by Des Hunt
But that was not the cause of our amazement. Alongside, in the overhang, lay the rest of the skeleton of the dinosaur. While only bits of it were visible, it was enough to show that it was all there: massive skull, tiny forelegs, huge hind legs and a long tail.
‘What’s happening?’ called Dad, his annoyance beginning to show.
‘We won’t need the waterblaster,’ laughed Karen. ‘The waterfall has already done the job.’
‘Are there any other fossils?’ asked Mits.
‘No, there’s only one fossil,’ I said, straining to keep the excitement from my voice. ‘Only one. Just the whole skeleton of a dinosaur.’
‘Yesss!’ hissed Mits. Then he laughed. ‘See, I knew there was a dragon there all along. You people just have no imagination.’
‘So what are we going to do about it?’ asked Dad.
‘We’re going to take the lot,’ replied Karen, excitedly. ‘We can’t leave this here to get drowned.’
‘And how do you plan to do that?’
Karen calmed a little. ‘That’s a good question. You’d better come down and have a look.’
Dad came down in a box-like metal cage attached to the crane, while Mits stayed at the top to operate the controls. When he saw the fossil, he was as impressed as we were, although you could see him worrying about what to do with the thing. Getting The Tooth out would have been difficult; taking out a whole dinosaur would be near-impossible.
‘We’ll never be able to lift it with the crane I’ve got up there. We’ll have to cut it into chunks.’
‘No!’ exclaimed Karen. ‘We’ll destroy too much. Anyway, it would take days to do that.’
‘Well the only other way is to take the whole thing off now and come back later with a bigger crane.’
‘After it’s been flooded?’ asked Karen.
‘We could wrap chains around it now so that all we have to do is attach the crane. But we’ll never get a big crane in until summer now.’
Plainly Karen was not happy with this. Nor was I. Who could tell what would happen if it sat in the water for seven or eight months?
However, none of us could come up with an alternative, until Mits had his brainwave. He must’ve been sitting up on the truck, listening and thinking, and then, just as we’d made up our minds to leave the fossil in the water, he said, ‘You know, you could use that refrigeration container. Those things float, don’t they?’
‘Yeah,’ Dad agreed cautiously.
‘OK,’ continued Mits, ‘then if we put the container into the water, we can roll the rock into it and then float it out somewhere.’
‘We won’t be rolling it anywhere,’ said Karen. ‘It’ll weigh at least 20 tonnes.’
I could see Dad thinking. ‘Yeah, but if we put the container below the overhang, it might work.’
‘Yes!’ agreed Karen, excitedly. ‘Then when we drop the rock, it’ll fall into the container, and—hey presto!—we have one floating dinosaur.’
‘And even if it doesn’t float,’ added Dad, ‘it will be a whole lot easier to lift later on.’
‘Can you get the container down here?’ I asked.
Dad spread his arms. ‘Who knows? We can only try. It’s the best plan we’ve got.’
We all went up to the top and for the next half-hour we emptied the contents of the container into the horse float. There sure was a heap of horse gear—many, many thousands of dollars worth. There were also a lot of less valuable things, like buckets, pitchforks, shovels and other stuff you find around stables. To save time, we left that lying on the grass.
When the float was all loaded, we lifted the ramp to the horse float and bolted it in place. ‘OK,’ said Dad, rubbing his hands together. ‘Now let’s shift this container.’ I could see he was enjoying himself; he loves doing this sort of thing.
As the others walked away from the float, I leant into the cab, took the key out of the ignition and put it in my pocket. I hadn’t forgotten that somewhere around the place there was another member of the Basinhead Gang—Cousin Damien, the one we hadn’t seen. If he turned up—as Mason had promised—then I didn’t want him driving away with the loot as if we’d loaded it especially for him.
The plan was a whole lot easier to dream up than to execute. It took another half-hour for the truck to drag the container to the top of the waterfall. The problem was that the tyres kept skidding and getting stuck. And, all the while, time was slipping away and the lake was getting deeper.
