by Homer Hickam
Everything was pleasant. The sun hid behind a big puffy cloud, a little breeze came mewing over us, and no mosquitoes, flies, or gnats chose to bite us. Laura confirmed the obvious. “This is nice,” she said.
“Agreed,” I replied.
“The drink is excellent.”
“Some people would say it’s the gin that’s important, or the tonic, but actually it’s the lime.”
“I would say all three ingredients are important,” Laura replied. “The lime keeps scurvy away, the tonic is a preemptive strike against malaria, and the gin is an ancient tranquilizer, good for the heart.”
Laura had bested me and I acknowledged it with a nod of my head, saying, “Well, anyway, I was glad to see the limes in the fridge since I forgot to bring any.”
“I bought them in Bozeman,” she said. “Little natural foods shop downtown.”
“Bozeman’s nice,” I said.
“Yep. I went to school at Montana State. In a way, you might say I was one of Jack Horner’s protégés. You know who he is, right?”
I did, mainly because I loved Michael Crichton’s books and the movies made from them. I said, “Jurassic Park advisor, Crichton’s model for the paleontologist in the book, an author in his own right, and so forth?”
“Well, those are a few of Jack’s attributes. Actually, he’s important to paleontology because he changed the way we think about dinosaurs with his study of Maiasaura, a duckbill he named and described. Its name means ‘good mother lizard’ and Horner showed by his excavations how Maiasaurs took care of their nestlings. For the first time, somebody was talking about dinosaurs as social animals that parented their little ones. Without that insight, we might have been stumbling around in the dark for years about these animals. His insights gave other paleontologists a platform to build on. Now, we can infer that nearly all dinosaurs led complex, interesting lives, much like the animals of today.”
“What’s the word for when you think of animals like people?” I asked.
“Anthropomorphic,” she instantly answered, cocking an eyebrow. “Perhaps Horner and the rest of us are a bit guilty of that but I don’t care. Animals feel a lot of the things we feel. They get afraid like us, and sometimes they panic and do stupid things, just as we do. They sleep, they drowse, they even ponder. Have you ever seen a squirrel stare at one of those bird feeders designed to stop them? They figure out a way to get at it, eventually. This is not by trial and error. They think, Mike. More importantly, many animals, and Horner showed this included some dinosaurs, feel a type of love, love of their children, love of their mates. Oh, I’m sure Jack Horner would argue he didn’t say anything like that at all, but was only describing the methodology used to perpetuate the species, but I believe the emotion they felt was very akin to what we think of as love.”
“It’s hard to imagine they had time to do anything but avoid getting eaten by T. rexes,” I observed.
She sipped her drink, then allowed herself a moment before answering. “Maybe things weren’t quite as horrible in their world as we think. Maybe, in fact, they would think our world is the horrible one, what with all our rushing around, our polluting, our broken families, our terrible reliance on mind-altering drugs—your excellent g-and-t, of course, gets a pass here—and on and on.”
“Well,” I said, “the next time I’m in Bozeman, I might just go shake Dr. Horner’s hand. You said you were his protégé. Why aren’t you still with him?”
“A higher calling named Pick Pickford. It was an emotional decision, I’ll confess, not an intellectual one. Luckily, I already had my master’s degree before I met him at the annual SVP conference. That’s the Society of Vertebrate Paleontologists. I heard him speak, saw the results of his work, and asked him if I could help. He said he had no money and I said that was no problem. I had a little and it was his if he’d take me on his next expedition. Been with him ever since.”
“Happily?”
She shrugged. “Most of the time. We’ve found some important stuff together.”
I decided to be blunt. “What else out here have you found besides this Trike?”
Again, she gave her answer some thought. In fact, she gave it so much thought, she didn’t answer at all. So I prompted her by saying, “Pick said he was mostly interested in finding a baby T. rex, matching the bones Bill Coulter found years ago.”
“That would be grand, wouldn’t it?” she said. “But maybe you ought to ask Pick.”
