by Homer Hickam
Laura smiled. “Pick, for a genius, sometimes you say the damndest and dumbest things. We could be making the same mistake, only in reverse, that was done for years with the Oviraptor.”
At our blank expressions, Laura explained that an Oviraptor was a theropod about the size of a large dog. When paleontologists first found a partial skeleton of one in China, it was lying beside a nest with eggs. They assumed that it was raiding the nest of an unidentified herbivore and named it Oviraptor or Egg Thief. The name stuck for decades until another skeleton was found, this one nearly complete, sitting on a nest. There were Oviraptor embryos in the eggs, which sealed the deal. Rather than being an egg thief, the Oviraptor was an example of a good dinosaur parent. Laura’s point was, with only this one T. rex nest found, Pick could be misinterpreting what he was seeing.
Pick, of course, was having none of it. “My vision of what happened here will be accepted by the Society of Vertebrate Paleontologists,” he said.
“Maybe,” Laura snapped, “but they also accepted the original Oviraptor story, too.”
“I think we should celebrate,” Tanya said, interrupting the esoteric discussion between the two paleontologists. “Laura? Don’t you have some champagne tucked away?”
Yes, indeed, she did, Laura allowed, kept back for just such a discovery. And so we trooped into camp, the bubbly was broken out, and tired, sore, and dirty, we nonetheless held our plastic cups high and drank to our find. However it might be interpreted by scientists, at least it was certain that this was something very special.
As night fell, Pick couldn’t stand being away from the nest and proposed that we troop over there. We were all tipsy enough with the champagne on our empty stomachs so off we went. It was as happy a bunch of dinosaur diggers I guess as there ever was.
We stood at the base of the hill. With our flashlights playing over the outline of the mother T. rex and her baby chick, Pick stood next to it. He said, “What you have done here will echo through history. One of the most fearsome creatures on this planet has been revealed to be a good mother, so good she was willing to lay down her own life to protect her chicks and her eggs. Just a hundred yards from us are two T’s who fought to the death. One of them, the larger one, I’m certain, was a rogue. The smaller T killed the larger one with the help of another Tyrannosaur. So who was the smaller T, the one we so wrongly call inferior? I believe he was the mate of this mother T. These were his chicks, his eggs, his progeny. He had to know to take on an adversary so large and fearsome would be suicide, yet he did it. He and his mate fought as a team.”
I began to visualize the scene as I think all of us did there in the dark beneath the billions of stars strewn across our big sky. The rogue approaches with stealth. The mother T smells it before she sees it. She rises from her nest and makes a cry for help. A little away, her mate answers and comes running. They see it now, the giant rogue. It intends to take over. It will murder the chicks, smash the eggs. It gets cloudy here. Is the rogue male or female? Its purpose is to begin a new family and so, depending on the sex of the rogue, it will kill the mother or the mate. No matter. The mother T and her mate are prepared to fight. They gather at the nest, then splash together through the stream to do battle. One of their older chicks follows them, hopping from rock to rock across the stream. The rogue does not hesitate. It is a killer. It charges, knocks the male off his feet, and slams into the female, meaning to force her to retreat while it deals with the smaller male. She staggers back but her mate clambers to his feet and goes after the only vulnerable part of the rogue, the underside of its neck. As the rogue tries to throw him off, the chick is trampled. The mother T shrieks. Her chick is dead and her mate is being ripped apart. With every rake of its claws, the mate’s stomach and intestines are torn out of his body. There is a river of blood erupting from the guts of the little male, yet he hangs on, pulling the rogue down until the mother T rises above. She opens wide and snaps her great jaws on the rogue’s head. Again and again, her huge teeth smash and stab, puncturing and splintering bone. With a terrible roar, the rogue struggles to rise but the little male just won’t let go. Finally, the mother T makes the killing bite. One of her teeth punctures the rogue’s brain cavity and the battle is over. The rogue T collapses into the mass of intestines and blood of the little male. Together, they die, forever joined, tooth and claw.
Pick went on, his voice echoing across the tortured land. “The mother T was not wounded much by the battle. All the breaks and cracks on her bones have bony masses covering where they healed. Still, she was old and her wounds would have hurt. She limped back to her nest, there to be comforted by her surviving chicks, and also because her latest eggs were still safe. She settled down on the nest. She had just a few more days at most to live.”
