Dinosaur Thunder (7 page)

The straw pile was not moving. Sally sniffed the spot anyway.

“I think this is a good sign,” Jeanette said.

Jeanette pushed her hand into the straw, feeling for the moving egg. Touching something slimy, she jerked her hand out, gasping and stepping back at the same time. Sally yelped, surprised by the sudden move. Waiting for her heart to recover, Jeanette gently brushed straw from the spot, slowly revealing a pink, wiggling baby raptor.

“This isn’t good, Sally,” Jeanette said.

Taking cues from Jeanette’s body language and tone, Sally sniffed the raptor chick suspiciously.

Carefully, Jeanette scooped the chick from the straw, pulling its lower body from broken pieces of shell. It wiggled, its eyes closed.

“Carson’s not going to like this,” Jeanette said.

Then the chick’s eyes opened, fixing on Jeanette. It was six inches long—Jeanette could crush the chick in one hand—yet she was afraid. Subconsciously, Jeanette knew what the chick would grow into and what raptors and their larger cousins ate—every living thing. The chick opened and closed its eyes, and then its mouth, Jeanette discovering baby raptors came ready to shred meat—it had teeth. Then Jeanette saw more movement in the straw. Brushing carefully, Jeanette uncovered another chick, peeking through a hole in its shell. Two more eggs were rocking.

“Sally, we’ve got a problem!” Jeanette said.

“Woof,” Sally agreed.

7

Raid

These dinosaurs are hadrosaurs, but most people call them “duck-billed dinosaurs” because of their long flat snouts. They were one of the last dinosaurs to appear on the Earth, just before the age of dinosaurs came to an end. Duck-billed dinosaurs roamed the Earth in giant herds, and there were so many of them that people call them the cows of the Cretaceous. We think that duck-bills were likely the favored food of
Tyrannosaurus rex.

—Nick Paulson, lecture to students of New James John Grade School, Portland, Oregon

Unknown Time
Neverland

They saw no guards, but skirted possible watch points. The humans rarely entered Inhuman territory, let alone raided the valley the Inhumans used as a corral. They counted on the security being light. Only Mel had actually seen the corral, so he led the way. Jacob brought up the rear, his eyes busy, his rifle ready.

Climbing down the box end of the canyon, the humans picked their way carefully, afraid of dislodging loose rock. Jacob climbed down with the others, knowing it was a bad idea but not willing to let the others down. As a rifleman, Jacob protected their backs. At the bottom, the humans hid among the rocks, looking for guards.

“So far, so good,” Mel Williams whispered.

“Hell yeah!” Crazy Kramer said too loud.

Everyone shushed him.

“Hell yeah,” Crazy Kramer whispered.

Now Willy Williams took the lead, keeping close to the canyon wall. The narrow end was rocky, but it quickly widened out into a small, lush valley. The herd was here, milling, grazing confidently, free of predators. A small waterfall poured from the rim, down to a lake along the east side of the canyon. The lake spilled out to form a marsh, streams running all the way to the valley outlet. At the far end of the valley were the stone pillars that kept the herd penned, and beyond that, lava rock that protected the valley from the carnivores like the
Albertosaurus, Deinonycus,
and
T. rex.
Smaller predators could navigate the lava forest, but the hadrosaurs in the valley were too big for them to hunt.

The Inhumans maintained a herd of about fifty hadrosaurs as a food reserve. The crested and duck-billed dinosaurs were semi-tame, despite the fact the Inhumans regularly culled the herd. Sprinkling the valley were the bleached bones of their kills. Ranging from the size of a small car to a bus, the bipedal hadrosaurs grazed in a loose herd, a third standing in marsh, sunk to their knees.

The hunters waited, letting Willy select the animal to kill.

“That one,” Willy said, pointing.

Medium sized, the animal limped, a crust of blood on one knee. The humans had never hunted a hadrosaur before, since the only hadrosaurs near their home were in this valley. Wherever the Inhumans got the animals was not near human territory. Hadrosaurs did not mix with the herds the humans hunted. However, the duck-billed dinosaurs were bipedal, and that meant fast.

