by David Boyle
Honks blared, not far in the distance.
“Be with you in a minute.” He looked about the forest and walked himself through the implications. “No trails, no critters… We might live to see the rescue squad after all.” Bolstered, excited, and more curious than ever, Mark pressed on through the forest, drawn by the exotic calls of what had to be dinosaurs somewhere ahead and across the river.
The upturned roots of a deadfall poked like a frozen explosion from the soil only yards ahead, his pulse quickening when he heard splashing. He probed for an opening, glimmers sparkling through the maddeningly thick tangle of willows. After twice being thwarted by downed timber, Mark found a slot in the vegetation wide enough to where he was able to use Charlie’s compound for a shield and ease his way to the bank.
Birds flitted about the canopy, grunts peppered the air, the river shimmering through ever larger gaps in the leaves as the far shore came slowly into view. He spotted a leg with dark splotches and slumped to his knees. He breathed in, swallowed, then picked his way across the branches littering the ground.
He cleared a spot, laid the bow down, and carefully peeled aside the foliage screening the river. The forested shoreline was alive with dinosaurs! Adults and juveniles jostled in groups, some in the shallows, others atop the bank. And still more in the forest as evidenced by the quivering treetops.
Mark stared with his jaw open, seconds passing before he could speak. “Oh wow….”
He swept aside the twigs and branches and settled on a hummock edging the bank. Misty sunbeams streamed through the trees, the softened glow highlighting the splotchy patterns adorning the many hadrosaurs. He recognized the animals by the semi-circular crests on their heads. Considerably smaller than the parasaurs they’d encountered yesterday, they were nonetheless very big animals.
Adults and juveniles mingled freely, their crested heads bobbing as they foraged through the trees and down the bank to the river’s edge. Reaching frequently only to their parents’ knees, the smallest lacked even a hint of the flamboyant crests of the adults. Looking skinny in comparison, the youngsters were brilliantly patterned miniatures of their parents, with irregular black and gray splotches splashed across chestnut colored bodies, legs and tails. A striking combination of confusing shapes and colors, the pattern ended abruptly at a fold running low along their flanks, their undersides a nearly uniform light tan. Less distinct and looking almost faded, the pattern was retained in the adults, the subdued coloration reflecting a shift Mark attributed to the bigger, older animals being better able to escape predators.
Mark scanned the herd, and of the more than thirty animals visible, found three that were exceptional. When standing erect, each was easily a head taller than the rest, their bony crests prominently outlined by dark gray, almost black bands underlined with a streak of brilliant yellow. Clearly features of rank, their size and prominence identified the wearers as members of the male elite. Mark noticed an oval patch at the base of the nearest bull’s tail. Can those be his nuts? On observation he’d never considered, he vowed then and there to next time bring the binoculars. Then he could be sure.
Balanced by their thick and immensely muscular tails, the hadrosaurs nosed through the shrubs and ferns, reaching with their forepaws and often feeding on all fours. It was then, and visible only from the rear, that the bottom side of the adults’ tails displayed a cream-colored patch, as if a beacon for trailing animals to follow.
A mom with five babies browsed slowly along the tree line and down the bank. She stopped beside a tall sapling and nibbled loose a branch, then turned and dropped it by her side. The chicks scurried over, chirping as they swarmed the offering, their mother meanwhile walking her forepaws along the sapling and bending it nearly to the ground before nipping away one leafy morsel after another. Scuffling close, crowding one another, dark brown youngsters were soon busy vacuuming leaves.
A female with a huge scar along her neck rose suddenly, nostrils flaring as she nosed the air. The male beside her took little notice when she bobbed her head and snorted. Another head came slowly up, then another and another, a baby sent sprawling when the sapling it was nibbling whooshed upright.
Mark peered about the forest, his pulse quickening.
One of the bulls bugled and calmly went back to feeding. Others joined in, a bugled chorus rippling through the herd as one after another of the beautifully patterned animals went back to browsing.
Mark swallowed the lump in his throat. “I really wish you guys wouldn’t do that.”
