The Dinosaur Hunter(36)

Again, she gave her answer some thought. In fact, she gave it so much thought, she didn’t answer at all. So I prompted her by saying, “Pick said he was mostly interested in finding a baby T. rex, matching the bones Bill Coulter found years ago.”

“That would be grand, wouldn’t it?” she said. “But maybe you ought to ask Pick.”

I didn’t respond, mainly because our little moment with our snacks and drinks was really too pleasant to spoil. “I enjoyed myself today,” I said. “Being a dinosaur hunter is fun.”

“Nothing like it in the world,” she said. “It astonishes me that everyone doesn’t want to do it. I mean, being outside, breathing fresh air, digging up the past, having a drink with a vegetarian cowboy and all that. It’s the best way to live.”

“Cowboying is a bit like that, too, except there’s cow manure involved,” I said.

She smiled. “Wait here,” she said, and jumped up and went behind the cook tent where her own tent was pitched. She brought back a plastic sample bag, opened it, and handed me part of its contents.

I handled what appeared to be a brownish-gray lump of crumbling rock. “What is it?” I asked.

“T. rex poop! Isn’t it beautiful?”

I looked it over. Now that I knew what it was, I could see by its shape, sort of a tubular blob, that it was indeed poop except it appeared to be made out of rock and dirt. “How do you know it’s T. rex?”

“Well, it’s big and, if you looked under a microscope, you’d observe crunched bone. T. rex is the obvious candidate.”

Based on my expression, I think she could tell I was suitably impressed. “You paleontologists sure are interesting,” I said.

She smiled, but then took the T. rex manure away. “We call this stuff coprolite.”

“Why?”

“It’s Greek. It means ‘shit rock.’”

“Ah, the Greeks,” I replied.

She carried her dino-doo back to her tent, then returned just as Tanya and Pick arrived, all sweaty and with their packs full. They did not offer to show me what was in them. Instead, with Laura helping them, they put the packs away and joined us for our hors d’oeuvres. I inquired about drinks for the two and both agreed that would be just fine. I could tell my gin wasn’t going to last long with this crowd.

We lolled around the table, everyone being quiet. Finally, Pick said, “I heard you and Laura had a productive day.”

“I learned a lot,” I answered. “I also found a claw or at least a partial one.” I showed it to him and he took a moment to admire it.

“Ornithomimosaur,” he said, confirming Laura’s estimate. To my disappointment, he put it in his shirt pocket. “You put down in your log where you found it?”

“I did.”

“Good. I might want to go have a look around there. Ornithos were interesting animals. They were theropods without teeth, just beaks.”

Tanya said, “I’m the cook tonight. Thought I’d grill some hamburgers.”

“Mike’s a vegetarian,” Laura said, which, based on Tanya’s expression, surprised her.

“Good for you,” Tanya finally said.

“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I can feed myself.”

“I’ll fix a big salad,” Tanya offered. “And we have lots of rice. How about saffron rice? Would you like that?”

“Sure. I brought along rice and beans to add to your stock.”

She smiled at me. “Mike, you are an interesting man.” This made me happy. I mean how often did a beautiful Russian woman declare that I was interesting?

Laura wanted to document our Trike dig some more so I went along to help her. She took photographs, jotted notes, and directed me to brush off the exposed bones. When we returned, dinner was served around the same table where we’d had our drinks. The salad and saffron rice were excellent and before long, we were all stretching and letting our tiredness be known. Soon, we’d wandered off to our respective tents. When I crawled into my sleeping bag, I knew I wasn’t going to last long and I didn’t.

Tanya, who apparently was always assigned cooking duties, had breakfast ready first thing in the morning. Scrambled eggs, bacon (not for me, of course), toast, and several kinds of breakfast cereal. I was feeling downright pampered. “Back to the Trike,” Laura told me.

“I’m your cowboy,” I said.

“Giddyup,” she replied, smiling and giving me the eye. I liked both of Pick’s ladies. They seemed to like me, too, which was kind of nice.

Pick and Tanya said they were going to go prospecting again so Laura and I dug, photographed, measured, and packed bones away until just before noon when a distant drone told us company was coming. It proved to be Ray and Amelia on four-wheelers. “We came to help,” Ray said.