***
Sitting in the warm sun of the breakfast nook, Kit let her mind wander over the peculiarities of the morning. Ray beams from the moon. Impossible. Dr. Ogilvey’s fossil civilization. That was impossible too. What she wanted to do most right now was to ride Lucky up to the prairie, find her Dad and ask him what he thought about all this. But she knew it was possible he had already come down from the prairie and driven into town before she got back. If so, she would wind up high on the plateau under that flickering moon with only Lucky and 600 head of cattle to answer her questions.
No, she’d wait on her father, at least for a while. She wished she hadn’t been so short with Chase Armstrong. By now he probably knew exactly what was going on. He’d be telling her about it if she’d been open to him calling or coming back with news from Red Lodge.
And why not be nice to a man as interesting as Chase? Sure, her father had gotten huffy this morning, talking about wolves, but she had no cause to be standoffish. Particularly since he was…
“Awfully good looking,” she sighed, running over in her mind how he had looked when she first saw him at the house and again at Dr. Ogilvey’s dig. He was broad-shouldered and well built, tall and tanned. His Park Service clothes reminded her how her mother used to talk about how good-looking her father had been in an Army uniform. And there was an animal attraction in the way his dark hair hung down from the back of his green cap, a little long and unruly. The wolf-head patch on the front of the cap gave him a wild, untamed appeal.
The fact was, Chase Armstrong was a darn sight more interesting than most young men who came around Twin Creeks Ranch. Take the fellows her father kept sicking on her: local boys, ranchers’ sons who looked her over like they would size up a brood mare. Chase was nothing like them. The words stitched in the borders of the emblem on his hat, “Yellowstone Wolf Recovery Program,” symbolized a man who looked beyond his own time and place and saw the world in a larger view.
Kit kicked off her cowboy boots and pulled her feet up underneath her on the leather cushion of the bench, letting her mind ramble farther.
“It would be nice,” she murmured, “if you’d drive up in your truck right now, Chase.” She imagined him pulling in, scattering the chickens that were pecking in the loose hay below the barn loft. Then he’d get out and spot her sitting in the window. He’d wave and flash a smile. She’d smile back at him and say to herself, “Here we go.”
He would stride purposefully toward her like a jaunty knight-errant fresh off his steed, and she’d smile regally from her seat in the palace window.
Suddenly her daydream was interrupted by the very sort of thing she had imagined. Chickens flapped their wings and scattered in all directions as a shadow crossed the gravel in front of the barn. But when Kit saw the maker of the shadow her fantasy ended abruptly. This wasn’t the hero of the story—it was the dragon! Her eyes widened. A huge tan-colored animal had appeared, much larger than any grizzly she had ever seen, and nothing like a grizzly. It was a gigantic leather-skinned creature walking on two legs. “A tyrannosaurus!” she gasped. Waves of panic rolled through her and she wished desperately that this was the most vivid nightmare of her life, but it was too terribly real.
The creature stood nearly as tall as the second story of the barn and its long reptilian tail stretched out twenty feet behind it. Small taloned hands hung down from its chest, tiny in comparison to the immense head with massive jaws lined with rows of dagger-like teeth. Kit’s initial disbelief washed away in a flood of sheer terror and a small scream involuntarily escaped from her throat. The creature reacted immediately. With a quick, eagle-like turn of its head it fixed its cold eyes on her. The titanic body instantly froze in place with one foot off the ground, more agilely than she would have imagined for such a huge beast. It paused in perfect balance between the massive head and long tail. The red eyes focused on her with a predatory intensity that riveted her in place. Turning imperceptibly toward her, it lowered its foot slowly until the three huge talons trod the ground gingerly, without making a sound.
It’s stalking me, she thought. Hoping if she held still it would lose interest, she sat motionless in the window. Maybe the movie Jurassic Park had it right. Maybe if you just didn’t move. Nevertheless, the tyrannosaur lifted its other foot and took another slow, stalking pace toward her. It lowered its snout to her level, keeping its sharp eyes fixed on her. Instinctively she knew that if she made a move it would charge. The beast was three, maybe four giant strides from her. It was sizing her up and picking its moment, trying to close the distance before making a final rush. Her heart pounded hard and she felt she was about to faint, but she knew her survival depended on getting out of the creature’s sight. As inconspicuously as possible she lowered her feet to the floor, but even this slight shift was enough for the creature. It opened its fang-filled mouth and charged straight for her, letting out a blood-curdling roar. Its feet thundered so heavily that the plates rattled on the table. Kit shrieked at the top of her lungs and leaped up and away from the window. She dove sideways as the beast closed the last few paces and the entire window filled with the sight of its tooth-lined maw.
