Cretaceous Dawn

by Lisa M. Graziano

  Yariko snorted. “Paleontologists study the past, my friend. This is the present.”

  Their conversation was interrupted by Dr. Shanker’s voice, loud as usual. To his surprise Julian also heard Frank’s voice equally loud. He and Yariko hastily turned back to the camp, wondering what could have happened.

  Frank sat in his usual spot; he was clutching his VHF radio in one hand and his gun in the other. Dr. Shanker stood beside him holding the crutch, as if he had just taken it from Frank and helped him to the ground.

  “Stop playing with that thing,” Shanker was saying as they approached. “There-is-no-one-to-call. Unless you’re trying to hail a T. rex. If you’d brought two of the things there’d be some use in it; but it’s just a piece of plastic now. And stop grabbing the gun at every noise. You know Hilda’s step by now.”

  Yariko opened her mouth but Frank spoke first. “It was worth another try. Going west is all well and good, but it’d be a hell of a lot easier if someone came out east to find us.”

  Before Dr. Shanker could respond Yariko took his arm. “It doesn’t do any harm to try,” she said. “Leave him alone.”

  “Somebody should take the Goddamn thing away from him. Trying to call a rescue party. . . .” Dr. Shanker turned away in disgust. Yariko followed him, trying to calm him down.

  Julian looked at Frank. He had closed his eyes and leaned back to rest against the tree; but he was not quite close enough, and only one shoulder touched the rough bark. He looked tilted, unsteady, crumpled. He had dropped the gun but was still holding the radio.

  Julian sat down beside Frank, feeling awkward. For a moment he drew in the sand with his finger, lazy spirals and shapes, not knowing what to say. He did not like conflict; he also couldn’t understand Frank’s strange mix of hard wilderness practicality and obstinate refusal to believe his radio wouldn’t work.

  “Frank,” he began at last, and looked up.

  Frank was already looking at him. “What will you do, in the future?” he asked.

  Julian was taken aback by the question; in answer, he said the first thing that came into his mind. “I’ll write up all my observations and publish them.”

  “Yes.” Frank said. “In Nature. I know that one—that’s a big science magazine. Only great discoveries are printed there. You’ll have solved all the mysteries. People will look at fossils in a completely different way, because you’ve seen the animals, and where they live. Fossils from later periods will make much more sense, too.”

  He paused and shifted his position a little, using his arms to scootch himself back to the tree. Julian was surprised; he had never mentioned these thoughts, and had always assumed Frank wouldn’t understand.

  “And then there’s Dr. Shanker, with his Nobel Prize,” Frank continued. “This thing he’s done. . . ,” he gestured around them, “this’ll get it for him, he says.”

  Julian waited to see what would come of Frank’s strange train of thought. A security guard among three academics, scientists at that, might feel out of place in another situation, but Frank had been their leader in day-to-day survival, and he must know that. Julian couldn’t imagine getting very far without him.

  “You can walk around,” Frank continued. “Explore. Think about physics, and fossils. Things you know about. I just sit here,” he patted his leg and then the dirt beside him, “and wait for the predators. And think about the things I know. Fortunately,” he added with a snort, “you listen to me most of the time.”

  “Yes,” Julian said. “We probably wouldn’t have survived without you. All the things you think of. . . .”

  Frank had more to say. “You—with your dentition and your footprints, your albadonts and sucho-whatevers; Shanker with his Nobel Prize and physics equations—and you think I’m crazy because I can’t stop from trying the VHF now and then? If there’s the remotest chance you’re wrong about the time period, I want to be in contact with someone.”

  “You don’t have to explain,” Julian began, but Frank went on.

  “How am I going to walk a thousand miles? I’m stuck here, unless someone else comes along and takes us back. Oh, I’ll cross this sheet of water with you, if we can make a raft, but what about after that? And look at yourselves. Wandering around daydreaming about the future. What future? The fantasy one, where you’re back in Creekbend and famous for your discoveries? Or the real one—here?”

  They began constructing a boat that evening.

