Cretaceous Dawn

The Rocky Mountains first emerged as a volcanic chain, the result of a subduction zone beneath the North American continent. The Pacific plate edge was in the process of colliding with, and sinking beneath, the expanding North American plate, just as it continues to do in our time. In the Cretaceous Period the Rockies had not yet been uplifted to their current grand height; for the Rockies are young, mere children as mountains go, unlike those ancient slopes in the east, the Adirondacks and the Alleghenies.

The vault was clean and in order again. Broken dials were replaced and new wires, just brought in, were being fed through conduits in the ceiling. Bowman grumbled as Mark Reng worked inside the vault.

“There’s no reason to hurry,” he said to Ridzgy. “I’m tired, you’re tired, that silent graduate student with his wires is getting on my nerves. I say we turn in, start again tomorrow. It’s not like we’re working against a time limit.”

“We are, though.” Ridzgy’s eyes were drooping but she wasn’t ready to stop for the night. “I want to know if our guess is true—before the government descends on this lab and takes it out of our hands. I want to make this translocation happen. Tonight is our chance. And as for that kid with his wires. . . .” She nodded toward the vault, where Mark’s feet could be seen on the third step of a ladder, and lowered her voice. “There’s only so much he can know, right? He’ll think we’re working to bring his bosses back. If we’re careful, he won’t notice the subtle differences in the settings.”

“Well, you won’t get far tonight.” Bowman nodded toward the vault. “Oh, he’ll have the wiring set up again by morning, and we’ll be able to rerun the program. But it won’t tell us anything about what really happened.”

“Why won’t it tell us anything?” The voice was not Ridzgy’s. Both scientists whirled around and saw Earles. She had entered silently, and stood listening to the end of their conversation. “Is it that platinum bar that you need? I can get you another. Tell me the dimensions.”

“I’ve got the measurements for you here.” She handed over a sheet of paper, torn from a lab notebook. Giving Bowman a stern look, she added, “Make sure it’s exact to these dimensions. The wrong size bar, even a little off, wouldn’t replicate the exact settings. And unless the settings are identical, we can’t find your missing people.”

“Very well,” Earles said, taking the paper. “I’ll set Hann on it.” As she turned to leave she saw Mark Reng, with his crazy mop of hair, peering out of the vault’s portal. He had an astonished look on his face that made her smile. Probably knew nothing of this platinum thing, she thought. They must have kept their secrets well, Miyakara and Shanker, for her only graduate student to know so little.

When the storm hit, Yariko and Dr. Shanker took shelter in a small clump of conifers. “Shelter” was perhaps too strong a word, but at least there was a semblance of a structure around them. It had begun with the wind, late in the day; the rain followed in the dark hours, and more wind. The trail across the brushy plain led straight to a dark smudge that, in the intermittent moonlight, could only be a stand of evergreens. This they hurried toward; but the breezy shower, which they were glum enough about, became a howling torrent before they reached the trees.

Under the branches the wind seemed easier and the rain was only scattered drops instead of sheets. They crouched, huddled together and shivering, Hilda trembling every time the wind gave a particularly loud howl or knocked down a branch.

It didn’t last long. As the rain gradually stopped, Yariko began to explore their tiny woods. Soon she was shouting for Dr. Shanker.

“I found something. He must have been here. He’s still ahead of us.” Close beside a thick trunk, half screened by brambles, was a small, neat stack of wood. The pieces were about as thick around as Yariko’s arm, and a few feet long; they were stacked log-cabin style, and held in the center were smaller sticks and split wood for kindling.

Dr. Shanker looked closely at the ends of the sticks. “Seems a strange thing for Whitney to leave behind. How in the world did he cut them?”

“I don’t know,” Yariko said happily. Her spirits were high now the storm was easing. “He must have made an axe of sorts, with a stone or—or a tooth. He knows all about teeth.”

Yariko gave him an exasperated look. “Of course he’s resourceful. He got this far on his own. But. . . .” She still couldn’t understand why he’d gone ahead without them. Surely they would have found each other near the river, if he’d stayed there. Or did he think they’d gone on without him? That thought was enough to bring tears to her eyes.

“Nice of him, anyway,” Dr. Shanker said matter-of-factly. “It’s almost dry against the tree here. How’d he know which was the weather side?” He stood and felt his pockets for his keys. “Think these’ll do as steel?”

They’d long ago each collected a small scrap of flint; now Dr. Shanker, by what miracle Yariko didn’t know, managed to strike sparks and get the damp wood lit after several intense minutes. A partial imprint of his lab key was burned into his forefinger, probably for life as he said, but they had a fire. In the lee of the huge pine the wind was tolerable and the now light rain hardly touched them. Their biggest problems were the smoke from the damp wood and the steam rising from Hilda’s fur.

