was the most direct route from the river’s tributary. Trees like these would have stuck out like a sore thumb, even within a jungle filled with trees that are several hundred feet high.”
“Strange enough boss, so why not down in the jungle and only up here.” Sam snorted “Some sort of plateau trees?”
Pete nodded as he scanned the dense jungle that surrounded them.
“So where did they come from? Some sort of evolution?”
Jack grinned as they passed through the old destroyed camp “Not my problem…remember that guys. Our job is security and so far we’ve failed miserably at that.”
Now close enough to use his radio, he turned it on and called the base camp on the ledge. They had their radios turned off fearing that if someone from the ledge had called, it could have alerted some prehistoric creature to their presence. Jack put the radio to his lips as he crouched.
“Hank, you copy?”
The forty year old ex-ranger knew the dangers replied softly “Roger that boss.”
“Clear up here for now Hank, tell the professor that it’s up to him what he wants to do.”
“Negative boss, while you were gone all the bearers left along with their leader.” there was a pause “Prof said whatever you decide. As there are just the three of us down her now. It’s up to you. I’m sorry Jack, I guess I could have kept them here at gun point, but we never rolled that way before. However they only took what supplies they needed.”
“It’s ok, Hank. Look, tell Doc and the Professor that we’ll lower some ropes, send up half the supplies, which leaves us enough to get back to the river if we have to abort. Once we get those up, we’ll pull them up like we did on the way up.”
“Prof’s nodding that he agrees Jack, send the ropes down.”
The men took the carefully coiled ropes that had been carefully hidden and previously anchored to the rocky ground on the cliff’s edge and tossed them over the cliff.
After several minutes the call came to pull the supplies up. Another hour of pulling everything up from the ledge that was nearly one hundred feet below, the entire party was once again up on the plateau, and once again back in danger.
As the party gathered around Jack spoke clearly and softly, but there was no mistaking the seriousness of his speech.
“Ok we split into two parties, three in one, four in the other. We’ll head back to the other side of the plateau to start our search. At each leg of our exploration we’ll sight in one of those monster trees we found that are all over the far side of this plateau. Those will be our ‘run to’ places to take shelter should we hear something. There is tons of rotting vegetation under them so we’ll cover ourselves in that crap to hide our scent.” Jack looked at his watch “Look guys, although we stay lighter up here longer than in the jungle below…” he glanced around and then back at his men “there was one of those giant trees right where those paths split.”
His men that were with him nodded that they remembered.
“Well men, we’re gonna tuck our asses in that monster for the night, no fires, no loud talk. I figure by the time we get back there, we’ll only have a few hours of light left. A couple of us can scout the nearby area and we can settle in, two men on watch, two shifts.”
“Doc and I can take a turn as well Jack.” the professor added.
“No way professor, we’re in a high risk situation now, my men will handle it.” Jack needn’t say more and that was one thing Jack had admired about the two gray haired gentlemen. They were paid for this expedition but neither man had ever questioned anything that Jack or his men had ordered them to do.
Now close to dusk, the camp within the huge tree-sized roots that tangled and wrapped around them, formed a dense, safe home for the night.
The surrounding area carefully checked for any possible danger, and dry pre-packaged food called Meals Ready to Eat, or MREs were opened. Jack preferred them to actual food as they had less odor and were less likely to be detected, and was thankful that the professor did not question them when Jack insisted they be brought along as emergency rations. They were light, didn’t spoil, and in this situation, one hell of a lot safer.
Larry nodded to Jack and he looked over to the trembling hand of the professor.
“Professor?” Jack inquired “Are you ok?”
The professor smiled at Jack.
“Please…all of you, please call me Edward, or even Ed. I fear we’re all in this together and Ed is a lot easier to shout than professor…” he chuckled softly “and I’m so used to people around me calling out professor to others, I might not even pay attention.”
He smiled as he remembered his friends and students shouting for him back at the university and he’d completely ignore them…just too many professors running around.
“Ok, if you wish…Ed.” Jack smiled back “We’ll be fine here.” Jack tugged on one of the smaller roots and it didn’t budge an inch “Couldn’t be stronger if they were made from steel and as the root system is so massive, I seriously doubt if anything could see us in here in broad daylight, let alone at night.”
