Dinosaurs!

by Jack Dann

  " 'A report of a New Eralisaurian,' by Edward Drinker Cope," Marsh boomed. "The description of a fascinating creature which he named Elasmosaurus for its flexible neck and sturdy tail. He had to form an entire new order of creation to accommodate it. When he showed me his restoration, which he'd placed in the Academy Museum, I noticed that the articulations of the vertebrae were reversed."

  "You fiend," Cope said through grated teeth.

  "I gently suggested that he had the whole thing wrong and foremost. But it took Professor Leidy to prove to him that he'd made the neck the tail, and the tail the neck. By then he'd already described it to the American Association, restored it in the American Naturalist—not the most particular of journals—and the Proceedings, and had just published a long description in the Transactions."

  "I tried to recall them to correct the error."

  "Yes, and I gave you back one of my copies. But I still have two more." He almost thrust the journal in the pale man's face. On the sidelines, Johnny Doppler grinned in expectation of a fight.

  Chokecherry Sairie interposed herself between the scientists. "Big talk, big belly."

  Red-Eye Dave Savage said, "I wouldn't draw on her, Per-fesser. Sairie's tough."

  "Chokecherry Sairie?" Marsh was hardpressed to maintain his usual pompous and chivalrous tone with such a female as she. "Uh, I believe you worked with General George Armstrong Custer? He's my very good friend."

  "He ain't mine."

  The man blushed. "Please, ma'am—you're a lady—a woman . . ."

  She plucked the magazine from his hand and ripped it up, scattered the pieces onto the floor, took Cope by the elbow and left. Charley downed the last of both beers, and hurried after them.

  Marsh said, "If she hadn't interfered, I believe he would have, as you westerners say, gone for me."

  Red-Eye looked at the scientist's armaments. "Would you go for him?"

  "Why not? I've done it in print often enough. Here, why shouldn't we make it fists, even pistols. God damn it, I want that lizard!"

  Johnny Doppler's eyes narrowed in an expression of furtive thoughtfulness—in fact, had Aristotle chosen to envision a perfect form for furtive thoughtfulness, it could not have been one whit more furtive or more thoughtful than the expression Johnny Doppler wore.

  Some sixty-six years later, in the penultimate chapter of a Republic Studios serial entitled The Doppler Gang in the Big Range War, Sheriff John Doppler walks down Main Street to a shootout with the hired thugs who have been harassing the Basque sheepherders. The actor's light-eyed, firm-jawed countenance is the very personification of nobility, determination, and self-sacrifice. The best way to visualize how Johnny looked, as he brooded on Marsh's desire to own Joe, is to remember that actor in his finest screen moment, and then rotate it 180 degrees.

  Johnny rose and strode the three yards to where Marsh and Red-Eye stood. "How much you want the lizard?"

  "Very much. I am prepared to pay $350."

  Johnny answered, "Too bad. That Quaker slick's got first crack. Raw deal." He clapped Marsh on one beefy shoulder, winked at Red-Eye, and left the saloon.

  The pudgy man said, "Hell and damnation. It is bad enough I cannot have the animal. But for Cope to . . . I would do anything to keep it from him!"

  "Would you now?" Red-Eye asked. "Well well. Tell yuh what, Perfesser, you stay here at Lowlife Larry's tonight, they got better accom—accommer—beds than out the ranch, and I'll come by tomorrow morning with good news. Hey, Larry, set muh friend up." A bewildered Marsh watched his hireling lurch from the saloon. Then he ordered a slug of imported Missouri whiskey, and fell to conversing with the bartender about their mutual acquaintance General Custer.

  Charley and Cope rode back towards the Foulwater. "Why has Miss Chokecherry gone? Have I offended her?"

  "Shucks no, Doc. Sairie's just, well, she gets tired of folks real quick and goes off by herself. Ain't used to folks too much, bein' raised by wolves and all."

  "Ah, I'm glad thee mentioned that. I have been wondering . . ." He tapered off as Charley spun his horse and slid his rifle from the saddle holster. "Gitcher gun," Charley hissed.

  "I do not own one."

  The boy shot him a puzzled look, then pointed the rifle at a dust cloud coming up fast from the direction of Coyote.

