TWENTY-TWO
The theory of evolution has frequently been misused to support political and social movements. In the nineteenth century, evolution, for those who believed in it, was thought to represent the struggle by which life gradually ennobled itself. In the early twentieth century, a similar notion was used to support chilling political agendas. Eugenics was based on the notion that a species should “improve” itself by weeding out the “disadvantaged.” But the modern theory of evolution, stripped of any progressivism, any concept of a predestined path, is without social, moral, or political application. It is ethically blind, morally vacuous; a description of what is and has been, without recommendation about what should come next.
—Julian Whitney, Lectures on Cretaceous Ecology
Carl walked on through the scrub, through Julian’s exhaustion and Dr. Shanker’s limping soreness; Carl walked on through the scrub, always ahead, fast-pacing, silent.
After the bright morning the sky began to grow overcast. A dim grayish light settled around the bumpy landscape. Somewhere above the clouds the sun reached its zenith, but it remained hidden. The gloom and the damp air added to the sense of stillness, but it was a tense calm, the atmospheric calm that comes just before a rain storm.
Julian had been scanning the hard ground for footprints as he always did, hoping to find some sign of Yariko; and from the corner of his eye he caught a faint, tiny motion in the rocks. It turned out to be a few tufts of fur, sticky with blood, moving in the slight breeze.
“What is it?” Dr. Shanker asked, kneeling beside him.
“The remains of someone’s breakfast,” Julian said. “It’s fresh. The blood is still wet.”
They looked about for Hilda’s prints; but the predator could have been any small carnivore.
A light drizzle began to speckle the ground and soak into the dust and the porous surfaces of the rocks. Carl moved ahead, sometimes out of sight over a rise in the ground, sometimes visible, striding with his bundles on his back and spear in hand. He looked like a natural part of the landscape; it was easy to forget that he didn’t belong in it any more than they did.
The day grew darker as the afternoon wore on. Thunder rumbled in the distance over the western hills. Far away black clouds moved, occasionally lit by faint lightning. Still they plodded on. Carl was confident about his direction even with no sign of the sun to steer by, and he was also sure they were following Yariko. After some hours they took a short rest and sat on the ground with the poncho hides over their heads to keep off the drizzle. The hides gave off a strong musty odor in the damp; the last of the dried meat that they munched tasted like the leather sacks. The sun went down unseen.
“Are we close to the caves?” Julian asked wearily. It seemed that he’d been walking for a lifetime over these gray rocks, with the image of Yariko always in front of him. Sometimes, just before he fell entirely asleep, she would take on mythical proportions: a trail-blazer striding along with spear and knife, defying raptors and perhaps even T. rex, showing the rest of them the path.
“Ahead there is a large rock, and then a cleft,” Carl said. “We follow the cleft. From there. . . .” He turned his head and looked to the north. “One day’s fast walk to the cliffs.”
At that moment, they all heard a soft but distinct sound: the sharp clunk of a rock hitting another rock. Dr. Shanker and Carl stood quickly and they all listened; but the sound was not repeated.
“Are there any more steep slopes?” Julian whispered. “Rock slides?”
Carl shook his head. “Only an animal moving would cause that sound.”
Julian concentrated on feeling vibrations from the ground, but with the thunder rumbling he could tell nothing. Cautiously, they picked up their spears and bundles and moved ahead, in the direction of the sound. The landscape seemed open, but there were enough ridges and fault lines that even a large animal could have been hidden nearby.
After only a few steps Julian bumped a loose rocks and caused the identical sound, kicking one rock into another. Then two things happened: there was an unmistakable tremble in the ground that was not thunder; and, from well ahead, came a single deep woof, magnified by the bare slopes.
Carl stiffened at the sound, his face intent and immobile. But Dr. Shanker lunged ahead with a shout. “Hilda! Here, girl! Hilda!”
Julian followed him, running uphill over the uneven ground toward a mass of rubble dimly seen ahead, a former rock slide held in place between the arms of two jagged cliffs. As they neared it an object detached itself and came flying down the slope. It was Hilda, now barking madly, nearly turning a somersault as she hit the bottom.