“I’m sure we will be safe
Jack. If what you told me about that path you followed is true, then that allosaurus won’t be able to get us in here. If one should be around and tries to get us, remember what I told you, shoot the eyes or the soft flesh at the top of the mouth and maybe you can hit the brain or brain stem.”
Sam muttered “Allosaurus? I thought it was one of those t-rex things?”
“Oh no…no, much too small of a print, I’d guess allosaurus.” He looked at his longtime friend Doc and seemed to ramble “Assuredly an allosaurus, the track at the camp was an allosaurus, I’m quite sure.”
Jack sighed “I’m no paleontologist, but what I saw looking over the ledge last night sure looked like a rex…you know that big strong jaw…”
“Strange…hmmm…a rex and allosaurus didn’t exist in the same age Jack.” He looked over to the strong adventurer “I do not doubt you at all…but how could both…” There was a pause and Jack sensed that he wanted to say more “Prof…uh Ed?”
“I just wanted to say that I…uhhhh, Doc and I that is…we’re sorry about all this. We thought we were coming up here looking for fossils, or if extremely lucky, maybe bones.” he looked at the men sadly in the fading light “People weren’t supposed to die…” there was a long pause and a deep sigh as both men looked at one another “people weren’t supposed to die.”
Chapter 3.
Larry nodded sadly, but then smiled slightly.
“So prof…uh, Ed, why don’t you tell us how we did get up here and why?”
Ed looked at Doc and it appeared that neither knew whether or not to smile. Doc just nodded to his longtime friend and colleague as Ed turned to the tightly packed group of men nestled among the giant tree roots. They had hung tarps, ponchos and other things around them so they could use a red glow stick to illuminate their immediate area.
“Well my friends, it is a strange story and you’ll probably think Doc and myself slightly on the bonkers side of crazy.” he grinned and sighed “Back in the turn of the twentieth century, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote about…
Pete gasped and asked unbelievably “You and Doc spent everything you had to finance this expedition on some book? People died because you believed some book?” Jack laid his hand on Pete’s arm and nodded for him to calm down.
“Oh, gracious no, Peter, if I had known about living dinosaurs I would have told all of you.”
Doc jumped in as sort of a blocker to his friend’s uncertain and complicated telling of their circumstances. He smiled slightly knowing how Ed had always complicated things far more than they needed to be.
“It’s like this guys, Ed has had a theory for years that some dinosaurs may have existed longer than anyone thought they might have been able to. For years we traveled talking to natives in Africa, China, and Tibet…” he took a breath and smiled “You get the idea. All that traveling was to prove his theories. Strangely so many of the reports from natives or people that had never seen a picture of a dinosaur…gave perfect descriptions of them.”
Ed finally smiled “And of course we failed. Sure there are reports of giant snakes, and water beasts, and other prehistoric-like creatures abound, but never any real proof. One of my students had been reading books by some of those authors from the late 1800s and early 1900s. He loved books about dinosaurs and he came up with an interesting question; “How did these men know how dinosaurs actually looked like?” Ed chuckled softly “I mean they had descriptions…I mean they…” he looked frustrated so Doc jumped back in.
“You see gentlemen many of them had strange unbelievable creatures in them, but they also had several descriptions that fit the dinosaurs we now know to a tee. Now people knew of dinosaurs back then, even had some crude sketches of what they might look like.” he looked back to Ed.
“Men, that made me question how did they seem to know? Several students accompanied Doc and myself on a six month study of old manuscripts…original manuscripts that is, ones that didn’t get published in the final edit.” he grinned a huge beaming grin “A while back one of students found mention of some old drawings that were condemned as being drawn by a heretic. Two weeks and three continents later, we wound up in some tiny little auction house on the outskirts of London. They had sold a collection of drawings to someone in the U.S.”
Doc chuckled “So it was back to the U.S. and a collector in Dallas. He was going to donate them to a museum, but was kind enough to let us examine them.”
Ed nodded “And we soon found notes in the written hand of some of the nineteenth and early twentieth century writers. Can you believe it? Good Lord, he had notes by some of the most well-known writers of all time. In the notes were hand drawn sketches…” he looked over to Doc and grinned.
“Several were from some adventurer by the name of Roxtem…”
Jack looked at Ed with his head cocked strangely “Wasn’t one of the guys in…”
“The book? Yes my good man too close, was Roxton, coincidence? Who knows, but the hand scrawled notes said South America and a tiny, barely readable map had a small ‘x’ in the middle of the Amazon. Perhaps the idea for the book.”
