by David Boyle
The big red Discovery and Charlie’s old clunker were soon streaking upriver. “By the way,” said Ron, paddling shotgun. “Thanks for the wake-up.”
“Any time,” Mark replied, enthralled by the morning’s events and taking in the shoreline. The bank slipping past was a good three feet lower than anywhere along the island, the undercut soil held together by a menagerie of roots; the vines curling through the trees and bushes just above it imbuing the forest with the look of a walled fortress. “Thank you for dropping the bastard. Gads, talk about a jungle.”
“Yeah, tracking in there could get a little dicey.”
The hump alongshore swelled ever larger, lines and fissures showing on their splotchy mountain of flesh. The bank curved away, an extended expanse of sand and scrub reaching to the tree line across what, at much higher water levels, was very likely a mini-floodplain.
“You watch, I'll take care of the boat,” said Mark, steering past where the forest ended and the open scrub began. The hadrosaur was sprawled away from the water in a pock-marked field of freshly nibbled bushes and ferns. Mark nosed in, Ron out the moment the canoe contacted shore. A breeze whispered across the clearing, the surrounding forest alive with the ubiquitous chirping of birds.
“Would you get a load of these tracks!” Ron said, stepping in and measuring one with his shoe. “This one’s got to be… hell, damn near two feet long!” He trotted along the beach, stopping here and there like a kid collecting sea shells.
Mark got out and grounded the Discovery, whistling in amazement at the tracks carpeting the shoreline. The ones they’d seen yesterday were little more than vague impressions; these were less than an hour old, the sand near the waterline capturing the subtlest of details, down to the individual scales on an animal’s foot. He curled his nose at a gooey dung pile, and curious about everything was about to investigate when he noticed Ron approaching the hadrosaur. “Careful, McClure!” Ron slowed. “Even barely alive he could break your leg if that tail somehow happened to twitch.”
Ron circled the dinosaur, glancing when the Rockfinder hissed ashore. “Yeah, probably.” He poked the carcass with the rifle. “Looks plenty dead to me.”
Mark trotted over, searching, and picked up a twig. “The eye-blink reflex is about the last one to go,” he said, moving to the dinosaur’s head. “The muscles are so tiny and the nerves so sensitive that there’s really no way to stop it.” He ran the twig lightly across a big staring eye. “You were right though. It’s lights out for this guy.” Mark stuck his hand out. “Congratulations. You got yourself one hell of a trophy.”
Hayden and Charlie came running, Hayden with his mouth agape. The thing was just so damn big! And it wasn’t even full-grown.
Charlie nudged the carcass with his toe, then reached and touched it and ran his hands over the dinosaur’s warm and wonderfully textured skin. “Wow, this is really somethin’ else.” He leaned close and brushed his arms across the dinosaur’s flank. “This is so frickin neat. I mean really…. Any guesses about what this is?”
“No guessing this time.” Mark rapped the budding crest with his knuckles. “This here is the clincher. This half-moon shape tells me that our friend here is a Corythosaurus. It’s a duckbill, like the ones we saw last night.”
“The ones last night were bigger.”
“You know what I meant. It’s in the same family.”
“Uh huh. But that’s not what you said.” Ron pointed to the kink. “See if you can straighten that neck. Would have been nice to have a tape measure, only I don’t know if they even make them this long.”
Mark grabbed hold, “Ooo, that feels grindy,” and gave the snout a tug. “Didn’t change it by much.”
Ron paced from the tail to the head; Mark in the other direction; then Charlie. “What’d you get?” Mark had seven, Charlie just over six. “Call it six on my end, too.” He shook his head. “Unbelievable. I just killed a twenty-foot-long dinosaur! Guess you were right about not taking him back with us.”
“Be tough even with the other boat.” Hayden marched around the head. “And why so sure it’s a he?”
“Have a look. Location-wise, if nothing else, those sure look like balls to me.” Tucked between the dinosaur’s legs and forward of its anus were two oblong bulges, the skin covering them beaded with fine scales.
“Not very big, are they? I mean, look at the size of him.”