Yariko fell to dozing as she sat cross-legged on the damp brown needles. People seemed to be crowding around her. But I had to lead you on, Julian was saying. To the caves you see. That’s why I left you. Then Julian turned into Frank who said, Why did you leave me all alone you should have come with me. The air became swirling dust that choked her.

“Don’t sit there,” Dr. Shanker’s voice said, and Yariko woke with a start as he shook her. Her eyes stung, and she coughed. “I scattered the fire,” Shanker said. “The wind got the ashes—they went everywhere. Let’s move.”

Yariko got to her feet, still confused. It was very dark; she could see Dr. Shanker only as a bear-like form stamping out the last of the coals. “What’s wrong? Why didn’t you sleep?” She shivered. The wind felt colder.

“The clouds are coming in again. It doesn’t look good.” Dr. Shanker pointed to the patch of eastern sky showing through the trees, where the moon was again being obscured by clouds: thick, rolling black clouds, moving quite fast. “These trees won’t be safe when that hits us. Let’s get into the open.”

Yariko was reluctant to leave the little woods; but Dr. Shanker said he preferred death by drowning to death by squashing under a fallen tree. They agreed to look for a thicket or a boulder so they could at least crouch against a partial wall. Dr. Shanker hurried out into the open, Yariko behind him.

But she wasn’t the only reluctant one, it turned out: Hilda remained under the trees. She sat down and howled in fear, refusing to come out. They wasted valuable minutes trying to persuade her. Finally Dr. Shanker slung her over his shoulder and stalked off.

The rain fell harder. After some time Yariko realized she was following a sort of shallow depression, or trench. Perhaps ten feet to either side the ground rose gradually a good few feet, making her stumble if she strayed one way or the other.

“Probably joins the river,” Shanker replied. “Whitney could easily have found it too. Convenient, to have an obvious path.”

Yariko nodded, and concentrated on walking in the increasing wind. After a while she took a turn with Hilda draped over her shoulder. She did it more as a way to keep warm than as a favor to Dr. Shanker, for the dog was heavy, but it turned out to be a fortunate chance. They had spotted a dark patch, maybe bushes, in the last of the moonlight and were squelching through the rain, backs bent as the wind pushed at them, when Dr. Shanker suddenly cried out.

At first Yariko thought he’d stumbled and twisted his ankle; but the next instant he pitched forward and landed at full length in the mud. She couldn’t see anything but his vague form.

“What is it?” she cried, struggling to lower Hilda. The dog clung to her in fear; thunder had been rumbling for some time, and now a louder clap than usual boomed over the drumming rain.

Dr. Shanker rolled onto his back and sat up, clutching his ankle and yelling. When the thunder grumbled itself out and Yariko could distinguish his words, what she heard was, “Attacked! It’s got me!”

Yariko dropped to her knees and unceremoniously dumped Hilda in the mud. Then she crawled forward. Her heart was pounding and part of her wanted to run; but Dr. Shanker was still sitting up, and she couldn’t make out another form in the darkness. She reached out a hand and touched his shoe.

“It’s here. Something the size of a chicken. Bit me on the ankle, and then I fell over it. Damn thing hung on forever. Think I’ll keep it for our next meal—serves it right.”

He sounded like his usual self. But when Yariko helped him to his feet he winced in pain and nearly fell over again. “Good thing you were carrying Hilda,” he said. “That fall would’ve broken my neck with her weight.”

“We’d better stop,” Yariko said, loudly over the increasing wind and rain. It was nearly as bad as when they’d taken shelter in the trees, and it was rapidly getting worse. The moon and stars were now completely obscured; it was suddenly absolutely dark.

But Dr. Shanker wasn’t ready to give up. “Not here. We’re still in a depression—I can feel the water coming over my feet. I prefer life to death by drowning.”

Yariko tried to act as a crutch but he said her pace was wrong, and her shoulder too high to lean on. “I’ll use the spear,” he said. “You go first. I’m right behind you. Just go slowly.”

Yariko set out, walking as slowly as she could. Dr. Shanker’s harsh breathing and dragging gait was loud behind her. Every few seconds she felt the air with her hand to be sure he was still there. Finally he told her to stop. “If you keep grabbing my crutch arm you’ll make me drop the thing,” he grumbled. “I’m not going anywhere you’re not.”

Then, with a suddenness that shocked her, the full storm hit. Yariko was knocked flat by the gust of wind that came over the plain, and the rain pounded her so hard as she lay on the ground that she wondered if she’d ever be able to get up again. The drops felt like solid pellets on her back and legs, or maybe like sharp splinters driving right through the skin. She realized that her face was in water and struggled to turn.

Something tugged at her legs and she scrabbled at the stony ground, digging her hands in as hard as she could. She realized she was lying on the edge of the depression, fortunately with her head on the high side. With an effort she managed to drag herself out of the deepening water, and the tugging on her legs stopped.

