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  Chapter XIV

  Bad Dinosaur

  WE HIKED THE REST OF THE AFTERNOON WITHOUT TAKING A break, angling back along the low ridge overlooking the river. It was hotter now, and we were all moving more slowly than before.

  Then the trees opened up, and Samuel stopped. “Well, what do you think?”

  We were on an outcrop about seven or eight feet up, the river to our left and a creek cutting through an arroyo in front of us. The ground was rockier here, fewer ferns and only a couple sickly-looking cycads.

  “I think,” Kyle said, looking to the opposite side of the arroyo, “these are nice rocks.”

  The arroyo wall on the far side of the creek was about fifteen feet high. Set into it, almost directly across from us, was a cave about halfway up. An obviously hand-built ladder led from the creek bed to a narrow terrace in front of the cave mouth, and another from the terrace up to the top of the arroyo cliff. They were made from branches and lashed together with what looked like vines.

  From the cave mouth, you’d have a view of both the river and the creek on the other side. From where we stood, I could see the creek splash down to a waterfall and a small clear pool, before cascading down another waterfall to make its way to the river about a hundred feet beyond.

  On the other side of the creek, beyond the cave, rose a steep, rocky hill, covered with ferns and cycads, as well as a smattering of fir trees.

  “You built those?” Petra asked, peering at the ladders.

  “With a rock and a bowie knife,” Samuel answered.

  “Come on,” Kyle said to me as we climbed down into the arroyo. “You still have the binoculars?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he crossed the water and ran up the ladder to the cave ledge. Despite his bruised side, he was out of sight, over the top of the second ladder before I made it to the cave mouth.

  “Hey, wait!” I yelled, dropping my backpack on the ledge. “You don’t know what’s up there!”

  It took me a few seconds to open my pack and find the binoculars, so even wearing his own pack and holding his spear, Kyle was about a quarter of the way up the hill by the time I’d made it to the top of the arroyo, crossed to the base of the hill, and started climbing after him.

  “Stay here!” I told Petra and Samuel, who had followed me to the top of the arroyo.

  “Last one up has to do the dishes,” Kyle called down.

  “Wait!” I yelled again. “Slow down!”

  He ignored me, reaching the summit long before me.

  “Just like when coach makes us do stadium stairs back home,” he said, when I finally joined him.

  “Huh,” I replied, breathing heavily. “And here I thought you were just trying to impress Petra.”

  He grunted, and we looked around in a circle at the top of the hill.

  To the west, the sun was setting. Down below, we could see the river snake its way through the hills. Across the river, a gently hilly flatland was covered with ferns and stands of conifers and then rose to a cluster of smaller hills. On our side, the land was contoured, like the Texas Hill Country, but eventually leveled out into a more open expanse.

  We could see herds moving below, on the other side. Triceratops, probably, and some kind of crestless hadrosaur. Smaller herds or packs, maybe, of two-legged ornithopods grazed and darted nearby.

  Farther up was a swampy-looking lake, with cypresses and lily pads growing out of the water. And on a spur of land sticking into the lake, on the near side, was a charming little quaint wooden cottage and some kind of work shed a little distance beyond.

  “That’s it!”

  We high-fived, and then Kyle pumped his fists in the air.

  While he was celebrating, I took one more look out and around. A trio of pterosaurs was circling overhead. Samuel and Petra were standing near the edge of the arroyo, just above the cave, looking up at us. I waved.

  Then I grinned and plunged down the hill. “Last one to the cave does the dishes!”

  I had a good head start and I’d surprised Kyle, but I heard him make an exasperated noise and then start running.

  A quick glance showed him gaining, with the spear held out away from him.

  I almost made a joke about running with sharp objects, but I needed to concentrate on keeping my footing on the uneven ground.

  Ahead, Petra and Samuel were still watching from the rocky ground near the ladder that led down to the cave.

  I had just about reached them, dodging a cycad tree, when I felt a pair of hands shove into me from behind.

  I went flying, and Petra shouted, “Look out!”

