Still crouched on his belly, the venator viewed them with a half shut eye. Simply being near the beast made Peter's insides twist. Every cell in his body knew that here was swift death: ivory teeth and shining claws.
"I worked in an abattoir in Chicago when I was a kid," Shellabarger said. "Hauled slops from the drainage floor to make sausage and fertilizer. He stinks worse than anything I ever hauled." But the trainer's expression and tone revealed no disgust; rather, admiration, and something like regret.
The sound of axes and machetes reached them from the edge of the mountain forest. Shellabarger walked around the cage, rubbing the thick gray stubble on his jaw with one hand. "They all wanted to come close to him. Men, women, kids . . . hundreds of thousands of them. They all wanted to look death in the face. Caged death. We didn't bother telling them there were bigger, meaner, swifter animals on El Grande."
"The death eagles?"
"Yeah," Shellabarger said. "I saw one on my last trip. We didn't even bother trying to catch it. Twenty feet tall and thirty long, with a wicked hooked beak and teeth to boot . . . a big dish of white feathers around its neck, and brown and white feathers hanging from its arms and fanning out from its tail." The trainer hung his fist in front of his abdomen. "Center of gravity here, not back here, with a shorter, thicker tail, like one of the avisaurs but really"—he sucked his breath in—"big." Shellabarger looked at Peter and smiled. "Dagger isn't the meanest son of a bitch in the valley of the shadow of death." They walked a few yards back from the truck. "We'll send him back where he belongs. He'll be on his own then."
"Do you think he'll find a mate?" Peter asked.
"I don't know," Shellabarger said. He surveyed Peter critically. "You've put on some muscle, son, don't you think?"
Peter smiled. "Hauling Sammy's alfalfa," he said.
"There wasn't time to tell you back on the river," Shellabarger said, "but that was a hell of a thing you did, jumping into the river after your father. Quick thinking." The trainer tapped his head.
Peter did not know what to say. The trainer was not prone to sentiment, but he was clearly focused on speaking his mind about Peter, and Peter was embarrassed and pleased at once.
"You've learned a lot about the animals."
"I wish we could have saved Sheila," Peter said, glancing back down the road, as if she might be thumping along to join them even now.
"If the circus was still a going concern, I'd hire you in a minute," Shellabarger said. "Tell your dad that."
Peter watched the trainer as he crossed the sandstone flats to the engine house.
After lunch, the workers began carrying the fruits of their toil up to the flats—long straight logs, creepers, branches, palm fronds. With OBie and Ray filming, and Anthony and Shellabarger and Billie supervising, they started work on the stockade.
The soldiers and el Colonel stayed out of their way. The Army and the Indians behaved like oil and water, refusing to mix or even to come too close together.
It was hard to believe this would all be over soon, and they'd take the trucks back down the trail, ride the boats downriver to the towns on the Caroni and the Orinoco, and then catch a ship back to the States—to home, wherever that would be. OBie and Ray would have their movie film, and he and his father would have their still pictures and their memories.
He did not know what Shellabarger and Lotto Gluck would have. Memories as well, he supposed.
Peter opened his notebook and wrote:
Until now, I've never understood my father's need to find excitement and go to interesting places. I always felt safest going places in my head. Now that we 're here on Pico Poco and the animals are going home soon, I wonder if I'll ever have another adventure again. I'm pretty sure that if another opportunity like this comes my way, I won't turn it down. So now I know more about why my father behaves the way he does—and why my mother could not stand it.
Mrs. Birdqueen
Chapter Thirteen
By three o'clock that afternoon, the stockade was finished. The walls stood eight feet high. The five separate enclosures within the irregular construction gave the animals ample room to turn around. They would not be in the stockade for more than a few hours, but they would be much happier than they were in the cages, Peter thought.
Sammy was the first to move in. The centrosaur's truck was driven a few dozen yards to the side where his entrance lay open. The roustabouts hauled out the ramps and hooked them to the back of the truck.
