An animated map appeared on the screen. It looked a bit like a Google Earth view, but not as real. “Uncle Nate made this using coordinates from the Chronal Engine—don’t ask me how, and don’t blame me if it isn’t one hundred percent accurate.”
“Does that look right?” I asked Brady.
“Maybe,” he replied, leaning in. “I was a bit too busy to play cartographer. Are all cars like this in your time?”
Four trees became highlighted in red. “These are the four biggest trees in close proximity,” video Kyle said. He looked over his shoulder. “The four biggest angiosperms. Among other things, that means they have leaves, not needles, and aren’t ginkgoes. You shouldn’t have any problem figuring out which ones they are.”
Then lines connected opposite pairs to form an X. “Use fishing line to make the lines. There should be some in the tackle box from the bass boat.”
“X marks the spot where the boat trailer landed,” he continued. “The Recall Device is lying next to the right rear tire of the trailer.”
The view shifted to an image of the Chronal Engine itself, in Grandpa’s basement.
“You’re probably wondering why we haven’t just come to get you,” Kyle continued.
“Well, yes,” Brady murmured.
“Uncle Nate is worried about the number of Recall Devices in play,” Kyle said. “Actually, not the number, really, but the fact that each Recall Device may be being used during different times, and keeping track of that and the mass . . . stresses the system. The Chronal Engine itself.
“So grab the one at the bottom of the lake. Make sure you dry it out. And then come back here.
“And by ‘here,’ I mean the ranch, not Uncle Nate’s flat in London.”
With that, the video ended, an image of the map remaining on the screen.
“Does that make sense?” I asked Brady, who was still staring down at me from above. “You recognize this place?”
“We’ll be out of here in no time,” he replied. Then he lifted an eyebrow. “So my brother can get back to his flat in London.”
Chapter
XXV
Nate
AFTER THAT, THEY HIKED FOR AN HOUR OR SO BEFORE BRADY declared that he was starving and dead tired and suggested they stop for the night. Nate, who had been straggling behind, limping as his leg throbbed, didn’t object, although he knew the others could’ve continued for hours more.
They made camp next to a cluster of cypresses on a rise about ten feet above the river, a bank too high for Deinosuchus to climb. Almost as soon as they got the fire started, Nate fell asleep.
In the morning, when he awoke, Petra and Max were asleep, and Brady was sitting across the fire from him, tapping a twig on the ground, playing with Aki.
“You didn’t wake me for my watch,” Nate said, sitting up.
“You needed the sleep more,” Brady told him. Nate didn’t like to be coddled, but he had to admit his brother was right. Nate felt slightly better for the rest, but still feverish and not all that great. He peered down at his leg. The bites were starting to scab a little, but they were oozing more than Nate thought was healthy.
After a quick breakfast of energy bars and a can of baked beans, the foursome was on the march again. Petra took the lead with Max behind her. Brady went next, while Nate limped along at the rear. His leg was throbbing now with every step.
After about an hour, as Petra and Max crossed a narrow stream, Brady looked back, watching Nate as he caught up. “Nate, you look terrible.”
“I’m fine,” he replied, gritting his teeth.
Turning, Brady called out, “Petra, Max, slow down! Nate’s having trouble with his leg.”
“Gee, thanks,” Nate murmured.
Ahead, Petra didn’t answer. She was staring at something in a clearing beyond, her bow raised, an arrow at the ready.
Brady and Nate closed the distance to take in the scene. A moss-covered redwood stump stood about four feet tall in the middle of the clearing. The decayed remains of the rest of the tree lay sprawled in the distance, half buried in the soil beneath ferns and undergrowth.
“Stay very still,” Petra said. “We’re downwind, at least.”
