The Dinosaur Hunter (3 page)

“Like Mike,” Jeanette said, giving away one of my peculiarities.

The scientist looked at me in surprise. “I used to live in California,” I said by way of explanation.

“Finish up, Dr. Pickford,” Jeanette said before Pick and I could get into a discussion of either vegetarianism or California.

Pick next withdrew from the box a cylindrical rock that was about two inches long and the diameter of a pencil. “This is an ossified tendon from a Hadrosaur. Tendons are like lines in a pulley from muscles to bones. The muscles twitch and the tendons are pulled, thus moving the bones. Ossified means this tendon has turned from collagen to bone. This propensity isn't unique to dinosaurs. Some modern birds like turkeys have ossified tendons.”

“What's that little curved piece?” I asked, pointing at something I'd spotted in the box. “Like a hawk's claw.”

“A claw, indeed,” he said, “but not from a hawk. From a T. rex.”

“How come it's so small?”

“It belonged to a baby. So does this phalange.” He touched a brown object that looked more or less like a thin twig about an inch long. “By phalange, I mean a toe or finger bone. Although it doesn't fit this particular claw, it could still be from the same animal. These bones are very interesting. A baby T. rex this young has never been found before. We don't know much about them. If the entire skeleton was nearby…”

“What would it be worth?” Jeanette interrupted.

Pick had his mouth open to complete his sentence but he closed it, mulled over Jeanette's question, then said, “I don't know. A lot. But to science, well, you can't put a price on it.”

Jeanette leaned back against the counter and crossed her arms. “Dr. Pickford, on a ranch like this, every dollar counts. How do I find somebody who'll buy these fossils?”

Pick hesitated, then asked, “Do you lease BLM land?”

Whether he knew it or not, he had just lurched onto a touchy topic in the Montana ranchlands. BLM stood for Bureau of Land Management, the federal agency that owns a great deal of the western states. A rather large portion of that property is leased out to ranches and there is always some consternation about those leases for one reason or another.

“Everybody up and down Ranchers Road has BLM leases,” Jeanette replied.

“Did your husband spend much time on your lease?”

“Of course he did. Our cattle graze there. That's why we have it.”

“If any of these bones were found on the BLM, then technically they aren't yours. They belong to the government.”

Jeanette's face clouded over. “Listen,” she said, “the Coulters have been taking care of that damn land for a century. The government can claim it all it wants but our blood and sweat says otherwise.”

Pick's reply was gentle. “Mrs. Coulter, I fully understand. I didn't come here to cause any trouble. I have a federal collecting permit, approved by the BLM, but I wouldn't go out there without your permission.”

Before Jeanette could reply, he pulled a map from one of his many shirt pockets. I recognized it as a BLM-produced map, which included not only federal land but all the ranches up and down Ranchers Road. The map was a grid of squares, each one representing a square mile. BLM land was identified by a bright yellow color, private property was in white, state-owned land in blue, and the adjacent Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge in a sturdy green.

Pick used the duckbill's ossified tendon to trace a path along a dotted line on the map, which went past a prominent land feature called Blackie Butte to just inside Jeanette's BLM lease. “This is the area I'd like to investigate. Its terrain features indicate to me that it's an outcrop of the Hell Creek Formation. A remnant of the Cretaceous.”

“And if you find anything?” Jeanette asked.

“I would take it back to the university for further study.”

“Which university?”

“I work through the University of California in Berkeley.”

“Bunch of far-lefties out there,” Jeanette said.

Pick shrugged. “I'm not political in any way. My mind is fixed on what happened sixty-five to three hundred million years ago. What I like to call deep time.”

Jeanette took that snippet of news under advisement, looked up at the ceiling, and then back at our visitor. “If you find something, even if it's on the BLM, I want to know about it.”

“Agreed.”

Jeanette took another moment, then said, “Mike, I'm going to let this fellow go out there. You get him squared away.” In full boss lady mode, she turned back to Pick. “You understand we can't be paying much attention to you. You'll be on your own. How long do you think you need?”

“I don't know,” he said. “If I don't find anything, I'll probably be gone in a week.”

“You're not going to find anything. I've been all over the Square C and our lease, too. Never saw the first thing that looked like a dinosaur. Likely, Bill picked up everything that was out there.”

“You're probably right, Mrs. Coulter.” He stood up, his chair scraping on the scarred linoleum floor. “But I appreciate you letting me look, anyway.”

“We'll see how it works out,” Jeanette curtly replied. She picked up the bones, put them in the cardboard box, and headed upstairs with them while I ushered the young paleontologist out to his truck, opened the gate to the Mulhaden pasture, and pointed out the tire ruts cutting through the grass, which he needed to follow. “Here's a strict rule of the ranchlands,” I told him. “You find a gate open, leave it open. If it's closed, leave it closed.”

“OK,” he said.

He got in his truck and drove through the gate but he didn't get far before I waved him down. There were a few more things I needed to say. “You got a firearm or any kind of weapon?”