“He’s a juvenile, Prentler. Wait a couple years… they’ll get bigger.”
“Makes sense,” said Ron. “If the ones we just saw were cows, and the bulls are anywhere near as big as you said, our friend here had a lot more growing up to do before he’d get a chance with the ladies. And big as those are, I wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up the size of basketballs during the rut.”
“That’s pushing it. But I will give you bigger.” Mark looked from one end to the other. “I find it kind of funny how I never gave a lot of this any thought. Like dinosaurs during the rut. You think about how big they are, and how strong. Watching a herd of these guys during the rut would be an amazing experience.”
“No doubt,” Ron said. “So long as you did it from a distance.”
Hayden was searching between the legs. “This thing got a dick?”
“Will you guys stop already?” said Charlie, looking as if he’d swallowed a bug. “It doesn’t seem right to be… you know, pokin’ around and lookin’ for stuff like that.”
“Come on, Charlie. Didn’t you ever take biology?”
“No. And if that’s what that shit’s about, I’m glad I didn’t.”
Ron rolled his eyes. “Let me guess. You like to get laid in the dark better too.”
Endlessly fascinating, the animal’s skin was covered in tough leathery scales that varied in size to accommodate the flexibility needed at the joints, as well as to match the multi-colored contours of the splotches. Loose on its flanks and tighter higher up and along its back, the skin couldn’t be moved at all on the rear of its head and crest.
Peeling back the lips revealed an arrangement that all of them recognized as similar to a deer’s, the upper front consisting of a tough, almost sand-papery pad; the teeth that made contact with it squared off and flat. Mark pried out the remains of the animal’s last meal, and, peering inside, saw how the cheeks created pockets along the rows of sharply ridged molars. He was looking at an evolutionary masterpiece, the inner of the nested rows clearly newer and sharper than the outer ones. “We had teeth like these,” he remarked, “there’d never have been a need for dentists.”
Ron tugged the hadrosaur’s tail and found that while he could move it sideways, the bones and tendons made it virtually impossible to move up and down. The muscles that powered it were massive and near the surface and, as Charlie mentioned, most likely gristly. Easy to get at, when it came time to butcher the thing, the tail meat would be left for the scavengers.
Charlie checked the back of the neck where the bullet had shattered the third vertebra. “You missed, McClure. Hole’s outside of the ten ring.”
Ron’s point of aim was smaller than he thought, the hole a smidge low. He reached around, but found no sign of an exit. “Picky picky.” While he could just as easily have killed an adult, he was very glad he hadn’t. Small in comparison to the others he’d seen, at nearly a ton even this one was going to be difficult to dress.
Charlie shaded his eyes. “If you guys are done, I’d say we should get started.”
“Is getting warm,” Hayden said. “Who gets to do this anyway?”
“That’s another one where there isn’t any question. The way I remember it: he who shoots ‘em has honors.”
“Okay, fine. But I’m going to need some help.”
Hayden moved back and popped off the lens cap. “You’ll get your help. But before things get messy, scoot on over a bit. Tony made me promise that I’d get some pictures.”
The dinosaur was the trophy of a lifetime, and while there was the distinct possibility the pictures would
never be developed, Ron was happy to oblige. He draped the rifle onto his shoulder, then took an unabashedly proud pose, one in front and one midway along. Hayden found a piece of driftwood and used it to prop the camera, then got a shot of the three of them kneeling beside it. The last one, after some prodding, captured Mark and Charlie stretched seductively across the carcass. Hayden refused to take more. “Maybe later,” he said.
“McClure, he’s all yours.”
Figuring where to start wasn’t easy, the most troublesome part being how the back leg was hanging. Springy, muscular, and all by its lonesome heavier than any deer he’d ever shot, the leg effectively blocked access to the lower part of the corythosaur’s belly. Ron slung the rifle and tried lifting at the ankle, an effort that gained him all of a foot. And again, with Prentler’s help, the two of them raising the thing barely two. Mark and Charlie came trotting around and asked if they needed a hand. “A hand?” Ron grumbled, rubbing his shoulder. “What we need is a frickin’ crane.”