When she finally sat up she found it difficult to breathe in the seemingly solid sheets of rain. Cupping one hand over her nose and mouth, she felt around her for Dr. Shanker.

Her searching hand found fur; wet dog fur, and then an ear. She dragged herself up against Hilda and felt around in the blackness with the other hand.

“Dr. Shanker!” she yelled, but the sound came out as a strangled croak. She took a big breath through cupped hands and tried again, with better success. “Dr. Shanker!”

There was no answer. Was he unconscious? Was he lying with his face in the growing puddle, unable to move? Yariko grasped Hilda’s tail in one hand and began to crawl in a slow circle, arm outstretched to sweep the greatest possible diameter. Her hand hit something hard and she grabbed it with a surge of relief; but it was only the branch of a shrub, torn from the soil and tumbling by. When she let go it was gone in an instant.

For a long time, hours it seemed, she felt around in the dark, not daring to let go of Hilda. Once she began to slip back down into the water and was nearly taken away by it, but she clung to Hilda and dragged herself out again. That was when she realized the dry bed had flooded, and the channeled torrent had swept Dr. Shanker away, just as the river had taken Julian.

Bits of shrubs and the occasional larger branch skittered by and even flew into the air around her. The storm was so loud that her senses were flattened, her mind confused. She lost all sense of place and of time, and at last collapsed on top of Hilda, clinging to the dog’s solidity with all her might.

Julian woke to the sound of a steady rain. He had not slept well; his dreams had been tainted by the churning river, charging T. rex, and images of Yariko lost in the woods, calling his name as they had called for Hilda when she was lost.

A few embers glowed in the ash pit and a dim, gray light filled the room. The thatched roof had done a good job of keeping out the storm, but still there were a few puddles on the uneven floor, and the stone slabs of the walls were streaked here and there with moisture. He rose and pushed aside the dinosaur skin that covered the doorway. Outside, the corral was awash in thick brown water, churning in the heavy rain. The ground rose up highest at the center, forming a small stony island on which the animals stood, packed together around the dead tree. Bits of soggy vegetation hung from their mouths. There was no sign of Carl.

Julian shivered and turned back to the fire pit. There he found a bowl of clean water, and beside it, in a pot covered with a flat stone, something hot that looked very much like mashed potatoes. Two rough clay bowls had been set out beside the fire. He grinned; the lopsided bowls resembled the third-grade art work that he’d proudly brought home to his parents.

Huddling close to the warm coals, he used a handful of the water to scrub at his face and bristly chin. It would soon be time to attempt another painful shave with the pocketknife. He remembered Dr. Shanker laughing at him the first time he’d shaved—“I’m just waiting for you to hit that jugular,” Shanker had said—and felt another surge of impatience to be up and searching.

Carl walked in, water streaming from his head and chest, his feet encased in mud. He shook the wet hair out of his eyes, blew his nose violently into his hand, and wiped the palm on his leather leggings.

“The river has spread over the banks,” Carl said. “My path is covered two miles to the east.” At Julian’s dismayed look he added, “We will still travel. The land is higher to the west.” He stooped beside the fire and dished out the hot yellow mash.

Carl smiled. “Not much time. Old men do not sleep as much as young men.” He pointed to the ceiling of the middle room, where the carcass had hung the day before. “That was the last task.”

Carl shook his head. “It was a yearling. One of the adults kicked it and crushed its skull. The meat was already bad when I found it, but the skin was good.”

Julian wondered what Corla would do without the handouts for a few weeks, and if she would hunt on her own. Old as she was, he could still imagine her bringing down a Triceratops.

After they ate Carl doused the coals with water, rather than covering them with ashes to keep them warm. The action seemed significant to Julian. Perhaps Carl planned to be away for some time. “Won’t the enclosure flood?” he asked, picturing the result of a few days of heavy rain: a lake of muddy water, and the bloated bodies of the ceratopsians bobbing around in the center of it. But Carl said there were drains around the edge.

The rain was no more than a drizzle by the time they sloshed out into the brown pool. The water had already dropped considerably; the drains seemed to work. Carl had gathered supplies for the journey: sacks of smoked meat, two small skins (varanid lizards, Julian thought) for carrying water, and two light spears with fire-hardened points. They each took a food sack, a water skin, and a spear, and Carl carried a bundle of hides and an additional small sack that seemed to be elaborately stiffened with curved bones or sticks. He handled this one carefully, as if it was delicate.

They climbed the ladder to the top of the wall. It was well into morning already, but there was little light. Still, Julian was surprised at what he saw from the top of the wall. The river valley had vanished under a gray-white fog. The tip of Carl’s hill rose above it, the only visible bit of terrain other than the tops of a few tall trees some distance away.