“A gun? No, but I have a pick and a shovel.”

“It's prime time for rattlesnakes. Watch yourself. Usually, Montana rattlers will just mind their own business but if you get bit, give us a call so we can let the mortuary know. Do you have a radio?”

“Yes. An FM handheld.” He opened the glove compartment to show it to me.

“That'll do.” I gave him the ranch frequency and he jotted it down in a little notebook. “Set it now and keep it on you. I'll be listening. If I don't answer, climb up on a hill and try again.”

He fiddled with the radio, then placed it on the seat beside him. “So I just stay on this track and it will take me out to the BLM?”

“Follow the ruts, stay right at every fork, and go through three gates. The third gate, the BLM's on the other side. It's marked.”

“OK.”

I gave him my version of the Fillmore County stare. “Listen, there are a lot of ways this country can kick your butt. A little rain, you're down in a coulee, and a flash flood will drown you in a second. Temperatures can spike up to over a hundred degrees by day and then drop below freezing by night. Hell, I've seen it snow in July. I've already mentioned the rattlesnakes. There's scorpions out there, too, and black widows.”

Pick was clearly impatient to get going. “OK, OK. I'll be careful.”

“Do you have water?”

“Five gallons in a jerry can. There's also natural water out there, right?”

“It's full of alkali. Drink it if you want your guts to explode. How's your sense of direction?”

“Abysmal,” he confessed, “but I have a GPS.” He again opened the glove compartment and produced a handheld device.

“A tent?”

“Yes, but I'll probably just sleep in my truck.”

“Food?”

“Canned stew. Some rice. Coffee. I have a pot and a little gas stove. I don't eat much when I'm in the field.”

“Age? Next of kin?”

“Thirty-five. I have a mother in Topeka, Kansas. Why do you ask?”

“If you get killed, the authorities will want to know.”

“I'm not going to get killed, Mike. I've lived off the land in Argentina, Mongolia, Africa, all kinds of places.”

I figured it was time for me to wave him on so that's what I did, then closed the gate behind him. The track he was following led past Blackie Butte and I was heading out that way pretty soon to catch that damn gimp bull, anyway. I would check on him to make sure he got to the BLM. As I watched him drive away, I was not encouraged. I saw his truck go up the first hill, then reach the fork in the road. He turned left, instead of right. I ran to the barn and got on the radio. “Pick, this is Mike. You went the wrong way.”

A minute passed and I called him again. Finally, he answered, “Pick here. I thought you said stay left.”

“Stay
right.
All three forks.”

“Got it.”

“You want to wait for me? I'm heading out that way in an hour or so.”

There was no answer, although I tried a couple more times. Now I not only had to find a gimpy old bull and bring it in, I had to look for a pony-tailed paleontologist, too. I allowed a cowboy curse, then got going.

That evening, I came rolling in with three heifers and their calves plodding in front of me. At the sound of the big truck, Jeanette came out of the barn. Ray, home from school, rose from behind one of our four-wheelers. The empty cans of 10W-40 on the ground informed me he'd been changing its oil. We take good care of our equipment on the Square C. I climbed out of the truck and opened up the pasture gate and herded the cows through it into the turnaround. They were looking pretty unhappy about the entire experience. Soupy added to their discomfort by nipping at their heels, aiming them toward the holding pen while Ray held its gate open. After weeks on the open range, we would have to give the free-rangers a thorough inspection to make sure they were healthy enough to go back into the general cow population.

Jeanette frowned after the bawling cows and calves, then said, “Mike, I don't see that gimp bull. I guess he's a pretty good hider. Maybe I'll go out there tomorrow myself and catch him. My eyes are better than yours.”

I was upset or I wouldn't have snapped at her like I did. “There's nothing wrong with my eyes, Jeanette. I found that damn bull!”

“Well, why didn't you bring him in?” She looked at me and I looked at her until finally she said, “You gonna tell me about that bull or are we just going to stare at each other the rest of the day?”

I pulled off my hat, a wide-brimmed Stetson I'd purchased in Billings when I'd first come to Montana to learn how to cowboy. I scratched my head, then plopped the hat back aboard. “He's dead,” I said.

Jeanette didn't react with much surprise. “The winter killed him. I swear those big old bulls are just overgrown babies.”

“Winter didn't kill him. Somebody did.” I hesitated, still unable to completely comprehend what I'd found out there. “His throat was cut. Somebody brained him first, looks like, then sliced him open from ear to ear with, I don't know, a hunting knife or something.”

Jeanette's expression was one of disbelief. “Who would do a thing like that?”

“A bad man, I figure,” I said. “A really bad, bad man.” I hesitated again, but there was no way not to tell it. “Somebody also cut our fence. In three places.”

Jeanette chewed all this over. “Doesn't make sense,” she concluded. “Who could sneak up on that bull to whack it in the head? It's been running loose out there for months without us being able to catch it and, anyway, a bull's got a skull harder than concrete. And who would cut our fences?”

