Bones of the Earth (20 page)

They moved cautiously, single file, like a jungle combat squad out of the twentieth century. Lai-tsz went first, toting one of the expedition's four shotguns. Leyster doubted it would do much good in a confrontation with a full-sized dinosaur, but the idea was that the noise would frighten a predator away.

He sincerely hoped that was true.

They were deep into the valley flatlands before they spotted their first dinos—a clutch of hadrosaurs delicately grazing on the tender young shoots that grew thickly along the verges of the creek.

As one, all binoculars went up.

The animals paid them no attention. Every now and then one would bob up on its two hind feet and look around warily, then dip back down again. Briefly, the startling orange markings on either side of its head would erupt into the air like a burst of flame, before disappearing again into the new growth. There was always at least one keeping watch.

“What are they?” Daljit asked quietly. “I mean, I know they're hadrosaurs, but what kind?”

Hadrosaurs, or duckbilled dinosaurs, made up a very large family grouping indeed, including dozens of known species spread throughout the Late Cretaceous. To call something a hadrosaur was like declaring a particular mammal was a feline without specifying whether it was a leopard or a house cat.

“Well, keep in mind that I'm a bone man at heart,” Leyster said. “I'd have a much easier time if there weren't all that skin and muscle in the way.” What he really needed was a
Peterson's Field Guide to the Late Maastrichtian Megafauna
, with diagnostic illustrations and little black lines pointing to all the field-marks. “Still, check out those heads. They're definitely hadrosaurines—the non-crested duckbills. And from the elongation and width of the snouts I'd have to say they were
Anatotitan.
What species of anatotitan, though, I don't know.”

“They sure are active buggers,” Daljit said. “Look at them bob up and down.”

Crouching, they crept closer. Anatotitans were herbivores, of course. But they were also enormous. An animal half as big as a bus didn't have to be a carnivore to be dangerous.

They got within thirty yards before some unseen signal passed among the animals and, as one, they rose to their hind legs and moved swiftly away. They did not run, exactly, but their bounding gait was so quick that they were, nevertheless, gone in a moment.

“Come on,” Leyster said. “Let's—”

Tamara was tugging at his sleeve. “Look!”

He looked back where she pointed.

The Lord of the Valley came striding upriver. Leyster recognized the tyrannosaur by its markings. It was his old acquaintance and none other.

The most dangerous predator the world had ever known glided swiftly through the low growth with a dreamlike lack of haste. His pace was unrushed, and yet his legs were so long, he moved with astonishing speed.

Silent as a shark, he strode after the fleeing anatotitans. He didn't even give the researchers a glance as he passed by.

“Holy shit,” Patrick said flatly.

“Come on.” Leyster gestured. “We've got a lot of land to cover. Let's get moving.”

They headed west, parallel to the sluggish River Styx, being careful to keep to the forest side of the herds.

As they traveled, Leyster told the others something about hadrosaurs. They knew already that hadrosaurs were the most diverse and abundant group of large vertebrates in the northern hemisphere during the closing stages of the Late Cretaceous, and that they were the last major group of ornithopods to evolve in the Mesozoic. But he wanted them to understand that in many ways hadrosaurs were a blueprint for the dinosaurs of their future. That they were so well adapted to such a variety of ecosystems that if it hadn't been for the K-T event, their descendants might well have survived into modern times.

“So what makes them so special?” Patrick asked. “They sure don't look like much. Why should they dominate the ecology?”

“Maybe because they're ideal tyrannosaur chow,” Tamara said suddenly. “Look at 'em. Almost but not quite as big as a tyrannosaur, no armor or weaponry to speak of, and that great big fleshy neck just perfect for biting. One good chomp, and down it goes! If I were a rex, I'd take good care of
these
critters.”

Patrick scowled. “No, seriously.”

“Seriously?” Leyster said, “They're generalists, like we are. You'll notice that humans don't have many specialized adaptations either. No armor, no horns, no claws. But we can find a way to get along wherever we find ourselves. Same thing with hadrosaurs. They—”

“Shush!” Lai-tsz said. “I hear something. Up ahead.”