  Nearing gunshot range, the dust cloud was seen to be nucleated about a single horse and a rider who yelled, "Hey, Charley!" The boy relaxed. "It's my brother."

  Johnny pulled up beside them, and they fell into step towards the Doppler ranch. "Good boy, Charley. Time was you wouldn't've pulled the rifle so fast. You're learning." While Charley basked in his elder's praise, Johnny turned to Cope. "That's a nice suit of clothes y'got there, Perfesser."

  "Thank you."

  "Expensive like . . . I got bad news for you. I know you got here first and all, but I done sold the critter to the fat bone sharp. For $500."

  "But Johnny!"

  "No words from you, kid. I been like a daddy to you, and I'spect respect and obedience like in Ma's Bible. Five hundred bucks'll buy shoes for Dave's kids and medicine for Ma. You want your Ma to get lumbago? So don't sass me." He wheeled off, highly pleased with himself.

  "Tm sorry, Doc Cope . . ."

  "Do not trouble thyself, Charley. I see what is happening. Marsh has cited the authority he knows best, cold cash. Your brother hopes I will raise a better offer, and I will. In fact, I will inflate the price as high as it will go, knowing Marsh will not be able to resist outbidding me." He fell into a gloomy study, the only bright thought his plan to cost his foe—or rather, his foe's rich uncle—as much as possible. That evening he informed Johnny that he was prepared to offer $700. Johnny accepted, and went to bed with expectations of a healthy auction the next day.

  Around midnight Cope was awakened by a nightmare. He lay abed awhile, regarding the nearly full moon through an unchinked spot between two logs, then leaned down and touched Charley, rolled up in a blanket on the floor. The lad bolted upright, and as a second thought grabbed his Smith and Wesson .45.

  "Hist, it's me, Charley. Hast thou two lanterns?"

  Cope saddled their horses by moonlight. Charley joined him in the stable. "I couldn't find t'other lantern. Will one do?"

  The other lantern was sitting on a fossilized pelvis, as Red-Eye Dave Savage worked rapidly. "Yep, that dude Cope won't git nothing." He hummed, visions of a grateful Marsh's reward dancing like sugar plums over his head.

  Johnny Doppler heard Cope and Charley ride out; he woke rifle in hand. The facts that the dogs weren't barking and the hoof beats were receding calmed him, but he was unable to return to sleep. "Might as well go into town now and tell the fat guy about Cope's bid." He reached for his boots.

  Marsh removed his reading glasses and put down the journal. He had been plowing through an involved discussion of seal anatomy; his contempt for knowledge that did not apply directly to his needs rendered the article uninteresting. The piano player downstairs in the saloon was still pounding away. Shooting seemed too lenient a fate for the musician. Thinking of such bold, vigorous, and decisive action stimulated Marsh's mind to make an unaccustomed imaginative leap.

  He chuckled, then rose and dressed.

  Red-Eye reached into his pocket for a match, and found a hole instead. He muttered some uncomplimentary phrases about his wife, and then sighed. Swinging into Lightning's saddle, he headed up along the creek towards the doctor's cabin. Doc Watson hated to be awakened for anything less than a blessed event or a slow death, but this was also an emergency of sorts . . .

  Red-Eye was nearing the homeopath's cabin when a silent figure stepped into his path. Lightning snorted and stopped.

  "Need Doc?" the shadow asked with Chokecherry Sai-rie's voice.

  "Naw, everybody's fine and dandy, Sairie. Yuh gotta match?"

  Sairie handed him a box and faded back into the brush. Red-Eye turned Lightning about and set off humming a song from his service days. After all, it had been in those halcyon day
s of war that he had first learned about explosives.

  Finding Marsh's hotel room empty, Johnny Doppler stalked back downstairs and started toward the piano player. The musician had survived thus far by developing preternatural instincts; as the man in black took his first step, the pianist leapt up and behind the upright piano.

  "It's me," Johnny said reassuringly.

  The piano player peeked over the top, decided it was safe, and came back around. He was a gangling twelve-year-old with a creditable mustache, and bloodshot eyes exactly like those of his father, Red-Eye Dave Savage. "Howdy Cousin Johnny sir."

  "You seen the fat greenie? He off with a gal?"

  "Took his horse. North. 'Bout five songs ago."