As Dad manoeuvred the container into position ready for the drop, the rest of us went down into the canyon to guide it into position.
‘Wow!’ said Mits, when he saw the fossil. ‘It is all there.’
‘Yeah,’ answered Karen, with obvious pride. ‘You were pretty close to being right when you superimposed the dragon on the rock. Except, of course, it’s not a dragon.’
Mits smiled. ‘It is if I want it to be.’
‘Are you people down there ready?’ interrupted Dad.
‘Yeah, we’re ready, Dad. We’re just admiring the fossil.’
‘Great. But let’s get it out of there and into this box. I’m sending it down now.’ I could sense the tension building in his voice.
A moment later, there was a loud scraping sound as the container was dangled over the edge of the cliff. I looked up and it was directly above the overhang.
‘You’ve got it in the right place,’ I said into the headset. ‘But it’s going to bash into the overhang. It’ll smash the fossil.’
The container stopped coming down. I saw it sway wildly as the crane moved it further out from the cliff.
‘How’s that?’ asked Dad.
‘Yeah, that’s good. But it’s swinging all over the place.’
‘I can’t do anything to stop that. You lot’ll have to.’
Slowly it came down, swaying to and fro. As it approached the overhang, I could see that it would smash into the rock face if we didn’t stop it moving. ‘Stop!’ I yelled. ‘We need to get a rope onto it.’
It stopped. With Mits and Karen pushing me up the rock face, I could just reach the bottom corner of the container. I managed to get the rope tied in place, and after that it was easy. All three of us splashed around in the water, pulling on the rope until the bottom of the container touched the ground.
‘Stop, Dad!’ I called. ‘We need to open the doors before it falls into place.’
With the doors open, it was lowered until it rested at an angle with the open end perfectly below the overhang. The crane stopped and we let out a cheer. Phase one had been completed successfully.
Even if there had not been the pressure of the slowly flooding canyon, I think we would have had troubles getting the job done in a day. Everything seemed to take so long. Getting the tools down and ready to work took almost an hour. They had to be loaded into the cage, lowered down the cliff face, unloaded, and then the cage sent back up for another load. It seemed to take forever.
With the tools down, we were ready to start work. The diamond-tipped saw was powered by a two-stroke engine. It was too heavy for Mits and me to handle, yet Karen heaved it around with ease. When she first picked it up, her face spread wide in a grin. ‘I love working with these things,’ she said. ‘You feel like you’re cutting back deep into geological time. I sometimes think I might release some ancient creature that has been trapped for aeons.’ I chuckled quietly: I was beginning to really like this crazy woman.
The rock drill was driven by a diesel compressor that sat on the back of the truck. Only Dad had enough strength to work the drill, so we had to reorganize the manpower. Mits and I would have to take turns up at the truck. Mits chose to go first and was lifted up in the cage. After he lowered Dad down, we were ready to start work.
Sixteen holes had to be drilled into the top of the overhang. These would be joined by saw cuts all the way around. After that it would be the job of the rock splitters to break it off. If that didn’t work, then we were doomed. The fossil would have to stay where it was, maybe for another h
undred million years.
Both of the machines were noisy and dirty. The dust could be controlled with water, of which there was no shortage, as the lake was now lapping around the base of the container. Our headsets made the noise bearable, although not enjoyable.
My job was to be the gofer and to take photos so that we had a record of the whole process. After a quarter of an hour, I needed a break. There was nothing new to photograph and the headphones were hurting my ears, causing my head to ache. It was time to check the stallion.
He was much worse than when I’d last checked. He had recovered from the stupor and was now lying flat on the ground, breathing heavily. Froth was oozing out of his mouth and he was covered with sweat—he was burning up inside. If this continued, he’d be dead in an hour: I had to get his temperature down.