The sun was a fiery orange beacon behind the trees, the Powderhorn (or its predecessor) meandering past. There were dinosaurs, real ones, not more than a stone’s throw away. Mark leaned and stared upriver when he heard what sounded like crows. A faint whistling sounded, five sharp-winged pterodactyls shortly sailing over the treetops, a dozen black and white dive-bombers in pursuit. Crows or their distant relatives wheeled about, pecking the long billed and less acrobatic reptiles, Mark chuckling as the two groups zoomed erratically upriver.
A juvenile hadrosaur waded into the river, not the least interested in the air show.
“This is just so frickin’ cool.” Mark drank in the show playing across the river. “Yep, this I can get used to.”
*****
Sunbeams slanted across the campsite. Hayden was busy dressing when he heard rustling. He listened close, then gave his tent-mate a shove. “Wake up,” he whispered. Ron’s sleepy groan won him a poke in the ribs. “McClure, wake up already!”
“What’s your prob—?”
“Shhhh! Not so loud.” Hayden focused on the forest while Ron batted sleep from his eyes. “Listen.”
The soft rustling was quickly growing louder.
Awake in an instant, Ron snatched the rifle and jacked a round into the chamber, the sounds still closing when he hustled on his knees to the front of the tent. “Get my knife in case we have to cut our way out of here!” The quiet rustling became the muffled crunch of footsteps. Ron flipped the safety off, the rifle pinched at his side as he tracked the subtle footfalls….
“You guys awake?” said a bearded face with a hat.
The rifle jerked up. “Bennett, you asshole!” Ron scowled, swallowing. “You got any idea how close you just came to losing your head!?”
“Sorry. Guess I wasn’t thinking.”
“Yeah, well, you better fucking start!” Ron looked over when Hayden gasped, his tent-mate back to breathing again.
Mark knelt beside the mosquito netting. “Didn’t hear anything, so I figured you guys were still asleep. Probably should have thought about it, but I’ve got dinosaurs on the brain.”
Ron jacked the bolt open and shoved the cartridge back into the magazine. “What dinosaurs?”
“You need to listen more. Get dressed and I’ll fill you in after I get the other guys up.” Mark got to his feet, “Oh, and we’re going to need your binoculars,” and the next second he was gone.
Ron’s hands were shaking. “Frickin’ idiot… Damn, that was close.”
Hayden sighed, the blood returning to his bearded face. “Shouldn’t surprise you. That’s what happens when he gets carried away.”
“I’ll give you carried away. I’d have twitched my finger and we’d be putting your partner in a box!” Ron hit the safety, but it was already on. “Toss me my damn Levi’s.”
11
Mark rattled up Tony and Charlie, and shortly after headed for Wheajo, smoky wisps yet curling above the ashes. The alien was in the same position as when he’d left, and he was wondering how to rouse him when the eyes flicked opened. Mark pulled back, startled.
“I am aware of your excursion, and of the animals. I presume your intent is to kill one?”
“I’m… I’m hoping we can,” Mark said, taken aback by the alien’s grasp of the situation. “I’m not sure if it’s good or bad to have a chance this soon, but we knew we’d have to try eventually. Better to know early on how tough they are.” Mark started for the woodpile.
“Give us a chance to find out how they’re put together.”
Wheajo stood. “‘How they’re put together’. An intriguing choice of words.”
Tony put on a pot of coffee while Mark worked on the fire. “The bulls go an easy twenty five feet.”
“So not quite as big as the ones we saw last night.”
Mark added a few sticks from the pile. “No, nowhere near that big.” He got up and uncapped his bota.
“Even so,” Charlie said, outfitted once again in head-to-toe camouflage, “that’s one heck of a big animal. Shit, that’s almost as long as the campsite is wide.”
Ron shouldered the rifle and sighted on an imaginary dinosaur. “And I’m gonna be the first son-of-a-bitch to put a bullet in one!”
“If I may suggest a degree of caution?”
Ron let down. “You got a problem with that?” he said, staring down at the alien.
