.
In Caleb’s dreams, Chuck was in the grassy field, dancing with the lambeosaurs. The fierce predator stood in the center of the herd, spinning in graceful circles and drumming a lively beat on the ground with her great claws. All around her, the larger herbivores circled in a swirling dance of swinging tails and bobbing crests, trumpeting a melodious tune to the purple sky. Caleb thought he could almost make out lyrics in the whale-song voices, words from a lost radio song he had heard as a child.
.
Caleb’s eyes snapped open to the indigo darkness of late twilight. The song of the dinosaurs still rung in his memory. He sat up, rubbing his eyes and glancing about nervously, wondering what had awakened him so suddenly. He could just make out the clearing around him in the dim light. Chuck was nowhere to be seen, probably off hunting lambeosaurs. It took Caleb a minute to realize that he was still hearing the old music from his dream.
Somewhere out in the night, a guitar played a sweet, familiar song from the old days. A soft, fluttering flute played along, while a gentle drumbeat kept the pace lively. Caleb was on his feet and walking toward the sound almost before he realized he was standing.
He could hear many different voices singing to the music, some high and clear, others soft and surprisingly low. As he neared the top of the low hill, Caleb could see a light coming from somewhere on the other side. He stopped at the top, staring out into the field at a sight somehow even more magical than his dream.
A caravan had set camp in the field. Huge wooden wagons, some of them like two-story houses, were gathered in a circle in the tall grass. All around the wagons were the giant, sinuous shapes of dinosaurs. The serrated silhouette of a stegosaurus stood next to the frolicking forms of a pair of light, ostrich-like gallimimus. A triceratops bearing a great, four-man saddle lumbered by a trio of grazing corythosaurs. Further out, a rumbling, hooting brachiosaur passed next to one of the largest wagons, its massive back adorned with sturdy harnesses and a giant patchwork saddle blanket. Beside it sat the tiny, house-shaped howdah that had probably been carried by those titanic shoulders earlier that day.
In the center of the circle of wagons, Caleb could see a brilliant bonfire surrounded by dozens of figures. The shapes were incredibly strange but also surprisingly beautiful. Some were dancing playfully around the flames, kicking up their long, clawed feet and swinging their short, slender tails. Others sat quietly in the grass, swaying slowly to the rhythms of the old music. Caleb could see a bewildering number of variations on the combination of dinosaur and human. An impossibly slender struthiomimus-woman leapt and spun in the firelight, while a squat and solid ankylosaur-man drummed on a small set of wooden drums. The huge bodies of triceratops and apatosaurus people mingled with the small, svelte forms of hypsilophodon and coelophysis dancers. While every figure was a unique blend of human and dinosaur traits, Caleb had the impression that they all shared a common grace of form; a sense that their disparate features were blended to form a new and unified whole.
Caleb hardly noticed that he had wandered halfway down the hill until he found himself standing out in the open grass. This was surely the same caravan whose tracks Caleb had found on the riverbank. The camp was still too far away for him to be noticed, but he was suddenly filled with nervousness.
“I shouldn’t be here,” he whispered. “I don’t belong with them. They’re too...” Caleb meant to say “different,” but was surprised when the word “beautiful” escaped his lips.
Just then, a certain movement on the far side of the wagon circle caught Caleb’s attention. Just on the other side of the wagons, through the spaces between the massive structures, Caleb saw the familiar russet and black-striped shape of Chuck walking slowly through the camp. He found himself shouting out loud despite his nervousness.
“Oh, CRAP!” Without thinking, he began a mad dash straight for the center of the camp, hollering madly.
“Chuck, no! Get away! Bad, bad dino!”
Caleb was across the field in an instant, running into the midst of the grazing dinosaur mounts and panicking the smaller animals. The bittersweet melody was ringing in his ears with heart-breaking clarity. Chuck disappeared behind the high, leaping flames just as Caleb bolted between a pair of smaller wagons and into the circle of firelight.
The music faded to a breathless silence as Caleb skidded to a stop in the middle of the camp. Hauntingly human eyes peered out of stern saurian faces on all sides, staring at Caleb with cold suspicion. Caleb stuttered and gasped for breath as several of the more imposing figures began closing in on him.