I ran up to the horse float and grabbed a couple of buckets. Back in the canyon, I began pouring water over his body. With the first bucket there was a slight flicker of an eye. So I started talking to him, hoping he could hear. I talked about all sorts of things, none of which made much sense, and all the time I continued to cool his body and wash his mouth with water.
The first hour passed and he was still alive, although it was hard to say whether he was improving or not. All that time, the canyon had reverberated with the sounds of the machines. Lunchtime came and went without the work stopping. You only had to look to the level of the lake to realize how urgent it was that we kept going.
Every now and then, there would be a pause in the work and I would check in with the headset. The news from the overhang was always depressing. The holes were taking longer than anybody had thought. It was now touch and go whether we would get them drilled in time.
I wanted to make contact with Pounamu to see if somebody was coming for Phoebe and the other horse. Unfortunately, in the confusion of the morning, nobody had thought to pick up the radio transmitter, and the headsets couldn’t reach that far. There was no way of checking on where Grandad was, or what was happening to the mares.
By the end of the second hour, I felt that my efforts with the stallion were working. The frothing had stopped, and I could feel that he was a lot cooler. Then, when I saw the pupil of his eye follow me as I moved back up from the water, I knew things were better.
I sat beside his head, stroking his neck urging him to be brave. I so wanted him to live. He was just the sort of horse that Grams had written her song about. It was important that he stay alive—alive, wild and free.
Bit by bit, he seemed to brighten. I released the halter so that when he recovered he could make his way to the top without my help. When it was free, I continued to hold his head, hoping he’d gain strength from my presence. By then my sleepless night was catching up on me, and I nodded off a few times. It was probably the monotonous sound of the compressor that sent me to sleep. It’s one of those background noises that you can turn off, yet still be aware of any changes. For a long time there was no change, just the labouring roar of air being compressed. And so I slept.
When the change did come, it was big, loud and frightening: the compressor blew up. One moment I was dozing to the droning beat, the next I was deafened by the explosive sound of bits of metal being ripped apart. Then came the roar of escaping air. Finally, with the compressor gone, the rock drill stopped its chattering, leaving only the echo of the explosion coming back from the surrounding hills. And when that died, there was silence.
Chapter 21
With the explosion still ringing in my ears, I left the stallion and ran up the path.
‘Mits!’ I shouted into the headset. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Mike, are you there?’ called Dad. I could sense the concern in his voice.
There was no answer.
‘Mits!’ I yelled, this time at the top of my voice in case his headset wasn’t working. Still no answer.
‘Dad, I’m on my way up there,’ I said, trying to keep calm.
‘OK. We can’t get up without the crane.’
At the top I ran towards the truck, worrying about Mits. If he’d been close to the compressor when it blew, he could be badly injured…or even worse.
When I got to the truck, there was no sign of Mits: he was neither on the back of the truck nor on the grass beside it. I rushed around the back—still nothing. Then to the other side, and there he was, lying face-down in the scrub.
‘Mits, are you all right?’
Nothing.
I gently rolled him over. He was unconscious, yet there was no sign of any injury.
‘Tim,’ called Dad, ‘have you found him?’
‘Yes! He’s been knocked out.’ Then I saw an eye flicker. ‘Hold on, it looks like he’s coming round. Mits, are you all right?’
He moved his head slightly to one side. ‘No! I’m as sore as hell.’
‘Did anything hit you?’
He stretched a little. ‘No, I wasn’t anywhere near it when it blew.’ Then he gave a little smile. ‘I just got such a fright, I fell off the deck.’
‘Is he all right?’ asked Dad.
‘Yes, Dad. He seems all right. He fell off the truck.’
‘OK. Get to the crane and bring us up.’
By the time they arrived, Mits was standing. I think his pride was hurt more than anything. Both Karen and Dad gave him a full examination and declared him to be OK.
Mits might not have been too badly damaged, but the compressor definitely was. The pressure gauge had blown out of the top and smashed into the safety cage. A gaping hole was left in the pressure cylinder. It would be impossible for us to fix.
‘How many holes have you drilled?’ I asked.