  I struck the ground on my hands and knees, and my momentum carried me into Petra, slamming me into her below the knee. She immediately hit the ground next to me.

  “Kyle!” I yelled, baffled and angry, and turned over, hands and knees stinging.

  I didn’t have time to say anything more.

  A Nanotyrannus was looming over my brother. Kyle was down on the ground, scrambling after his spear, right at the edge of the embankment.

  He must’ve knocked me out of the way of its initial lunge.

  And then the Nanotyrannus had Kyle’s arm and shoulder gripped in its mouth.

  An arrow struck it in the neck. Samuel stood off to the side, grimly nocking another arrow to his bowstring.

  But the Nanotyrannus was still focused on Kyle, releasing its initial grip and grabbing him again so that Kyle’s torso and left arm were in its mouth. As it lifted him up, another arrow struck its flank. And then another.

  I ran forward, picked up Kyle’s spear, and jabbed the Nanotyrannus in the side.

  Finally, it released my brother, dropping him to the ground. It whirled on me, but slipped. Its claws scrabbled at the rocky ground, and it went down over the edge of the cliff.

  I rushed over to where Kyle had been dropped face-down, shirt torn. His breath came in shallow rasps, his face pale.

  But the vest had held. The Nanotyrannus’s teeth hadn’t broken through. At least not to the chest. Kyle’s arm looked bruised and bloody, though. And his backpack was completely mangled.

  But that didn’t explain how he was breathing.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Ribs,” was Kyle’s whispered reply.

  And then I understood: the vest had protected Kyle from the teeth, but not the force of the jaws snapping shut. Broken ribs.

  I tore off my shirt, using it to stanch the blood from his arm.

  “You realize,” I told him, “that was a totally illegal block.”

  He coughed in what might have been an attempt to hold back a laugh. Then he tried to look past me. “Where’s Petra?”

  Chapter XV

  Errand of Mercy

  “I’M OKAY,” PETRA SAID, BUT HER VOICE WAS SHAKY. SHE SAT ON the ground, clutching her ankle. The one I’d knocked into. “But I think it’s broken.”

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  “Might be just a sprain,” Samuel said. He’d come forward quietly, holding on to his bow. “Can y’all make it down the ladder?”

  I glanced over the side of the arroyo embankment. On the creek bed, the Nanotyrannus—perforated and bleeding—was trying to climb to its feet. Part of me was astonished that the creature was still in any way mobile. But most tyrannosaur fossils showed evidence of severe injuries, so they were apparently built to take it. I didn’t think this one would last long, though.

  Petra stood, leaning heavily on Samuel. Together, they limped over to the ladder.

  “Let me go first,” he said, “so if you fall, I can catch you.”

  Petra snorted, leaning on one of the upraised legs of the ladder, but let him go.

  Moments later she was over the edge and down the ladder to the cave terrace.

  Looking down, I watched her hobble over to sit, back against the cliff. At the same time, Aki scurried out of the cave to cuddle in her lap. I hadn’t realized until then he’d been down there.


  Turning away from the edge, I asked Kyle, “Can you make it?”

  He gritted his teeth, but nodded. I helped him up, then over to the ladder. His breathing was ragged as he slowly maneuvered down to the cave ledge.

  Once on solid ground, he swayed, then collapsed to the ground next to Petra. I leaned him up against the cave wall and handed him his canteen.

  Petra was staring down at the Nanotyrannus, which was limping upriver in the arroyo. “You know, that would’ve killed a mammal.”

  “Its friend will probably finish it off,” Samuel said.

  I pulled on an extra shirt and grabbed our first-aid kit from my pack.

  Kyle sat stiffly, leaning against the side of the cave. He was pale, and his face was sweaty.

  I cleaned the bite wound and bandaged his arm. It wasn’t that deep, but there were a lot of teeth marks and he needed stitches. His backpack had taken most of the bite, I thought, or even the vest wouldn’t have helped much. I showed him the tears and holes, lifting an eyebrow at his expression. He was breathing easier now, though.

  Petra had removed her shoe and sock. Her ankle was swollen and already bruising, but I didn’t see anything like bone showing through the skin.