“I'm just telling you what I found, Jeanette,” I said.

“When do you think all this happened?”

“The blood looked pretty fresh to me. An hour, two hours, something like that. Flies were just starting to collect.”

“You see that fossil hunter out there?”

“Nope, I looked around a bit and tried to call him. No answer.”

Jeanette appraised the angle of the sun, then rubbed the back of her neck. Even dirty, I thought it was a pretty neck but I was too tired and upset for that particular fantasy. “Dark in an hour,” she said. “We'll wait for morning to track him down.”

“You think he did this?”

“No, Mike, I don't think he did it. Or if he did, I've sure lost the ability to judge a man. I peg him for a tree-hugger and a lover of all God's creatures, et cetera. I'm just hoping he doesn't meet up with whoever killed our bull.”

“It sure seems a coincidence that this happened the same time that fossil hunter went out there,” Ray said, coming over from the holding pen.

“Well, if you hadn't done that paper on your daddy's fossils,” Jeanette said, “we wouldn't be worrying about him, would we?”

I could tell Ray had already gotten an earful from his mom about his homework. When he hung his head, Jeanette provided an exasperated sigh, then said, “What's done is done but, hell, I was afraid of this. All the work we got to do and now we got to go look for that fellow.”

Ray said, “Nick could use some exercise. I could saddle him and go out tomorrow first thing.”

Since the next day was Saturday, Ray had the time, and Jeanette thought his proposition over. “Carry a pistol,” she concluded.

Another reason I love Montana so much. Where else does a mother tell her teenager to carry a gun and nobody thinks a thing about it? Nobody but an import like me, that is.

“Anybody who kills an animal like that has to be crazy,” Jeanette said, turning to me. “Mike, you ever run across somebody like that in your former line of work?”

The “former line of work” Jeanette was referring to was the twelve years of employment I'd had in the Los Angeles Police Department including seven years as a homicide detective, my career cut short by a bullet, followed by a year of recuperation and three years as a private dick. It was not a time I recalled with much nostalgia. In fact, it was exactly why I was in Montana. I sorted through what I knew, most of which I was still trying to forget. “Lots of murderers get their start killing animals,” I allowed.

“Really?”

“Serial killers, especially.”

“Oh.”

“You might want to lock your door tonight.”

She gave that some thought, then said, “It would be the stupidest thing in the world to break into a house out here on Ranchers Road.”

Considering everybody on the road had lots of guns and knew how to use them, she had a point. I recalled a sign I'd seen on a rancher's front porch. It featured a cartoon of a pistol with the words:
WE DON'T CALL
911
. Still, based on my cop years, I knew sometimes things happen in ways nobody can predict. “I don't like the idea of Ray going out there by himself,” I said.

“Then go with him,” she replied.

“I will.”

“I guess I really made a mess of things with that paper and all,” Ray said.

Jeanette allowed herself some motherly pride. “It wasn't your fault. I called your English teacher and she said she thought your paper was so good, she put it up on the school Web site. I guess anybody could have made a copy of it. Whoever e-mailed it to that fossil hunter, though, has to be a damned fool. If I ever find out who it was, I'll kick his tail.” When Ray and I just stood there, grinning at her, Jeanette said, “You two got work? Get to it.”

We got to it, loading the big truck with hay so we'd be ready to feed the cows in the morning.

Ray was in a talkative mood. “It seems like there's us and then there's the rest of the world,” he said as we grunted the hay bales onto the truck. “I mean, Mike, how come it seems like we think one way and nearly everybody else thinks different?”

“Like what?” I asked.

“At school, it seems like all I read is where everybody else in the country can't wait for Washington, D.C., to solve all their problems. Out here, we just want to be left alone and look after ourselves. Out there, they murder each other, take drugs, the girls get pregnant without marrying or anything, seems like they're just mad at each other all the time. I think I'd hate it out there.”

“Well, it's not quite that bad, Ray,” I said. “But I guess it seems that way sometimes on television or in the papers.”

“But you were out there, Mike, and now you're here. Why is that?”

I thought about Ray's question before I answered. Finally, I said, “I came here because I was tired of being around people who were messed up, one way or the other. I saw a lot of people dead for no good reason but that was my job as a homicide detective. Then I worked Hollywood and I think that really soured me. I mean there's worse things than murder, trust me. When I started to think my head was just as messed up as the people I was working for, I knew I'd better cut myself loose. That's why I ended up here.”

“I'm glad you're here, Mike,” Ray said.

“Me, too, Ray.”

“Mom says Dad thought the world of you.”

“Did she? Well, I thought the world of your dad. Your mom's tops in my books, too.”

Ray smiled at me and I smiled back. Then we went back to work. That was the way of the county. Work, always work, and more work. A philosopher I admire said there was no water holier than the sweat off a man's brow. If that was so, sacred water was not scarce along Ranchers Road.