Julian looked wildly around. There was no sign of Yariko. With a sick feeling in his stomach he called her name, but his voice could not carry over the thunder and Hilda’s ecstatic barking. Not knowing what else to do, he ran to the pile of rocks and began clambering up. He was nearly frantic; the thought that something might have happened to her in the last few days drove him wild. He called her name again; this time, there might have been a faint answer.
The sound came from just below him. Julian turned, lost his footing as the rocks shifted beneath him, clutched frantically at the air, and slid down the slope.
Someone was calling his name and shaking him. The voice was insistent. He didn’t want to move; it was too hard. At last he opened his eyes. Yariko was bending over him and she seemed to be moving, going in and out of focus like the rocks behind her. The ground was spinning and shaking.
Julian wondered with some irritation why she couldn’t hold still so that he could look at her. Reaching up he grabbed onto her shoulders and blinked, but couldn’t focus. Something warm and wet was creeping down his face.
“Jules, Jules, you’re okay,” Yariko was saying.
“Keep still,” he mumbled, and finally the world steadied, and the ground stopped heaving.
Julian sat up, still clutching at Yariko, staring into her face. He felt blood trickling down his own face but he didn’t care. In the days since they’d been separated Yariko had become something of a phantom in his mind: a composite made up of the many images he had of her since their first meeting, and several that came purely from imagination. Now she was there in the reality: in a filthy, tattered shirt, with scraggled hair, puffy eyes, and a dried streak of either mud or blood on her cheek.
Julian felt faint all over again. He was not prepared for the reality of her presence.
Then the rest of the world intruded itself. Hilda was barking and Dr. Shanker was shouting something. A rough hand grabbed Julian’s arm and yanked him to his feet.
“Get back,” came Carl’s voice, sharp and urgent.
Julian looked up and took an involuntary step backward. In the gray light fast turning to black, an enormous shape was moving toward them. Its knobby hide and gray-brown coloration blended into the rocks, so that he perceived it one piece at a time: the curve of the back, a foot, the long tail, and then the head. Once again he heard that vast breathing; only this time, there was no sense of dreamy moonlit peace. One foot was lifted, then slowly set down again, and Julian’s own feet registered the vibrations transmitted through the rock. The storm was much closer now, and in a flash of lightning the whole animal became sharp and clear for an instant, appearing to leap out from the rocks.
Yariko clutched his arm and dragged him back. Still dizzy and confused, Julian stumbled against her; but she held him and guided his feet, and they walked backward until they were standing beside Dr. Shanker. He stood holding Hilda’s collar and from her throat came a rasping growl, while the hair all along her spine stood on end. Blood trickled from Julian’s face.
“Why doesn’t he move off?” Yariko’s fingers dug into his arm. She did not seem at all surprised at Carl’s presence. Maybe, in the intensity of the moment, she had no time to think about how improbable he was.
Julian wanted desperately to call to him but was afraid of provoking Corla into attacking. Carl stood facing the huge beast. His feet were spread wide
and firmly planted, and, Julian realized suddenly, he did not have his spear. Corla shifted her weight and lowered her head toward him, stretching her neck; but she did not come any closer. She seemed unsure what to do.
Then Hilda broke free and leaped forward with a snarl. Dr. Shanker cursed, dropped the broken collar, and lunged to grab her, but she evaded him. She rushed past Carl and stood facing the creature, barking and snarling. She was quivering with fury, lips drawn back over her teeth, looking dangerous enough in her own right. The tyrannosaur drew back a step and glared down at the puny thing that made so much noise.
Dr. Shanker crept forward; he was trying to sneak up on Hilda and drag her away. But as he approached, Carl spoke without turning.
“Go,” he said. “She is confused now. She will not follow you, and soon it will be dark. Go.”
“I’m not leaving him to be eaten,” Julian said under his breath, and started to inch forward.
Yariko kept close beside him. She whispered, “He’s talking to it.”
