Cretaceous Dawn

by Lisa M. Graziano

  “It’ll kill her,” Yariko said.

  “She’s giving us a chance.” Dr. Shanker took one more step back; now they were at the edge of the water.

  “Julian!” Yariko called. She looked quickly behind her, into the river. Only seconds ago she had been laughing at his hesitation to jump; now he was gone. The river tumbled on with white spray over boulders, but Julian was gone.

  “He must have crossed back!” Yariko shouted. She felt confused by the rushing water beside her feet.

  “I don’t see him on the other side,” Dr. Shanker yelled back. “Anyway he couldn’t have crossed that quickly.”

  Then Julian was forgotten again as the Triceratops gave a sort of bellowing roar, rough as gravel and ending on a high note that hurt the ears. It shook its head again and the wall of bushes shook with it, making a clacking, twiggy sound. Then Yariko saw another head poking its way through the bushes, lower down. It was identical to the first but in miniature, being no longer than Hilda from parrot beak to scalloped frill.

  “Wonderful,” Dr. Shanker said. “A mother protecting its young.”

  Yariko only caught a word or two but she didn’t care. “The water!” she yelled. “Maybe he fell in the water!” She swung around to stare downstream. There was nothing, no dark head bobbing in the white swirls.

  “If he did, that’s the end of him,” Dr. Shanker shouted back.

  Together, they began to inch their way downstream, expecting that at any instant the creature would charge and drive them into the river; or worse, spear them with those horns.

  “Hilda! Come on, girl!” Dr. Shanker whistled as well but Hilda remained firmly in place.

  The Triceratops did not. The monstrous head was pulled back through the bushes only to reappear downstream, closer to the river and only thirty feet away. Now they could see the whole animal: it was at least ten feet tall at its arched back and perhaps thirty feet long, bulky, stocky, and unmovable. It was blocking their path.

  Dr. Shanker still held Yariko’s arm. Now he pulled her in the other direction. “This way!” he shouted. “Don’t move toward it!”

  But Yariko had seen something. Just downstream, fetched up against the stony shore and slamming into a rock over and over again as the water went by, was Julian’s bow.

  She pulled her arm from Dr. Shanker’s grip. “Look! He’s been washed away. He’ll drown, or get battered to death. We’ve got to find him. That way!” Now she grabbed his arm and began to pull.

  He resisted. “We can’t go that way. We can’t get past that thing until it decides to leave. Whitney’s on his own until then.”

  “We haven’t even tried,” Yariko shouted. “And there’s no time to wait.” Before Dr. Shanker could react, she yanked the spear from his hand, and screaming, “Get out! Go on! Get!” she ran straight at the Triceratops.

  Julian came to shivering uncontrollably. With a great effort of will he dragged himself farther up the bank, into a bed of ferns. There was nothing to do but wait for the others. Fortunately, he had fetched up on the western side, and it couldn’t be that far from where they’d crossed. Surely Yariko and Dr. Shanker would be along within the hour. He refused to let in the thought that he’d lost her, really lost her, just when they’d become close.

  After a while he struggled out of his wet clothes and hung them on the twigs of a nearby bush. The battered sneakers were stuck to his feet like suckers and he barely had the energy to fight with them; but he managed in the end, mainly because he was desperate to get his soggy jeans off. Then he sat down, hugging his knees, trembling, waiting for the warmth of the sun to take effect. As the numbing cold disappeared various bruises began to hurt. His head ached from being smashed against the rocks.

  After what felt like hours there was still no sign of the others. Julian struggled to his feet, shaking, and dressed. The T-shirt had dried well enough; the fabric was so worn and thin that it could not hold water very well. But the jeans were damp and uncomfortable. He picked up the spear, and leaning on it heavily at every step, still weak and trembling, followed the river upstream. The ground was stony and choked up with bushes. On every rock he left behind a wet splotchy footprint.

  Finally he reached the place where they’d crossed. There was no one in sight.