‘Six,’ replied Dad. ‘That’s going to have to be enough. What do you think, Karen?’
She shrugged glumly. ‘I don’t think six splitters are going to be enough, but we’ll just have to try. What else can we do?’
The splitters were the tubes that went down the drill holes. Each of them had about forty metal fingers that could be pushed out against the rock surface and would—it was hoped—eventually break the rock. The power came from a pump which forced hydraulic fluid into the tubes.
I took over from Mits as the man at the top to control the crane and the pump. Mits went down with the others so they could keep an eye on him. It was several hours since he’d been in the canyon and seen how high the water had risen. ‘Hell!’ he exploded as he reached the bottom. ‘That’ll be over my head. The end of the container is beginning to float.’
I heard Dad grunt in frustration. ‘How much?’
‘About the length of my hand.’
Dad grunted again. The last thing we needed was any part of the container floating. The idea was that we would drop the rock in the container and it would slide to the other end. But if the end was floating, then the rock might push the container out of the way and not go in at all.
Karen said in a calm voice, ‘Bill, worrying won’t fix it. Let’s just get on with the splitters. If it’s too late, it’s too late. But at least we will have tried.’
Half an hour after the explosion, we were back in action again.
At first the hydraulic fluid pump worked away quietly. It got louder as the pressure increased, and I could see the hose vibrating with the pressure. Karen said the whole thing should take about ten minutes or so.
Twenty minutes later, the pump was really labouring. Yet the sound continued to change, suggesting that something was still happening.
Dad’s voice came through the headset. ‘Stand back from that pump, Tim. I don’t like the sound of it.’
I climbed off the truck—I wasn’t going to fall off the deck like Mits. A moment later, there was a snapping sound and the pump was racing.
‘Turn it off! Turn it off!’ screamed Dad. I didn’t even need the headphones to hear him.
As the pump died, I asked, ‘Has it split?’
‘No. The hose has.’ His voice showed that he was now resigned to failure. ‘Has anyone been splashed with fluid
? Mits? Karen?’
‘No,’ they replied in unison.
‘Good. At least that’s one bit of luck. That stuff can be dangerous in the wrong places.’
‘Can it be fixed?’ asked Karen.
‘What’s the point?’
‘The point is to give it our best shot,’ she said firmly.
After a long pause, Dad said, ‘There’s some hydraulic gear up in the truck. I suppose I can give it a go.’ He didn’t sound convinced. Then in a brighter tone he added, ‘Bring me up, please, Tim.’
The repair proved to be reasonably simple. Mr Smithson’s demolition friend had provided a full hose-repair kit. He’d probably had the same problem himself many times. Fifteen minutes later, we were ready to start. ‘OK, Tim: fire it up. Let’s give it another go. At least we must be running out of things that can go wrong.’
Unfortunately, we weren’t. As I leaned over to start the oil pump, I heard a booming voice from a hand-held megaphone down in the canyon. It was a male voice, rude and hostile. ‘What the hell are you lot doing here?’
I froze, thinking it had been directed at me.
Then I heard Karen. ‘Good afternoon to you, too,’ she said in a polite voice. I saw Dad creeping to the edge to have a look, so I followed. He turned and put a finger to his lips.
‘I asked you what you are doing?’ repeated the male voice.
When I peered over the side, I saw a boat out in the water, still with its motor idling. We must’ve been too busy to hear its approach. There were two men in it, both wearing luminous orange jackets. They had the appearance of security guards.
‘We’re from the museum and we’re removing some fossils before the canyon gets flooded,’ replied Karen pleasantly. ‘We have all the necessary signed papers.’
This stopped the man for a moment. He said something to his partner, who shrugged and shook his head. ‘We don’t know anything about that.’ A little of the rudeness had gone from his voice.
I heard Dad say, ‘Try and get rid of them, Karen. We’re running out of time.’
‘I have the papers up in my van,’ Karen shouted. ‘Come ashore and I’ll show you.’