Some kind of two-legged dinosaur, sort of stocky and about eight or ten feet long, maybe four feet high at the hip, with scaly gray and black skin and a strange bald head that looked like a monk’s tonsure, stood in front of the log, bleating. Flecks of blood streaked its flanks. Surrounding it were four other bipedal dinosaurs, each one feathered, with sharp teeth and claws. They looked sort of like eagles, but with clawed hands rather than wings, and mouths with sharp teeth, not beaks.
“Pachycephalosaur,” Brady said, pointing to the injured dinosaur. “The other guys are dromaeosaurs of some kind. Deinonychus, maybe.”
“The pachycephalosaur’s probably Texacephale,” Max put in. “But we’re about thirty million years too late for Deinonychus.”
The feathered dinosaurs were about the same height and length as the Texacephale, but much more lightly built. They were more lithe, too, and would occasionally jump at the pachycephalosaur’s side, digging in with their clawed feet and then scampering away.
“They’re about the right size, though,” Brady said. “For Deinonychus, I mean.”
Max nodded. “They could be something like Richardoestesia, which we only have teeth for.”
The Texacephale took a step, let out a shrill cry, and then fell, weak from loss of blood, Nate figured. As soon as it did, the dromaeosaurs pounced and began gorging.
“Let’s get out of here,” Petra said. With her arrow still aimed toward the feeding pack, she led the way around the edge of the clearing, trying to keep out of sight of the dromaeosaurs.
“Those aren’t Aki’s species, are they?” Brady asked.
“No,” Max answered. “Aki’s species is smaller. More like a true Dromaeosaurus. Or Saurornitholestes.”
As the others continued ahead, Nate paused, leaning against a tree, his leg throbbing, watching the pack feed.
Then, to his right, he felt rather than heard something in the forest. As he turned toward it, Petra shouted, “Nate, don’t move!”
Then he heard a bowstring snap and the whisper of an arrow in flight. An instant later, there was a thud, and from behind the tree next to him, a dromaeosaur pitched forward onto the ground.
Nate took one step toward the others, and then another, and then a searing pain shot through his leg and he fell on his face, glasses flying to the ground.
The others rushed over. Max handed him a canteen while Brady picked up the glasses.
Nate gulped the water as Brady put the back of his hand to his brother’s forehead. “Fever.”
Then Brady opened Nate’s glasses and, to Nate’s embarrassment, put them back on his face.
“Let’s get going.” Nate tried to stand, but his leg wouldn’t cooperate. As he sagged against the others, he told them, “You’re going to have to leave me here.”
“That’s crazy,” Brady said.
“Absolutely,” Max said.
Petra pulled her arrow from the body of the dromaeosaur and gave the two of them a quizzical look. “A stretcher, maybe?”
Brady shook his head. “A travois.”
Chapter
XXVI
Max
“WHAT’S A TRAVOIS?” I ASKED.
Brady pulled the machete from its scabbard and gestured. “It’s almost the same thing as a stretcher, but you let one end drag on the ground. French trappers used them in precolonial days. They got the idea from the Plains Indians.”
It turned out to be easier to build than the raft—just a couple of stout poles and a bunch of crossbars. We got it finished in next to no time, rigging it so that most of the weight would be borne at the shoulders using the straps from the backpack, instead of by the handles. Brady took the first go, dragging his brother behind.
After a couple of hours, we switched off and I took over the pulling. It was harder than I wa
nted it to be but a bit easier than I expected. Wheels would’ve been helpful, though they might actually sink into the ground, and we had to lift the travois over fallen logs, anyway.
As we hiked along, Brady came up beside me, while Petra walked a few paces ahead, checking out the route.
“So, what happens to me?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” I said, not really wanting an answer. I wondered if he did either.
“Well, for one thing,” he said, “I guess I don’t have a flat in London.”
I winced and tried to cover it by looking down at my feet to step over a rock.
Brady went on. “You call my brother ‘Nate,’ but sometimes you slip up and call him ‘Uncle Nate.’ Me you always call ‘Brady’ or avoid talking to me at all. Which says to me that you don’t know me or you don’t know me as your uncle.” He took a deep breath. “So, the thing is, do I make it out of here?”