  It was as though the Triceratops had never been there, or his companions either, for that matter. The ground showed nothing even to Julian’s footprint-trained eyes. He stumbled up a slope of stones and sand that lay between the river and the thick, rising wall of bushes. The effort of forcing his way through was almost too much, but finally he managed, scratched and weak, to push his way out the other side.

  He stood in the trampled path of the Triceratops.

  It was like a river of its own, a hundred yards wide, wider than the actual river in fact, stretching between green and brown banks of tall bushes. The ground was all mud and rock, tangled up with the flattened remains of scrub. The animals seemed to have eaten all the leaves and smaller twigs and then trampled the fibrous trunks into the ground. But the path was empty. As far as he could see in both directions, nothing moved except a few small birds, the size of sparrows, pecking at insects in the mud.

  The Triceratops had vanished, and so had Julian’s companions: Yariko, Dr. Shanker, and Hilda. The sound of the river behind him seemed to accentuate the dreadful solitude.

  He crawled back through the bushes and sat on the stones at the river’s edge, trying to think. His head was throbbing so much that he could hardly sit upright. But many times before, in the grip of a bad flu, he had staggered to the office and worked on a project that needed to be finished. He called on that same kind of energy now, despite the rising fear and desperation over being alone.

  Forcing his mind into action, he made a list in his head of all the possibilities, and for each one he drew a mark on a flat stone, scraping it with the pointed edge of a pebble.

  First: Yariko and Dr. Shanker had been searching for him, but somehow they’d missed each other. That was hard to believe, since after crawling out of the river he had collapsed within plain sight of either bank. Dangerously exposed, in fact, now that he thought about it.

  Second: they’d been killed, and the bodies had somehow been removed—eaten by a passing predator, perhaps. At that thought panic almost overwhelmed him; he felt like jumping up and rushing wildly around, calling for Yariko. But then reason took over. There was no blood anywhere, no sign of a struggle, and anyhow it was hard to believe they’d all been killed outright, including Hilda.

  Third: they had escaped the Triceratops by scrambling back across the river. He peered across, shading his eyes against the late-morning sun, seeing nothing over the top of the cliff except the blue of the sky behind it.

  The first possibility seemed the most likely. They might search for a time, and not finding him near the river they might make for the Triceratops trail that had been their goal for the day. It was certainly more open than the tangled brush near the river.

  Julian knew that if he didn’t find them soon he should continue the journey toward the west and try to catch up with them, if there was anybody to catch up with. If there wasn’t, then he might as well be traveling west as any other direction. But he did not have the energy to get up at that moment. He crawled into the bushes, curled up in a ball, and tried to sleep.

  For a long time all he could think about was Yariko, the dearest person to him in sixty-five million years, possibly dead, maybe in danger somewhere; possibly trudging along with Dr. Shanker on a hopeless search, convinced that he himself was dead.

  If he had been able to think clearly, he would have known that his companions hadn’t gone far. He would also have known that T. horridus was not an easy animal to get away from, especially once enraged.

  The Triceratops lowered its head, presenting horns and bone frill to its diminutive attacker. Perhaps it thought Yariko was one of the small bipedal carnivores, maybe a type of raptor. Even if she were, she wouldn’t have much chance against
the monstrous creature’s defenses, not to mention its bulk.

  Dr. Shanker watched half in frozen horror, half in disbelief. He was unable to move or even to yell. Yariko seemed almost to run up against the deadly horns before stopping. She was like the mouse standing up to the lion; her arms waved wildly over her head, the spear flailing as she jumped up and down in place; and she yelled without pause, a string of words repeated over and over: “GO AWAY! LET ME BY! GET OUT! GET OUT!”

  Then Hilda reappeared, leaping out of the bushes to join Yariko. She did not take up the protective stance this time; she seemed to understand that Yariko was now the aggressor, and she joined in the attack as an equal.

  The Triceratops pulled back and shook its head. It gave another rasping bark, which turned into a roar like a bull’s, only ten times louder; then it leaped forward.

  Yariko turned with a shriek and pelted back along the bank.

  Dr. Shanker expected her to stop where he was, but she flew right past him, the butt end of the spear catching him on the thigh with a stinging blow. “Run, you idiot!” she screamed, and was gone.