Sammy was facing forward, and the tricky part was backing him down the ramps. Shellabarger unhooked the watering trough and slid in through the narrow slot. Sammy watched this with interest, and nosed the trainer forcefully once he stood up in the cage. Shellabarger pushed his beak back.
"Open the door before he thinks this is a game," he shouted, and Keller and Kasem unhooked the cage door and swung it wide with a grating squeak. Shellabarger prodded Sammy back slowly, talking to soothe him.
"Peter, stand by the side and tell him it's okay," Shellabarger ordered. Peter did so, and they both coaxed the centrosaur backward step by step until he was out of the cage and on the ramp. Sammy looked down, then raised his beak skyward, trilling and honking in concern. Animals as heavy as the centrosaur did not enjoy heights. Shellabarger renewed his efforts and Peter patted Sammy's thick ankles and then his pebble-skinned haunch. When Sammy stood on solid rock, he turned around slowly, sniffed the air, and then sidestepped, almost treading on Peter's feet. Peter jumped aside. Anthony took a picture of this, but gave his son a fatherly grimace and said, "Watch yourself!"
Shellabarger and Peter led the centrosaur to the enclosure. Beyond Sammy's wide door lay a pile of fresh-cut leaves, ferns, even some flowers. Sammy looked back, as if regretting a decision to commit himself to a cage again, however green and leafy, and waddled in with several resigned whuffs.
Once he was inside, the struthios and Aepyornis were unloaded into their enclosures. The avisaurs remained in their cage.
The colonel and his soldiers stood by their tents, watching the preparations. The colonel was never without his thin-barreled pistol. He wore MacArthur sunglasses now and his expression was unreadable. The bridge motor was running as smoothly as could be expected, and the Mendez twins had finished yet another inspection of the bridge.
With OBie's cameras set up, the bridge swung slowly and with much groaning and grinding of gears across the abyss, finally chunking into place over the concrete and steel pad on the opposite side. Rust and dirt sifted down from the bridge's girders. The engine coughed and kicked out thick smoke from within its ramshackle house. As a precaution, Shellabarger ordered the engine shut down.
"I would be privileged to drive the truck across," Billie told the trainer, standing before him with face lowered but eyes looking up expectantly. Shellabarger glared down at Billie, then turned to OBie.
"What about that Julio fellow?" he asked, looking among the drivers for the Carib. Julio stepped forward, but nodded at Billie. A murmur arose among the Indians. Peter watched them closely.
The colonel's translator walked from the tents to the truck and approached Shellabarger. Catalina also stepped forward.
"El Colonel would prefer that no Indians be involved with this," the adjutant said. "There is concern . . . of injury."
Billie did not look at the adjutant, but kept his eyes focused on the trainer.
"I'll drive it across myself," Shellabarger said, and strode toward the truck cab. Billie blocked his way with a lithe sidestep.
"Senor, we have drawn lots, and I have won the draw. It is a privilege to risk one's life for the return of the Challenger to his home."
Catalina questioned Billie quickly in Spanish. Billie responded in another language Peter was not familiar with. Wetherford, standing between Peter and Anthony, said, "That's Makritare, I think."
Catalina struggled to respond in kind. With a minimum of words and gestures, Billie answered her questions, his meek attitude betrayed by the stiffness of his postur
e and the darting of his eyes.
Catalina turned to Shellabarger. "Billie tells me the Indians have chosen him to prepare the Challenger's road."
"What's the colonel worried about?" OBie asked her.
"The Army is concerned about any Indian acquiring special status from stepping on El Grande."
"I see that," OBie said. "But what can they do about it? Surely some Indian is going to swing across someday and return."
"That is why Colonel de Badajoz is here with his troops," Catalina said. "They kill any who try."
Peter stared at Billie. The young mestizo did not seem very heroic.
"Then the hell with the colonel," Shellabarger said. "Billie, you go. You'll drive the truck across, then back it up and return it to where it is now." He faced the adjutant. "No special privileges. Just a little truck driving."
The adjutant returned to the colonel. He studied the faces on the Indian and mestizo workers, his mustache twitching nervously. His hand strayed once more to the butt of his pistol. Clearly, he sensed the tension here, and with the radio still useless, calling for reinforcements was out of the question. He nodded.