“The problem, as you say, depends on your objective. You may indeed be able to kill one, yet the task—”
“Put a bullet in the right place, and no matter how big the thing is, the fucker is going down.”
“Am I then to presume that your objectives differ?” A newcomer by any definition, even Wheajo could read the confusion on their faces. “Your friend believes this to be an opportunity, as he said, ‘to learn how they are put together’. However, if the animals are as large as described, performing an anatomical investigation will present considerable difficulties.”
“We’re not talking hundreds of pounds here. We’re talking tons.”
“Only a small portion of which we can use,” Wheajo added.
Ron shrugged. “So? It’s not like they’re an endangered species. Around here, we’re the endangered species.”
“You don’t get it, do ya?” Ron frowned, as did Tony. “Doin’ that it’d be like leavin’ your tools at a job site. There’s no gettin’ around wastin’ some, but the more we leave, the more there is for the damn scavengers.”
Hayden nodded, picking at his beard. “Sounds like a welcome mat I’d just as soon we not put out.” He and the others looked to Ron. “You still want to shoot a big one?”
“That’s not what you ask a guy with a rifle. Do I want to? Hell yeah. But I do get what you’re saying.” Ron caught Wheajo staring. “Okay, so I’ll try for a little one.”
With Mark's mention of the hadrosaurs skittish behavior, and all that was at stake, Ron had insisted, over Hayden’s objections, that the hunt be restricted to potential shooters. He, Mark, and Charlie were presently nearing the area where the animals had earlier been spotted, the varied sounds of feeding dinosaurs filtering through the trees. Ron slowed, listening, and after motioning his companions to wait, crept toward the willows.
A minute passed... two... and Mark and Charlie were about to follow when Ron came sulking back. “They’ve moved,” he whispered, hurrying past and proceeding further along the island.
Skirting the willows, and guided by the sporadic honks, they paralleled the river for a good fifty yards before locating a wealth of scrawny saplings. A big willow had fallen, possibly only years ago, the opening carved in the canopy allowing invaders a shot at existence, the ground near the saplings blooming with ferns. They crept ahead, bits of the far shoreline winking through the foliage.
The rustling faded when the breeze stopped, and Ron went quickly to a knee in hopes of locating the source of the grunts. Twigs and branches littered the ground, a thickly leaved filigree dangling over the bank. Ron settled on a heel, searching the willows, and cradled the rifle. “Watch this twiggy crap,” he whispered to Charlie. “We take our time, we should be able to do this without spooking them.”
Ron was settled and glassing the herd when Charlie crept alongside. “Oh man…! Are they neat or what?” The dinosaurs were almost directly opposite, the closest browsing in a partial clearing while others filtered through the woods. By size alone the animals were stunning, but what really got Charlie’s attention was how similar the patterning they carried was to the camouflage he’d left at home.
The animals across the river were close enough that he could hear them breathing, the backs and tails showing through the trees upriver suggesting they were the last of a herd heading north. He made room for Mark while a dinosaur twisted itself half around and licked its thigh. Another stood working its jaws, its companions probing the trees, nibbling. Two more were down on all fours, nosing the ground.
Mark pinched his glasses with his shirt, and was still wiping when the dinosaur standing watch tossed its head back and honked. “You’re timing sucks Bennett. You’re gonna miss this.” The wildly melodious honk had barely ended when another head went back, the call raising goose bumps along his arms. “It’s almost too bad,” Charlie said with unfeigned sadness. “You know? That we gotta shoot one. This is like the best parade I’ve ever seen.”
Ron slid the barrel over and tried settling the bead on another dinosaur. He wasn’t at the range, and the target at the end of his sights wasn’t an iron silhouette.
This was his shot of a lifetime, and unless a miracle happened, he had but one chance. His father had taught him early on that just hitting the target wasn’t good enough. Years later an acquaintance at S&M, a former marine DI and sniper in Vietnam, had put it more bluntly: “Forget follow-ups. Make that first shot count. Do it that first time, or not at all. One shot… one kill.” Easy to say, hard to do, Ron McClure tried always to hunt by their counsel.