  Johnny nodded, and gave his cousin's son a bared-tooth grimace. The boy felt proud. He'd never seen Johnny smile before.

  Charley held the lantern and the halter while Cope measured Joe. He wrote the figure beside his sketch of the beast.

  Charley yawned. "Can't we do this tomorrow?"

  Cope shook his head. "I told thee, Charley, that Marsh can outbid me, and will never let me, or any other scientist, near Joe again. But we shall laugh last. While Marsh is still transporting Joe to New Haven, I will be reading my report to the Academy, and my article will be in press."

  "Will you send me a copy?"

  "Send—Charley, I shall enroll thee as a subscriber to the Naturalist. I shall give thee two subscriptions if thee will only hold the lantern steady—what?"

  Charley had snapped the lid down to shut off the light. "Horse. Shh." He motioned the scientist to duck behind an immense shoulder blade. Released, Joe wandered towards his pile of hay.

  A bulky silhouette paused on the valley's rim, turning slowly as it surveyed the location.

  "See the belly?" Cope whispered. "It's Marsh."

  Standing on the rim, Marsh observed the salient features of the approach into the valley, and calculated that a determined group of well-paid men could rush in and whisk away the lizard. "A guerilla raid," he muttered. He would be able to keep the prize from Cope after all.

  "He's here to gloat over his acquisition," Cope whispered to Charley.

  Marsh had just realized that the lizard might be too young to walk all the way to the railroad in Zak City. They would have to build a large wagon to carry it. A wagon could not be brought into the valley itself without a crew to dig a road, and there was no time for that. Thus, the lizard would have to be herded up to the road. Marsh began to pace off the distance down to the bone hut, shining gray in the moonlight.

  Cope sprung up before his unaware foe. "Admiring the moon?" he asked bitterly.

  Marsh snarled. "Couldn't wait to examine the beast at leisure? Hasty work and hasty bad judgment are your hallmarks, Cope."

  The slim man shook his fist. "My feelings towards you were not hastily developed. They were nurtured slowly by your treacheries."

  "By Gad, I've had enough of you," Marsh said. "You're a vile rascal and a faulty reasoner and a . . ."

  Cope planted a right in the other's eye, then stared at his hand in amazement. Marsh staggered back, and began to reach for his navy revolvers. "I've borne enough from you," he hissed.

  A steel finger graced his back. Charley Doppler reached around with his left hand and took the revolvers and knife. Then he holstered his own pistol and stepped back.

  Bellowing with frustration, Marsh charged his rival. At last he had the chance to put to use The Prairie Traveller's hints on hand to hand combat. Soon the scientists were rolling in the dust, like small boys scuffling in a schoolyard. Charley stood, astounded, on the sidelines.

  Joe had been happily munching away during the conversation. As the fight began he stiffened, turned tail, and loped into the comforting shelter of the hut.

  Johnny Doppler met Sairie as he dismounted beside Marsh's horse. The pale man wore his most cheerful grimace; he was pleased that his mark was unable to stay away from the merchandise. It boded well for the bidding. "Good evening, or whatever, Sairie."

  "Huh." She felt strangely worried as she rode Shaggy Joe beside the walking gunslinger, the pony giving her only a slight advantage in height. Her worries centered on the matches she'd given Red-Eye, and went beyond the obvious fact that, in his usual inebriated condition, Dave Savage was probably flammable.

  The two paused on the path into the valley, and widened their eyes. The surface was littered with the shadowy masses of the fence and hut, and amongst those indistinct objects was a black shape that rolled about emitting grunts and curses.

  Johnny drew his gun. "That you, Perfesser?" Two voices gasped, "Yes."

  Standing on a massive lumbar vertebra for a better view, Charley called, "Hey Johnny, it's a fracas." Natural tact kept him from adding that it was a funnier sight than Custer's military band.

  Sairie bellowed a tentative, "Dave?" Far off, from the opposite rim of the valley, they heard, "Jest a minute, Sair." Red-Eye Dave, celebrating his brilliant scheme with red-eye whiskey, finally managed to light his fuse.