The adjutant shuttled back to Shellabarger and OBie. "That is okay. But the truck and its driver must not stay on the other side for more than a few minutes. We must protect the natural habitat against intrusion." His expression practically pleaded for them to believe this excuse.
The colonel barked orders in Spanish and three soldiers with rifles positioned themselves near the bridge.
Shellabarger stepped up on the bridge and stamped his foot, then grinned over his shoulder.
"If there should be an accident," the adjutant told Catalina, "you will absolve the Army and Colonel de Badajoz of all blame."
Billie got into the truck that had carried Sammy's cage, the one with the shattered windshield. He started the engine and looked toward Shellabarger. "Go," the trainer said.
Billie turned the truck slightly and aligned it with the bridge. He crept up the concrete ramp and onto the metal deck. Peter held his breath. The bridge took the truck's weight with a silence that surprised him. He had half expected dramatic groans of straining metal, stressed rivets popping, warning signs of real danger. Instead, the bridge seemed solid as a rock.
The truck rolled slowly along the span. Ray followed its progress with the portable camera. Anthony took several pictures, then stood behind the soldiers, his Leica held ready.
The truck reached the opposite side of the bridge. Its weight brought the bridge down with a heavy clang against the concrete on the opposite side, but the girders held. Billie drove onto the cracked and weathered macadam roadway beyond.
The workers watched with solemn expressions. Shellabarger nodded his satisfaction and glanced at the soldiers and the colonel. "All right," the trainer shouted across the chasm. "Bring 'er back."
Billie reversed the truck's gears and backed onto the bridge, leaning out of the window to gauge his progress. The truck returned to Pico Poco without causing any apparent damage. Billie stopped the truck and turned off the engine. The workers seemed to relax as one. Grinning, Billie stepped down from the cab.
"What's the colonel going to object to now?" OBie asked in an undertone.
Catalina spoke to the adjutants. The debate seemed heated; arms waved vigorously, but somehow, the Dona Mendez prevailed. Colonel de Badajoz threw up his hands in disgust and stood by his personal tent as the shorter adjutant unfolded a camp chair.
Catalina smiled broadly and walked toward the stockade. "You may send the animals across," she said to Shellabarger.
"Are we permitted to set foot on El Grande?" Shellabarger asked Catalina. She asked why he would want to do this.
"Because I expect things to go wrong," the trainer replied. "We may need to escort some of the animals. I've always planned to help the avisaurs across personally. I don't want the colonel's soldiers getting itchy trigger fingers."
Dona Mendez referred to her attache case and withdrew a folder filled with papers. "The edict of 1927 and amendments for 1929 instruct that for scientific purposes, brief footfalls on the Great Tepui, as occasion requires, are permitted for a few unarmed members of an authorized expedition," she said.
Wetherford grinned.
Catalina caught Wetherford's expression and added, "We interpret this liberally to mean that you may stand on the opposite side to help return the animals. But for the sake of peace with the colonel, porfavor, no Indians."
"Good," Shellabarger said.
The trainer clapped Billie on the shoulder. Billie took a place beside Ray and Peter as Keller and Kasem made their preparations.
Kasem and Keller led Sammy from his enclosure to the bridge, following the marks established by OBie and the film crew.
Shellabarger stood beside Sammy for a moment. He whispered to the centrosaur. Sammy shook his shield vigorously and sniffed the air.
"Go, fella," Shellabarger said, poking Sammy in the rear with his prod. Sammy resisted, turned, and headed back to the enclosure. The trainer ran to bar his way.
"After all this, he doesn't want to go," Wetherford observed. "He doesn't want to give up his meal ticket."
Shellabarger prodded the centrosaur into a tight turn and managed to guide him back to the bridge. Again, Sammy reversed, gently butted Shellabarger aside, and pushed at him all the way back to the enclosure. Inside the fence, he snuffled the remaining fronds and leaves and started eating.