  He looked up and realized he was between the Triceratops and Yariko. And the Triceratops was moving faster. For an instant he saw its nostrils flaring red as blood and heard its snorting breath; then he too turned and ran, with no thought in his head except panic, and the snorting monster at his back. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was aware of Hilda’s barking, but it hardly registered.

  Yariko was far ahead now running upstream. Dr. Shanker stumbled on the rough, stony ground, trying desperately to keep his balance and to catch up; then Yariko too stumbled, and fell to her knees.

  “Into the river, quick,” Dr. Shanker said, rushing up and grabbing her arm. “We can’t run forever.” He jumped for the first large boulder in the frothy water, and then the second. Yariko had no time to think; she followed without looking back. Indeed, there was no need to look when she could hear the immense breathing and grunting almost at her back.

  Halfway across the river, they turned to look at the shore. Hilda was barking now, standing on the rock nearest the bank. Their attacker seemed unwilling to enter the river. Perhaps its young wasn’t able to cross there.

  “That was brilliant,” Dr. Shanker said, scathingly. “Enrage something that big, with horns like that. Great move. Now we’re stuck in the middle of the river, way upstream too.”

  Yariko didn’t answer. She began to pick her way downstream again, slowly, from rock to rock. Very quickly she came to a spot where there was nothing but water ahead; a large pool, with no protruding boulders for at least thirty feet.

  “You won’t catch up with Whitney that way,” Dr. Shanker said from directly behind her. “And don’t even think about jumping in the water. You’ll drown.”

  Yariko turned on her rock to face him. Hilda was standing on the same rock, all four feet bunched up under her, looking unbalanced and unhappy. “He may be drowned by now. We have to get downstream.” She was panting, sweaty, and still had a wild look in her eyes.

  “Follow me,” Dr. Shanker said. There were enough rocks to take them back to the bank, behind the Triceratops. “If we’re quiet, maybe it won’t notice.”

  Hilda made the decision for them by leading the way; she’d had enough of teetering on rocks. Yariko followed, then Dr. Shanker. There was no need for silence as the water covered any noise they made.

  Yariko watched Hilda sway on a small rock and then launch herself at the bank, landing with her front feet in gravel. She dragged herself out and shook the water off her fur.

  “Go on,” Dr. Shanker said, impatiently. “I can’t balance on this rock forever.”

  Yariko judged the next leap, a long one, but before she could jump she felt her foot slide on the wet rock and go into the water.

  It was terribly cold. She thrashed out wildly to regain her balance, and managed to whack Dr. Shanker on the jaw. He grabbed her around the middle and deposited her solidly back on the rock.

  “I didn’t mean go in,” he said, still gripping her wrist.

  “Cold,” she said, her teeth chattering at the mere thought of being submerged. “Too cold. If he stayed in long. . . .”

  They made it back to the western shore. There was no sign of the Triceratops.

  Late in the day, Julian woke feeling warmer but so achy he could hardly move. As soon as he sat up the fact of his aloneness rushed in and almost overwhelmed him. He closed his eyes and pictured himself leaping up and joyfully dashing toward the sound of Hilda’s bark or Yariko calling his name. He pictured it so vividly, and wished for it so hard, that a rustle in the bushes set his heart beating in wild hope. But nothing emerged. Nothing moved, anywhere. He was alone.

  It was worse than fighting the dromaeosaurs. It was worse than the worst night on the river, with thoughts of Frank as they’d left him, the stink of the rotting jungle, hunger, despair; it was worse than anything he’d ever known.

  What if one of us is left alone? Yariko had asked. Forever?

  What if he was the only one alive: the last person on earth, for the next sixty-five million years?

  If he came to believe that, everything was over. With sudden determination, Julian picked up his spear and set out along the riverbank, upstream, in search of his companions.

  After a mile, he reached the point where the Triceratops had forded the stream. Their path turned sharply, plunging across the stony river bed and disappearing into the plain to his left. The cliff on the opposite bank of the river was lower there, eroded, now a well-trampled path in dark soil. The herd had crossed the river and gone on.