We could all imagine it. Miles away, there was a crack of sudden light and long thunder. A massive storm was upon the land. Down came torrents of rain on the mother T but she would not leave her eggs or chicks. Then came a distant rumble that grew ever louder. Still, she stayed. A gigantic wave of water was racing toward her, traveling at hundreds of miles per hour. It struck the hill she and her nest was on, then swirled about, tearing away huge boulders and ripping huge trees out by their roots. Still, she stayed. Above, a great cliff, already loosened by the torrential rain, came loose and slid down, a tidal wave of mud. It covered everything including the mother T, her chicks, her eggs, and her nest. The great blackness of deep time began for her and her progeny. Later, more floods came to cover the nest and everything was sealed and protected.
“And so it happened,” Pick said, “that all this was preserved for us to discover, to see, to contemplate, and, at last, to understand. For this is nothing but confirmation of the ultimate victory that is love. We weep for this creature as we must weep for ourselves. She and her mate have taught us lessons that we as a civilization should already know. There is no greater gift than to lay down your life for those you love. The family is holy and eternal. Nature, God, the Great Being, or Event that created life on Earth put those truths inside even this most fearsome creature. When we reveal it to an anxious world, I think there may well be a revolution of spirit everywhere.”
It was a pretty speech but I couldn’t help but feel that perhaps Pick was making way too much of it. By their expressions, Tanya, Amelia, Ray, and the Marsh brothers were enchanted by all this. I looked over at Jeanette. She was frowning and I think a little embarrassed by what Pick had said. Edith just looked perplexed. Laura’s expression was one of doubt. Well, I guess philosophers, or even slightly nutty paleontologists, expound truths and we either accept them or not. All I knew was, at that moment, my heart went out to that Tyrannosaur family and I felt like they were right there, still alive.
31
The next morning, while we were eating breakfast and preparing for another long day with the mama T, Cade Morgan arrived in his Mercedes followed by the black limo. Cade got out his car and four men got out of the limo. The men were dressed in loose slacks, Hawaiian print shirts, and wingtip shoes. Their heads were shaved. Across their shirts were leather straps holding holsters with the butts of pistols protruding. They were, in other words, armed Russian bully boys, almost certainly soldiers of the Wolves. My backpack with my Glock was sitting on the ground beside me. I knelt and removed the pistol, then tucked it under my belt in the small of my back.
Cade was all smiles. “Hallooo,” he called. “This is quite the complex. And all those big white things. Are those the bones? Pick, where are you?”
The Russians lined up behind him as Jeanette came out of the supply tent. She was holding a mug of coffee. “What are you doing on my property, Cade Morgan?” she demanded.
“Well, hello, Jeanette,” Cade answered in a cheerful voice. “This may be your land, but those are my property.” He nodded toward the jacketed bones.
“What are you talking about, you fool?” Before I could stop her, Jeanette walked up to Cade. “What the hell is this?”
I gl
anced at my tent where my rifle was and judged it too far away. Then I saw Ray coming around the cook tent with his pistol in his hand. I caught his eye, gesturing with my chin for him to get back out of sight. As he did, I caught a glimpse of Amelia behind him. Laura, Tanya, Brian, and Philip came out, attracted by the raised voices. Cade looked past Jeanette to the others. “I don’t see Pick. Didn’t I ask for him? I’m sure I did.”
Jeanette jabbed her finger in Cade’s chest. “Leave, you idiot! Now!”
Cade frowned. “Aw, Jeanette, you always make things so hard. By the way, we shot your dog as we came in. He didn’t like us on your ranch for some reason.”
“You killed Soup?” Jeanette yelled and reared back and threw a punch at Cade.
Cade dodged and laughed. “Well, we shot him. I don’t know if we killed him or not. We didn’t have time to check.” He nodded toward Tanya. “The Russian girl,” he said and one of the men walked over and grabbed Tanya by her arm. He had taken his pistol out of its holster.
I drew my Glock and pointed it at the Russian. “Leave her alone.”