Shellabarger and Keller removed him again, with infinite patience and gentle words, and aimed him toward the bridge. A dim idea of what was expected of him seemed to enter the centrosaur's mind.
Sammy stepped up reluctantly onto the concrete, then advanced a few feet onto the bridge itself. He stopped to peer down through the thick iron grating at the chasm below. The fear of heights struck him and he bellowed miserably.
"Peter!"
Peter came forward at the trainer's call.
"We're going to have to baby him all the way," Shellabarger said.
"All the way to El Grande?" Peter asked, looking across at the forbidden plateau. The broken battlements and faces appeared less ominous in bright daylight, but the landscape still seemed to deny and reject human presence.
"He won't go by himself," Shellabarger said.
Peter looked over his shoulder at his father. The unspoken question passed between them, and the answer returned the same way. Anthony met his son's gaze and said not a word.
Peter did not know whether to feel terrified or privileged.
They flanked the centrosaur. Shellabarger poked him gently in the withers. Sammy seemed to finally make his own decision; he began to move. Together, Peter behind and Shellabarger in front, they accompanied Sammy across the old steel span.
The dinosaur snuffled at the air with each step, then quickened his pace until Peter had to trot behind him. Shellabarger stepped to one side and flattened himself against the rail, letting the dinosaur pass. The bridge banged against the concrete abutment again as Sammy's weight reached the opposite side, shivering wisps of dirt and rust from the beams.
Sammy broke into a gallop and leaped onto the broken roadway beyond. His feet thundered on the weed-grown surface for two dozen yards and then he stopped abruptly, shield swinging forward with its own momentum, his haunches and withers tensing beneath the thick, scaly skin. Peter joined Shellabarger at the end of the bridge.
Across the abyss, on Pico Poco, OBie sat behind the dollymounted camera, filming steadily. Ray stood beside him.
"It's all yours," Shellabarger said, shooing the animal with his hands. "Go on! Git! Before we send Dagger across."
Sammy swiveled his long beaked snout and peered at them with his left eye. A rope of saliva swung from his mouth and his sides heaved with thick, deep breaths.
"He drools when he's excited," Shellabarger said to Peter, as if confiding the dark secret of a family member. "Git!"
Sammy spun about with a swiftness that startled Peter. For a second, Peter
thought the centrosaur was going to double back and charge them. He lowered his head like a bull and made throaty clucking sounds, then stared over the broken macadam at Shellabarger and Peter. He lifted and twisted his head, stretching his neck skin into taut wrinkles, and his eyes showed their yellow sclera.
"He's going to do it," Shellabarger said in a whisper, as if for Peter's benefit alone. "He doesn't remember—it's been too long for his little walnut brain—but he knows the place." The trainer's face contorted. Peter could not tell whether Shellabarger was going to laugh or cry.
Peter watched the centrosaur, his own chest and throat tight. "Go on," he encouraged Sammy. He waved his hands as Shellabarger had done.
Sammy turned more slowly this time, and with great dignity stumped across the field of green grass. With a shiver of his rump, he squeezed between two high rounded lumps of sandstone, and vanished.
The wind blew across the empty plateau. Peter looked down at his feet. He was standing on the Lost World. Beyond the rocks, just miles or maybe only yards away, were hundreds, even thousands of dinosaurs and other animals, some much bigger than Sammy.
Shellabarger put his hand on Peter's shoulder. "We're not done," he said.
Peter could not immediately break the spell.
"Come on," the trainer said.
They walked back over the bridge to Pico Poco.
The roustabouts and workers were making progress breaking down the steel cages. They had paused to watch Sammy's liberation; now they were back at work, hauling the sections of cage and stacking them beside the bridge, preparing for the venator's release. In the meantime, however, there were the struthios, the Aepyornis, and the avisaurs.
Ray approached the enclosure with the portable camera on his shoulder. One of the film crew carried a lightweight tripod and set it down on an X marked with black tape. Ray mounted the camera on the tripod and looked over the viewer, grinning radiantly. "What was it like, standing over there?" he asked Peter.
Peter smiled. "You should try it," he said.