  The valley erupted as the trail of powder ignited clump after clump of explosives lining the fence, with a final godawful boom as the hut—with Joe inside—was blasted into bits. A cloud of dust almost obscured the flying rock, topsoil, fossils, and scraps of giant lizard. Marsh's horse, reins looped around a small bush, took off towards the Black Hills with bush in tow.

  Marsh and Cope, already on the ground, covered their heads against the dust and debris. Charley was less lucky; he'd been standing on a mined fencepost. Sairie jumped from her pinto and ran to the boy, sprawled beside the creek bed.

  Red-Eye stumbled across the valley, waving a bottle and shouting, "Wahoo! Hey, Johnny, jest like old times!"

  "What the hell were you doing?"

  Red-Eye stopped beside his cousin, eager as a hound dog showing his master a ripe carcass. "The fat guy said he'd give anything to keep t'other dude from getting Charley's critter. So I blew the critter up. Smart, huh?"

  "You drunken son of a bitch, I was just making 'em worry so's to get more money. Now you've done it." He scowled and took aim into the valley. "Well, I'll just have to settle for the money they got on 'em."

  It was a long shot in poor light. The bullet scudded into the dirt inches to the left of Marsh.

  The scientists, who had dazedly picked themselves up and had been taking stock of personal damages, hit the dirt.

  "Don't take no offense; it's business," Red-Eye called. He sat down and reassured himself with a swig of the Indian Princess' restorative elixir.

  Sairie shouted, "Magic Tooth! Head down!" Cope obliged by almost inhaling the topsoil.

  "Get me out of this," Marsh screamed. "I'll pay! Don't shoot!"

  "Over here, idiot," Cope hissed, and began squirming for cover. The nation's foremost reptile expert, he did a fair snake imitation. Marsh was less adept, but an eager learner.

  Behind the minimal shelter afforded by a fossilized scapula, Cope whispered, "Only one of them is shooting. If we wait until right after a shot, then both run in opposite directions, one of us may escape." Marsh nodded agreement.

  Meanwhile, the explosion had roused Doc Watson. He arrived in night gown and boots, and carrying shotgun and medical kit. "Over here, Doc," Sairie called. The man examined Charley. "Concussion, a few broken bones—Doppler, are you through taking pot shots yet?"

  Johnny squeezed off another. "Not quite, Doc. They ain't dead yet."

  "Look to your brother. He's not doing too good."

  Johnny said loudly, "Don't you fellers go anywhere," and prodded Red-Eye Dave into a position of watchfulness. Sairie snuck towards where Cope and Charley's horses were grazing—it would take more than an explosion to keep a Doppler Gang horse from eating—and whistled. Her pinto pony trotted to her.

  The homeopath was telling Johnny to ride home and fetch a wagon. "Soon as I'm finished," Johnny promised. "He's gonna be all right, ain't he?" He gazed at his younger brother. "Ma'll have a fit," he mumbled, and his pale face grew e
ven paler.

  Cope observed Red-Eye wobbling with the breeze. "It's now or never. Run," he urged Marsh, who gave him a twenty second start, either from slow reactions or to give Cope more opportunity to shine as a solitary target. Sairie nudged Shaggy Joe into a gallop, leading the other horses. She dropped one off by the running Marsh and the other by the running Cope. In seconds all three were galloping east, revolver slugs flying ineffectually in their wake.

  It was a silent, hard ride to Zak City, but Sairie got them there a little before sundown, just as a train was pulling into the station.

  Sairie took the reins of the beat horses and began walking them in a slow circle. "Train to Denver. Go now." Marsh thrust a random handful of coins and bills into her hand—counting later revealed it as less than $50—and ran for the train.

  "I cannot thank thee enough, Miss Chokecherry," Cope said. "I will pray for Charley's recovery; tell him I will get him the job as fossil collector if he still wishes. If thee is ever in Philadelphia, please visit me." Chokecherry Sairie was not exactly the ideal person to introduce to one's wife and daughter, but Red Cloud and Buffalo Bill had made headlines visiting Marsh's New Haven home.

  Sairie stared at the scientist, dusty, bloody, tattered. She shrugged, dropped the reins, grabbed Cope and kissed him. Then she picked the reins back up. The man began backing towards the train.

  "Uh . . . I only wish we had been able to have Josaurus with us. I lost, Miss Chokecherry, but at least Marsh lost as well."