A Dawn of Mammals Collection

by Lou Cadle

  “Bigger. Remember, what are birds, really?”

  There was a silence. Then Claire said, “Dinosaurs?”

  “That’s right,” Bob said. “And it’s a good way to think of this one. It’s an avian dinosaur. So think dinosaur with small wings and a beak like a parrot’s, but that beak is bigger than your head. It’s called the gastornis.”

  There was silence as they all tried to imagine it.

  Nari said, “Parrots’ beaks are to crack nuts, though. Maybe that’s all these birds ate.”

  Rex said, “You want everything to be a vegetarian like you.” But his tone was friendly, not mean.

  Nari shrugged.

  “I knew a parrot once—or no, it was a cockatoo,” said Zach. “Its favorite food was fried chicken. Kinda creepy, when you think about it. Like cannibalism.”

  Again, they all went silent.

  Bob said, “The mammals were getting bigger, but I don’t know of any huge predators, not like where we were before. So except for the bird, we should be able to defend ourselves okay.”

  “And the spiders,” Dixie said, rubbing her ankle again.

  Hannah said, “You should try to leave that alone.”

  Dixie shot her an angry look. “You get bit and see how well you do at that.”

  Hannah kept herself from spitting back a retort. Let the girl hurt herself. She just hoped it wasn’t that sort of flesh-rotting toxin she was spreading through her leg, or Dixie could be lamed forever. She wouldn’t wish that on the girl, no matter how badly Dixie sometimes got under her skin.

  Bob said, “The good news is, there should be nut trees by now, evolutionarily speaking, so we might find some on the ground from last year. And the ferns Hannah is testing, there are plenty of those. There are fish, if we find water. Snakes could even provide food.”

  “Poisonous ones?”

  “Venomous,” Bob corrected. “Possibly. Venom doesn’t fossilize, so we don’t know.”

  Garreth said, “So we’ll learn that now. M.J. would have been excited about that.”

  That sobered the group even more.

  Jodi said, “We need to do something for M.J. I mean, a memorial or something. He died only a few hours ago. It doesn’t matter if it was thirty million years ago—or ahead. For us, it’s still today.”

  She had a point. Hannah said, “I know, and you’re right. First we need to find shelter for today, and to get a fire going.”

  “And find water,” Rex said.

  “And water most of all,” she said. “Let’s get set up first for survival, and when we are, you can organize a service, Jodi, if you want the job.”

  The girl nodded, her face a mask of misery.

  Hannah felt guilty. She hadn’t spared much thought for M.J. since arriving here. It was hard to wallow in emotion when there were life and death decisions to make. But she thought Jodi was right, that for the psychology and cohesion of the group, a memorial service was a good idea. She put her grief for M.J. into a mental compartment, to take out later and feel.

  Bob said, “So, that’s about all I know about the Paleocene epoch.”

  Hannah said, “We need to find water. Aren’t you all thirsty?”

  Reminding them of their immediate needs pulled them out of the glum mood that the reminder of M.J. had dropped over the group. One by one, they stood up, brushed themselves off, and put on packs and tool belts they’d slipped off for the break. The ones with spears grabbed them up.

  Ted said, “Mr. O’Brien, are those little horse things edible?”

  Nari made a soft sound of dismay.

  Bob said, “Don’t see why not. Horse is on the menu in France. And zebra in parts of Africa.”

  Ted took off his baseball cap and brushed his fingers through his hair. “I could get one of them with a rock, easy.” He sniffed the inside of his cap, made a face, and tucked it into the waistband of his jeans. “Too hot for hats.”

  Hannah’s ranger hat was still on her head. She took it off and waved it at herself, though it had almost no cooling effect. They were all sweating profusely, so the number one priority was clear. “Water,” she said.

  They continued their hunt through the jungle.

  They found the water through the simple solution of stepping into it. There were still vines and ferns underfoot when they stepped into a low-lying area of soggy ground.

  “Swamp,” Claire said.