I didn’t respond, mainly because our little moment with our snacks and drinks was really too pleasant to spoil. “I enjoyed myself today,” I said. “Being a dinosaur hunter is fun.”
“Nothing like it in the world,” she said. “It astonishes me that everyone doesn’t want to do it. I mean, being outside, breathing fresh air, digging up the past, having a drink with a vegetarian cowboy and all that. It’s the best way to live.”
“Cowboying is a bit like that, too, except there’s cow manure involved,” I said.
She smiled. “Wait here,” she said, and jumped up and went behind the cook tent where her own tent was pitched. She brought back a plastic sample bag, opened it, and handed me part of its contents.
I handled what appeared to be a brownish-gray lump of crumbling rock. “What is it?” I asked.
“T. rex poop! Isn’t it beautiful?”
I looked it over. Now that I knew what it was, I could see by its shape, sort of a tubular blob, that it was indeed poop except it appeared to be made out of rock and dirt. “How do you know it’s T. rex?”
“Well, it’s big and, if you looked under a microscope, you’d observe crunched bone. T. rex is the obvious candidate.”
Based on my expression, I think she could tell I was suitably impressed. “You paleontologists sure are interesting,” I said.
She smiled, but then took the T. rex manure away. “We call this stuff coprolite.”
“Why?”
“It’s Greek. It means ‘shit rock.’”
“Ah, the Greeks,” I replied.
She carried her dino-doo back to her tent, then returned just as Tanya and Pick arrived, all sweaty and with their packs full. They did not offer to show me what was in them. Instead, with Laura helping them, they put the packs away and joined us for our hors d’oeuvres. I inquired about drinks for the two and both agreed that would be just fine. I could tell my gin wasn’t going to last long with this crowd.
We lolled around the table, everyone being quiet. Finally, Pick said, “I heard you and Laura had a productive day.”
“I learned a lot,” I answered. “I also found a claw or at least a partial one.” I showed it to him and he took a moment to admire it.
“Ornithomimosaur,” he said, confirming Laura’s estimate. To my disappointment, he put it in his shirt pocket. “You put down in your log where you found it?”
“I did.”
“Good. I might want to go have a look around there. Ornithos were interesting animals. They were theropods without teeth, just beaks.”
Tanya said, “I’m the cook tonight. Thought I’d grill some hamburgers.”
“Mike’s a vegetarian,” Laura said, which, based on Tanya’s expression, surprised her.
“Good for you,” Tanya finally said.
“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I can feed myself.”
“I’ll fix a big salad,” Tanya offered. “And we have lots of rice. How about saffron rice? Would you like that?”
“Sure. I brought along rice and beans to add to your stock.”
She smiled at me. “Mike, you are an interesting man.” This made me happy. I mean how often did a beautiful Russian woman declare that I was interesting?
Laura wanted to document our Trike dig some more so I went along to help her. She took photographs, jotted notes, and directed me to brush off the exposed bones. When we returned, dinner was served around the same table where we’d had our drinks. The salad and saffron rice were excellent and before long, we were all stretching and letting our ti
redness be known. Soon, we’d wandered off to our respective tents. When I crawled into my sleeping bag, I knew I wasn’t going to last long and I didn’t.
Tanya, who apparently was always assigned cooking duties, had breakfast ready first thing in the morning. Scrambled eggs, bacon (not for me, of course), toast, and several kinds of breakfast cereal. I was feeling downright pampered. “Back to the Trike,” Laura told me.
“I’m your cowboy,” I said.
“Giddyup,” she replied, smiling and giving me the eye. I liked both of Pick’s ladies. They seemed to like me, too, which was kind of nice.
Pick and Tanya said they were going to go prospecting again so Laura and I dug, photographed, measured, and packed bones away until just before noon when a distant drone told us company was coming. It proved to be Ray and Amelia on four-wheelers. “We came to help,” Ray said.
“Can we?” Amelia asked, eagerly.
“Yes,” I answered before Laura could say a word, “but first I’ll have to explain what we’re doing here and why.”
Laura laughed and said, “Mike is already an expert dinosaur digger. Come on up. Let him teach you what you need to know.”