  I handed them both some aspirin from the first-aid kit. Samuel wrapped Petra’s ankle tightly in bandages he’d pulled from his own pack.

  Then he gestured at Kyle. “You, too. It’s all you can do for ribs. At least you’re not coughing up blood. You didn’t puncture a lung.”

  “We don’t know they’re broken,” I said.

  “Yes, we do,” Kyle replied. “I’ve had bruised ribs before.”

  And Mom had had a fit.

  “We need to get Kyle and Petra to a hospital,” I told Samuel.

  “We need one of your Recall Devices, then,” he replied.

  I was silent a moment. “And Emma.”

  Samuel and I could do it. Go after my sister. Kyle and Petra would have shelter from the cave and access to fresh water. They could also build a fire, although we were high enough up the arroyo wall that they’d be safe from predators, and it was warm enough they wouldn’t need heat at night.

  “Oh, no,” Kyle said, shaking his head, wincing as Samuel wrapped the bandages around his torso. “You are not going—”

  “We’ll leave you the food and the majority of the supplies and Petra’s bow,” I interrupted. It was the only way. Samuel nodded. “And Samuel and I will go, and—”

  “No!” Kyle said. He gestured. “You trust him now?”

  “Do we have a choice?” I asked.

  “You and Petra are in no shape to travel,” Samuel added.

  Kyle tried to stand, gritting his teeth and shaking with the effort. Then he reached out to grab the cave wall, sinking back down.

  “Let them go,” Petra said. She shook her head, then blinked. “We came for Emma, and at this point we’d be slowing them down.” She coughed. “She’s the only important one here.”

  “What?” I exclaimed.

  “If we were the important ones, we’d have been taken. We have to get Emma back.” Petra gave Kyle a long stare. “I don’t think she can afford to wait much longer.”

  Finally, my brother groaned and swore. “First thing in the morning.”

  By now the sun had set, and the forest was becoming alive again with the sounds of night creatures.

  “In the morning,” Kyle insisted again.

  He was right. We couldn’t go now. Even with the nearly full moon, the forest was too dark, the shadows big enough to hide a Nanotyrannus, and we’d already seen two of them out at night. Which meant that their bigger cousins might occasionally be active at night, too.

  But whether that kind of thing was isolated or regular behavior, no one knew, and I didn’t really want to find out. Or maybe I did. But in a safe, non-disemboweled way.

  I was lying on my back, hands behind my head, inside the cave. For the first time since we’d gotten there, that night I couldn’t sleep, and not just because my knees and hands and the cut on my ankle were hurting. It wasn’t that I was hungry, either. I was full from the Leptoceratops embryos—turns out they tasted sort of like frog legs.

  Although the cave entrance was small, Samuel’s refuge opened up beyond, going back about fifteen feet. It was almost as wide, shaped like an irregular oval. Kyle was lying on a pile of fir branches Samuel had made into a mattress, snoring. He slept fitfully, feverish, muttering, and, every now and then, thrashing his good arm.

  Petra also slept, but sitting up, legs extended, leaning against the cave wall. Aki lay curled in her lap. Samuel was outside, crouched by the fire on the cave terrace.

  I got up, stepped over Petra’s legs, and went out and sat cross-legged, looking down at the creek.

  A moment later Samuel joined me, holding two tin cups with little conifer branches sticking out. He handed me one. “Fir tea. It has vitamin C. Prevents scurvy.”

  I sipped. It tasted terrible.

  For a while we sat in silence, listening to the sound of the waterfall and some strange barking and hooting noises that were coming from the direction of the river. Moonlight shone onto the cave ledge, but the forest on the other side was dark.

  I was thinking about my brother and sister. It had always been them. The twins. Sticking up for each other. Getting each other in trouble. Getting each other out of trouble. This was the longest they’d been apart that I could remember.

  I’d never seen anyone as beat up as Kyle before. Broken ribs were one thing. But he could also have internal injuries and bleeding. Those could kill him.

