Dr. Boneid had another nip of cognac from his small silver flask. He revved the engine, and his Range Rover rolled away from Doc Morrison’s ranch. The headlights bounced off a patch of thick night fog that rolled off the river.
Another small swig.
Boneid let the alcohol roll from one side of his mouth to the other, gave it time to release its bouquet—then swallowed slowly so it could soothe his throat. His house call to Dr. Morrison’s had finished the day’s damage control. He had watched and guided the old doctor as he filled out Norak’s medical report. He had the foresight to dictate an addendum for the doctor. The report would make it clear the accident had happened outside the dig perimeter—and that no university equipment was in use when Professor Norak took his little tumble.
Now there was no way Norak could sue anyone, even if he was crippled for life.
Boneid chuckled and continued driving down the long, steep, rocky way that Morrison called his driveway. Can’t you pave it, you cheap quack!
The fog surrounded him as the road dipped across a dried riverbed strewn with large, jagged rocks. He switched to the amber fog lights, and turned on his wipers as the windshield beaded with moisture. Proceeding at a crawl, he hunched forward between the flick, flick of the wipers.
Near the main highway, the fog began to lift. He put the pedal down to make some time as he leaned his head back for another sip from the flask. This would be his last for the night, he thought. He knew a few of the other jealous professors on the university staff had begun whispering about him.
He’s begun to drink. He’s a raving, slobbering alcoholic.
But Boneid knew he wasn’t. He could stop anytime he wanted. But if anything would drive a man to drink, it was northwest Utah.
Smoke rose from the desert gravel as Boneid slammed on the brakes. He looked out the windshield, and the flask fell from his hand. He didn’t notice it emptying itself on his lap. All he thought was that he was losing his mind. There, out of the mist and the darkness, came something that bad dreams are made of.
Something astonishing.
Terrifying.
Yes, he had been drinking. True, he was exhausted. But even in all of his darkest dreams and those lost gambling weekends, he could never have imagined the creature that dashed across the road in front of the Rover. It had turned to look at him. A monstrous lizard with saber teeth and a long tongue. There was a blur, then it roared and opened its mouth. In there, sitting on its tongue was a juvenile, a baby creature, thrashing, looking as though it were trying to shake itself loose.
Then, just as quickly, the monstrosity disappeared into a wisp of fog.
Boneid punched the glove compartment latch. Its door sprung open and he grabbed a pistol. He raced out of the Rover and into the fog after the creature. He ran through one sliver of fog and into another, his feet tripping on moonstones the size of his fist.
Finally, he fell and his pistol flew from his hands. He began to crawl about searching for it, when he heard a roar and felt the earth shaking beneath him. He managed to stand as the fog cleared. He saw the huge creature bounding straight at him. “Oh, God,” he cried out. He turned and began to run back toward the Rover. He stumbled and fell again. He got up and kept running.
The fog grew thick again, but off to his left—where he wasn’t expecting it—were the blazing headlights and ghostly shape of the Rover. The roaring behind him was louder now. He threw his mind free of alcohol. Adrenaline charged his heart until his chest and brain hurt.
He reached the Rover, threw open the door and leaped inside. The creature’s gnarled and glistening snout exploded from the fog. The smaller, squirming lizard in its mouth dropped to the ground and scurried off. Now the creature’s hideous head was smack against the driver’s window, its eyes peering in at him.
Boneid punched wildly at the horn, blasting it again and again as he tried to start the Rover.
CRASH.
The mother raptor’s head shattered the window. Boneid threw himself toward the passenger door. He smelled the stench hissing from the creature’s mouth as it released its jaw adductor muscles—widening its mouth! Its jaws snapped savagely, nearly engulfing the steering wheel. Boneid’s body shook convulsively, his jacket caught on the green-rot-covered base of one of the raptor’s fangs. The creature’s tongue slid up around Boneid’s neck, as his free hand struggled to reach the small, round button of the cigarette lighter. Finally, it popped and Boneid grabbed it. He thrust the hot, burning coils of the cigarette lighter down onto the raptor’s tongue. There was the sound of sizzling.
A burning.