They parked their vehicles and came up and I essentially repeated the lecture Laura had given to me. Laura added some instruction on the careful use of the tools, assigned them a large bone to work on together, and then let them settle down to it. After a while, Laura said, “If you get hungry, food’s in the mess tent. Fix what you like.”
Over the next week, we fell into a rhythm of up early, breakfast; Laura, me, Ray, and Amelia at work on the Trike; Pick and Tanya going off somewhere and returning in the evening with full packs. They seemed as tired as we were at the end of the day, so cocktails for those who wanted it, dinner, and to bed after a little conversation around the fire pit which we’d dug to burn cedar in to chase away the mosquitoes.
Of all of us, Amelia seemed to be having the most fun. She loved it all, the picking, scraping, and brushing. She overflowed with questions on our Triceratops and Laura patiently answered them all.
One night around the fire pit, Amelia said, “I’ve decided to be a paleontologist.”
Pick said, “I think you’d be a good one. But I have to tell you there’s not much money in it.”
“I don’t care,” Amelia replied. “I like it. Anyway, it’ll get me out of this place.”
“What’s wrong with this place?” Ray demanded, then said, “Never mind. I’ve heard it all before.”
“What’s wrong with this place,” Amelia said precisely, “is that it’s like living inside a cage. We’re stuck, Ray. Can’t you see that?”
“All I see is this ranch, which I think is a fine place to live. I don’t think I’m in a cage at all.”
“Well, good luck,” she answered. “I’m out of here after graduation.”
“Sure. Good luck to you, too,” Ray grumped.
Laura and Tanya, recognizing a lover’s spat when they heard one, stayed out of it. Pick wasn’t so smart. “I can give you recommendations,” he said to Amelia. “There are several excellent institutions you could attend, including Montana State.”
“Thank you,” she said, smiling at him. I looked over and Ray was gritting his teeth. I felt sorry for him but there was nothing I could do. Ray sat there for a few more minutes, just staring at the fire, then got up and went to his tent. Amelia pretended not to notice. Before long, we all made our way to our sleeping bags. I slept like a rock except I was awakened once by a distant grumble of an engine. It sounded too guttural for a four-wheeler but sound can play tricks in the badlands. I would have thought about it more except I couldn’t keep my eyes open. My last thought before I went back to sleep wasn’t the odd engine noises but Jeanette. What was she doing back on the ranch? Did she miss me? I knew in my heart she didn’t, except for the work that wasn’t getting done, but I wondered just the same.
The second week didn’t change much except I ran out of gin. That meant beer in the evening. Nice, but not the same. Ray, Amelia, and I dug out the Trike with either Laura or Tanya supervising. We had exposed a femur and a tibia and a number of vertebrae. Laura said she was sure we were going to find a sacrum. Part of the skull had also been exposed, including the frill but Laura had decided to go after it last. “The rest of this animal we can move bit by bit,” she said. “But the skull is going to be huge. I have no idea how we’re going to move it.”
Mostly, I loved the evenings. Tanya, Laura, Ray, Amelia, and I shared cooking duties, our meals simple but nutritious. Afterward, we retired to the fire pit, drinking beer (Ray and Amelia got soft drinks) and talking. Both Laura and Tanya were full of stories—mostly with Pick as the hero—of their expeditions in Mongolia, China, Argentina, and Tunisia. In almost every story, they arrived at their foreign destination, were escorted to the happy dinosaur hunting grounds, realized they had been taken to a place where it was all hunted out, and Pick went on to make a dazzling find. At the end of one such story, told by Tanya and featuring an adventure in China where they had given their escorts the slip and discovered a new feathered dinosaur only to have it taken away before they could present it to the world, I asked, “Tanya, what’s your story?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I mean, how did you become a paleontologist?”
She looked a bit flustered, then said, “I am not a paleontologist, Mike.”
“She’s a first-class digger,” Pick chimed in, “and a great assistant.”
“I am Russian,” she said, quietly. “I have a green card. I will apply for citizenship.”