I was silent a long time, trying to decide what to say. Finally, I answered. “Yes.”
“But I was right: You don’t know me, do you?” Brady pursued.
There was no good answer, no good thing to do here. After another long pause, during which he never took his eyes off me, I replied. “I don’t know you. But that’s all I can tell you.”
“Hey,” he said, “we’re family.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I can’t tell you.”
Chapter
XXVII
Nate
IT WASN’T A COMFORTABLE RIDE. NATE COULD FEEL EVERY ROCK AND stick and unevenness in the ground as he was bounced around. Every now and then, something hit his bad leg.
It was almost better when they crossed streams and Nate had to actually get up and wade across, even though he needed Brady’s help.
Most of the time, though, he just lay there, thinking. He’d heard what Brady had said to Max and what Max hadn’t said to Brady.
Nate still didn’t know what the deal was with his father but realized there was something more going on here than he knew. Than any of them knew. They were going to have to have a long family conversation, he decided, when they got back.
“This is it,” Max said sometime late that afternoon as he stopped and let down the travois.
Nate got up and turned to look. They had arrived at the top of an arroyo that had a creek running through it. The arroyo wall was higher on the side opposite them and a hill rose beyond that. Set about halfway up the far wall was a cave.
What caught his attention and his brother’s, though, was the pair of handmade ladders. One leaned against the terrace at the mouth of the cave, leading up from the creek bed, while another allowed access from the cave to the top of the arroyo.
“You made this?” Nate asked as Max started down the arroyo wall.
“No,” Petra answered.
“It was Samuel—your grandfather Samuel,” Max said, looking up as Brady handed him the travois. “He was here looking for Mad Jack.”
“Did he ever find him?” Brady wanted to know, reaching a hand out to help his brother down the wall.
“I don’t know,” Max answered.
By the time he made it up to the cave, Nate was sweating from effort, head pounding. He sat leaning against the cave wall while the others built a fire on the cave terrace. He dozed a bit and drank from a canteen while everyone else sat out on the terrace. Every now and then he caught part of a conversation.
“If everything goes well, we should be able to get him to a doctor tomorrow,” Max said. He turned to look at Nate. “If it’s in your time, there’s something you should probably know. That the doctors probably won’t.”
“What?” Brady asked.
“It might not be just an infection,” Max answered. “Mosasaurs might have some kind of venom. Like Komodo dragons.”
“You mean the bacteria from their mouths?”
“No,” Max replied. “Actual venom. Komodo dragons have been discovered to have poison glands. The stuff about bacterial infections from bad flossing, or whatever, is a myth. But the venom might be why the bites aren’t scabbing all that well.”
For a moment, there was silence. Then Nate heard Brady say, “You can tell us about that but not about what happens to me?”
Nate didn’t hear an answer.
Chapter
XXVIII
Max
AFTER A LONG NIGHT, WHICH I SPENT HALF AWAKE TRYING TO DECIDE whether I’d done the right thing by not telling Brady about the stadium collapse, the morning dawned cloudy and dark.
Skipping breakfast, we set out in a light drizzle and made it to the island by midday. To my surprise, we didn’t see any dinosaurs. I guess not even the big carnivorous ones like the rain.
After a lunch of another can of baked beans, we readied the canoe. Brady took the front, with Nate in the back. I wasn’t really sure Nate should actually be expending that much energy, but he told me that while rowing required the use of the legs, he would just be paddling, which didn’t. Since I was going to have to be swimming later to find the Device, I went with it. Petra took the third spot, on the floor of the canoe, and I was between her and Brady. He hadn’t said a word to me since the mosasaur conversation.
Midafternoon, we reached the cove where Brady and Nate had splashed down. The rain had continued for most of the morning, the light drizzle graduating to a steady downpour, and the skies didn’t look like they were clearing at all. The lake was getting choppy, with waves occasionally sloshing over the sides of the canoe. I crouched, the water pooling around my feet.