The raptor shrieked and snapped its head back reflexively. Boneid’s arm was freed and his hand shot to the ignition key. The Rover started and he threw it into gear—smashing his foot down onto the gas pedal. The tires screamed as they spun in the sand of the dry river bottom. The creature slammed its forelimbs down onto the roof of the car. Its claws ripped through the metal and leather as the tires began to grip, and the Rover lurched forward.
ROAR.
The creature let loose its grip and ran alongside, biting off the protruding side mirror. Its gargantuan head loomed outside Boneid’s window again. He saw the shreds of death dripping from its teeth—the ghastly eyes filled with unspeakable rage!
The Rover picked up speed, but not before the creature let loose a stream of spittle from its mouth. Green and steaming fluids hit the hood, washing over it like vomit with chunks and shreds of half-digested prey. Boneid watched as the vomit began to coat the hood and dry into gossamer, weblike strands.
But he was traveling fast now—out of the fog and onto the main road. He was riveted on the rearview mirror, watching the creature disappear back into the fog. He floored the Rover completely now, brought it up to seventy, then eighty miles an hour. Already he was thinking about which of his men he could tell about what he’d seen. A living raptor! A Utahraptor! The largest and most terrifying of all the predators that had ever lived.
Beyond T. rex.
Beyond sanity.
Boneid would need help for the tracking. The hunt. He would find the creature if it took the rest of his life and every penny of the university to do it. He’d need men he could depend upon, workers he could trust. He knew not many would believe he had seen a creature that seemed to stare into his very soul.
Zack turned the motorcycle off the dirt road and onto the paved highway. When they reached Uta’s house, he stopped and she jumped off and ran inside. Zack kept the engine running and let Picasso out of the cart for a run. He’d met her parents a few times when he and Uta were working on their science project. They were very traditional Utes, but modern enough to have a big-screen TV and a good sound system. They also seemed to trust Uta and let her do just about anything she wanted.
Uta came back out, and he put Picasso into his trailer. They headed west for several miles on Altamont Road, as far as the FIREWORKS! sign.
“Spider Grandma keeps her stand open late,” Uta said. “She doesn’t want to miss any passing tourists.”
Zack parked between a pay phone booth and a hanging wall of bright-colored Ute rugs and blankets that undulated in the wind. He put Picasso on his leash and walked with him by phosphorescent paintings on velvet, Day-Glo images of flying geese, cougars, and bear designs. An old woman hobbled toward them through a maze of swinging purple lightbulbs and bug zappers.
“Hello, Spider Grandma,” Uta said.
A mouth in the wrinkled cracked face opened and a strong, perky voice erupted. “Hello yourself, Uta. Long time, no see.”
“I’m sorry,” Uta said. “I’ve been busy. This is Zack, Spider Grandma. I wanted him to meet you because we have to talk.”
The bright yellow of the neon sign struck the old woman’s face from the side. Zack was startled by the leathery, deep wrinkles. Her hair was cut short like a 1920s dancing girl, and she wore bear-claw earrings and a shawl over a flowery housecoat.
“Hello, Zack,” Spider Grandma said. “Nice li
ttle poodle you’ve got there.”
“Thanks.”
She leaned down to run her fingers through Picasso’s white shaggy hair, but he barked.
“Sorry,” Zack said.
“That’s all right. I love barking dogs, too. What can I do for you?” Spider Grandma asked. “You and Picasso want to buy something?”
“No, thanks,” Zack said.
“Shame. Everyone who comes to my stand must buy something or they have a lifetime of bad luck and never find what they’re looking for.”
“In that case, what can I get for five bucks?” Zack asked.
“Bingo,” Spider Grandma said. “That’s enough for a nice quartz crystal or a couple of dozen night crawlers, if you’re a fisherman. It’s enough for lots of things.”
Zack dug into the pocket of his jeans, pulled out a five-dollar bill, and handed it over to Spider Grandma. “Fine,” she said. “Now you will have excellent luck. What do you want? A clay pipe? An eagle tie clip?”
“Do you have any arrowheads?”