  But one of them had not succeeded. It lay dead in the river, quite still, blending in against the gray stones so well that Julian hadn’t even noticed it at first. It was a small Triceratops, maybe a youngster.

  Here was enough meat for his dinner and for a hundred other people too.

  Julian had only just escaped the river; but with a grin and a shrug reminiscent of Dr. Shanker he clambered out over the rocks. The water snarled below his feet. The animal was near the middle of the stream, and he climbed on top of it and squatted, resting for a moment. He felt like a caveman on a mammoth, he and his spear: a very smelly mammoth, at that. And he felt like laughing, or crying, or maybe both. He stood up, balancing carefully on the hard nubbled hide of the animal, to spy out the area from this convenient high point.

  The sun was almost down. Over the low cliff to his left the forest grew thick and was already turning black in the dusk. On the opposite bank, to Julian’s right, the bushes stretched out across the stony plain, blending into a colorless smear in the twilight. Only the river was still bright. Nothing moved except the sparkling current.

  Julian fetched out his knife, tangled into the frayed cloth of his jeans. It was unusually stout for a pocketknife but wasn’t designed for cutting through Triceratops hide. It was also rusty. He tried to clean and sharpen it against a rough stone but the rust remained. Clambering across the animal, he began cutting at one of the hind legs, which lay partly submerged.

  The skin was incredibly tough, leathery and almost slippery, which was surprising: he’d expected it to be dry and rough like rock. It took some time to slice through the stuff. Now and then as he worked Julian looked up and stared around anxiously. The Maastrichtian world must have had its scavengers. Some people believed that Quetzalcoatlus, that forty-foot airplane of a flying lizard, must have been a Cretaceous turkey vulture, spotting carrion as it wheeled and glided over the open landscape. But he didn’t see anything so large on wings; in any case, it was thought to be a more coastal animal.

  The hide, once sliced through, proved equally tough to pull away from the meat. Julian had to brace his foot against the animal’s thigh and tug with both hands. When he had hacked and torn away a piece several feet square he washed the blood from the skin and laid it on a nearby boulder. Then he hacked at the thigh muscle. Surprisingly little blood ran from it, but it reeked nonetheless: of musk, blood, and
death. Julian gagged and then had to stop and put his T-shirt over his face for a moment.

  Within minutes, despite the slight remaining warmth of the flesh, his hands were nearly frozen and the knife almost dropped into the river. But at last he had a good pile of meat stacked on the hide, enough for perhaps ten days. He wrapped it up in the hide and scrambled back across the stones to the riverbank.

  There several problems presented themselves.

  The meat was heavy. It also smelled strongly and left a trail of red drops. He sat down on the ground and thought. Clearly the meat had to be dried: removing the liquid would fix both the weight and scent problems. And smoked meat would keep for several days, even if it would be dry eating.

  He managed to strike a spark between the file in his knife packet and the bit of flint he’d been carrying around. As the strips of meat began to smoke, laid out on flat rocks, the aroma seemed to drift up around him like a beacon to all tyrannosaurids within five miles.

  For a long time Julian sat beside the fire, adding twigs and leaves, turning the bits of meat. He knew almost nothing about tanning a hide, except that it was important to clean off the wet underside to prevent decomposition. As he sat beside the fire he scraped at the raw bloody surface of the skin with a flat bit of stone, until his fingers were cold and sore.

  If Yariko and Dr. Shanker were nearby they must notice the fire. There was no better place to wait for them than at the edge of the Triceratops trail. And if they weren’t nearby, if they weren’t anywhere anymore . . . how could one comprehend being the only human animal to exist in this vast tangle of life? If he contemplated it even a moment longer, if he strained his mind to grasp such a finality, Julian thought he might run screaming into the river again, this time to stay. He crept closer to the fire, taking in its warmth and movement as if it were a sentient thing.

  The moon went down and the land around him turned black, accentuating his solitude. The river rumbled beside him unseen. Only the stars were visible, and in the firelight a dim circle of stony ground, a ragged piece of hide, and a prehistoric man squatting by the fire, muddy and unkempt.