A lone triceratops poked its head out of the distant wood. Cautiously, it eased out into the open. It ambled a short way into the meadow, then stopped. That massive head swung to one side, and then to the other, as it searched for enemies. Finally, convinced there were none, it grunted three times.

A pause. Then a second triceratops emerged from the woods. A third. A fourth. A ragged line of the brutes flowed out of the woods and into the ferns and flowers. Their frills were all as bright as butterflies, dominated by two black-rimmed orange circles, like great eyes.

“Triceratops herds have leaders!” Nils said. “Just like cattle.”

“We can't conclude that yet,” Leyster cautioned. “It looks good, but it'll take long and careful observation to make sure that what we think we're seeing is actually so.”

“Look at those frills! Sexual display, you think?”

“Got to be.”

Lai-tsz put down her glasses and, pointing at the leader, asked, “What's that swelling?”

The creature's face looked puffy. Twin nasal sacs to either side of its central horn were inflated like the cheeks of a bullfrog. Suddenly they deflated.
Gronk!

Everybody laughed. Tamara fell over, whooping. “Oh God, can you believe it? What a noise! It sounds like a New Year's Eve noisemaker.”

The triceratops pawed the earth.

Lai-tsz and Nils made shushing noises at Tamara. “Quiet! It's doing something.” Patrick darted off to the side, camera out, looking for a good angle.

The animal's face pouches were inflating again. It took several deep, gulping breaths, shaking its head as it did so. “What do you think it's doing?” Lai-tsz asked Leyster.

“I don't know. It looks kind of like it's reinflating—”

Gronk!

Tamara clapped a hand over her mouth, cutting off a high-pitched laughter in mid-shriek.

“Look over there,” Nils said. “Somebody else wants to get into the act.” A second triceratops was approaching the first, slowly and meaningfully. “Intraspecific aggression, do you think? Dominance display? Are they going to fight?”

The first triceratops had his nasal sacs half inflated again. The second stopped within charging distance of him and then bowed its head. Slowly, ponderously, it rolled over onto its side.

“I don't think so,” Leyster said wryly. “It looks more like a mating display.”

“It's a girl!” Tamara cried.

Gronk!

Lying on the ground, one rear leg raised in the air, the female shivered.

“She's mesmerized!”

“C'mere, big boy.”

“Oh, mamma. You know you want me.”

With unhurried dignity, the male maneuvered himself alongside the female, one foreleg to either side of her tail. It paused then, seemingly baffled. The female made a plaintive sound, and he took a step backward, then another forward, trying to get himself into position. That didn't work either. But on his third attempt, he finally got their bellies properly aligned and slowly eased himself downward.

“Man, oh, man,” Patrick muttered. “These shots are going to be great.”

Ponderously, the two triceratopses began to mate.

It was sunset when they finally got back to camp and discovered that Jamal's crew had moved the contents of two of the tents into the long house, and lashed the tents' canvases to the frame to make walls. So up the slope they went, to share what they'd seen.

The interior of the long house was bright with artificial light. It looked infinitely welcoming. Of course, their flashlights, even with the solar rechargers, would only last so long. All the more reason to use them now. Brandish ye flashlights while ye may, Leyster thought. Old Time is still a-flying.

“Take your shoes off!” Katie called cheerfully as they entered. “There's a space for them by the door.”

The interior was fragrant with the smell of ferns, which had been brought in by the armload and dumped over the floor, and with turtle soup, simmering in a kettle over the fire outside. Leyster and the others came in and sat.

“Welcome the intrepid dino hunters!” Chuck declared. “You're just in time for supper. Come in, sit down, tell us everything.”

While Chuck distributed bowls and Katie ladled soup, Patrick passed around his camera, showing off a sequence of his best shots.

“What are these two
doing?
” Gillian asked incredulously when she saw the first picture of the two triceratops.

“Exactly what you think they're doing,” Patrick said.

“The filthy things!” Gillian wagged a finger reprovingly. “Naughty-naughty.”