To Caleb’s right, a spike-covered kentrosaurus-woman swished her razor-tipped tail fiercely. On his left, an immense diplodocus-man planted himself like a sequoia, staring down from a height of at least nine feet. An impossibly broad-shouldered pentaceratops-man moved in behind Caleb, blocking his escape route with more than five hundred pounds of muscle and gleaming horns. Half-formed words began spilling out of Caleb’s mouth, tripping over themselves as he stared, awestruck, at the menacing crowd.
“I, ah... I... My f-friend, she... she... Ch-Chuck? Oh, help...”
A massive, seven-foot-tall figure stepped directly in front of Caleb. He stood out in clear silhouette against the blazing bonfire, moving with the smooth, graceful gait of a born predator. A long, pebbly tail swished behind powerfully muscled legs. The figure’s torso was huge and barrel-chested, topped by a shockingly thick and powerful neck. Caleb could clearly see the glittering teeth set in the gigantic, blocky head. Powerful but disturbingly short arms held a heavy, metal-tipped spear in thick, two-fingered hands. The tyrannosaur-man leveled the deadly weapon at Caleb’s chest and stared into his eyes with reflective green pupils.
“You just interrupted my favorite song,” he growled. His voice reminded Caleb of a rumbling volcano.
“I... I...” Caleb stammered. He fought desperately to hold his legs steady underneath him. “My... My friend, she...”
The tyrannosaur-man leaned in close, ruffling Caleb’s hair with his steak- and spice-scented breath. “What’s the matter, little man? Do you see something scary?” The reflective eyes narrowed to angry slits. “Something... ugly?”
On the edge of his vision, Caleb heard the soft thumping of a large dinosaur entering the wagon circle, along with the chirping giggles of several childlike voices. The children’s laughter quickly fell silent, but Caleb was shocked to see Chuck standing at the edge of the angry crowd. She cocked her head curiously at the scene before her as several dino-children sat wide-eyed on her back and shoulders. A matronly hadrosaur-woman stood beside Chuck, holding her saddle straps gently and starting to whisper words of warning to the children.
“Chuck! What the...” Caleb shouted with a mix of confusion and relief. The tyrannosaur-man stared back and forth from Chuck to Caleb, scowling fiercely.
“You... know this dinosaur?” he questioned, pressing the giant spear closer.
“Wha— Oh, yes!” Caleb sputtered. “That’s the friend I was looking for.” The tyrannosaur-man stared at Caleb with an inscrutable expression. “Her name is Chuck.” Caleb offered. At the sound of her name, Chuck pushed gently through the crowd toward Caleb.
“Chuck, hmmm?” the dinosaur-man muttered.
“Yeah, she’s...” Caleb paused as Chuck leaned down and licked the side of his head, covering it in stinking ceratosaur drool. “My friend,” he spat, wiping furiously at his slicked hair.
The tyrannosaur-man stared expressionlessly at Caleb for several moments while all of the others watched in tense silence. Caleb thought he saw a laugh start to build behind those glittering eyes, but the dino-man only scowled harder.
“Well, then. Your friend is a good hunter. She caught a full-grown lambeosaur this afternoon.” Caleb stood in silent dread, praying that he would not see an empty, bloody lambeosaur saddle lying around nearby.
“She’s also very well-mannered,” the dino-man continued. “After she ate her fill, she brought the rest right into our cam
p. You should teach her to be more wary of strangers—that kind of friendliness could get her shot one of these days.”
“Oh, yeah,” Caleb said, deeply relieved. “I know—”
“You should also teach her not to sleep on top of people’s tents,” the dino-man interrupted. “She nearly squashed one of us.” Caleb’s face turned deep red. Again, he saw a faint glimmer of a laugh behind the stern eyes.
“Forget about it,” the tyrannosaur-man said. “Her gift of dinner more than made up for it— and your taste in friends makes up for your intrusion.” The dino-man paused, staring at Caleb thoughtfully before speaking again.
“I don’t think anyone would mind if you and Chuck stayed to share dinner with us. There’s plenty to spare, especially for a small fella’ like you.” The dino-man now held the great spear upright against his shoulder. The other dinosaur-people began to shuffle and murmur quietly all around.
“Oh, thank you, but no, I shouldn’t…” Caleb mumbled.
