The Dinosaur Hunter(39)

Pick looked at me. “Grass, Mike, wouldn’t be invented for another million years.”

Since Laura had already told me that, I knew it but I let it pass, not wanting to knock him off his story. Pick continued. “When Big Ben woke up on the day he died, he looked around for his herd but found himself all alone. Trikes, we are certain, were herd animals and to be alone is the worse thing that can happen to a creature that depends on others for protection and has the herd instinct. You know that with your cows. Around the pasture was a forest of conifers—pine trees—and angiosperms—flowering plants like maples, oaks, and magnolias—the latter introduced during the late Cretaceous of the American West. Big Ben raised his heavy head and pondered his loneliness. His neck hurt. Probably he hurt all over. Big Ben, alone and frightened, would have called out, hoping to receive a response from his herd. What did he sound like? I think a bit like an elephant. High-pitched screeches and snorts. But there was no answering bleat on that day from a fellow Trike. There was, however, another sound, the hiss of released breath from something very big, something even bigger than Ben.”

Pick stopped his story and looked around our little group. It was very dark, the fire in the pit only glowing embers. Overhead was the river of stars known as the Milky Way. Pick was, in a way, telling a ghost story and, I confess, it was pretty spooky.

He went on. “Ben knew what animal made that sound. It was the enemy he had hated and feared all his life. But now, he discovered he neither hated nor feared it. He welcomed it. He was in pain. He had trouble breathing. He could no longer distinguish the taste of the different varieties of ferns or reach the succulent vegetation on the low limbs of the conifers. The females no longer paid any attention to him. He knew instinctively there was a time to live, and a time to die. He was done. His life was over.”

Pick leaned forward, his face aglow from the fire pit. “Now, he heard its heavy footsteps crunching through the dry pine needles and then going quiet as it came out of the forest onto the soft ferns of the pasture. Big Ben did not try to run. He did not even turn to see his fate coming on two clawed feet. He chose, instead, to look for his herd. Then, through bleary eyes, he saw them far away, and moving placidly, and without fear. Big Ben felt good and warm to see his herd safe.”

Pick took a deep breath and fell quiet, as if he was himself the old Trike, waiting, waiting…“The pain,” he said, “was sudden and it jolted Ben to his knees. Ben cried out but the pain would go away, as happens for many prey. They have programmed in their brains to go into shock at the death bite, to give up, to fall away, to go to sleep, and travel to the other place forever. Except,” Pick paused dramatically, “Ben didn’t. He was still alive, in shock, yes, but still alive. His attacker, a fully grown adult T. rex, had been distracted after the first bite.” Pick squinted into the fire pit, as if searching for answers. “I saw the bite mark, not healed, on his pelvis. That can only mean one thing. The T bit him there, then released him. Why, do you suppose?”

I’m sure I didn’t know but Pick thought he did. “I think another T. rex came upon the scene. Maybe a couple of them and they challenged the first T. This was unusual. We are fairly certain that Tyrannosaurs, like most predators, established hunting territories, which were normally respected by others of their species. After all, if every time you went out to hunt, you also had to fight off a number of your own species, you’re not going to catch much prey and you’re going to be beat up. So what this indicates is that there was a rogue presence and probably not just one rogue, but more like two. Since there are no more bite marks on the pelvis, just the one, I think the attacking T had to go instantly into fight mode. How much of a fight? Probably mostly mock charges, feints, and so forth. Predators don’t like to fight other predators. There’s no value to it except to get themselves wounded or even killed. Whatever happened, Big Ben was left alone. This was not a blessing. He’d been bitten severely and was dying. Ben lived near the sea and there were swamplands. He went there, where the watery mud supported his great weight, where he always felt better. And there it was he died, bleeding to death in the mud. Around seventy million years later, this is where I found him, still asleep, waiting patiently for all these years to be found.”

The story had apparently come to an end. Laura asked, “Pick, do you think—?”

“Yes,” he said. “I believe there is something terrible about to happen.”

Laura and Tanya nodded thoughtfully while I puzzled over what he’d just said. I looked over and saw Amelia and Ray were both asleep in their chairs. We sat there a while longer, then Pick got up and walked away in the wrong direction before turning around and going to his tent. I woke up the kids and we all turned in. That night, I kept turning over what Pick had said. Something terrible was about to happen. In deep time or in the present? Or, with Pick, was it all the same?