  Then there was the bite. It wasn’t that deep and the bleeding had almost stopped, but tyrannosaur bites were thought to be infectious, and we didn’t have any high-power antibiotics. Which could also mean death.

  And Petra. Sure, she only had a broken ankle. But you could die from a broken bone, too, I thought. At least that’s what happened in that book Emma had to read for honors English last year about some jerk who pushed his best friend out of a tree.

  And who knew what condition Emma was in? She could be even worse off.

  As long as I could walk, Kyle would never forgive me if I let anything happen to her.

  It was up to me now.

  “We have to go,” I said, putting down the tea.

  “I was wondering when that would occur to you,” Samuel murmured.

  We would travel light.

  I took my backpack and only some of the supplies. We left Kyle and Petra all but one of the canteens and almost everything else, except a flashlight and Samuel’s bow. We decided we’d leave the lab books and laptop computer, as well as the nonfunctioning Recall Device. In case we didn’t make it, they might have a second, desperate chance.

  “We ready?” Samuel asked.

  I nodded.

  “Try not to do anything dumb,” Kyle said, his voice rasping.

  I guess we hadn’t been as quiet as I’d thought. “Thanks.”

  And we were off.

  Chapter XVI

  Dogtrot

  THERE WAS MORE LIGHT THAN I’D EXPECTED. ONCE WE WERE heading in the right direction, away from the creek, the moon was bright. It was nearly full, and the sky was clear. More clear than I’d ever seen it.

  If we stayed in the open, we almost didn’t need to use the flashlight.

  What I expected to see, more than dinosaurs even, were mammals. Multituberculates, like the ones we’d seen the other day (was it really only yesterday?), or maybe marsupials. Possums.

  “You don’t trust me,” Samuel said in an amused tone, after we’d walked for a while.

  “Like I said, I don’t have a choice anymore.” He had saved Kyle with his shooting and probably Petra and me, as well. But there was still something a little off about him. We walked a bit longer and then I decided not to hold back. I stopped and looked him in the eye. “I think you’ve been here longer than ten days and that you know more about Mad Jack Pierson than you’re saying. Why don’t you just tell us?”
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  “Well, now.” Samuel took a swig from the canteen, then handed it to me. “Look at it from my perspective. I’d been camping with my brother, and then all of a sudden I’m here. In the very, very antediluvian past. Alone, like Robinson Crusoe. At least y’all came here on purpose. I’d never heard of this Mad Jack Pierson until y’all mentioned him.

  “Maybe, though,” Samuel went on, “you don’t trust me, not because I’m not trustworthy, but because you’re the suspicious type.” He took another swig. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’m just saying . . .”

  Still scanning the moonlit forest ahead, I opened my mouth to reply, but then broke off with a slight gasp.

  “What is it?”

  “Over there.” I pointed. Ahead and to the right. At the edge of the forest.

  A mound. Sort of like the Leptoceratops nests, but bigger and completely covered by a dome of vegetation. Next to it, lying asleep between a pair of dawn redwoods, was a tyrannosaur.

  Not one of the cute, little tiny ones like the Nanotyrannus that had nearly killed my brother. This one was full-grown or at least close to it. Thirty, maybe forty feet long, with a mouth that could swallow you whole. It looked even bigger than the one we’d seen when we first arrived in the Beetle.

  Samuel froze. “How many do you see?”

  “One,” I answered. “Why? How many do you see?”

  He shook his head. “Then, let’s go this way.”

  He whirled and backtracked a couple minutes before heading back upriver in a wide arc around the sleeping giant.

  “I suppose that mound was a nest?” Samuel said once we were clear.

  “Probably,” I replied. I don’t think paleontologists have discovered a real tyrannosaur nest yet, though.

  He didn’t say anything more for a while. “When we come back, why don’t we try a different route?”

  By the time we reached the lake, just at dawn, I was practically sleepwalking. I was briefly jealous of Aki and Kyle and Petra back in the cave. Then I decided that, no, I wouldn’t really rather have a sprained ankle or broken ribs, and that leftover Leptoceratops eggs were probably completely gross.