  “Let’s skirt it,” Hannah said. “Stay on solid ground and work our way around the swampy area. It might be at the edge of a lake.”

  “I want a drink,” Zach said.

  “Let’s find less stagnant water. We aren’t going to die in the next hour of thirst,” Hannah said, though she was feeling the thirst as a growing irritation too.

  They skirted the swampy area by testing, putting their feet down tentatively. If a foot sunk into squishy, spongy stuff, they backed up a step and circled around it. The group developed a rhythm without being coached, each person looping around the rest to get ahead, testing the ground, while the last in line struggled through the vines to reach the first place again.

  Ted, at the front for the moment, said, “The trees seem lighter over there. Less dense.”

  “Yeah, like a clearing,” Rex said.

  They tried to find a dry path in that direction but kept running into swamp. After they’d circled around it for a while, and as her thirst grew, she gave up on the cautious strategy. “Everybody hang on to someone’s hand,” she said.

  “Why?” asked Claire.

  “Quicksand. Or quickmud, if you’d prefer.”

  “Oh,” Claire said, and she reached for Zach’s hand, the nearest one.

  Hannah grabbed onto Laina’s hand, and they squished their way through the swamp toward the brighter area.

  The trees thinned, and the water grew ankle-deep.

  Laina whispered, “I hope there aren’t snakes in here.”

  There probably were. Hannah said, “Try not to think about it.”

  Laina nodded. Her hand was wet with sweat. Hannah’s was too. Her everything was wet with sweat. Insects buzzed around her. A particularly deep buzz next to her ear made her flinch. Whatever it was, she hoped it didn’t sting.

  They broke out of a patch of sticky reeds into a pool of water. It was a murky-looking lake. Across the way, at about ten o’clock, the land rose out of the water more sharply, and there was a bank, a better place than this to sit, rest, and fill up on water.

  “We need to get over there,” she said.

  A pair of the tiny horses came out of the trees just to the right of the bank, and they minced down to the water’s edge. She knew they weren’t really horses, but it was easier to think of them as that than the name Bob had given them.

  “So cute,” said Jodi quietly.

  “Shh,” someone said.

  In silence they watched the animals approach the edge to drink. They were too far away to throw rocks or spears at them, so the group of humans stood still and watched.

  One of the horses walked a few steps into the water and folded his knees to lie down. Cooling off? Maybe, though the water lapping at her legs was about body temperature. Great for taking a bath. Not so great for a refreshing drink or cooling off.

  Ted was bending to swish his hat in the water. Laina pointed to the water and mimed drinking, with a question on her face. Because Hannah was glancing at her, she didn’t see what happened with the horses.

  She just heard the screams.

  Chapter 6

  A splash from across the way sounded at the same time. She looked over, and the one horse was scampering back into the trees. Where the other horse had been cooling off, there was a roiling area of water that smoothed out as she watched.

  “What?” she said into the noise of the kids talking. Nari was crying.

  “Something got it,” said Garreth. “I didn’t see what.”

  Claire said, “Me neither. It was fast.”

  Bob said, “Whatever it was, we have to get o
ut of the water. It’s in there.”

  Hannah said, “Right. Back through the reeds.” She grabbed Laina’s hand and yanked her along.

  Dixie, to her right now, was saying, “These plants are cutting my legs.”

  “Move fast,” Hannah said. “Back to solid ground.”

  She was panting as she sloshed through the warm water. She’d not feel safe until they were on solid ground, though whatever had gotten the horse was likely too busy eating it to come for them.

  There was no guarantee, though, that it didn’t have friends.

  When her boot hit solid ground, she slowed down and let go of Laina’s hand. “You okay?” she asked the girl.

  “Fine. I don’t know what happened.”

  Ted said, “Neither do I.”

  When all of them were gathered together, Hannah called for quiet. “Who saw it?”

  She waited.

  Tentatively, Zach raised his hand. “I think it was snatched from under the water. I saw maybe a second of....” He shrugged. “Something. Too little of it to get a mental picture or describe it to you guys. Whatever it was came maybe two inches out of the water, and then the horse was gone.”