She caught her foot on a table leg and went sprawling, landing hard on her back just as the huge jaws burst through the window frame. Slivers of broken glass shimmered and spun away in all directions, seemingly in slow motion, as the scaly monstrosity erupted inward through the frame and its massive jaws snapped shut with a thump that reverberated in Kit’s ears. The animal’s chin skidded across the table top, clattering dishes and silverware before it.
A welter of terrifying sights and sounds registered in Kit’s shocked brain, all seemingly in slow motion. Glass fragments and splintered wood from the window frame sprayed over her and scattered across the kitchen floor. The horrific face of the creature paused, perhaps a yard from her, one eye leering at her menacingly from under a scaly brow. Along the nape of the powerful neck stood a shock of bristling hackles like those along the back of an angry bear. The rows of teeth lining the yard-long jaws were a sickening dull yellow color and longer than the table knives strewn around her on the floor. Kit was mesmerized momentarily by the glistening saliva coating the fangs.
The beast’s nostrils flared and inhaled a great volume of air, taking her scent. Then it exhaled a gust of hellish, fetid, reptilian breath.
And that eye! It stared straight into hers with an intensity that froze her in place for an agonizing moment until she forced herself with a desperate effort of will to get to her hands and knees. As she did so she sensed, more than saw, a thrusting motion starting in the animal’s neck and rolling forward. She ducked away just as the tyrannosaurus lashed its head sideways and snapped at her. The heavy jaws closed inches behind her back with a resounding chumpf!
She scrambled on hands and knees to the living room doorway and got to her feet by leaning on the jamb, trying desperately to steady her rubbery legs, while the tyrannosaurus pulled its head back out of the shattered window. She felt a flicker of momentary relief as it disappeared from sight, but it was gone only an instant before the entire rear wall of the kitchen splintered inward like matchwood. The tyrannosaurus had reared back and one kick of a huge hind foot had swept downward and cleared the barrier between it and its prey. Then, while the two-by-fours of the wall and shards of broken windowsill were still careening across the floor, it thrust its whole body into the opening and those horrific jaws rushed toward Kit again. Another shriek tore from her throat and she staggered backwards into the living room, tumbling across the arm of the couch and falling to the floor. The beast pressed forward until its head surged right into the living room after her. She balled up in fear, knowing this was the end—it had her!
Just as it seemed those jaws would clamp down on her, a shudder went through the entire frame of the house and the creature’s forward motion stopped. Its back had slammed into the ceiling beam of the kitchen's outer wall. The impact made the monster stumble and it crashed down belly-first on
to the kitchen table, which crumpled and shattered as the beast’s downward momentum carried it thundering to the floor. Its head smashed down just short of the couch. Momentarily reprieved, Kit stood up, ran to the front door and turned the knob. Glancing behind her, she was surprised to see the animal withdrawing itself backward from the wreckage of the kitchen. It stood up outside the shattered back of the house and strode away, disappearing from sight.
Kit stood frozen at the door, her hand on the knob, her mind racing. She knew the rex was somewhere near the opposite end of the house. That would give her a head start if she ran outside. But where would she run to? If the tyrannosaurus spotted her out in the open it would easily run her down. She peered back through the gaping hole in the kitchen and could see all the way out to the barn. The thing had vanished. She strained her ears but there was no sound other than her own spasmodic breathing and the audible pounding of her heart.
It was waiting for her to make the next move.
Rather than go outside, she released the doorknob and tiptoed up the stairs that rose from the entry hallway. At the top of the staircase she ducked into her bedroom and crouched beside her four-poster bed, huddling against the wall on the side away from the window. Then she fought to control her fright, to quit gasping for breath, to keep from sobbing out loud. There was no sound at all from the monster outside. She settled against the wall and became as silent and motionless as stone.
PART TWO: EARTHFALL