“Do you see any mosasaurs?” Nate asked.
“No,” I replied. “But I think those are the trees.” I pointed as we came around a bend. Two on each side of the lagoon, just like the video Kyle had described.
Nate and Brady rowed us over to the first tree. By then, the waves were choppy enough that the twins had a hard time getting us close. Finally, we banged into the tree and I grabbed on.
“Can you make the shot?” I asked as Petra tied the end of the spool of fishing line to her arrow.
She slid the spool over the end of another arrow and handed it to me. Then she nocked the first and sighted to the tree diagonally across the lake. While the boat bobbed and the wind gusted, she took the shot.
As the arrow arced over the lake, the spool spun on the arrow I was holding and the line unwound. Brady spoke. “Isn’t this sort of what Ben Franklin did?”
“That was a kite and a key and lightning,” Nate said. “And shut up.” A moment later, the arrow thudded into the tree.
“Nice shooting!” I exclaimed as Brady let out a yell of triumph.
I reached up and looped the spool around a thick branch of the tree we were up against, pulling the fishing line tight and tying it off as the waves banged the canoe against the trunk.
“We have to move!” Petra shouted as thunder rumbled in the distance.
“And bail!” Nate yelled.
As Nate and Brady headed over to the next tree, I grabbed the bait bucket and began scooping water from around my feet.
The canoe danced in the waves, and Nate and Brady began having a hard time keeping our course. Finally, with the water in the boat now reaching about three inches, we made it to the next tree. As Petra readied her bow again, there was a flash of lightning and an almost immediate crack of thunder.
“We can’t do this now!” she shouted.
I kept bailing. “We have to! If we don’t, the Recall Device could get moved by the current or get buried in silt or something!” Besides, at this point, there really didn’t seem to be a good option for shelter anyway.
The canoe bobbed in the water, and the waves and the wind flung us toward the tree.
“Watch out!” Brady shouted as we plunged underneath a low branch. Brady was flung from his seat and into me as the canoe became wedged in place.
Using his paddle, he tried to push us away.
“Hold on!” I said. We may have been stuck, but we were also a lot more stable. “Petra, try it now!
”
Again, she raised the bow and released the arrow. It sped across the lake toward the tree. And landed in the water three feet away from it.
She swore. In German. And then in Spanish.
We recoiled the fishing line on its spool and retrieved the arrow.
Again, Petra nocked it and aimed. For a moment, she was still, almost not breathing. Then she let the arrow loose. This time, it hit the tree dead on.
“Yes!” Petra exclaimed, pumping her fist.
I tied the other end of the line to the tree by us and then helped Brady get the canoe unstuck. In minutes, we were off toward where the crisscross of the fishing lines marked the spot.
As we moved into position, I slipped overboard, trying not to capsize the canoe. It shifted too quickly, but Petra’s weight in the middle kept it from tipping.
I coughed as I swallowed water, and then dived. It was hard to see and deeper than I’d expected. I kicked again, and then my hand struck something hard. It was the frame of the boat trailer. I felt my way along it, trying to figure out where the wheels were. Eventually, I came to the hitch, which meant I’d been going in the wrong direction. But at least I knew where the thing was.
I kicked to the surface to get a breath of air, grabbing on to the side of the canoe.
“It’s getting worse,” Petra shouted above the rain.
I nodded, then dived back down.
This time, I latched on to the trailer right away and found the right rear tire. Scrabbling through the mud with one hand while I held on to the trailer with the other, my hand brushed something round and smooth. Lungs burning, I grabbed it and pushed off from the lake bed, propelling myself upward.
I handed the Recall Device to Brady and hauled myself over the side with a hand from Petra.
“Good job!” Nate said.
“I guess we didn’t see any mosasaurs after all,” I said, still breathing heavily.
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