Mastodonia (26 page)

“We can make as good an argument against being part of the country,” I said, “as anyone can claiming we are.”

“I know,” said Ben, “but if that gets to be a part of general argument in this church uproar, it is going to strike pretty close to home. I don't like it, Asa. I don't like any of it.”

I didn't like it either, but right at the time, I wasn't as upset about it as he was.

Rila was determined to go into the Cretaceous with us, and it took us quite a while to convince her she'd better stay behind. She was all burned up at not being allowed to go along. She was outraged; she said she had the right to go.

“Not a chance,” I told her. “You risked your neck once and that's enough. That time we had to go for broke, but this time, it's different. We'll be back in a little while.”

It developed that during all the ruckus, Hiram had sneaked off to go hunting Stiffy. Rila wanted me to go after him, but I said to hell with him; I said that if, right at that moment, I did go after him, I'd most likely shoot him and have it over with.

So Ben and I started out in something of a foul mood. When we hit the Cretaceous, the local weather didn't help us any. It was hot and stormy and the landscape steamed. A high, hot wind was blowing; the touch of it almost burned you. Great cloud masses, torn apart, raced across the sky, and every once in a while one of the clouds would pull itself together and deliver a five-minute downpour of rain so warm that it seemed to be scalding. Underfoot, the ground was greasy from being soaked by the intermittent downpours, but Ben's four-wheel drive was a good mudder and we didn't have too much trouble with it.

The vile weather apparently had tamed down the fauna. Most of them, perhaps, were hiding out in groves of trees. Those that we did disturb went racing away from us, including one small tyrannosaur. We had to drive around a herd of triceratops, who stood with their heads drooping, not bothering to graze, just waiting for the weather to get decent.

The track made by the safari was fairly easy to follow, the wheels of the heavy trucks leaving deep depressions in the soil. In a few places, recent rains had either filled the tracks or washed them out, but where they were missing, it was no great problem to pick them up again.

We found the first campsite about five miles down the river valley. It seemed the safari had stayed there for several days. The campfire locations were thick with ash and there had been a lot of traffic out and back. After some looking, we found the trail the outfit had made in moving out: west over the ridge across the river, then across a prairie for twenty miles or so.

At the end of that twenty miles, the country broke suddenly, plunging down into the valley of the Raccoon River. The trail that we were following snaked crookedly down the hills. As we rounded the sharp angle of a ridge, we came upon the camp. Ben braked the car to a halt and for a moment we sat there, saying nothing. Tents, many of them down, fluttered in the wind. One truck was tipped over on its side. The other was in a ditch, one of those deep gullies so characteristic of the Cretaceous, its nose buried against one wall of the gully, its back canted up at a steep angle.

Nothing moved except the fluttering fabric of the tents. There was no smoke; the campfires had burned out. Here and there were clutters of scattered whiteness lying on the ground.

“For the love of God!” said Ben.

Slowly, he took his foot off the brake and let the car ease forward. We crept down the slope and into the camp. The place was littered with debris. Cooking utensils were scattered about the dead fires. Torn clothing was tramped into the ground. Dropped rifles lay here and there. The scattered whitenesses were bones—human bones polished clean by scavengers.

Ben braked the car to a halt and I got out, cradling the heavy rifle in the crook of my arm. For a long time I stood there, looking around, trying to absorb the enormity of what I saw, my mind stubbornly refusing to accept the full impact of the evidence. I heard Ben get out on the other side of the car. His feet crunched as he walked around the vehicle to stand beside me.

He spoke harshly, as if he were fighting to keep his voice level. “It must have happened a week or more ago. Probably only a day or so after their arrival here. Look at those bones. Stripped clean. It took a while to do that.”

I tried to answer, but I couldn't. I found that I had my teeth clenched hard to keep them from chattering.

“None got away,” said Ben. “How come none got away?”

I forced myself to speak. “Maybe some of them did. Out in the hills.”

Ben shook his head. “If they had been able, they would have tried to follow the trail back home. We would have found them coming in. A man alone, or an injured man, would have no chance. If something didn't snap him up on the first day, they would have on the next, certainly the next after that.”

