Deciding suddenly that whatever else he might be, he wasn’t hungry, he favored the cluster of humans with a final contemptuous snort and veered away, plunging back into the familiar depths of the forest. The humans presented him with too many choices, too many new things all at once, and it was most perplexing. Carnosaurs do not respond well to confusion. The humans demanded too much thinking for too little reward. Rending and tearing is a megalosaur’s forte, not curiosity. Like all his kind, his attention span was short.
Perhaps, the big meat-eater reflected as he strode away, he would return in a couple of days when his appetite was renewed and eat them all, game or no game. For now, though, with his belly full, all he wanted was to sleep. It was one of the three things a megalosaur did best.
Shouts rose behind him and he paused to glance back over a shoulder. The humans had advanced from the fire to their fence. Pressed up against the spaces between the bones, they were yelling and gesticulating at him. Several more of the long tubes they carried spoke loudly.
Stranger and stranger! Were they so anxious to be eaten that they were calling him to come back? He hesitated.
No, he decided. If they lingered in his territory he would eat them in his own good time and not before. His digestive system was calling for rest, not renewed activity. Resolving to return in a fortnight, he turned away from their camp and considered where lie might find a soft wallow in which to rest. As he strode along, his long tongue licked out and up to clean dirt from one bright yellow eye. Thinking made him sleepy.
A towering form appeared in the darkness, threatening to cross his path. As was expected of him, he slowed and waited for the other to pass. Though they shunned organized civilization, the inhabitants of the Rainy Basin did recognize and adhere to certain protocols among themselves. The megalosaur was only one carnivore among many, and by no means the largest. He gave way readily to one more dominant than himself.
Back within the palisade, the pirates congratulated one another with whoops and hollering, convinced that by their resolve and boldness they had driven off a monster straight out of the imagination of a Dante.
“Look at it run!” Andreas could hardly contain himself as he peered between a pair of gigantic upturned ribs. “It won’t be back.”
“Aye!” Blackstrap scabbarded his cutlass. “See, then, how with a little courage and some good shooting a man can stand against anything, even nature’s greatest horrors. Boys, I’ll wager we hit it a dozen times or more.”
“I didn’t see any blood.”
“What’s that, Mr. Smiggens?” The captain whirled on his first mate.
The other man rose from where he’d been sitting. His breathing had finally dropped back to something close to normal. Instead of facing the captain, he was gazing out into the now menacing dark.
“I said that I didn’t see any blood. I don’t think any of our shots penetrated. Its hide was too thick.”
Blackstrap was taken aback. “Maybe ’twas so. In that event, I expect that the sight and sound of our guns were enough to frighten it off.”
“Were they?” Smiggens turned to face his master. “Why should they frighten it? There must come lightning aplenty in this country. Why would the crack of a few rifles scare it?” Blackstrap considered, his expression twisting with the effort. “Well, then, ye bloody pissant smart-mouth, why did the beast turn away from us and run?”
“Maybe it got a good look at you, Captain Blackstrap.” Copperhead was careful to keep his voice down.
“Aye,” whispered Samuel. “That’d be enough to scare off half a dozen devils.”
Blackstrap spun. “What be you two mumbling about?” “Nothing, Captain,” replied Copperhead innocently.
“All I’m saying,” Smiggens went on, “is that we’ve no reason to believe that we’re responsible for its flight. There’s no proof that our shots had any effect on it.”
“Then why the bloody hell did it leave?” Blackstrap demanded to know.
The first mate spread his arms. “Who can say? Maybe it just got bored. Perhaps it heard something else, or scented prey that was potentially more alluring. Possibly it thought us not worth the effort, or did not like our smell.” He turned back to the palisade and the night beyond. “I thank Providence for whatever turned it. Did you see its teeth?”
“Teeth be damned.” Johanssen was cleaning his rifle. “Did you see the size of the thing?”
“These from larger animal.” Chumash ran a hand down the smooth curve of one rib. Next to him, Chin-lee looked glumly satisfiecl.