Maybe Carl was hoping to calm her with his voice and prevent Hilda from angering her. “You should go home,” he was saying. “This is not a good place for you. Little food, dangerous cliffs and loose ground. You cannot live here. Go now.” He must have spoken to her many times before, Julian thought. The sound of his voice must have been familiar to her.
In the dimness Julian could no longer make out details of motion, but he could feel Corla’s uncertainty like a palpable thing. She might lunge forward in attack, provoked by Hilda’s threatening attitude, or stand where she was and let them walk away, as she had let Carl do so many times before. He thought he saw Carl stepping backward, but it could have been a trick of the shadows.
Lightning crackled again, and for an instant Julian saw the four figures, motionless in the flash, frozen in action: Carl, Hilda, Dr. Shanker; and Corla, towering above them. Darkness again, and he could see nothing for a moment, blinded by the flash. When vision returned Hilda was dancing around the creature, barking, and Corla’s stance seemed to be changing from uncertainty to slow anger.
Dr. Shanker now faced Corla with his spear while Carl, amazingly, stood with his back to her and faced Dr. Shanker. He must have been trying to turn Dr. Shanker away, to prevent him from angering her. But it was too late for that. She rose to her full height, opened her jaws, and screamed. It was an utterly nightmarish sound, high pitched and ending in a loud hiss.
Julian staggered backward and then turned to run, still looking over his shoulder. Over the crash of thunder echoing off the bare hills Dr. Shanker was shouting, but the words could not be heard. Julian’s legs were trembling as he ran, and when the screaming hiss came again he nearly fell down in terror. This was no longer the animal they had become used to, a docile, dim-witted beast, hoping to scavenge a meal from the humans. She was Tyrannosaurus rex, the monarch of her world, afraid of no living thing.
Then Carl’s voice rose above the din: “Stand back!”
The air crackled with electricity.
The sky split open again and revealed Corla moving forward, towering over Carl, her head stretched out above him. Hilda cowered behind Dr. Shanker. The animal screamed again, throwing its head back on its thick neck; and then, just as darkness came down once more, the puny forelimbs came together like a vice around the man beneath her. Julian turned and rushed toward them in a rage, forgetting all about fear. But Dr. Shanker’s arm shot out and knocked him off his feet. Stooping, Shanker lifted a large mass in his hands, a rock twice the size of his head. He flung it with a tremendous heave that brought him to his knees.
It might have struck near the shoulder but it was difficult to see. Corla reared upright, the man dangling from her forelimbs, a shapeless bundle, limp and swaying as she moved. Dr. Shanker’s next rock, not so large and thrown from several feet closer, struck her on the chin. The great head turned toward him. Julian could not tell if any damage had been done or if she felt any pain at all; then in the next flash of lightning, now dim and far off behind the clouds, he saw blood gleaming where the rock had struck.
He felt more than saw Yariko beside him hefting a small rock. The two threw their rocks together. Julian’s was too low, and landed on one great hind foot. Yariko’s curved up and hit with an audible smack below the right eye.
“It’s going to eat him!” Yariko cried. Julian tore the leather sack off his back; it was empty but for crumbs of dried meat, but he threw it anyway. It was not heavy enough; it landed somewhere on the ground, unseen in the darkness.
This time Corla responded. She dropped the limp bundle, which landed on the ground with a sickening thud. She lunged toward Yariko and Julian. Her first step covered half the distance. They turned together and ran, terror overcoming any thought of fighting. Julian had to force himself to stop and turn, with a wild thought of trying to delay the animal; he might save Yariko’s life at the cost of his own.
But Dr. Shanker was there first. He came in from the side, running, and stabbed his spear deep into the animal’s hind leg.
It was not a terrible wound; it was the only place the man could reach without getting beneath her, under the arch of her belly. But she felt it. She lowered her head and swung it with horrible speed, striking Shanker and lifting him from his feet. His body arced through the air and hit the ground several yards away, the force of the impact sending him rolling, limbs flailing like rags, until he came up against the foot of the rock slide. The animal continued to turn her head, hissing now and biting at the spear, which looked like a tiny sliver jutting from her massive thigh.