“Oh, do I!” Spider Grandma took his arm and led him around the stand to a table covered with plastic containers filled with minerals, fossils, and other souvenirs. Zack poured through one container and picked out a pointed, scallop-edged arrowhead. “I’ll take this one.”
“Fine,” Spider Grandma said. “Shall I wrap it?”
“No, thanks,” Zack said, putting it into his back pocket.
“Now we can talk,” Spider Grandma said, heading for a wrought-iron table with chairs set up near a grill. She motioned for Zack and Uta to sit with her as she grabbed a leg from a baked chicken sitting in a Pyrex dish. “You kids hungry?”
“No, thanks,” Zack said. Picasso began to beg so Zack picked him up and sat down with him on his lap. Uta slid into a chair next to Spider Grandma and began to pick at a few roasted carrots that lay in the juices of the baking dish.
From out of the blue, Spider Grandma said, “I hope no one died a terrible death.” She ripped off pieces of fat from the chicken and fed them to Picasso.
“No,” Zack said, surprised. “What made you ask that?”
“Because I was here last week,” she said, “taking inventory, when a wind came up. I had a vision that someone died a bizarre and painful death. It was as if I could feel it. A painful death floating on the wind.”
“No one died that we know of,” Uta said. “We’re here because we saw something.”
“Something near Silver Mountain,” Zack added.
“What?”
Zack cleared his throat. “It looked like a dinosaur.” He kept his eyes on the old woman, watching for her reaction. “We wondered if you had ever heard of any dinosaurs around here? Living dinosaurs.”
“Living dinosaurs?”
“Yes,” Uta said.
“You can let your dog run,” Spider Grandma told Zack. “I can see he’s a good boy.” She turned the carcass of the chicken over and began to pick away at the small, tender pockets of meat on its underside. “Zack, you’re a city boy, aren’t you? You have the spirit of Rollerblades, surfboards, and swimming pools. Not the spirit of the wolf, like the Utes.”
“Spider Grandma,” Uta said. “You know I have the spirit of the wolf, and I saw the dinosaur, too. It’s very big, and it’s very real.” She put her arm around her grandmother. “And Zack knows his dinosaurs. His father’s a paleontologist on the university dig. We saw a giant Utahraptor.”
Spider Grandma tore open a Handi-Wipe and started cleaning her hands. “Well, then, you’ve both seen proof of dragons,” she said. “That’s what some of the folks around here call dinosaurs. There are as many legends about the dinosaurs here as there are bones.”
“Did anyone besides us ever tell you they’ve seen a living dinosaur?” Zack asked. “Anyone, ever.”
Uta’s grandmother said, “There are some men who have gotten lost in the mine shafts and caves of Silver Mountain. There are seventy miles of shafts and tunnels, and hundreds of caves, some of them as big as your churches. There are sacred drawings on the walls. Rock paintings, petroglyphs of demons and mysterious horned figures. Some of the old miners told me stories about seeing very large creatures. Usually, it was after they’d had a few drinks.
“They’d come to me for herbs. I was like a Florence Nightingale and Kmart to them. I sold them beer and chocolates and cigarettes, too. Some of the men who worked in the mountain disappeared and never came out. Some thought there was disease in the guano, the crap from bats and birds that piles up in the caves. A few men breathed the dust from the guano and died of rabies. A lot of people think you have to be bitten, but that’s not true. One inspector said there were also pockets of methane and carbon monoxide that made men hallucinate. Some people heard screams in the mountain. But what do you care? Why don’t you just forget about it?”
“A real live dino isn’t something I want to forget about. Especially, when it’s imprinted on me and its mother destroyed half our house!”
The old woman looked to see what was in Uta’s eyes.
“I told him he’s crazy to go back there,” Uta said. “You should have seen that mother dinosaur! It was horrible. It almost killed us! But he insists that he’s got to find the little one. So I told him we could trust you and that you have maps.”
“I see,” Spider Grandma said. “That I have maps is true.”
“Could you give me one?” Zack asked. “A map that would show me the safest way into and out of the mountain.”
“All the maps I have are in Ute,” Spider Grandma said. She looked to Uta. “He doesn’t know our language.”