  Bob said, “That’s what I saw too. It was fast.”

  Claire said, “Whatever it was, it knows to wait for its meal right there, by that bank.”

  Well, crap. Hannah needed to get them all some drinking water. She tried to remember the place across the way. The bank fell off in both directions. At the apex, it was perhaps eighteen inches over the water, maybe a little more. Hadn’t there been a little ledge of dirt just under it? She closed her eyes and tried to remember.

  The others were talking among themselves, trying to figure out what they’d seen in the water.

  She said, “We need to drink.” She hadn’t raised her voice, but everyone quieted down. “So here’s how that’s going to happen. We make our way around to the bank.”

  Rex said, “I’m not going in there. It might bite off my foot.”

  Dixie said, “Whatever it is.”

  Hannah said, “I won’t ask you to. Any of you. Let’s get going.”

  They circled around the swamp. It took them over an hour more. The weather was getting hotter and hotter. From the shadows she could see it wasn’t yet noon, and she did not look forward to what it was going to feel like at 3:00 this afternoon. Once they were set up with shelter and water, they’d need to think about resting in the afternoons.

  When they got to the bank she waved them all back. “Stay several feet away. Until we know what’s in there, we don’t know if it’s amphibious or not.”

  Jodi said, “You mean it could climb out of the water?”

  “No idea,” Hannah admitted, walking forward to the highest point of the bank. The surface of the water was still. It was greenish—with only algae, she hoped, which shouldn’t kill them. But they needed water now, and this was going to have to do them. At the edge of the bank, she stomped her boot, testing the ground. Solid enough.

  She dropped to her knees and then lay down. She wriggled forward until her waist was at the edge and her top half hanging over. Stretching her arms, she reached for the water. There was a secondary bank, a beach, just a foot-wide lip of sandy dirt between the bank and the water. She couldn’t reach the lake, but she was close. The bank was higher than she had estimated from a distance, and the lip of beach wider, but that was a good thing if it kept her away from an underwater predator.

  After wriggling back, she got to her feet and took her pack off. She removed one of her half-gallon water bottles. “Ted, I need your help,” she said.

  “Okay.” He came forward. “You want me to make a run for it?”

  “No. I want you to keep me from falling in.” And ending up like the horse.

  “Sure.”

  She went back to the edge and got down again, holding on to a plastic milk carton she had used as one of her water bottles. “Now I’m going to wriggle forward, and I need you to keep me from falling in. Sit on my legs, grab my belt; whatever you can do to keep me from overbalancing and falling in.”

  She felt his weight settle just above her knees.

  “Ease up for a sec, so I can scooch forward,” she said.

  “I’ll grab your belt then,” Ted said.

  “Great.” She felt his weight ease off and the tug at her pants as he took hold of her belt, and she scooted herself forward until she was leaning well over the bank. Using her back muscles to keep herself arched high, she said, “Sit on my legs again.”

  He did, and she let her back muscles relax, and her body dipped toward the water. It scared her half to death to stick her hand in there, but that was what she had to do. She lowered the bottle to the water and pushed it under. As water drove out the air, bubbles rose to the surface. When they stopped, she yanked her hand back, tilting the bottle to keep the water in. It was not clear water. Little bits of stuff floated in it.

  “Help me back,” she said to Ted. Between her wriggling backward and him yanking at her belt, she got back to where she could keep her balance. “Grab the water bottle,” she said.

  “It’s gross,” said Nari.

  “It is,” she said, rolling over and sitting up.

  Garreth said, “I don’t care. I’m thirsty. Give it to me.”

  “Not yet,” Hannah said, standing. She went to her pack and got out the other bottle and her bandana. She looked it over first. It wasn’t filthy, luckily. She must have washed it in the Oligocene river within the past day or two. She tucked it into the empty bottle, pushed it down for about the length of her first finger, and decanted an ounce from the full bottle into the little pouch she had formed with the bandana. Slowly, it began to filter through. “Who wants to take over the job? Requires patience.”