Ben left me and walked out into the campsite. After a minute or so, I trailed after him.

“Asa,” Ben said. He had stopped and was staring at something on the ground. “Look at that. Look at that track.”

It had been blurred by rain. Little pools of water stood in the deep imprints left by the claws. It was huge. The blurring might have enlarged it or given the impression that it was larger than it actually was, but the print appeared to measure two feet or more across at its breadth. Beyond it and slightly to the left was another similar footprint.

“Not rex,” said Ben. “Bigger than rex. Bigger than anything we know. And look over there. There are more tracks.”

Now that Ben had found the first track, we could see that the area was covered with them.

“Three-toed,” said Ben. “Reptilian. Two-legged, I'd guess.”

“From the looks of the evidence,” I said, “a pack of them. One, or even two, couldn't make that many tracks. Remember our pair of tyrannosaurs? We thought they hunted in pairs. Before that, the impression was they hunted alone. Maybe they hunt in packs. Sweeping across the country like a pack of wolves, grabbing everything they can' find. A pack would pick up more prey than a lone hunter or even a pair of them.”

“If that is the case,” said Ben, “if they hunt in packs, Aspinwall and the others didn't have a prayer.”

We walked across the campsite, trying hard not to look too closely at some of the things we saw. The four-wheel drives, curiously, stood where they had been parked. Only one of them had been knocked over. Cartridge cases gleamed dully in the half-light of the cloudy day. Rifles lay here and there. And everywhere, the marks of those huge, three-clawed footprints.

The wind whined and moaned in the hollows and across the ridges that ran down to the river valley. The sky of torn and racing clouds boiled like a cauldron. From far off came the rumble of thunder.

Leering out of a small thicket at me was a skull, tattered bits of hairy scalp still clinging to it, a patch of beard adhering to the jawbone. Gagging, I turned back to the car. I'd had enough.

Ben's bellow stopped me. When I looked back, I saw him standing at the edge of a deep gully that ran down the southern edge of the campsite.

“Asa, over here!” he yelled.

I staggered back to where he stood. In the gully lay a pile of massive bones. Bits of scaly hide fluttered from some of them. A rib cage lay gaping, a clawed foot thrust upward, a skull with the jawbone still attached had the look of being interrupted in executing a mangling snap.

“That foot,” said Ben. “The one sticking up. That's a forefoot. Well developed, strong, not like the forelimb of a rex.”

“An allosaur,” I told him. “It has to be an allosaur. One grown to gigantic size, its fossilized bones never found by anyone.”

“Well, at least we know our people got one of them.”

“They may have gotten others. If we looked around …”

“No,” said Ben. “I've seen enough. Let's get out of here.”

TWENTY-NINE

Ben phoned Courtney, while Rila and I listened in on other phones. We were a fairly sober lot.

“Court, we have bad news,” said Ben when Courtney came on the line.

“I welcome you to the club,” said Courtney. “This Hotchkiss business is getting out of hand. It could cause us trouble. The whole damn country's upset. Everyone is getting into the act.”

“I don't like it either,” said Ben, “but that's not what we are calling you about. You know one of the safaris is overdue.”

“Yes, a couple of days or so. Nothing to worry about. Found better hunting than they expected. Or drove farther than they realized. Maybe vehicle breakdown.”

“We thought the same,” said Ben, “but this morning I got a call from Safari in New York. They were a little nervous. Asked if we could check. So Asa and I went in. Asa's on the phone with me now. So is Rila.”

Suddenly, Courtney's voice took on a note of worry. “You found everything all right, of course.”

“No, we didn't,” said Ben. “The expedition was wiped out. All of them dead.…”

“Dead? All of them?”

“Asa and I found no survivors. We didn't try to count the bodies. Not bodies, really—skeletons. It was pretty horrible. We got out of there.”

“But dead! What could …”

“Courtney,” I said, “the evidence is they were attacked by a pack of carnosaurs.”

“I didn't know carnosaurs ran in packs.”

