The Dinosaur Hunter(22)

It was a thoroughly nasty job but eventually, my arms covered with decay, slime, gore, and maggots, I found the bullet. It was a .30 caliber, which didn’t tell me very much except that our bull had probably been shot first, then hit on the head with a shovel, then its throat cut. It was only a little more than I already knew.

While I was pondering all this, Ray and Amelia had fixed our cut fences. Then, Ray got on the tractor, scooped up the bull, and trundled over to a coulee not too far away on the other side of the road, dumped the bull, then shoved some dirt on top. He was just finishing the job when a little convoy arrived. It was Jeanette on her four-wheeler, then Pick’s truck followed by another pickup with two women in it.

The two women got out. They were young and, by the lights of this old cowboy, good-looking. One was a brunette, the other a blonde. Both were dressed in the same fashion as Pick—hiking boots, cargo pants, multi-pocketed shirts, and flat-brimmed hats with colorful hatbands. I guessed these were Pick’s assistants. Pick introduced the brunette to me and Ray as Tanya, and the blonde as Laura. I didn’t shake their hands or even get too close. I stunk too much of dead bull. Ray had a grin that just wouldn’t go away. Amelia looked sort of doubtful.

Tanya proved to be Russian and had an accent that made me think of Moscow nights on the Volga or something. Laura was a farm girl, probably out of Iowa or Nebraska. She had that all-American beauty and no brains look about her that was quickly dispelled when she said, of our now buried dead bull, “It would be interesting to come back in a million years to study the taphonomy of your bull. I imagine the quality of preservation will be remarkable.”

Pick smiled and said, “Laura means the bull should fossilize well.”

I took Jeanette aside and told her about the bullet wound. She wrinkled up her nose at my odiferous presence while considering my information, then said, “Then it must have been a hunter who did it.”

“Jeanette, we don’t have hunters this time of year.”

She shrugged. “A poacher, then. Some guys can’t wait for the season. You know that.”

I showed her the slug I’d dug out of the bull, then gave her a little speech. “Look, that note Aaron found didn’t come from a poacher. There’s something going on around here and we’d better come to grips with it.”

Her expression was cool. “Mike, you’re looking so hard at this because you used to be a policeman.” She shook her head. “If there’s a cow-killer along Ranchers Road, we’ll find him and make him wish he never came out this way. Stop worrying. And good lord, you stink!”

Jeanette went back to the group. I did, too, trying to stay down-wind of them. They all loaded up, Ray and I got in the back of Pick’s truck, and headed off to the BLM. Naturally, I got to open and close all the gates.

When we reached the Trike site, I saw a shovel lying beside it. “That your only shovel?” I asked Pick.

“Yes,” he said. “Do you need it?”

I said I didn’t, not then, anyway. I noticed Laura looking me over, her nose wrinkled. “I’ve got a five-gallon jerry can of water in the back of our truck and some dish detergent if you want to wash.” I took her up on her offer.

When I’d finished washing, I came back and found Laura down on all fours and sniffing at the Trike site like a border collie. “You’ve got a good one here, Pick,” she said, finally. “Do you want us to start the excavation today?”

“Tomorrow will be soon enough,” he said. Then to Ray, “Are you going to be able to dig with us?”

Ray looked at his mother and Jeanette said, “After the branding.”

“Can we help with that?” Pick asked. “Branding sounds like fun. I’ve seen it in the movies.”

“Oh, it’s great fun,” I said, allowing my natural irony to drip.

Jeanette snapped me a look. “Be at the barn Tuesday morning. Come around five.”

“In the morning?” Pick asked in an astonished tone.

“Yes, Dr. Pickford. On a ranch, we work early hours. Late ones, too.”

“We’ll be there,” Laura said.

And just like that, we had dinosaur people coming to be cowboys. Pick directed Tanya and Laura to erect a big hangar-like tent to hold all the stuff required to dig up their dinosaur. I was surprised when Jeanette jumped in and started helping, too. Naturally, Ray, Amelia, and I got busy as well. I noticed Pick carrying a few things, none of them weighing very much. I also saw him tamp down one tent peg but otherwise he mostly supervised. By the time we were finished, I was a little irritated at his laziness, enough that I decided to call him over for a chat about it. Before I could say anything, he said, “I know better than try to do much when Laura and Tanya are around. Part of their job description is setting up camp so they want to do it all. They tell me I just get in the way.”