The Russian, a huge brute who had to weigh three hundred pounds, looked at me and laughed. Then, faster than I could react, he jammed his pistol into Tanya’s hair and pulled the trigger.
The way I remember that moment is like this. It was as if the very plane of life had turned into one of those curved mirrors that reflect reality in a distorted way. Tanya’s face expanded grotesquely as the bullet traveled into her skull and out the other side. Before she fell, I fired for the Russian’s heart and my bullet sped straight and true. He staggered, then fell on his back, his short, thick legs flung up, one of his wingtip shoes flying off. He was wearing white socks. It’s odd what you remember when you shoot a man in the heart.
Before I could turn toward Cade and the other Russians to shoot them, I was bowled over. Two Russians piled on top of me and one of them wrenched the Glock out of my hand, then jerked me to my feet. To my everlasting disappointment, the Russian I’d shot was sitting up. He was also laughing; his teeth ugly, broken, and yellow. He unbuttoned his shirt and pointed at the body armor covering his chest. He found his shoe, put it on, then stood up and walked over to me and punched his huge fist into my stomach. I doubled over, fell, and he kicked me in the back. I expected a bullet next but it didn’t come. They simply walked away. I rolled into a sitting position as Pick made his appearance, looking wide-eyed and scared. He saw Tanya lying in the dirt, the blood leaking from her horrible wound. His reaction was to gasp, his mouth falling open in shock.
Cade walked over and slapped Pick hard in the face. “We had a deal and you’re going to see it through,” he said as Pick choked back a sob.
I heard Edith’s voice. “Get over there with the others.” I saw Ray and Amelia walk from behind the cook tent with Edith behind them. Edith was holding two pistols, a .38 and Ray’s .44. Ray was holding Amelia at her waist, his hand on the small of her back as if urging her along.
“Sorry, Mike,” Ray said as they walked to stand with the others. “I thought Mayor Brescoe was on our side.”
I climbed to my feet. Jeanette walked over to stand beside me. Edith confronted us. “I told you to leave, Mike.”
“Tell me what’s going on here, Edith,” I said, grateful she’d put herself between Jeanette and me and the Russians. They hadn’t killed us yet and I wasn’t sure why. What was certain was I needed to kill them.
“We just wanted the skeleton of the little dinosaur Bill Coulter found,” Edith said.
“Pick made this all so damn complicated finding all these other bones.”
“Edith, shut up,” Cade said. “Everybody shut up.”
Jeanette ignored him. “Pick, what is this? You tell me.”
“I did everything for science,” Pick replied, looking miserable.
“For money, you fool,” Cade said. “You knew that.”
The Russian I’d shot kept eyeballing me like he couldn’t wait to tear me into little pieces. The other three were standing around, nonchalantly holding their pistols. I guess they were waiting to find out who to kill next. It appeared Cade was in charge and I suppose wholesale slaughter wasn’t his way although I had no doubt that would be the end result. It was either them or us. The scene of what was going to happen played itself out in my head. First, Cade was going to berate Pick for not doing what he was supposed to do. Pick, I understood now, worked for Cade. I didn’t know why but never mind. Then, based on what Pick told him, Cade was going to decide what to do with Pick and then us. I concluded he would decide there was no reason to keep us alive and therefore have us killed. We were probably just minutes away from that happening.
Anywhere else other than Montana (OK, maybe Texas), I think people in our situation would have waited, hoping not to be killed, and then got killed. Here, we did things differently. The relaxed posture of the Russians showed me they didn’t understand that. I glanced at Ray who still had his hand on Amelia’s back. He shifted his eyes and I understood why his hand was where it was. It was time to move. I didn’t run. I walked, crossing the open ground between me and where Tanya lay.
“Where are you going, Mike?” Cade asked.
“To see if Tanya is alive,” I said, which made the Russian who’d murdered her laugh.
I went down on my knees beside her. Jeanette called out, “Mike, she’s gone. You can’t do anything.”