Following hand signals, the hunters spread out, staying low, moving slowly, creeping up on the limping hadrosaur. Periodically, one of the hadrosaurs would lift its head, watch the humans advance, and then put its head back down and eat, moving slowly away from the humans. The limping hadrosaur followed the same pattern, but moved more slowly, favoring its injured leg. With a signal from Willy, the humans all laid down, ferns and other low vegetation hiding them from the hadrosaurs. The herd stopped moving away, resuming the random milling. Occasionally, a juvenile would kick up its heels, prancing, splashing, and pawing up gobs of mud.

It was cool in the ferns, the ground moist, soaking through the ragged clothes that Jacob wore. Flies buzzed his head, and then a mosquito landed on the back of his hand. Cradling the rifle and needing to move slowly, it had a belly full of his blood before he freed a hand to squish it.
If I had to get sent back in time, why couldn’t it be before mosquitoes evolved?
Jacob thought.

Hidden in the vegetation, the hunters switched to sound signals. A series of soft whistles from Willy put them in motion. Six hunters inched slowly through the ferns and canes, forming a semicircle around the limping hadrosaur. The others hung back, ready to pursue if needed. Light gusts from the open end of the valley kept their scent away from the hadrosaur until it was partially surrounded. Suddenly suspicious, the hadrosaur rose to its full height, rearing back on its legs, peering down into the vegetation. Alerted, others in the herd assumed the same position, all oriented toward the humans.

“Now!” Willy shouted.

Hunters erupted from the ferns, bows and spears launched. Reared back as it was, the hadrosaur had exposed its neck, and arrows and spears buried into its upper chest and neck. Ready with his rifle, Jacob tracked the screaming dinosaur, still rocked back, now clawing at its neck. The rest of the herd stampeded away from the attack toward the lake, splashing through the marsh. Too stupid, or too scared to run, the hadrosaur continued to stand tall, clawing its neck. It would run soon.

“Crazy!” Jacob called to Crazy Kramer who was reloading his spear thrower.

A huge grin on his face, Crazy partially turned, only half-aware of Jacob.

“Take out its knee!” Jacob yelled.

Confused, Crazy looked back and forth, Jacob frantically pointing at his own knee. Finally, understanding dawned. Just as the hadrosaur rocked back down, Crazy let fly, his spear burying in the wounded knee. Now the hadrosaur squealed from pain, or the unfairness of being singled out from the herd. Hopping on one leg, moving in a circle, more arrows and spears hitting home, and the hadrosaur went down. Willy raced forward, using his razor-sharp knife to slice deep into its neck, searching for the artery. Blood spurted and the hunt was over.

Not waiting for the hadrosaur to die, Willy and Mel went to work, using a boning knife to slice it from anus to sternum, and then reached in to pull out arms full of guts. The hadrosaur writhed in agony at first and then twitched and died. Other hunters sorted the intestines, packing some, then taking the liver and heart. Then they went to work, cutting ten-pound steaks and roasts from haunches, rump, and shoulders. Precision and pride were gone; the meticulously honed knives flew, chunks of meat tossed to men standing in two lines to take, wrap, and pack the meat. The bone saw remained in the pack, feeling there was no time to cut out ribs. When every man had all the meat he could carry, they left the rest. Half the animal was untouched, and it pained them to walk away.

Heavily laden, smeared with blood, they trooped in a long row down the valley. As a rifleman, Jacob carried less, his load closer to fifty pounds instead of the hundred pounds carried by most. Crazy Kramer carried two hundred pounds, walking easier than Jacob. They passed through the stone pillars built by the Inhumans to pen their herd in the valley, and into the volcanic terrain. Jacob had his best boots on, repaired many times, but some of the hunters wore moccasins, planning to hunt the jungles.

The passage through the rock was narrow, seldom trod, and the heavily laden men stumbled frequently. Hot and humid, with no time to stop for water, they hurried, the line stringing out with the slowest in the back. Positioned in the rear, Jacob watched the high points on either side and periodically turned to look behind—he saw nothing. It was late afternoon when they cleared the lava field and were into the cool of the leafy forest. Jacob backed up the last few yards between the lava field and the forest, eyes busy. Just as he stepped from the heat into the shade of the forest, he saw movement. Stopping in the shadow, Jacob studied an outcropping to his right. A lone Inhuman stood there, staring, not trying to hide. Its large eyes, noseless face, wide mouth showed no emotion that a human could read. Jacob stared back, feeling like he should shout an apology and explain that their families were starving, but humans and Inhumans did not communicate, could not communicate. Every contact so far had ended in murder. With no hope of explaining, Jacob turned and hurried away with his stolen meat.