Mark suggested they rope the thing and try pulling it out of the way; Ron’s preference to roll the animal on its back, though he admitted he had no idea how.
Charlie saw the problem differently. “It’s like building a house and that leg is a prefab wall. They’re heavy too, let me tell you, and me and Arnie put them up all the time. Sometimes alone. All we need are supports and a way to hold them together.” He filled them in while they examined the nearby trees, the best candidate a heavily browsed four-poster more dead than alive. They hacked notches in two of the four trunks, and pushing and shoving, dragged them down. Notched to length, the two were then wedged between the tree’s remaining trunks, all of them once again pushing and pulling until the leafy top ends snapped off.
Trimmed of branches and sharpened on both ends, the logs were lastly carried to the carcass and lashed together by way of Mark’s belt, the two forming a stout, V-shaped bipod. The longer of the tangs was forced into a slit cut next to the Achilles tendon, the four men then working together to shift each of the poles gradually across the sand until the massive hind leg was up and out of the way.
Hayden stepped back to admire their handiwork. “That was a really good idea, Bull.”
“Hey, it’s what I do.”
Mark hung his shirt on a heavily padded toe. “Yep, worked even better than I expected.” Ron was off searching… who knew for what. “For a while there, I thought he might have a way out of this.
“McClure, what are you looking for?”
“There’s no place to put my rifle. A clean place anyway.”
“I can take care of that. Give it here.”
“Sweaty as you are? Forget it. Besides which, I’m going to need you to help.”
“Then give it to beanpole here… or Charlie even.”
“Don’t be a brick brain. Once we open this puppy up we’re all going to get messy. And as much as sand and gun oil don’t mix, sand and blood are worse. Tell you what. Move that shirt of yours and I’ll hang it there.”
“Sorry, but I found it first. And you hang it there we’ll be banging our heads.”
Ron tried the foreleg at Hayden’s suggestion. Still flexible, though rigor mortis was setting in. He draped the sling and checked that the rifle couldn’t slip off. Better than on the ground, Ron yet cautioned everyone to keep an eye on it if things got bloody.
That issue settled, Ron stared at the mountainous carcass and rolled up his sleeves. “I’ve never gutted anything even close to this size before. What do you think? Start high or low?”
Charlie said he normally started somewhere in the middle. “Where the skin’s loosest,” he explained. “Start there and you can get a feel for how thick it is, and once you’re in, you can work your way up or down, depending on what’s under.” Ron liked that approach, and started his cut midway along the dinosaur’s belly. “And however much of this guy we take back, I’m thinkin’ we should take a piece of this too.” He patted the animal’s chest. “Skin like this is just too pretty to waste.”
Ron stopped to wipe his forehead. “Would have made one hell of a throw for my work bench.”
Hayden smiled. “I bet it would.”
“You ever tanned anything?“ Mark asked, watching as Ron retraced the cut with his knife.
“Once,” said Charlie. “Can’t remember which deer it was, but it didn’t turn out too bad. We throw some salt on it, maybe we can do something with this one too. Gotta be some way to use it.”
Ron opened a hole in the layer of meat beneath the skin, a slimy gray balloon bulging ever larger as he ran the blade repeatedly along the cut. He paused—“This is the part I hate”—then snatched a breath and jammed his hand in and pushed back whatever was inside. He slid the knife in, sawing, lengthening the slit, the hole in the hadrosaur’s belly growing ever wider. Intestines ballooned out and eventually spilled like a mass of glistening snakes across the ground.
Ron skipped away. “Son-of-a-bitch…! I didn’t think it’d smell this bad.” Mark told him to quit whining, and as if to prove a point started fishing more out with a stick. Hayden had a hand clamped across his mouth.
“Could be worse,” Charlie said from a distance. “I saw a guy dress a gut-shot elk once. Poor bastard—the elk that is. You want to talk about stink? Man, did it ever.”
Ron asked Mark if he’d found anything interesting.