“Dino porn. This stuff would be
so
marketable,” Jamal mourned.

“But who would buy it?” Chuck asked. “I don't see much of a market.”

“Are you kidding? It's sex, it's funny, and it's something you haven't seen before. It creates its own market. Why, the calendars alone …”

Everybody laughed. Jamal flushed, then ducked his head and grinned ruefully. “Well, it would!”

They continued the discussion through dinner. “So you lost the shotgun?” Matthew asked when they told the story of being scattered by the post-coital triceratops.

“I was caught by surprise!” Lai-tsz said. “We all were. But, damn it, they told us in survival training that the noise of a shotgun blast would scare off anything. So when I shot the gun off in the air, I wasn't expecting the thing to
charge!
It came barreling down on us, and we all just ran. If it had been a little faster, it would've gotten me.” She shook her head. “There was definitely something wrong with that animal.”

“Did you go back and look for the gun?”

“Yes, we did. All the ground was trampled into mud. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“I'd rather lose all four shotguns than a single Swiss Army knife,” Jamal observed. He turned to Leyster. “Still, that trike wasn't supposed to charge like that. Our instructor told us she'd frightened off ceratopsians herself, dozens of times. Why didn't it run?”

Leyster shrugged. “Back in grad school, Dr. Schmura used to say, ‘The organism is always right.' Living things don't always do what they're supposed to. Some days sand fleas eat medusae and minnows attack sharks. When that happens, your job is to take good notes and hope that someday you'll be able to make sense out of it.”

Hours passed as they quietly talked. It had been so long since they'd all been friends. Nobody wanted it to end.

“Hey, look what I found,” Chuck said. He darted into a shadowy corner, and wrestled the skull of a juvenile triceratops into the center of the room. “I found it bleaching in the sun. You wouldn't believe how much work it was to drag it up here.”

“Why on earth would you bother?” Tamara asked.

Chuck shrugged. “I always wanted one of these things. Now I have it.” He lifted it up and held it before him, waggling it from side to side, as if it were in heat and courting a mate.

“What's that sound it made, again?”

“Gronk!”

“More like grawwnk! With a little glissando on the awwnk.”

Chuck, who had early on assumed for himself the role of group clown, began to sing, “… darling, 'cause when you're near me …”

Katie picked up the tune, singing, “I'm in the … mooood … for love!”

Joke made, Chuck stopped. But Katie went on singing and, one by one, the others joined all in, singing the old romantic standard. Then, when that was done, they sang “Stormy Weather,” and “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.”

Then Chuck, squatting behind the triceratops skull, began beating its frill with the flats of his hands, as if he were playing bongos. In a high, clear falsetto, he began to sing

In the 'zoic, the Mesozoic
,

The
T. rex
sleeps tonight …

And Tamara added

In the mud of the Maas-tricht-i-an
,

The shotgun rusts tonight.

Everyone else joined in on the doo-wop harmonies, singing

Ohhhh weeeeee weeeeee oh wim oh wey

Ohhhh weeeeee weeeeee oh wim oh wey

and

A-weema-weh, a-weemah-weh, a-weema-weh, a-weemeh-weh

A-weema-weh, a-weemah-weh, a-weema-weh, a-weemeh-weh

until the music filled the long house like a living spirit. Outside, the night was dark and filled with the furtive scurrying of small mammals. Within, there was the warmth of friendship and good times. People traded off verses, making them up extempore, so that when Daljit sang

Why don't you get a job with Mobil?

I hear that they pay well.

Lai-tsz replied

They've got great health care and pension plans
,

Their profit sharing's swell.

Then, after the break, Chuck threw out

That's too risky, no I'll get tenure

With my new Ph.D.

And Tamara responded with

And if triceratops don't gore me
,

I'll have job security!

They all collapsed, laughing, on the floor. It took them a few minutes to catch their breaths afterwards.

Leyster was about to suggest another song when suddenly Katie threw her blouse in the air. Patrick cheered and clapped, and then, as if that had been a prearranged signal, everybody was shucking clothes, struggling free of trousers, frantically untying bootlaces.