  The work went remarkably fast, taking only another day and a half. All of them felt the urgency of their limited window of two months; and the grueling work and sense of purpose brought them together again in supportive partnership.

  With a common project to focus on Yariko seemed unconcerned with who she was, and became the driving force behind the boat; Dr. Shanker stopped pestering the others and spent more time in camp, discussing the future. He and Frank had many an amicable conversation about boats and their boating experiences. Even Hilda seemed to perk up; she liked to run off with the branches meant for the raft, lolloping in circles while everyone chased after her.

  As for Frank, he took apart his radio and made a clever little saw, just right for shaping small wooden tools, out of a roughened piece of wire stretched tight across part of the plastic case.

  The raft was assembled from the straightest and most buoyant wood that Dr. Shanker had collected; Julian had earlier done test runs on every species of tree in the forest and settled on cypress. The vines that grew in the low areas proved strong enough for lashings. The design, Frank’s brainstorm, was like a low log-cabin arrangement made of thick branches, with a thinner but tighter floor on top. This way, he pointed out, they wouldn’t be sitting low in the water and vulnerable to crocodiles; also, the raft couldn’t be capsized.

  Frank also insisted they make the raft long and thin, for better steerage; and to cap it off, he designed a crude rudder, somewhat like a steering oar. He and Yariko became the master oar makers. Neither Julian nor Dr. Shanker had the patience to stand and shave wood for hours at a time. Julian found that his arm hurt after only a few minutes and he was easily frustrated by the makeshift tools, although Frank’s homemade axe wasn’t bad. Yariko persevered: she made some crude paddles and a bundle of sharp arrows.

  And, purely by luck, she discovered an excellent material for bow strings: the tough fibers from the long, thin tuber they’d been eating. The root had a stringy core that was almost impossible to cut before cooking, and these fibers when twisted together could take the tension of the bow. The range was short, and the bow strings broke after three or four shots, but it was a start.

  When the boat was at last complete they loaded it down with everything they could think to bring, and dragged it through the mud to the water to test it. Frank remained in camp, alone for the first time, but busily engaged in fashioning some last-minute tools.

  “What’s that?” Yariko asked, pointing at the turtle shell in the boat. It was filled with small pieces of white stuff.

  “An Alphadon skeleton,” Julian said casually. “To take back with me. There aren’t any absolutely complete ones. . . .”

  “You put those bones inside my water pot?” Yariko glared at him. “You’re going to carry some animal’s bones a thousand miles?”

  “Wait till he tries to bring a T. rex skeleton,” Dr. Shanker said. “Whitney, you can have your old bones as long as you don’t make me carry them. Now let’s get this boat, if you can call it that, in the water.”

  They shoved the raft until it floated free of the mud, then climbed carefully onto it and paddled around while Hilda stood on the shore and barked. The crude floorboards were painful to sit on and the boat proved difficult to keep in a straight line, even with coordinated paddling. Dr. Shanker had been a kayaker in his youth, and tried to apply the same techniques, without much success. Julian knew nothing about canoeing or rafting. Finally Yariko clambered over them and took up the steering position, and by working together they were able to control their directi
on.

  Dr. Shanker joked about how she and Captain Frank could sit in the stern together and plot the course, while the grunts paddled. Julian didn’t mind being a grunt, but he wanted to be the one sitting with Yariko. He thought they should paddle around the island for a bit and do some exploring.

  But Yariko insisted they could not embark on any expeditions without Frank, the true designer of the boat. “Never mind dangerous,” she said. “It isn’t proper. Frank ought to be on the maiden voyage.”

  “You just want the gun,” Dr. Shanker said, meaning to be funny. He got a sharp look in response, and Julian knew a sharp reply was coming next. Suddenly irritated with them both, he peevishly agreed to turn back. After dragging the boat ashore they walked silently back toward camp, Hilda plodding at their heels.

  Partway along the jungle path they heard a gunshot, and then a second one. The sound was so unfamiliar and weird in that primeval forest that they froze and stared at each other, confused. It took an instant for the obvious to sink in: Frank was in trouble.