“You tell me that no dragon, Mr. Smiggens, sir.”
Blackstrap glowered at his first mate. “Dragon or no, I says that we drove it away.” Smiggens sensibly chose not to argue. “There, then, that be settled.” As quickly as it had blossomed, the captain’s anger vanished.
“A million pounds sterling, boys! That’s what the London zoo would pay for a creature like that. And we’d be famous, we would!”
“Easier to drive one off than capture it,” commented one of the suddenly tired sailors. “Mighty difficult, it would be.” “There’s got to be a way.” Blackstrap’s eyes narrowed as he twirled the tip of one mustache.
Smiggens gaped at him. “You’re not serious, Brognar.”
The captain glanced over at him. “Whenever that kind of money is at stake, Mr. Smiggens, I be nothing less than dead serious.”
“Dead's the word, sir,” the first mate mumbled by way of reply.
“Even if we could catch and subdue one, Captain, how would we get it back to the ship?” Watford eased his revolver
back into its chest holster. “No matter how it were turned, we could never squeeze the beast’s body through the canyon we traversed. It’d be like trying to run a forestay through a needle.”
“True enough, Mr. Watford.” Blackstrap had been pondering that very problem. “But maybe, just maybe, there be another way.”
The men crowded close or listened intently from where they were standing. Convinced they had just driven off an ogre from their deepest nightmares, they would at that moment have denied their captain nothing. Their morale was at its highest point since they’d left the Condor.
Blackstrap feigned indifference, a malevolent twinkle in his eye. “Oh, ’tis probably not worth repeating, boys. ’Twas just a notion. Let me polish it and we’ll see if she shines. Meanwhile, I think we could all do with a sleep.”
He caught Mkuse’s eye. “We’ll post four men, Mr. Mkuse. One at each point of the compass. Choose your companions for the first.”
“Yes, Captain.” The Zulu glanced in the direction of their captives. “And two more to keep a close watch on our prizes.”
“Aye, look at ’em,” murmured one of the others.
At the sight of the advancing carnosaur, the two young ones had released their bladders. Restrained as they were, they could do no more than huddle behind the adults, who were clearly engaged in trying to reassure their offspring. Those among the pirates who might have found this domestic tableaux pitiable rather than amusing kept their feelings private, lest they expose themselves to the ready ridicule of their shipmates and their captain.
Reliving their great victory over the attacking gargoyle, the men parted and settled down to sleep, each retiring to whichever patch of ground struck his fancy. Samuel tossed several sections of log on the fire to keep it blazing high.
Only Smiggens did not snug down beneath a fragrant bush or against a complaisant tree root. He remained standing for a long time, staring over the crest of the palisade into the cloaking darkness beyond, listening to the multitude of night sounds both familiar and alien. Occasionally a distant thrashing or rustling of branches sent a chill down his spine.
Had they driven the monster away? He was far from certain. But Blackstrap would hear nothing else. They were responsible for its flight, and that was that.
The creature had shown no indication of panic or distress. If their bullets had done it no real harm, then why had it fl
ed? He shrugged wearily. The mysteries of this land came too fast and frequently for any one man to comprehend. Maybe Blackstrap was right. Maybe he, Smiggens, thought too much for a good seaman. Certainly he thought too much for a good pirate.
But, he told himself firmly, someone in this lot has to do the thinking.
Something distant boomed at the moon. He shivered again, despite the warmth of the air. He’d listened to the cries of large, dangerous animals in the Indies and the Raj. This was different, unimaginably different.
Perhaps they had, after all, driven the creature away. But he was convinced that if such a monster fixed its determination irrevocably upon a mere man, then that individual could do no more than compose himself and prepare to meet his maker, the efficacy of whatever weaponry he might be carrying notwithstanding.
It was not a pleasant thought to carry with one to bed.