“Neither did I. Neither did anyone. But the evidence is they do. More footprints than would be made by just two or three …”

“Footprints?”

“Not only footprints. We found the skeleton of a large carnosaur. Not a tyrannosaur. An allosaur, more than likely. Quite a bit bigger than rex.”

“You talk about skeletons. Not bodies, but skeletons.”

“Court, it must have happened quite a while ago,” said Ben. “Maybe shortly after they went in. Looks as if the scavengers had a while to work on them.”

“What we want to know,” said Rila, “is where we stand legally. And what do we do next?”

There was a long silence on the other end, then Courtney said, “Legally, we are blameless. Safari signed a waiver to cover each group that went in. The contract also makes it clear we are not responsible for anything that happens. If you're wondering if they can sue us, I don't think they can. There are no grounds.”

“How about the clients they took along?”

“Same thing. Safari is responsible if anyone is. I suppose the clients also signed waivers, holding Safari blameless. I would think it would be regular procedure. What we have to worry about is the impact on Safari's business. Once this is known, will clients cancel out? What will be the impact on public opinion? Will some damn fool come out screaming that safaris into the past must be stopped? You must remember, too, that Safari has paid only half of the contract fee. The other half is due in six months. They could hold up payment, or refuse payment on the second half.”

“It all depends,” said Ben, “on how Safari takes this news.”

“They're hard-headed businessmen,” said Courtney. “Sure, this is a tragic thing, but tragedies do happen. Miners are killed in mines, but mining still goes on. If too many clients cancel, if others don't come in and sign up for the hunts, then they will be concerned.”

“Some may cancel,” said Ben. “Not many. I know the breed. This will only make it more zestful. Something big back there, something dangerous, let us go and get it. A bigger trophy than anyone has ever dreamed.”

“I hope you're right,” said Courtney. “Safari is the only deal, so far, that we have going for us. It does beat hell. We thought there'd be other big deals knocking at our door, but they're slow developing. The same with things we worried about. We figured the IRS would hassle us. They did come sniffing around, but that is all, so far.”

“Maybe they're lying low,” said Ben, “trying to figure out a line of approach.”

“Maybe so,” said Courtney.

“How about the movie people?” Rila asked. “Is this lost safari going to scare them off?”

“I doubt it,” Courtney said. “All of the periods are not as dangerous as the Cretaceous, are they, Asa?”

“The Jurassic could be hairy,” I told him. “Those two would be the worst. Every period would have its dangers if you don't watch your step. It's all unknown country.”

“The immediate question is how to let Safari know,” said Ben. “I can phone them. But I thought we should fill you in before we did anything.”

“Why don't you let me phone them, Ben? I know them a little better than the rest of you. Except Rila, perhaps. How about it, Rila?”

“You go ahead,” said Rila. “You'll do a good job of it. Better than any of the rest of us.”

“They may want to call you back. Will you be there?”

“I'll be here,” said Ben.

THIRTY

Late in the afternoon, Safari phoned Ben. They would send in an expedition, they said, to visit the scene of the disaster and bring out what remained of the victims.

Rila and I went back to Mastodonia. Neither of us had much to say on the trip; both of us were depressed.

Hiram and Bowser were waiting for us, perched on the steps. Hiram was bubbling with talk. He had found Stiffy and had a good talk with him; he had hunted up Catface and talked with him as well. Both had been glad to see him, and he had told them all about his stay in the hospital. Bowser, he said, had found a woodchuck, run him into a hole and tried to dig him out. Hiram had hauled him from the hole and rebuked him. Bowser, he said, was ashamed of himself. Hiram had fried some eggs for lunch, but Bowser, he reminded us severely, did not care for eggs. We should always plan to leave some cold roast for Bowser.

After dinner, Rila and I sat out on the patio. Bowser and Hiram, tired out with their day, went to bed.

“I'm worried, Asa,” Rila said. “If Safari has paid us only half of the contract, we may be running low on funds. We gave Ben his commission on the Safari deal even though he had nothing to do with it.”