Doc nodded “Of course even an ‘X’ marked between two river tributaries wasn’t enough to base an expedition on, but there were more notes and drawings. Crude drawings from natives in this area, centuries old carvings that had been charcoal rubbed from the boulders they had been chiseled on. So Ed and I spend the last nine months here…around here listening to stories, guides…”
Ed jumped in excitedly “No one knew exactly where this mesa was, but using both the notes, stories, and two books, we narrowed it down to this area and as this is the largest, most remote plateau, this was our starting point.” Ed looked at the men as best he could in the darkness, barely any of the brilliant moonlight penetrated the gloomy root encampment.
“Jack here had the credentials we were looking for and we sent for him and asked him to set up this expedition.”
Jack nodded “And of course you all were hand-picked because we’ve worked so well together in the past.”
Larry snorted a half laugh “Yeah, thanks for that.”
Edward nearly fell over trying to pat Larry on his leg.
“Oh, good Lord no…no, we had no idea that there were living dinosaurs up here. Doc and I figured that this Roxtem had found bones and using them and the carvings, drawings and the like, well…sort of created the tall tale that Doyle used as a basis for his book.”
Doc nodded “Gracious my friends, bones, not living flesh. Edward is a Paleontologist not a vet. Me, my hobbies encompass antiquities; prehistoric stone axes, knives, and the like. I also have a M.D. after my name as well as a list of other degrees, but haven’t practiced in a decade or more.”
Ed nodded “We both share the love of dinosaurs…”
Doc chuckled “until last night…”
Ed looked at Doc and nodded in agreement “until last night. We had hoped to find a plateau of untouched fossils.”
“And found living, breathing, human eating dinosaurs.” Sam sighed as he leaned back against a large inner root “Which reminds me…you two are the resident geniuses here, have you ever seen trees this size? I mean they look like giant mango trees, but Jesus twenty times bigger.”
Doc nodded “Only in books. Trees like these should have died out eons ago.”
Larry chuckled “Yeah, tell them and those fuckin’ dinosaurs that Doc.”
Ed got a serious look on his face as he looked around the cluster of men.
“And that is what is most puzzling to be perfectly honest with you. These trees are just clustered around this end of the plateau.”
“So?” Larry asked “Jack mentioned something to that effect earlier.”
“This plateau is literally buried in vegetation, yet there are no plant eaters. There are dinosaurs, yet we have seen no bones.” he glanced over to Doc “While you all were scouting this morning, Doc and I were wondering how they survived. This plateau does not have the ecosystem to support huge dinosaurs like the Tyra
nnosaurus Rex. Even if he was the last, how did he survive without other dinosaurs to eat?”
Larry grinned at Jack “Yeah, seems like that was just what Jack was sayin’ earlier. I’m guessing’ that they didn’t just parachute down here…those raptor things and that t-rex...allosaurus, whatever. So when one of you thinkers come up with an answer, y’all let me know. Until then…” he laid against a root and pulled his wide brimmed pith helmet over his eyes “…I’m not going’ very far. G’night.”
Jack smiled at his longtime friend and nodded “Yeah, we’d all better get some shuteye. Somehow I have a nasty feeling that we’re going to need to be rested tomorrow.”
Sam nodded and slowly slid to a lying position between two large roots.
“Aw crap, if the boss says that…plan on trouble guys.” he sighed which turned into a yawn “Jack’s always…yaaaawnnn…right about shit like that. ‘night!”
Pete chuckled as he nodded “Boss ‘is’ always right about things like that…” he peeked out from under his faded brown cowboy hat “Guess I’d better take first watch, only need one on guard tonight seein’ we’re all packed in here and a good twenty feet of body-sized roots surrounding us. Sam, will get ya up in a few.”
Sam was snoring away, but Doc and the professor discovered they could sleep with one eye open that night. These men had obviously been through a lot together…the scholars, had not…but then again, none of them had fought dinosaurs before.
It was a long dark night.
Chapter 4.
The next morning was no different than from the others that they had found since arriving, low clouds covered the plateau and nary a sound was to be heard. They had already figured that what little wildlife that had existed up here had long since been eaten or chased off by the dinosaurs that existed up here.
Jurassic Portal Page 2