X
although they did not know it, there was not one of the great meat-eaters lurking in the vicinity of their camp but half a dozen, and the crew of the Condor encountered them not in their nightmares but on the following morning, which was bright and filled with sunshine.
The mist had risen and the clouds had not yet gathered themselves for their daily rain party when the sound of the crunching of bones induced the avaricious party of intruders to retrace their steps of the day before. After their encounter the previous night they advanced with fresh caution, taking care to keep under cover despite their renewed confidence.
Not one but two adult megalosaurs were scavenging the body of the dead Parasaurolophus. The larger of the pair was working on the flank, using its curved teeth to remove large gobbets of flesh with each bite, while its companion rooted about in the opened belly. And they were not alone.
“See the horned dragons!” exclaimed an excited Chin-lee.
A quartet of ceratosaurs hung about the fringes of the feed. Slightly shorter and less massive than the megalosaurs, they remained fearsome carnivores in their own right. Looking out of place on so efficient a meat-eater, a short, pointed horn not unlike that of a rhinoceros thrust upward from each toothy snout.
One tried to sneak in for a bite of leg. The largest megalosaur lowered its head and growled, but that was the extent of the confrontation. Having been granted permission to approach, the first ceratosaur began to feed. It was quickly followed by the remaining trio.
To Mkuse it was akin to watching lions gorge on a dead elephant, except that two different kinds of meat-eater were involved here. Surely they did not come from one family, he thought. Still, it almost appeared as if they were cooperating to strip the corpse as quickly as possible.
Fascinated, the men watched as the edible parts of the duckbill disappeared down multiple throats. One megalosaur finally stepped back from the body, its belly grossly distended. With its mouth shut and eyes closed, it reminded O’Connor of a banker he’d once confronted in downtown Boston. O’Connor had coveted the man’s pocket watch, and it was only the intervention of other pedestrians that had prevented him from obtaining it. The encounter had also precipitated his hasty departure from that lovely city, not to mention the whole of the eastern seaboard of the United States.
The ceratosaurs took their time gleaning the bones. With plenty for all, there was no infighting. Occasionally one would raise its head and look around sharply, as if fearful that something might arrive to drive it away. That could not be the case, though, Johanssen argued. Surely nothing walked the earth that could drive such monsters from their meal.
A light went on in Smiggens’s head, illumination that he chose to share with his companions.
“No wonder the beast we saw last night decided not to take the measure of our resistance.”
Blackstrap turned to him. “What do you mean, Mr. Smiggens? We chased it off fair, didn’t we, boys?” Several of the crew heartily confirmed this explanation.
But with the solution spread out before him, this time Smiggens wasn’t about to back down. “Don’t you see? Why should a creature with an appetite which doubtless is appropriate to its size trouble itself over small bites like ourselves, when it knows that a small mountain of food lies close at hand, already deceased and ready for the digesting? For surely if we were able to encounter and track this strange crested beast’s presence it would not escape the notice of any predators in the vicinity.” He gestured at the all but concluded banquet. “As we see, it has not.” He waved at the vast sea of bones bleaching slowly in the bright sunshine.
“Nature is ever efficient in her arrangements. Clearly many of these great beasts come here to die. Left alone to degrade by natural processes, the decomposition of so many gigantic corpses would quickly poison the soil and water. No flock of vultures and buzzards such as we saw when we first arrived at this place could possibly begin to keep up with such immense quantities of decaying flesh.
“Instead, it is the prodigious requirements of these monstrous two-legged meat-eaters which keeps this land clean and fertile. With so much food freely presented to them, it is entirely possible that many of them have never hunted in their lives. Which is not to say they cannot, but even a dumb dinosaur exerts no more energy in the pursuit of its daily sustenance than is necessary.”
“A moment, Mr. Smiggens.” Blackstrap frowned at his first mate. “What did you call the beasts?”
“Dinosaurs.” Smiggens looked gratified. “It finally struck me where I have seen them before.”
“You still say you have seen animals like these before?” Chumash eyed him suspiciously.