“A couple of things actually. But you need to open him up more.”
Careful to avoid stepping on intestines, Ron worked the cut higher until the knife started clicking. “Anybody remember to bring the axe?” He rapped what appeared to be the breastbone. “No way am I going any farther with just this knife.” The axe hadn’t made it, but the scuba knife had, and Ron was willing to give it a try.
Mark turned to Hayden and wiggled his sticky fingers. “You mind? It's under the back seat. Should be next to my fanny pack.”
“No problem at all. Playing go-fer is fine by me.”
Tony and Wheajo were posted atop the far bank, Tony cupping his mouth when Hayden trotted to the Discovery. “How’s it going?” he shouted.
“I guess okay,” Hayden shouted back, grubbing for the rubber sheath with Mark’s scuba knife. “Get too close and the smell is enough to gag a horse, but we’re getting there.
“You’d never know by how he looks, but McClure hasn’t cut himself even once. Not so far, anyway.”
Mark smiled as Ron ran his thumb along the blade. “Guess I know who to ask if I ever think about shaving.” Charlie held the forelimb out of the way to give Ron a better shot at the breastbone. He hacked away, making slow if steady progress, his arm and shoulder flecked with bony bits and blood when Mark told him to stop. “There’s too much weight on those ribs, Ron. Take the arm off and it won’t pinch like it is, and the thing’ll finally be the hell out of our way.”
“Take too long,” Ron panted, then noticing his rifle. “I asked you guys to keep an eye on that. Damn, now there’s crap all over it… Prentler, your hands clean?” Hayden showed him they were. “Good, get that thing out of here and find a better place for it. A clean place, got it?”
“And after that…,” said Charlie, “dig around and see about findin’ something to hold this up.” He lifted the foreleg. “Six feet would get it out of the way. A little longer’d be good too.”
The smell was impossible to get used to, and Ron and Charlie were grateful for the chance to get a decent lungful of air. The breeze was picking up, and that was helping. And if the animal had fallen in even a slightly different direction, they wouldn’t have been forced to work in the back draft of the animal’s body. Standing there and leaning across the shoulders, Ron swore that next time he’d do it different.
Hayden had put together a bed of fronds far enough away that Ron’s precious rifle wouldn’t get dirty, and afterward trimmed the thicker of the treetops they’d downed earlier, first to length, then of its branches. With the ends cleaned up, he and Charlie skewered the forelimb and wedged it out of the way.
The clicks of steel chipping bone were soon again reverberating across the river, the animal’s legs held askew with poles. “You know, this whole thing is getting to look a lot like a construction project.”
“I’m glad you find it entertaining,” Mark said, struggling to hold the ribcage open. “Be useful and find another stick to hold these apart.” Gone and back in barely a minute, Hayden nicked off the twigs and got a rough measure, then trimmed the cutting to length. Mark and Charlie pried the ribcage open while Hayden wedged it in place.
Tired and sticky, they gathered beside what resembled a giant clamshell. The diaphragm was mostly intact, the hunters drawing imaginary lines and trying to decide which organs would be intercepted by a bullet or an arrow. “You were wondering about his pecker? Well… there it is.” Hayden leaned forward, nodded. “Everything is a whole lot bigger, but it does look about like a deer,” Ron said, poking this and that with the knife. “Not too many things I don’t recognize.”
Charlie jiggled a slimy loop with a stick. “Then what’s this green thing? Oh yuck…. Or this purple one?”
“I said about like a deer. And below the diaphragm is out of bounds anyway, so I could care less what they are.”
Initially content to watch from the sidelines, Hayden’s curiosity was getting the better of his queasiness now that most of the guts were out. Bloody yes, though far less than he expected, he was studying the ribcage when he noticed the purple tube running beside the creamy vertebrae. The tube was held in place by a sort of tissue, and Hayden was about to ask what it was when Ron inadvertently nicked it with his knife, a burst of blood spraying from the cut like gelatinous vomit.
Mark jumped aside. “Now look what you did! God damn it, McClure, I told you to slow down!”