  They began to run. As they came near enough to see the brown wooden angles of the lean-to through the trees, Hilda stopped suddenly. She growled, her ears laid back and the hair bristling on her neck; but she seemed frightened. She sat down in the trail, looked up at Dr. Shanker, and gave a whining yelp, exactly as if she were trying to speak.

  They hurried into the clearing.

  Julian saw blood, everywhere, pooled in the uneven surface of the mud, spattered far up the trunks of the sycamore trees. He could smell it too, and it had a sickening, pungent odor.

  Then he saw Frank, sitting in his usual position with his back against a tree. His stomach hung open like a glistening, crimson mouth and a wad of loose intestines lay in his lap. Scattered around him in the bloody soil were the two-toed footprints of Troodon, mingled and confused.

  A long moment of sick horror went by, and then Yariko screamed, “He’s still alive!”

  Frank was looking at them.

  Julian’s horror only increased. He couldn’t move, but Yariko suddenly sprinted toward Frank. She stopped about ten feet away from him, and stood with her hands over her mouth. “What do we do? What do we do?” she said in a high voice.

  Frank looked up at her. “The gun,” he said, and his right hand that lay near the gun twitched.

  Julian’s legs became unfrozen and he approached Frank, one slow step at a time, his mind still dazed. He stopped well behind Yariko. Dr. Shanker followed him.

  “What do we do?” Yariko said again, turning to look at Julian with her eyes enormous in a chalk-white face.

  Dr. Shanker looked down at Frank. “Get it all back inside, and wrap him up,” he said. “Before the thing comes back for him.” But he made no move to touch anything.

  Frank’s head turned from side to side. “The gun,” he said again. “Quick.”

  Julian was confused; did Frank want them to find his attacker and kill it? But why hadn’t those two shots killed it? Frank wasn’t one to miss.

  “But how can he walk? How can he move?” Yariko said, still in that unnaturally high voice.

  Julian knew, intellectually, that Frank would be dead in half an hour; but some part of his mind clung to the irrational thought that he could be bandaged, splinted, and helped into the raft to begin their journey. Of course he would recover. Of course he was going with them.

  Frank’s head moved again. “Can’t,” he said, his voice weaker now. “Dying. Want to die. . . .” his right hand clutched weakly at the gun again, “. . . before it comes back. Don’t want to be eaten . . . alive. Too slow.” He tried to push the gun toward Yariko; she stooped and took his left hand, and his eyes looked into hers. “You have to,” he whispered. “Now. Then go, get out. There’s too many. . . .”

  Yariko dropped his hand and backed away. “Oh no,” she said. “Oh no, you can’t ask that, I can’t.” She bumped into Julian. “He wants us to shoot him!”

  Frank’s hand still plucked feebly at the gun.

  “He’s right,” Dr. Shanker said in a hard voice. “He’s dying. He doesn’t want to be alive when those things come back. We can’t stop them.”

  Julian stared at the gun, and then at Frank’s face. Nobody moved.

  There was a noise in the bushes.

  Frank’s eyes moved from one to the other. Then his hand grasped the gun with sudden strength and lifted it to his head. “Run,” he said, and fired.

  They ran. A sudden motion attracted Julian’s gaze and saved him from a close look back after the deafening shot. Four animals stepped out of the bushes. Julian had only time to see that they were bipedal and shorter than him, and to note the huge, sickle-shaped middle claw on the hind foot; then he was running harder than he had ever run, Yariko and Shanker were running, pelting for the water and the raft. Hilda ran ahead of them.

  They tumbled onto the boat and shoved it off with long sticks.

  The Troodon hadn’t followed. They had a meal already. Julian, Yariko, and Shanker grabbed paddles and dug them into the water without a word. All their thought was to go, get away, far away so they wouldn’t hear anything, would stop imagining. . . .

  They paddled for a long time in silence.