A new and perhaps deeper nervousness replaced his earlier fear. He had never felt a sense of true belonging in any of the human communities he had visited. Could he ever relate to a caravan of dinosaur-people? The answer came quickly: he knew that he could. It was that rare feeling of belonging that frightened him now. Despite all their strangeness, there was something about these people that tugged at Caleb’s spirit. That, more than their strange appearance, filled Caleb with a sense of deep apprehension.
The tyrannosaur-man stared sternly at Caleb.
“You’ve been invited to share dinner with us tonight,” he rumbled. “You’d insult us by refusing.” The dinosaur-man’s expression was severe, but his eyes showed a veiled kindness.
“Well, uh,” Caleb said, quietly. “I guess I can’t do that. Thank you.” The crowd around him began talking animatedly.
Caleb settled silently amid the dinosaur people as they began passing around large slices of cooked meat and heavy bowls full of fruit and greens. On the other side of the fire, a guitar started playing the ethereal notes of a half-remembered radio song.
CALEB CRADLED THE TRILOBITE GENTLY IN his hand. It was a small creature, compact and well protected by a series of segmented chitinous plates. He thought it resembled a sort of large, flat pill bug, except it had a pair of big compound eyes and backward-pointing spines set on the sides of its blunt head. The whole animal was just under an inch long, set in a bumpy matrix of rock that fit perfectly in Caleb’s small hand.
Although he had some bigger specimens on his bedroom shelves, even a couple of unidentifiable dinosaur bone fragments, this was his favorite fossil. Caleb’s imagination thrilled at the idea that this tiny animal had been so perfectly preserved for four hundred million years. This exquisite little being had been an ancient fossil before the first dinosaur had ever drawn breath. And now he held it in his hand.
Outside, the sound of truck tires crunching on sand and snow startled Caleb out of his daydreaming. He placed the trilobite gently on his shelf, then hopped to his bedroom window. He could just see Uncle Bill’s battered and dusty truck pulling around the corner of the icy driveway. Grinning excitedly, Caleb grabbed a small plastic bag from his desk and bolted out of the room.
“He’s here!” Caleb called to Aunt Carol as he crashed down the stairs. “Uncle Bill’s back!” Aunt Carol narrowly avoided being knocked over as Caleb sprinted through the kitchen and out the door.
Caleb only half-heard her scolding as he dashed and slid across the icy drive to Uncle Bill’s pickup. Bill was already out, circling around the truck with open arms and a beaming grin. His sparkling blue eyes squinted as the freezing wind whipped his blonde ponytail into his face. He was dressed in his customary attire of worn leather and dusty denim with a tattered, broad-brimmed hat. He looked more like some sort of a cowboy or hippie than a scientist.
“Hey, kid!” he called as Caleb charged up to him. “Miss me?”
Caleb skidded to a stop next to his uncle, yelling enthusiastically over the icy wind.
“Uncle Bill! Oh, man, you’ll never believe it! I found real dinosaurs! There were a whole bunch of compies, and I got some feathers, and a T-rex, and...”
Bill halted Caleb’s ranting with a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“Wait a minute...” he said slowly. “You found a dinosaur? You mean like a fragment or a complete skeleton? Where did you...”
“No, no. Not bones. Real dinosaurs! Live ones!” Caleb’s teeth were beginning to chatter in the cold air as they stepped onto the porch, but he was too excited to notice. “There was a whole pack of compies in the trash cans, and I almost got caught by a T-rex out in the hills. He left some tracks, too. I bet if we go back they’ll still be there.” Caleb trailed off, noticing the strange look on his uncle’s face.
“Uh, Caleb,” Bill said cautiously. “Is this a game you were playing, or what? What do you mean ‘real’ dinosaurs?”
“I’m not pretending,” Caleb said. “They were real. Look, the compies ran right over me and I grabbed a bunch of feathers.” He held the small plastic bag out for Bill to see. Bill took the bag and began examining the contents through the clear plastic.
“Jeez, Caleb, I don’t know. You sure you didn’t just scare a couple of birds or something, I mean...” Bill paused, turning and holding the bag up to the light and squinting intensely. “What the—” he muttered. “Son of a bitch...”
“I’m gonna be famous, aren’t I?” Caleb asked.
