Valley of the Dinosaurs

by Matthew Dennion

  The raptors sensed the wolves descending the mountains. From tree branches, they watched the wolves hunt gophers all day. With each kill the wolves made, the raptors grew hungrier and hungrier. They waited in the trees for the wolves to fill their bellies. Why kill a skinny wolf when you can eat a fat one? As evening set and the wolves returned to the forest, the raptors moved into position. When they finally decided to attack the wolves, they took them completely by surprise. The wolves tasted good as they devoured their kills. And in the air, they smelled more wolves up the draw, and puppies. Oh, good. That would come later…

  7

  For the past two days, the Granolas had been hiking through some of northern California’s most beautiful mountains. The Perdidos stuck out like a broken sawblade cutting back and forth along the sky. Loamy smells refreshed the group every morning as they packed their gear and broke camp. As they walked along cliff bluffs, eagles whirled in the sky above like predatory acrobats. Deer and elk ambled in the morning mists, noting the backpackers’ passage as if they were aliens from another planet that did not belong in this untouched land.

  Caleb Henninger was content and relaxed in the wilderness. This was his element. As John Muir said, the mountains called, and he answered. Every day of the trek, he took at least a hundred photos. Caleb made sure to get up early for the sunrise shots and stay late for the night views, which were epic. On the first night, the moon had been in its vanished phase and completely nonexistent, which meant the Milky Way was a long purple cloud rising out of the mountains and stretching across the sky. He soaked it in and documented it thoroughly.

  After two days of hiking, they finally arrived. Ethan led them (always the first), then silver-haired Julie, then Caleb, who was checking back on Sadie as she brought up the rear.

  A giant barricade separated them from the rest of the wilderness. The large board with black zig-zags warned that the fence was electrified. Sign posts planted every twenty meters cautioned that they were approaching federal property. Not only would trespassers be prosecuted, but they’d be in violation of serious offenses.

  If all those warnings felt like overkill, they were not. But here it was unnecessary. The only warning needed was the collapsed trees on the other side of the fence, and the giant claw marks twenty feet along the trunks. Caleb made sure to get a close-up shot.

  “Bears can’t do that,” Caleb said. He was the tallest member of the Granolas, and even he couldn’t come close to reaching those marks.

  “How do we get in?” Ethan asked while scratching the morning shadow that was ever-present on his face.

  “The door’s over here,” Julie Na said. She was holding up her tablet with the downloaded map. She pointed around the bend. On the far side was a small gate barely large enough for a person to walk through. A thick, coded lock on the handle prevented access.

  “You sure it isn’t electrified?” Sadie Fulton asked.

  “I put a lot of money into this research,” Julie said. “It better not be.”

  “That’s not very reassuring,” Sadie said.

  Ethan walked up and touched the gate while the others shouted for him to stop. But that was Ethan for you. He was not born with the hesitance of the modern age. When Caleb and Ethan were children on the playground, Ethan was always the first kid to jump from the swing sets. When asked what he’d be when he grew up, Ethan would puff his chest out and declare that he would be an explorer one day.

  Caleb unzipped Ethan’s pack for the bolt cutters.

  “Before we go in,” Julie said, “I want to make sure everybody is ready. After this, we won’t be able to go back. We’re breaking so many laws right now. We’ll be criminals with a capital C.”

  “That’s never stopped me before,” Ethan joked.

  “That doesn’t help,” Caleb said with a laugh as he clapped his buddy on the shoulder.

  Sadie watched her friends questioningly. Of the four, she was the least experienced backpacker, and the last to join the excursion.

  Julie brushed back her silver-dyed hair and looked at Caleb. “I need this.”

  Caleb nodded. “In some ways, I think I’ve been waiting for this all my life.”

  Sadie offered, “Maybe you’ll be able to sell the footage to National Geographic or Discovery Channel.”

  “I don’t think they buy illegally gained footage,” Caleb said, his nose scrunching up full of doubt.

  “Well, there’s always Instagram and YouTube then,” Julie offered. “You’ll be famous, Caleb.”

  “I’m an out of work teacher in a world where education is less unimportant than the Twitter war between Nicki Minaj and Cardi B,” Caleb said. “What do I have to lose?”

  “First, let’s set a goal of walking back through this gate alive,” Sadie said. “Then we can talk about how many different ways you all will be rich and famous.”

  The bolt cutters snapped the lock apart. The lock fell heavy on the ground. Julie pushed the gate open, and they walked into the world’s first and only wilderness where dinosaurs roamed free.

  Backpacking With Dinosaurs is available from Amazon HERE!

  Or find more great dinosaur books at www.severedpress.com