“Not alive.” As he spoke, the first mate continued to monitor the silent orgy of consumption. “It was in London several years ago, at the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. There was a man, a scientist by the name of Owen, I believe. He’d found bones like those now scattered around us, only they had been turned to stone. Ancient bones. He’d had them cleaned up and stuck together to form skeletons. Dinosaurs, he called them.” Blackstrap felt of the strange word with tongue and palate. “Dinosaurs, eh? What manner of creatures be they, then?” He jerked a thumb in the direction of their hobbled captives. “This lot look like birds.”
“Who is to say to what line or family of nature they belong? Not I.” For once, Smiggens had no answer. “I am no scientist, Brognar. It may be that since these look like birds, they are indeed related to birds. Those indulging their appetites before us resemble the kangaroo. Perhaps that is a closer relation. It was stated at the exhibition that such creatures had disappeared from the surface of the earth untold eons ago. It is now clear that this is incorrect, and that some, at least, have survived in this country to the present day.” “Well, it makes them no less valuable,” Blackstrap grunted. “Indeed not, Captain. People paid good money to see reconstructions fashioned of wood and plaster. I do not doubt that they will pay whatever is asked to see them alive and in the flesh.”
“As your brain is so active this fine morning, Smiggens, I ask that you apply it to the problem we discussed briefly last night, namely, how to secure and transport a larger representative of this remarkable breed back to the ship.”
The first mate considered. “Should it somehow prove possible, how would we keep such a beast alive all the way to England or America?”
Blackstrap’s response showed that he did not rely on his first mate to do all the thinking. “Most flesh-eaters are happy to take fish, Mr. Smiggens. The sea is full of fish. You work on the means of acquiring one, and leave matters of maintenance to me.” Smiggens nodded, his attention still drawn to the frightful but fascinating panorama. A cart, perhaps, built on site from
available woods. Failing that, a sledge. They had good carpenters among them, and willing muscle. Nothing inspires a man to pull more than his weight so much as the knowledge that a pile of gold awaits him at the end of his pull.
Deep in thought as he turned away, he was brought up short by the unblinking stare of the largest of their captives. The bird-dinosaur was gazing directly at him. For an instant Smiggens thou
ght he saw something other than dumb animal indifference in that stare.
Then it looked away and the momentary spell was broken. Foolish, he told himself, to allow one’s emotions to be seized by the wide eyes of an animal. Any large bird, an owl or hawk, could generate an equally captivating if brief stare.
All his life he’d sought recognition from his peers in academia. Because of his lower-class background they’d shut him out, forcing him into the desperate life he now led.
Well, with these animals in tow they’d have no choice but to let him in. A sneer curled his lip. Let those puerile, pontificating pundits refuse him membership in their learned societies now! Let Blackstrap and the others have their gold; he would have his triumph.
“Dinosaur.” Chin-lee rolled the word on his tongue. “English word for dragon. Is okay.”
It brought Smiggens out of his reverie. “No, no,” he explained patiently. “Dragons are creatures of the imagination. These dinosaurs are real.”
“Are they?” the Cantonese replied. “Is this place real? Are we real anymore? What is real, Englishman?”
When Smiggens hesitated it was Blackstrap who supplied an answer. “See this knife, Chinaman? Want to see if its blade is real?”
Chin-lee drew himself up with as much dignity as he could muster. “You should study Confucian thought, Captain Blackstrap. You would be enlightened.”
Blackstrap put the knife away and snorted scornfully. “Gold’s enlightening, Chin-lee. Everything else is smoke.” “Maybe . . . maybe this is the outskirts of hell,” Thomas mumbled, “and these are demons.”
“Dinosaurs, dragons, demons: all that matters is what they’ll fetch on the open market. I’ll sell any one of ’em or all three, and if the devil objects, why, I’ll remind him that I made my bargain with him long ago.”
As have we all, Brognar. Pressed for further explanation of what they were seeing, Smiggens was given no time for further dour reflection on the state of their souls.