And then, inexplicably, she began to walk away. Yariko had just reached Dr. Shanker, but seeing an opportunity she launched herself on Hilda and dragged her down, clinging to her hind legs so she wouldn’t follow Corla and provoke her again.
The huge shape, now only a deeper blackness against the gray-black sky, paused when it reached the spot where Carl had stood and faced her. She bent her head to the ground as if sniffing something. Then she stepped backward, gave a rumbling growl that sounded like a landslide, and, turning, disappeared into the night.
Julian ran forward to find Carl, caught his foot on something softer than rock, and sprawled on the ground. The stones were wet and sticky.
“Where is he?” said a voice behind him in the darkness.
It was a harsh voice, distorted, barely recognizable as Dr. Shanker’s. Julian stood and reached out, feeling in the dark, and clutched at the man’s arm. He meant to help him, but instead found himself leaning on Dr. Shanker.
He was shoved aside, roughly. Dr. Shanker knelt beside the body.
“Here. I can’t tell with all this damned blood in the way. Put your hand here. Do you feel any pulse?”
Yariko knelt too and let her hand be guided.
“Yes,” she whispered after a tense silence, and hope came back to Julian. He knelt down beside them.
“Carl?” he whispered. But there was no answer.
TWENTY-THREE
We humans have developed a comforting, self-centered philosophy that helps to shield us from the dreadful truth. We put a high value on individual life, liberty, and happiness. But in the broad context of the history of the world, life is cheap and death is the only certainty. All species become extinct. Habitats change. Ecosystems develop and then collapse. Our own civilization will be gone soon enough, the way of Triceratops horridus, the way of Tyrannosaurus rex.
—Julian Whitney, Lectures on Cretaceous Ecology
They did not see Corla again. Whether she returned to the river valley to live out the rest of her solitary years, or died of thirst and hunger in the lifeless hills, they would never know.
They did what they could for Carl, groping in the blackness, unable to light a fire in the open rain. There was not much hope. That grip must have crushed his rib cage; there were likely terrible internal injuries. It was incredible that he was alive at all.
Dr. Shanker also needed attention. He pushed the others away and savagely insisted that
he was fine, while refusing to leave Carl’s side; but Yariko and Julian managed to sit him down and feel for broken bones. Amazingly, there were no more than one broken rib and a gouged shoulder where he’d hit the ground; that and a multitude of minor bruises and cuts. He coughed frequently. The morning would show a number of teeth knocked out and the side of his face badly scored. But for the remainder of that long night they could only listen to his hoarse breathing and distorted speech.
The three of them huddled on either side of Carl and covered him with skins, knowing that he needed warmth during the cool part of the night. The storm receded to a low murmur of thunder now and then. Yariko sat across from Julian with her hand on Carl’s. She still had not asked who he was.
As the grayness of dawn came at last, he woke. Yariko gave him some water, and Julian told him they would carry him to the caves and take care of him until he was well.
He smiled faintly. “You will get there in time,” he murmured. Julian had to lean close to catch the words. Bloody froth stood in the corners of Carl’s mouth and his breathing was labored.
A thin drizzle fell. Carl’s face in the cold light was ashy and drawn. Yariko held his hands to warm them. He looked up at her for a long time, as if studying her face, and then he closed his eyes again.
Julian had never watched this kind of death before; but he knew the instant Carl’s spirit, his consciousness, was gone.
The whole world seemed hushed as the sun rose in a thin strip of clear sky below the clouds. They sat on and on, not wanting to believe. Even Dr. Shanker was silent; even Hilda lay still. The sun climbed until it shone out, lighting the underside of the clouds above. No bird sang to break the silence of a Cretaceous dawn.
Yariko slowly released Carl’s hand. Dr. Shanker spoke first. “I’ll gather some rocks. We’ll build a cairn.” He rose painfully, spat out a wad of thick blood, and called to Hilda.
“No,” Julian said.
Cretaceous Dawn Page 29