“I didn’t mean to snoop,” I apologized.
“It is all right,” Tanya said and gave me a small smile.
Of course, eventually the talk turned to me and I gave them my quick spiel. I had been raised all around the world, with my father being in the Air Force. When Dad retired, he took a job in California and we settled in. Eventually, I joined the army, and afterward, went to junior college, then joined the force as a rookie cop. I rose to detective but a bullet from a bad guy shortened my career. After that, I spent three years being an investigative gofer for the major film studios and a couple of Indies. In between all that, I married a couple of times to good women who, after a time, wised up to my bullshit and threw me out. I had come to Montana to escape life in general and met Bill Coulter who agreed to make me into a cowboy. That had been a decade ago and I had not left since except for brief forays to Las Vegas.
We also talked about dinosaurs and what they were like and why they were so fascinating. When Ray asked what killed them, Laura, Tanya, and Pick said, almost in unison, “We don’t care. We only care how they lived.” It seemed a mantra they had settled on.
Summer in Montana means long hours of daylight but when the sun finally set, the full glory of the sky was ours to admire as we sat around the fire pit, the twisted little cedar sticks turned to glowing embers. Not only the stars, planets, and the edge of our galaxy were on full display but multiple satellites as well. One flew over every few minutes and from all directions. They were fascinating to watch. Laura, it turned out, was a space buff and could accurately predict the arrival of the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station. The latter looked like a gigantic, sparkling city passing overhead and all we could do was watch with open-mouthed awe. “I wish I could go up there,” Amelia said after a dramatic pass.
“Is there anything you don’t want to do?” Ray demanded. “I mean other than stay around here?”
“Ray,” Laura said quietly, “let Amelia be what she wants to be.”
“Who am I to stop her?” Ray griped, then got up and went to bed.
Sometime into the night, I woke, hearing once more a low, almost moaning engine sound. I climbed out of my tent and listened. It was far away, whatever it was, but seemed to be getting closer. I put on my clothes, boots, and some leather gloves then climbed the hill in front of the camp. Everything was immersed in a milky light provided by t
he moon. The way up wasn’t easy, the dirt and rocks slippery, but I took my time. At the top of the hill was a layer of sandstone. I carefully ran my gloved hand over it, checking for snakes, then pulled myself up and over. From the top, which was a small plateau, I could look across a great expanse. A sliver of Fort Peck Lake could be seen, the moon glittering on it. The sound of the machine, whatever it was, continued for only a few seconds, then went abruptly silent. I strained my eyes but could see nothing. Then I wondered if maybe the noise was coming from the lake and what I was hearing was a boat of some kind. I’d never seen anything on the lake bigger than a medium-sized houseboat but Fort Peck was large enough for a small cruise ship. I waited, hoping the sound would start up again but it didn’t and I climbed back down. Near the bottom, a rattlesnake buzzed a warning and I jumped about six feet, fell, and landed on my butt. Sore and a little shaky, I climbed back into the sack.
The next morning, over a breakfast of pancakes, I asked Laura if she’d heard any noises. She said she hadn’t. No one else had, either. I was beginning to wonder if it was just me.
12
One night, sitting around the fire pit, Pick said, “Sometimes, I tell a little story about the bones we find according to the evidence. I hope I won’t be boring you if I tell one now, will I, Mike?”
“Sounds good to me,” I said. By then, I had a couple of beers under my belt and was ready for anything.
Pick leaned back in his chair. “I think our Triceratops—let’s give him a name, Big Ben is what I’m thinking—was probably a bull, old for his species, tired, and, based on the gnarly growth I have observed in his joints, painfully arthritic. As he grew ever older, he slept a lot. We can’t say how Trikes slept but most likely, like cattle and other herbivores, he slept standing or kneeling. I am certain Trikes never rolled onto their side to sleep or rest. Much too heavy for that. Their heads were especially heavy and made up nearly half the length of their bodies so, most likely, they let their heads droop to touch the ground. So, let’s say, old Ben one day went to sleep, his beak immersed in a meadow of sweet-smelling ferns.”