Dinosaur Lake (13 page)

“We’ve had reporters from as far away as St. Louis nosing around the paper, pressing to get the real story of why the park’s been closed down and locked up tight in the middle of tourist season. Seems some of them don’t buy that prediction of a major earthquake excuse you’re giving out, not with all the other juicier rumors flying around,” Ann told Henry days later as they sat on the porch swing.

He’d been off duty less than an hour and was still in uniform. Supper was simmering in the kitchen and bread baked in the oven. Ann had come home early from work with the urge to bake, which she often did when she was worried about something.

She’d stayed away from the park and their home for three days at his insistence, but as the days had gone by and the lake creature hadn’t made any more appearances, she’d slowly begun sneaking back in to pick up more clothes, clean the house, or to make supper for him. The next thing Henry knew she was spending the night. She’d glacially informed him that morning she wasn’t going back to Zeke’s anymore. This was her home and this was where she planned to stay. Said she didn’t believe the creature was a threat to them this far away from the lake. And she wanted to follow the
story of the century
up close because she suspected, sooner or later, the lake creature would be sighted again somewhere.

Henry, missing her, unsure she wasn’t right about the distance being a deterrent, and lulled into a false sense of security because the creature hadn’t been seen since the park had been emptied, was perhaps too easily persuaded. It was hard to believe in monsters when the normalcy of daily life intruded.

“Rumors have gotten that far, huh?” Henry shifted on the swing. Disquieted and restless all day, his sixth sense for trouble was simmering beneath his calm. Things were way too quiet.

Under the circumstances his apprehension wasn’t a surprise. Dr. Harris, the head paleontologist in residence at the paleontological
dig, had been dynamiting the underside of the rim. Henry could hear the ruckus even down here. It made him nervous. Shaking the hell out of the area surrounding the caldera, he was afraid it’d lure the creature from its watery lair.

He was shocked when he first learned Harris was using dynamite to dislodge the under layer of earth beneath the fossils. Justin had explained it was done all the time. Experts laid the explosives in selected places so the bones wouldn’t be damaged. Paleontologists sometimes had to remove excess rock, or overburden, as it was called, from around the buried fossils and there was enough overburden in this case to warrant blasting. The scientists were anxious to get to the concentrated fossils. It still made too much noise.

“I think James Bradley is the one leaking information,” Ann told him. “He’s the brother of that woman who vanished with her family last week somewhere around the lake. He’s been asking questions everywhere. Making trouble. He was on vacation with them, but was sightseeing elsewhere the day they all vanished. They were supposed to meet him for supper that last night at the lodge, but they never showed. He’s been looking for them ever since.”

“George brought me up to speed on that situation. Bradley was in to see him, too, when he filed the missing persons’ report. Asked about these monster stories going around in the park. He swore he’d blow the whistle. Go on television, go to all the big newspapers if he had to. He’s staying in Klamath Falls, won’t go home, he swears, until he’s found his sister and her family. Just what we need. It’s been hard enough evacuating the park and keeping the curious out, especially since those scientists swarmed in and started their excavating and blabbing.”

Ann was looking at him. “They come into town all the time to eat at the restaurants and buy supplies. And the word is spreading like wildfire they’re probably unearthing the most significant dinosaur fossil bed ever found and what they’re going to exhume will rock the world. Everyone in town is talking about it. Justin mentioned they’re considering a press conference to let the world know of the find–in town, of course, because you won’t let the press into the park.”

Henry almost made another comment about that’s where she should be–in town–but they’d been arguing about it for days and she’d worn him out on the subject. She reminded him every time she was a reporter and there was no way she was running out on the greatest story ever to hit Klamath Falls. Heaven help me, Henry thought, gazing at her, she
wants
to see the monster. She wants to take pictures of the damn thing.

She was like a child looking for buried treasure and she wasn’t about to give up her dream of being a famous reporter, either.

Excluding the missing vacationers (and there was no proof they’d actually disappeared in the park…maybe they’d gone into town and something had happened there), there’d been no further trouble since they’d moved the homeless camp. No attacks. No sightings. Henry would have preferred to get everyone out of the park, no exceptions, but the homeless had nowhere to go. The investigation into the missing camp men hadn’t uncovered anything new, except the mauled torso had been Morrison’s and the leg, Black’s. Jane Morrison identified both the shirt and the trouser material as having belonged to the missing men.

The coroner had reported an unknown large animal, a mountain lion or a bear, had killed and partially eaten the men. The pathologists were still debating that one. They were not going to admit that the teeth and claw marks had been made by something they’d never seen before. Medical men didn’t acknowledge the unexplained, particularly if it would scare the locals.

And the dig scientists hadn’t heard or seen anything out of the ordinary since their arrival, or so they’d assured Henry. When he’d gone out there that first day to warn them they could be in jeopardy and might consider, for safety purposes, to vacate the area for a while, they’d hid their skeptical smiles behind excitement over what they’d already exposed: bones never before seen by any scientist and certainly of an unknown hybrid species of Plesiosaur or mutant Kronosaurus…or even a totally new breed of dinosaur never heard of. They’d raved on and on about what it could be.

Justin had pegged Harris right. He was a fanatic. He lived and breathed dinosaur, wallowed in the prehistoric past like a pig in warm mud. He and the others with him had no interest or time for fanciful stories about skulking, live prehistoric predators that only a child would believe in. They were men of science. Dried prehistoric bones were all they knew.

In the beginning Henry tried to force them from the area, but Harris made a few phone calls and somehow got permission to stay. Henry hated it when his decisions were superseded, but didn’t have the power to kick them out. Sorrelson had been upset enough over having to close the park; he’d ranted and raged and even now was working behind Henry’s back to get it reopened. No one believed in the existence of the monster.