He turned for a last look at Carl’s home. The pool of water had subsided and exposed the stony ground, choked with mud. He looked at the placid beasts, pulling mouthfuls from the bales of ferns that Carl had placed on the dry ground. He wondered if they would miss their caretaker. With a last look at the hut with its dinosaur-skin curtain, he turned and followed Carl down the hill.

They headed for the river. Water streamed along the ground and pooled in the cupped and curled leaves of the bushes. There seemed to be an unusual amount of animal activity; Julian heard rustlings and cracklings and the occasional eerie cry. He had the sense of an invisible world waking up. Holding tight to his spear, he followed Carl through the dense fog, keeping close so as not to lose him. Before long the river could be heard, loud in the dense air and sounding much closer than it turned out to be.

They came to it suddenly in the fog, and Julian hardly recognized it as the same river. It had turned into a muddy brown torrent, foaming and roaring, barely contained by its banks. Large branches, in some cases whole trees with tangles of roots still attached, swept past, crashing against unseen rocks. The rain had changed the landscape and must have washed away any traces that Yariko and Dr. Shanker had left behind. Julian leaned on his spear. He was disenheartened and a little dazed by the thundering noise that seemed to come from all directions in the fog.

“We will find them,” Carl said. He, too, leaned on his spear and looked at the river; but his expression was keen and attentive.

They walked along the bank for nearly an hour, sometimes scrambling over stones, sometimes slogging through pools where the river had overspread its course. Then they plunged into a dense wood, and the fog thickened so that the great shaggy trunks of the pines loomed up, huge and solitary, then disappeared again behind them. Gnarled juniper trees looked like weird old men appearing suddenly and several times gave Julian a fright. If Carl noticed any of his jumps and starts, he did not show it.

Fortunately, they were already on the correct side of the river; but it was no easy task following Hell Creek. They had to wade or scramble across each brook that emptied into it. The largest of the streams was a regular little river of its own, swollen with rainwater, and looked daunting to cross. Carl led Julian over a series of boulders, some of them partly submerged, the water foaming against them. Their placement was too regular, too convenient for chance.

Near the center of the stream both banks were invisible in the fog, and Julian could see only the patch of water directly beneath his feet, tumbling past. The motion of it threw him off balance suddenly, as if the ground were slipping away underneath him. He tottered, but Carl gripped his arm firmly and shouted over the roar of the water, “Better not to look down.”

When they reached the opposite bank of the tributary they continued west, while Hell Creek veered away to the south. The sound of it sank into a vague hissing and rumbling. They were in an open area of stones and low scrubby bushes looming out of the fog. Julian began to shiver in the dank cold. Carl must have felt the cold also; he stopped and unrolled the bundle of skins. They turned out to be ponchos, one for each of them. Julian slid the skin over his head and found that it made a warm, if heavy, covering.

Julian paused, thinking. He was still disturbed at the thought that they’d continued on without him, and wondered for about the hundredth time how they had missed him on the river bank. “I’m sure they would have searched that day, and maybe all night too,” he said at last. “At most, I think they could be two nights and a day ahead of us.”

Carl nodded; but Julian could not read his expression. His face was neither optimistic nor entirely grim. To Julian there seemed little point in searching for the others in the vast, soupy sea of fog. For the moment he forgot his own foolish desire to search at night in the midst of a tempest, and wondered what Carl thought they could possibly find before the fog lifted, if it ever did.

“They did? How do you know?” Julian tried to squelch the excitement he felt. Carl couldn’t have seen any signs; but then he sounded so certain, as he did about everything.

“I tracked them before you found me.” Carl pointed into the wall of fog. “The one you called Shanker. There may have been one other with him. He was making for a pine woods that I know.”

Julian wasn’t surprised that Carl had reached his hill first, but he did wonder how the man had seen him while tracking the others. Apparently, Yariko and Shanker had been very close by at some point, and none of them had known it.

Despite his new hope, the heavy silence of the fog began to weigh on Julian. After some time he thought there was a noise to the left, a scraping sound like rocks grinding together. He immediately thought of Yariko and Dr. Shanker walking; but he also thought of Corla, or some other terrible Cretaceous carnivore, stepping over the loose stony rubble.

Calling out loud was out of the question. He turned to ask Carl if they should creep up to the source of the sound and investigate; but Carl was gone. In those few seconds of hesitation Carl had continued ahead and been swallowed up by the fog. Julian hurried to catch up, but his foot snagged on a root and he fell hard on the rocky ground.

He lay still, holding his breath and listening, afraid that the sound of his fall would attract the creature that was moving in the fog. But he heard nothing. Finally he raised himself cautiously, wiped the wet grit from his palms, and looked around. He could not see beyond two yards.