8

Unlicensed

“Dangerous dinosaur” includes, but is not limited to, dinosaurs that are known to have a propensity, tendency, or disposition to attack unprovoked, cause injury, or otherwise endanger the safety of human beings or domestic animals. Any animal designated as a “dangerous dinosaur” must be licensed through the Office of Dinosaur Control.

—Federal Dinosaur Control Act, Section 47-3-320

Present Time
Ocala Dinosaur Preserve
Florida

Nick ran the scanner over the carcasses a third time—still no tag. The carcasses lay on stainless-steel countertops ready for dissection. One of the velociraptors was intact, with three holes in its chest. The other was partially shredded. Part of the Ocala Preserve complex, the dissection room’s walls and floor were covered in white tiles. Two stainless-steel sinks were bolted to one wall. Over each island counter were pull-down hoses for hot and cold water and compressed air. The whole room could be hosed down or steam cleaned. The floor sloped toward the large drain in the middle. Banks of lights made the room as bright as an operating room.

“The tags go here, or here, or here,” Dr. Norman Gah explained, pointing at the neck, thigh, and hips of the velociraptor Nick kept scanning. “Except the only velociraptors in the continental United States are in Texas and Louisiana, not Florida.”

“They must be hobby velociraptors,” Carmen Wynooski said.

Wynooski was a senior Dinosaur Ranger, the equivalent rank of captain in the army. Wynooski was five foot five, and 160 pounds. Little of it was fat. With a round face, sun-bleached hair in a ragged pixie haircut, brown eyes, and gray teeth, she looked like Nick’s eighth-grade gym teacher, except not quite as attractive. With skin the color of the bottom of a tarnished copper pan, she was courting melanoma.

“Every bubble-riding day trader just has to have their own slice of Dinosauria,” Wynooski continued. “And the bigger and badder, the better. These two velocies probably had their owners for lunch. We should start looking for some shredded designer jeans and a pile of bones.”

“This is a male and a female pair,” Dr. Gah said.

“They come that way,” Wynooski said.

“Norman is suggesting a hobby farmer would not pick a male and female, since they will breed,” Nick said.

“Of course they’ll breed,” Wynooski said. “Velocies hump like rabbits. What the hell do the yuppies care?”

Carmen was an excellent ranger, an organized and efficient administrator, and protective of her people, but she had enough confidence for two people, and it was annoying. Wynooski was always 100 percent sure, but only 50 percent right.

“Someone might buy a breeding pair, but it is unlikely,” Dr. Gah said, pulling on plastic gloves and picking up a scalpel. “Let’s see if we can find out where they came from.”

Dr. Norman Gah was a small man of mixed race—Nick had no idea which races. Slightly Asian in appearance, he had pale skin, with eyebrows as thick and wild as his black hair. Both the eyebrows and hair were in need of combing. With a high forehead and gold-colored wire-rimmed glasses, he had a bit of a mad-scientist look about him.

“Where the hell else would they come from?” Wynooski asked, leaning against a sink, arms folded across her chest. She wore the cargo shorts version of the ranger uniform: green shirt, beige cargo shorts. “It had to be from around here somewhere. The damn things couldn’t traipse cross-country without getting noticed, not to mention they’d kill everything that crossed their path.”

Dr. Gah sliced the abdomen of the most intact velociraptor and then reached inside, feeling around. A mass of white intestines spilled out. Ignoring the intestines, Dr. Gah reached inside again, this time with his scalpel, working by touch, and then pulled out a shiny purplish mass—the stomach. When he sliced it open, liquid spilled out and lumps of gray meat.

Nick’s eyes watered from the sour vomit smell, and he cupped his hand over his nose.

“Whee-ew!” Wynooski said. “Someone light a match.”

Dr. Gah ignored Wynooski, sorting the lumps of meat and chunks of bone.

“Dog, I would say,” Gah said, shoving a few pieces to one side. “Maybe some rabbit appetizer.”

Dr. Gah shoved a soggy piece of fur to one side, a slimy mass with flecks of white.

“Let’s see what’s in the other stomach,” Dr. Gah said.

Dr. Gah dug back inside, this time leaning over, nearly shoving his head into the cavity. Finally, he managed to pull out the velociraptor’s second stomach. While he was opening it, more liquid spilled. Dr. Gah dug out gooey contents, spreading them on the stainless-steel surface.