  The boat rode low in the water, weighted with three people, a dog, and everything they had put on it earlier in the day: the axe and four stone-headed spears, the turtle-shell pot, crude fern mats and wooden poles for making a shelter, and Yariko’s bows and arrows. Hilda lay in the bow on a pile of mats, Dr. Shanker and Julian sat ’midships and paddled, and Yariko sat in the stern, alternately paddling and steering. The afternoon sun burned in their eyes. Fish swam past, shadows in the murky depths. Some were enormous, maybe reptiles, longer than the boat; but none threatened them.

  They made gloomy company, silent except for the dipping of the paddles.

  The mainland came slowly closer. At last it was there, and they entered the wide mouth of the river. The smell hit them like a wall: mud and decay, too much life, too much death. Green shores and dense jungle, silent in the afternoon heat, slid past on either side. Finally a bend in the river put their little island out of sight behind, and they were all relieved to be rid of it at last.

  Julian paddled with smooth even strokes: dip, turn, dip, turn.

  After a while Dr. Shanker said, in a conciliatory tone, “Good job at the helm. Frank couldn’t have done better.”

  Yariko was silent a moment, and then said, “You didn’t do anything. None of us did anything. We just stood there . . . you didn’t even care.”

  Dr. Shanker’s face was strangely white, his eyes still overlarge. But his voice was the same as always. “Of course I care. Do you think I want anyone to die, especially that way? And our chances aren’t any better without him.”

  “Our chances? What about him? What about his chances? It’s ended. It’s already happened.”

  “Yariko,” Julian said, in a tight voice. “Just steer. Don’t talk about it. Don’t.”

  He didn’t want anyone to speak, he didn’t want to hear anything; but she looked at him and said, “You’re no better. You couldn’t even go over to him. You couldn’t even look at him.”

  Julian stared at her, unable to retort and equally unable to admit the truth of her words.

  Yariko shoved the long steering oar to the left and the boat turned back toward the middle of the river, away from the too-near left bank.

  “I don’t. . . .” Julian began, and then stopped. He suddenly felt too weary to bother.

  “Hush,” Dr. Shanker hissed. “Keep your voices down.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” he said, “you’ve already attracted a predator. Look—”

  Part II

  Hell Creek

  EIGHT

  One of the most productive fossil beds of the Maastrichtian is the Hell Creek Formation in Montana. But even here, the fossil record is incomplete. The fauna we know best are the shelled animals, because of their excellent preservation. The areas we know b
est are seashores, swamps, and rivers, because the sediment was more likely to cover up and preserve biological remains.

  —Julian Whitney, Lectures on Cretaceous Ecology

  1 September

  2:54 PM Local Time

  Chief Sharon Earles was pacing behind her desk again. “We have no leads,” she said. “Not one lead on those missing people.”

  “And they’re not the kind of people to go missing together,” Hann put in, unhelpfully.

  “What is it with the Cremora?” Agent Kayn was spinning himself in Earles’ chair, his legs stretched out to keep his feet off the floor, watching in bemusement as Hann took half a cup of the chunky powder before adding coffee.

  “He’s on a diet. No cream or sugar,” Earles said, with no hint of sarcasm.

  Hann nodded and sipped the gooey liquid. “No doughnuts either,” he said sadly. “How about that student’s story?”

  Earles shrugged. “Beetles. Top secret experiments. All well and good, if that’s what he thinks; but I’m interested in the conditions at the time of the explosion, not in how exciting their findings were.”

  “But he thinks he can figure that out,” Hann persisted. “If you’d let him in there to do it.”

  “I can’t,” Earles said. “He’s not licensed to handle that equipment alone. He’ll have to wait for the arrival of those two other physicists I contacted.”

  The phone on Earles’ desk rang. It did so every few minutes, but so far little real information had come in. “Sharon Earles speaking.” She put her hand over the mouthpiece and whispered, “Sergeant Moore, from Roscoe.” This sounded more hopeful.

  Agent Kayn nodded and flipped open his notebook. Hann looked up, a cigarette dangling forgotten in his hand.