Ron shifted to another animal, then another, holding each in his sights while studying how it moved and how fast. Slowly shrinking his focus, he targeted a dinosaur’s leg, then a black splotch on another’s back, then part of the splotch, until finally his target was no more than a dot. His breaths now carefully measured, he inventoried the six adults and five calves yet remaining on the beach. The adults were too big, and the smallest far too jumpy and unpredictable. And that left only three.
Ron grabbed the binoculars and handed them to Mark. “Check out the one left of center.”
Mark looked the animals over. “Guess I shouldn’t have waited,” he said, mostly to himself. He passed the binoculars to Charlie, then raked the hair stuck to his forehead up under his hat. “It’s not like we got a whole lot of options. Still, he is bigger….”
Ron flicked a twig from under his elbow, the barrel shifting once again as the biggest of the hadrosaurs called out and started into the trees.
“…just pick a decent target,” Mark said with a twitter, corkscrewing a finger through his beard. “I’d say try for a brain shot, but the books say it’s only as big as a walnut. Crazy, huh? A frickin’ walnut? I’ve even read they might have two brains, like a stegosaurus. Or was it diplodocus? Too bad they don’t live here anymore, ‘cause we probably could’ve killed one of them with a rock. But even they—”
“Mark! Can it already!” Ron wrapped the sling tight around his left elbow and gave Mark a look that finally shut him up.
Charlie laughed quietly under his breath.
Most of the dinosaurs had wandered into the trees bordering the clearing, and only seven remained in the open. His target was browsing fifteen yards from the river and sandwiched between two adults. Ron flipped off the safety. The shot wasn’t long, but his target was tiny: an area no more than three inches in diameter. His finger slipped to the trigger when the dinosaur lowered its head.
He blew out and waited.
Snugged to his cheek, smooth, warm, and oh so solid, the rifle was less a weapon than an extension of his arm, the length of polished steel bobbing ever so slightly with the beats of his heart.
After what seemed an eternity, the dinosaur rose upright, a leafy sprig spiraling in its lips.
The barrel steadied—Kablam!—and 180 grains of copper-jacketed lead speared across the river, the slug outracing the noise of its own fiery departure, bare milliseconds passing before it slammed into the dinosaur’s spine. Bones shattered. The head snapped back….
Heads flinched as the calf went d
own, high-pitched calls sounding as a wave of terrified animals stormed into the trees. An empty cartridge twirled into the weeds, frenzied honks spearing across the river as panicked stragglers stampeded through the forest.
Charlie slapped Ron with his Aussie hat. “You got ‘im, man! You got ‘im!”
Ron laid there blinking, the honks and thrashing already fading. “They’re even faster than the ones last night.” He looked to Mark. “You know they could run that fast?”
“Huh? Oh that…. No, never thought about it.” Mark got up and offered Ron a hand, his gaze on the heap across the river. “That was a nice shot. I mean really. Even with practice, that’s one I can’t see as I’d ever make.”
“That’s because you bow-benders are so frickin’ used to getting close.” Ron brushed off. “Truth is, that one was easier than it looked. First off, I practice at twice that range. And those splotches? The dope had one at the base of his neck that looked just like a bull’s-eye.”
“Ya gotta love when that happens. ‘Cept a’course if you’re him.”
*****
There were handshakes all around on their entry to camp, and excited conversations where one heard little of what the others were saying, everyone jabbering at once. Charlie about how pretty the dinosaurs were; Ron about his shot. Tony at length wondering aloud what dinosaur was going to taste like.
To Wheajo their directionless banter made no sense whatsoever. “I believe you should restrain your enthusiasm until after having attended to the immediate task.”
Hayden was all smiles. “All in good time, Wheajo. It’s not every day a guy gets to shoot a dinosaur.”
They were off to the landing only minutes later, Wheajo and Tony electing to remain on the island. “This time,” Tony said, certain there would be others. The Discovery was first to hit the river, and with no desire to reset the table later were headed for the Rockfinder when Tony stopped suddenly and ran toward the tents. “Don’t leave until I get back!”
