I noticed Jeanette was now watching Pick with intense interest, almost as if it was the first time she’d ever seen him.
Pick went on. “The mother of this family would have been a big dominant female. We haven’t found her bones and maybe she isn’t here. What we have found is evidence of two adult males and one juvenile or infant. But let me speak for the moment of the mother T. Tyrannosaurs, I believe, had a matriarchal society, the females leading each family. I’ve seen her clearly in my thoughts and dreams and, for that reason, I think we will find her. She must be under Blackie somewhere.”
Laura said, “I notice you’ve been reading Robert Bakker again, Pick.”
“I have,” Pick replied. “He makes a great deal of sense to me.”
Laura looked around our little group. “Robert Bakker first postulated that dinosaurs were fast, smart, adaptable, and warm-blooded. He also did some groundbreaking work on nesting Allosaurs demonstrating parental care.”
Jeanette leaned forward in her chair. “What was the mother T. rex like, Pick?”
Pick regarded Jeanette for a long second, maybe thinking that if there ever was a matriarchal society, it was the Square C. Then he said, “The mother T would have been bigger than the males. When she walked, it was on her tip-toes, three phalanges on the ground with long curved claws that could tear through armored hide an inch thick. Her teeth were shaped like serrated steak knives and her jaws were strong enough to crunch massive, heavy bones into swallow-size chunks.”
Amelia shivered and said, “She sounds so scary.”
Pick nodded, then said, “To us, she would have been. But to her family, she was the symbol of security. This much I think is true. Although she was fearsome to behold, I think she had the capacity for love. And joy. She could also feel pain and sadness. Her intelligence even allowed her to mourn, the curse of the evolved predator’s mind.”
“I hope she was happy sometimes, too,” Amelia said.
“Oh, yes,” Pick replied. “There were a few simple things I’m certain made her happy. She liked to drink cool water from the river. She liked to squat in the meadow on her pubis bone and rub her belly across the smooth ferns. She liked when the birds jumped down from the trees and pecked along her back for the beetles that burrowed into her skin. And I think she liked to rub her neck along the neck of her mate. We think Tyrannosaurs could make a humming sound and I bet she made it when she was happy. When he hummed back, she would close her eyes and perhaps her heart sang. But I think most of all, she liked to look at her children and delight in their existence. That was the love she felt.”
“How did she give birth?” Amelia asked.
“She laid eggs, as birds do, and reptiles,” Pick answered. “I’m hoping we’ll find evidence soon of egg shells. If Tyrannosaurs nested like other theropods, I think the eggs would have been laid in a circular pattern, two by two, each egg arranged around the center like petals on a flower.”
He looked out past us, into the badlands. “I have built another circle of stones out there,” he said. “I did it last night. The circle is the universe’s signal to us that there is no beginning and there is no end. The natural world loves the circle and reproduces it whenever it can. If any of you like, I will take you to it. You may want to make your own circles with the stones we’ve cast down from Blackie Butte. These are powerful symbols and will help us in our quest to understand how this family lived.”
“But why did they live?” Brian asked. “For that matter, why do any of us live?”
We all turned as one to Pick for the answer, as if he had one. It’s amazing to me how smart a little alcohol can make a philosopher.
Pick leveled his gaze on Brian. “Oh, that’s been answered to my satisfaction, Brian,” he said. “They lived because they could. Nature, God, the Creator, whatever we may call Him, Her, or Them, had the blueprint of life and desired to use it. But when it comes to humans, we are the more complicated question in terms of why we exist.”
“Wait, what are you saying?” Philip nearly exploded. “It sounds like you believe in God! How can a rational scientist believe in a supernatural God? What about evolution?”
“I am giving you a philosophical answer to a philosophical question,” Pick said, “and therefore open to many explanations and interpretations. The truth is as you deem it to be, and that’s the way it will live in your soul. But I must warn you. Believe in nothing and you will be nothing.”
“I believe in Mother Earth,” Philip said, drawing himself up in his chair.