Only he and Justin had seen the creature that night, and lived, anyway. Only they knew it was dangerous. Even Ann wasn’t taking the monster seriously, or she’d be hiding in Zeke’s house in town, as far away from the lake as she could get.

There were also times when Henry questioned his own sanity for remaining in the park, except staying was his job. He could have asked for a transfer, but he loved Crater Lake. It was his home. And he’d never walked away from his duty before and wasn’t about to now.

Yet it was more than duty that kept him there. The creature was a killer, and he had to protect the people left in the park. But along with Justin, he feared sooner or later, if the creature wanted food badly enough, it would again leave the water.

It was enough the park and the concessions and campgrounds within were closed; the tours canceled. The boats were tied up at the dock. This didn’t make the people who worked and lived in the park happy. Most of them had moved into town. Henry hadn’t the final authority to force everyone to leave, and some, in the dorms and the houses, hadn’t, but he’d warned those who’d stayed behind that something was prowling the area and killing people. As if they’d listen.

The lake itself was different. Henry allowed no one around the water or to be on their boats at night at the dock…might as well ring the dinner bell for the beast. Of course, there were those hard-headed types who disobeyed that order, as well, for one reason or another. So he made his rangers check the boats each evening and chase off anyone they found.

The park was emptier than Henry had ever seen it. No visitors, no campers besides the homeless, which he was thinking of moving out of the park soon as it could be arranged; no giggling hikers or bird watchers. The souvenir shops and restaurants, except for one in the lodge, were closed down. It was depressing.

At first Laura had taken the baby and moved into Zeke’s place. Henry had told her the truth about the predator in the lake. He wasn’t sure she believed him.

Henry suspected Laura hadn’t gone to Zeke’s the night before, either. It was hard for her to drive back and forth every day to see Justin. The two had to be together. Love. Any other time, he’d have been overjoyed she’d found someone as decent as Justin, but it made him nervous to have her and his granddaughter in the park. Just more for him to worry about, that’s all. But his daughter, as his wife, was a headstrong woman and did what she wanted. She kept sneaking back in and he couldn’t babysit her and Ann every moment of the day.

Four days now and not a glimpse of the monster. Where the hell was it hiding? What was it eating? Henry worried about the answers as he sat on the porch with his wife and watched the sun go down.

“I’ve scheduled another meeting tomorrow morning at headquarters,” he said. “So we can plan what to do next.” Rangers had been scouring the area around the lake for days searching for signs of the renegade carnivore. So far nothing.

“Sorrelson, still off playing golf, called me today. He’s furious I closed the park, but, so far away, he can’t do much about it. Yet, anyway.”

“You’ll be in deep water when he gets back,” Ann quipped.

“I know. But I’ll face that problem when it comes. I’m responsible for people’s lives and I’ll fight him on reopening it, if he forces my hand. I’ll threaten to go to the press. That’ll shut him up quick enough.”

“It probably would. Even if you wouldn’t do it.”

“I might. If I have to. Meanwhile Justin’s been studying up on different dinosaur species’ known habits. The information is pretty sketchy though. We don’t know if this thing is related to a known species of any kind or a completely new one. No one’s really seen the creature up close and survived to give us a detailed description and it was too dark to see much when Justin and I ran into it. Right now, we’ll only guessing what it might be. Besides, known or unknown genus, not much is known about how a live dinosaur behaves. Only theories.”

“Can I be at the meeting?”

“Can I keep you away?”

“No.”

“Then you can be there,” he replied begrudgingly. “Just keep a low profile.”

“You mean lurk in the rear of the room and pretend I stumbled in by accident?”

“Very funny.”

Henry heard a car and glanced up. Justin, Laura and Phoebe had pulled into the driveway.

“Company,” Henry announced, forgetting about their difficulties. He could only be scared so many hours a day and at that moment he was tired of it.

“Ann, we have to convince Laura and the baby to go back to Zeke’s. She shouldn’t be staying here so much. I’m not sure it’s safe. We need to talk to her again.” The car door slammed and the three walked up.

“After supper, honey. I’ve missed them. The lake is so far away and no one’s seen hide or hair of the dragon in a long time. It can’t hurt to let the kids visit for a bit, can it?” she pleaded.

She’d begun calling the creature a dragon. Henry wasn’t amused. Beneath it all, no matter what he’d said, she still didn’t believe it existed. Like a lot of people.

Seeing the baby’s smiling face, he surrendered. Ann was right, it couldn’t hurt to let them stay for supper. They were a long ways from the lake.

They greeted their guests with plastered smiles on their faces.

“Hello, you three. Just in time for stew. There’s plenty. Can I talk you into staying?” Ann opened her arms to a giggling Phoebe and the child climbed into them.

“Mom, you know I love your stew.” Laura stole a glance at him, knowing how he felt about her being in the park. When he nodded in resignation, she accepted, “Sure, we’ll stay for supper. You got homemade bread to go with it, too?”

“What do you think?” Ann hugged Phoebe tightly.

Phoebe held her arms out to him as he sat on the porch swing. He took the child and cuddled her as the swing gently swayed back and forth. Phoebe loved the swing.

The women went into the house to dish out supper and Justin plopped down on the top step of the porch below Henry and Phoebe.

“Justin, I thought you were going to talk to Laura about her staying at Zeke’s? She and the baby are in danger here, you know that.”

“I tried. Honestly.” Justin silently crossed his heart. “No go. I keep sending her back to town but she keeps coming back. You’re right; she is one mule-headed woman.”

“You don’t have to tell me about these Shore women,” Henry groused, resting his chin on top of his granddaughter’s silky head. Phoebe was already asleep in his lap.

“But I’ll keep trying to get her back to Zeke’s, Henry, I promise, after supper.”

“Thanks.”