Uta saw Zack’s eyes beginning to glisten again. She knew he was thinking of his father. “I’m going with him,” she said.
“No, Uta,” he said. “You stay and take care of Picasso for me.”
“I’m going.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Stop bellyaching,” Spider Grandma scolded, sitting back down at the table. “I believe there are horrible beasts lurking in the darkness of the caves. Even if you managed to stay clear of the beasts, you’d still have to eat.” She leaned closer to Zack. “A city boy like you would lose his way and starve to death.”
“No, I wouldn’t. I’d eat roots.”
“Caves don’t have a lot of roots,” Uta said. “Besides, half of them are poisonous or would give you the runs.”
“She’s right,” Spider Grandma said. “The only people who survive are those who can eat the grubs that live in the cave mud.” She reached out and clamped a hand on Zack’s shoulder. “Could you eat grubs?”
“Sure,” Zack said. “What are they?”
“Larvae.” Spider Grandma wiped her hands on the tablecloth, got up, and went to a Styrofoam bait cooler. She lifted out a tray, took the lid off of it, and brought it to Zack. “These are the Silver Mountain grubs,” she said. “Fishermen buy them to catch smallmouth river bass.”
Zack felt his stomach roll, then twist as he peered into the container. Its surface was a bed of plump, squirming, worms. They were white, glistening in their own shiny mucus.
“They’re pukey,” Zack said.
“Not when you have the spirit of the wolf inside you and are hungry,” Spider Grandma said, stirring the twitching mass of larvae with her finger. “Uta could eat a grub, couldn’t you, dear? All my grandchildren can eat grubs.”
“Can’t you just show me a safe path into the mountain? I could rescue this baby dinosaur,” Zack told the old woman. “His name’s Honker. He’s almost like a pet. My father found it. It belongs to him.”
“No, that’s where you’re wrong,” Spider Grandma said. “No living creature belongs to anyone. All animals are our equals in this world. They have wisdom to share with humans, and you should know that.”
“I tried to tell him,” Uta said.
“Besides, you’d get lost and starve to death unless you could eat grubs,” Spider Grandma said. “They don’t have quarter-pound h
amburgers and chocolate shakes where you want to go.”
Zack cleared his throat. “I could eat a grub if I had to.”
“No, L.A. Boy. You would die without your fajitas.”
“If I ate a grub now, right this minute, would that prove I’m serious?”
Spider Grandma studied his face closely. “Yes,” she said. “That would show me that you are very serious.”
“Then give me one.”
“You got it.” Spider Grandma stuck her hand into the squirming mass and pulled out a big fat grub. It was nearly three inches long and over an inch through the middle. Strands of slime clung to it like melted cheese. “Would you like it roasted?”
“Yes,” Uta answered for Zack. Picasso watched curiously.
“Forgive me,” Spider Grandma muttered as she dropped the grub onto the embers of the fire. It began to twist and turn. A yellow flame rose and licked at it. Its coat of mucus began to singe. A second longer, and Spider Grandma scooped the larva out of the fire with a large metal spoon. It was still moving.
“Take it,” Spider Grandma ordered Zack.
Slowly, Zack grasped the grub between his fingers. The heat of the fire had caused it to swell, and he felt riblike bumps encircling its body.
“Do it!” Uta said.
Zack popped the grub into his mouth. He felt it squirming in the saliva on his tongue. At first, he thought his stomach was going to fly out of him, but he worked the grub to one side of his mouth. He hesitated a moment longer, then quickly bit down. The grub exploded like a liquid-filled candy, one of those small wax candies that burst with sugary water when you bite it. Part of the fluids from the grub burst out and leaked down his chin. He wiped at his lips, and swallowed quickly. The body of the grub slid down his throat like a living, wiggling wad of fat.
“Nice,” Spider Grandma said. “You ate the grub. I personally think a good grub’s got more vitamins than a burger. Still, I don’t think you should go to the mountain. It would be foolish.”
“I’m going anyway,” Zack said. He wiped at his mouth and picked at a few last shreds of grub that were stuck between his teeth.