  Garreth said, “I can.” He reached out and she gave him first the full bottle and then the empty one with the bandana. He sat cross-legged.

  Rex said, “Maybe I can figure out some system for doing this faster.”

  “That’d be great,” Bob said. “In fact, we should all turn our minds to that.”

  “Give me all your water bottles,” Hannah said. The kids handed them forward. There were eight normal-sized water bottles among them, most 20-ouncesize, a couple smaller. “C’mon, Ted,” she said. “I need your strength again.”

  She filled all the bottles, capping them and handing them back. Her gaze kept wandering over the surface of the water, expecting some sea monster to break the surface. Her hand, when it was submerged, tingled with the anticipation of being bitten as the little horse had been. She could imagine all too easily something grabbing and pulling at her, and a tug of war between Ted and whatever lurked beneath the green, opaque surface. Not a pleasant fantasy.

  But she got all the water bottles filled and capped without incident. She rolled over and Ted gave her a hand up. “Thanks,” she said.

  “I can do that next time. I’m taller,” he said.

  “Maybe,” she said. “I’m hoping we find a better water source. Something moving. Cleaner. Maybe a spring.”

  Only about a third of the milk carton had been filled so far by the filtering process. She watched as Garreth took out her bandana and gave it a snap. A wad of green stuff sailed off to fall into the vines.

  Bob looked at her. “I think it’s just algae. Some plant. Probably not dangerous by itself.”

  She said, “Could be edible, even.” Which reminded her. “Zach, how’s your hand? Where you rubbed the fern on, I mean.”

  “Fine.”

  “I’ll try my species on my lip now.” She fished her now-squashed fern out of her pocket and rubbed it on the edge of her lip. No burning, so that was good. She’d give it a couple hours before chewing some and spitting it out, to make sure she didn’t react badly to it.

  Zach said, “Me too?”

  “Sure.” She watched as he mimicked her, rubbing a crushed section of the fern on his lower lip.

  “I’m thirsty,” said Dixie.

&
nbsp; Hannah glanced at her and saw the girl’s legs were red with welts. “Let me look at you,” she said, fearing the worst, that some toxin was moving out of her spider bite. But when she got closer, she saw that the reeds must have slashed at her. “Wow,” she said. “You need to try and stay away from those reeds.”

  “You told us to go in there.”

  “I did. I keep forgetting you dressed wrong for the field trip,” Hannah said, forcing herself to keep her tone light and not accusing. A gentle reminder to the girl that had she followed directions, she wouldn’t be in this state now. The spider bite—if that’s what it was—looked okay. A small red area, only slightly swollen, and that was probably from Dixie’s rubbing at it.

  “Are you going to do something?” Dixie said. “Or just look at my body?”

  Hannah got to her feet, shaking her head. “We have hardly any medical supplies left. I need to keep them for something like what happened to Jodi. Small injuries, we just need to keep clean, and then hope for the best.” She frowned. “Unless I can find some plant here that has antiseptic properties.” If she couldn’t, with this humid, fecund world, she feared infection would become even more likely. A source of clean, running water had to be top on her list of things to do.

  That and shelter—at least shelter for one night.

  They passed around the first bottle of water when it was almost full, and everyone drank from it. When it came to Hannah, there were only a couple swallows remaining, which did little to sate her thirst.

  Garreth said, “As least some of the algae or whatever is settling out of the other bottles as they sit there.” He was decanting one of them into the empty milk carton.

  Bob said, “At this rate, it’s going to take us two hours to get enough to drink.”

  Hannah said, “You’re right. I think the three of us—Garreth, Ted, me—should stay here and do this, and the rest of you need to look for shelter for the night.”

  “Where?” Rex asked.

  “I don’t know.” She was hot, thirsty, and feeling out of sorts, and she had to control her tone to keep from sounding irritated. “I haven’t seen anything that looks good.”

  Bob said, “What about that clearing with the circle of metasequoias?”