What happened next took just seconds but I will describe it in slow motion. I cradled Tanya into my arms, turning her so I had the back of her bloody head leaning against my chest. The Russian who’d shot her came at me, his pistol raised. I lifted Tanya up, keeping her between me and him while my hand went into her front pocket where she’d put the .22 pistol I’d given her. I released its safety, pulled it out, and fired it. The bullet struck the Russian in his right eye with a satisfying spurt of blood. To my disappointment, it apparently didn’t have enough energy to penetrate his brain, probably lodging in a sinus cavity. It was, however, a definite distraction. He screamed and staggered around. “Run to the dig!” I yelled.
Jeanette, Brian, Philip, and Laura didn’t hesitate. They ran, scrambling up Blackie Butte. The Russians fortunately concentrated on me, their bullets striking Tanya’s corpse. I ignored them and shot at Cade with my little pistol, hitting him in the leg. Amelia knocked Edith down with a hard right to the jaw and took away her pistols. Ray withdrew Amelia’s pistol, hidden in the small of her back, and fired at the Russians, who all scattered. Ray then handed her pistol back to Amelia and took back his .44 before they ran together over to Blackie Butte. The Russian I’d shot in the eye was still staggering around, but Ray put him out of his misery by providing a little .44-caliber medicine. Ranch kids. You got to love them.
I scurried over to Edith, who was sitting up but dazed. I grabbed her by the back of her shirt and dragged her with me. The path up to the dig led slightly behind a fold in the hill, giving us cover. At the dig, I threw Edith down and did a quick count. We were all there—me, Jeanette, Ray, Amelia, Laura, Brian, and Philip—with sandstone boulders providing us with some cover. Pick was there, too, the little sandy-haired, pony-tailed rat.
I ducked as bullets ricocheted off the boulders. I had Tanya’s .22, Ray had his .44, and Amelia her .38 and Edith’s, too. “Jeanette, do you have your pistol on you?”
“No, Mike. I’m sorry.”
So that was it, four pistols and just the ammo that was in them. Amelia silently handed Edith’s pistol to Jeanette. The shooting stopped and Ray peeked around a slab of sandstone. “They’re just standing there, looking up at us.”
“Do you see Cade?”
“Yeah. He’s on his back, pushed up on his elbows, looking around. There’s blood on his jeans. No, wait, he’s getting up and limping over to one of our chairs.”
“Flesh wound,” I said. “I hoped I’d hit bone.”
Laura said, “Pick, what’s all this, anyway?”
Pick was huddled against a boulder. “I’m sorry,�
� he gulped. “I messed up.”
“No shit!” Laura snapped.
Pick hung his head. “Where do I start?”
“The beginning is always good,” I said.
Everyone was looking at him. He looked back, then shook his head. “When I was in Argentina, Cade sent me an e-mail with just the photographs Ray put in his paper. Cade said they were bones he’d found on his property and he wanted to sell them. He wanted to hire me to come find the rest of the skeleton. I kept telling him that it was the science that was important, but if a baby T. rex skeleton was found, I could raise the money to see that he was paid. He agreed to that so I came. When I got here, he gave me a complete copy of Ray’s paper and started telling me about the complications, that the bones weren’t on his property but maybe on the BLM and I had to get permission to cross the Square C and all that.”
Laura asked, “Why didn’t you leave?”
Pick looked around. “Did anybody bring any water?”
“I’ve got two liters in my backpack,” Laura said.
“Don’t give him any until he tells us the rest of his story,” I said. I also calculated how long eight people could survive on two liters of water in the blazing sun. Nine, counting Edith. The answer was not long.
Pick took a weary breath and said, “I swear I had no idea that Cade would bring men like this after us.”
“How about the mayor?” I asked. “What’s her part in this?”
“I think she was the one who first got hold of Ray’s paper and showed it to Cade.”
That made sense. As mayor, Edith probably checked the high school Internet site occasionally and there would have been the English teacher’s posting of the paper.
Pick went on. “Edith was at Cade’s ranch when I met with him. She gave me the BLM permit and said her husband would let me remove the bones with no problems.”
“And Toby?”
“He was there, too. He was very knowledgeable of paleontology and understood what it meant to find a baby Tyrannosaur. He said he had friends with lots of money who would finance future expeditions. I agreed to go see what I could find and then we’d talk more. That’s all I agreed to. But then something happened. Could I have some water now?”