“Maybe we should have someone at the museum look at these.” Bill said quietly, still staring at the feathers as he fumbled for the doorknob.
“When can we go?” Caleb asked, practically jumping up and down.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” Bill asked.
Caleb grinned triumphantly and began telling his stories about the trashcans and the boulder pile.
Caleb sat quietly in his uncle’s office in the Utah Field House of Natural History Museum. He sat at a large, cluttered desk, surrounded by paleontology books, dusty fossils and bone-casts. When Uncle Bill’s friend had seen the feathers, he seemed very unimpressed. The man was sure that Caleb had only seen a chicken or a turkey, but Bill had insisted that he examine the feathers. Meanwhile, the man had asked Caleb to make a drawing of the animal he had gotten the feathers from. Caleb was finishing that drawing now, working with a stubby pencil on a sheet of white photocopy paper. He was unsure if he had the proportions just right, but he thought that it was a pretty convincing compsognathus.
After checking the drawing’s details one more time, Caleb sat back and grabbed a remote, clicking on a small television on one of the shelves. He flipped channels a few times, searching for a good cartoon or nature program, but stopped when he heard someone talking about UFOs.
A slick man trying to look very grim and mysterious was sitting at a desk in a very eerily-lit studio. Caleb recognized the set. The show was “Mysterious Universe,” a cheesy program about UFOs, psychics and other spooky stuff. Caleb usually wasn’t allowed to watch it because his aunt thought he would have nightmares. Caleb looked out the door and saw that his uncle still hadn’t come out of the other man’s office.
“All right,” Caleb whispered, propping his feet up on the desk.
The man was speaking in a voice that was supposed to be serious and intense, but Caleb just thought he sounded fake. Still, he was talking about some cool stuff. In one corner of the screen was a map showing a section of western Canada. Vancouver was marked with a glowing blue dot and the words “UFO INVASION” were scrawled under the image. The man seemed to be talking about a recent UFO sighting.
“...the latest incident in what is becoming a global phenomenon. Earlier this week in Vancouver, several people in and around the city reported seeing strange objects circling in some sort of formation in the night sky. This is just one example of the strange reports spreading like wildfire across the world. Witnesses in Vancouver described the objects as sleek and black, often outlined with a strange red glow. One observer
claimed...”
Caleb jumped and almost tipped out of his chair as Uncle Bill strode into the office. Bill seemed to be lost in thought and didn’t notice the show on the television.
“How’s that drawing?” Bill asked, as Caleb quickly turned off the TV.
“Done,” Caleb answered, handing the sketch to Bill. “What did that guy say about the feathers?”
Bill’s face momentarily took on a strange expression, then returned to a friendly smile.
“Well, he still thinks it’s probably just bird feathers, but he’s going to do some tests. He’ll get back to me when they’re done.” Caleb sagged in his seat. “Listen,” Bill continued, “maybe you really are onto something here, maybe not. I have to say that I’m having a hard time believing that there could be live dinosaurs out there, but maybe I’m wrong. Don’t give up on this just because some grown-up says it’s impossible. Grown-ups aren’t always right. Besides, the fact that he’s doing tests means that there is something unusual about those feathers, whether or not they came from a dinosaur.
“Now, just in case there is some kind of unusual animal wandering around, I want you to be extra careful. That means no going out after dark, and no wandering out of sight of the house. And you should always let us know where you’re going to be.” Bill gave Caleb his practiced Stern Glare. “Got it?”
Caleb flashed an energetic grin. His uncle’s warning meant that his story was being taken at least somewhat seriously. “No problem.”
Bill’s severe expression melted into a warm smile. “Good. Get your coat. If we leave now, we’ll have enough time to stop and get some pizza. Cool?”
“Cool.” Caleb slipped his coat on and walked down the narrow halls out into the museum proper.
As he and Bill crossed under the long shadow of the diplodocus skeleton, Bill scratched his short beard thoughtfully.
“Let me run an idea by you. Tell me what you think,” Bill said. “It’s only a few days ‘til Christmas, and then only a few more ‘til New Year’s Eve. How would you like to go see the New Year’s festival over in San Francisco? Your aunt and I haven’t been in years.” Caleb’s eyes lit up in excitement.
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