Dinosaur Summer (37 page)

Peter pushed himself up, grabbed one egg and then the other in the stumbling start of his dash, and sensed rather than saw the venator toss the trainer's lifeless body in the air.

She drew back to grab for Peter. A white-rimmed darkness rose behind her and filled with two gleaming green eyes and a bloody beak--

And the death eagle dropped on her like a truckload of knives. Its wide white-gorgeted griffin's head thrust again and again, beak stripping skin into ribbons, shredding tendons, and exposing pale fat and pink muscle and snow-white bone. The venator's other arm spasmed and drooped.

Peter saw these things as if in a dream, many views at once--the ground beneath him, the animals to one side, his father and Ray up ahead, on their knees, with Cooper still behind the camera and OBie firing the rifle furiously,crack-crack-crack.

The venator was weakening. Truly the time of her kind had come;Dinoshi could outlast even the largest and swiftest carnosaur. The death eagle drew back, neck arched, lower jaw withdrawn into the wattles above its breast, and rose to its full height. It lifted the spread yellow talons of one foot and raked the back of the venator's leg, hamstringing her. She gave an agonized squeal and toppled to her side with a thump that nearly knocked Peter off his feet.

The eggs felt like a ton of rocks as he reached his father and Ray. Peter twisted around and stood beside Merian Cooper's whirring camera. Rain drummed on them all and formed a thick scrim over the gray silhouette of the death eagle, talons swiping again and again at the prostrate venator as if carving a turkey, cutting away ribs and thigh, ripping open her abdomen and spilling intestines in twisted sausage jumbles. The female gaped up at her murderer, alive but unable to move or fight.

Peter could not look. Cooper gave a whoop and continued to shoot film. Ray snatched one leg of the tripod. "Time to go!" he shouted.

Anthony grabbed Peter's shoulder and they ran through the rain for the lake. Chapter Seventeen

Peter clutched the eggs so tightly he feared they would break. They all ran like silent-movie comedians: legs pumping high, hair soaked into skullcaps, rain splashing from their faces and water streaming from elbows, noses, and chins.

He saw the yellow raft through the downpour. Anchored in the lake beyond, the PBY floated like some serene giant seabird. The wind had come up and whitecaps laced the beach with froth. The two men in fatigues stood by the raft, soaked and miserable, but when they saw the runners they waved their arms wildly.

And then they crouched, jaws dropping, staring over the heads of the fleeing men. Anthony darted a look backward and suddenly shoved Peter to one side. A great toothed beak and gleaming green eye swept past with hardly a sound but for a thunderclapsnap. Peter rolled and came to rest face up, still clutching the eggs. The brush ofDinoshi 's gorget had left a vivid scrape on his cheek and temple.

The death eagle reared over them, blood streaming from its breast and head, rain washing bloody rivulets down its feathers. It straightened and lifted its beak to the sky,skreeing triumphantly despite its pain, totally assured of dominance and power.

Ray threw the camera into the raft and grabbed a thick straight tree limb from the shore. Anthony, on the other side of the death eagle, did likewise. OBie limped along, winded, barely able to make the last few steps. Cooper grabbed him and dragged him by his shoulders over the pebbles and sand.

From out of nowhere, Billie appeared with a machete. He darted in behind the huge avisaur and slapped its leg with the flat of the blade, ducking immediately. One foot kicked back, its talons missing Billie's head by inches, and the beast turned, spraying dirt. The black tail feathers brushed Anthony's hair.

Ray poked the death eagle from one side with his branch and Anthony poked it from the other.

The avisaur did not know which audacious little creature to strike first. It took a step forward, toward Billie; the Indian was back on his feet and his face betrayed no fear. The death eagle leveled, and Ray and Anthony poked it again simultaneously.

Peter stood up less than two yards fromDinoshi 's stamping, plunging feet.

The avisaur thrust first at Ray, who whacked it sharply on the side of its beak with his stick. It reared back, growling with indignation, and turned on Anthony. Billie chose this moment to expertly throw a rock into its open jaws. The animal hesitated, raised and flexed its neck, gulped the rock down, and faced Peter's father.

Billie threw another rock and hit it squarely in its left eye.

The death eagle seemed to explode. From Peter's perspective, it became all talons and massive pumping legs and swinging tail. The tail caught Ray across his chest and sent him sprawling. Anthony threw his branch at the beast, but it was paying none of them any attention for the moment.

"Go!" Anthony shouted to Peter. The raft had been pushed into shallow water. Cooper and OBie waved to him and he ran to the raft and gave the eggs to OBie. One of the men in fatigues tried to grab Peter, but he jumped clear and splashed back to the sand and pebbles. He would not leave without his father and friends. Anthony could not get around the thrashing, half blind, and wholly enraged death eagle. Peter ran to Ray, who lay in the grass, the breath knocked out of him, barely able to lift his head. Peter grabbed Ray's arm and tugged him up and over on his hands and knees. Ray rose up, suddenly whooped as he inhaled a lungful of air, then groaned and fell back on all fours.

The death eagle seemed to have recovered from Billie's rock, but Billie flung several more in rapid succession, striking it on its breast, the side of its head just forward of the flared gorget, and again on its beak.

Without a sound, the beast swooped. Billie had no time to think; it seemed impossible for any animal so large to move so fast. And Anthony appeared beside Billie just as quickly, holding up a short, stout stick.

The avisaur jammed its right eye directly on the stick. Its open jaw flattened both of them, but snapped shut only as the animal reared yet again.

Ray had recovered enough to stand. He and Peter dodged crabwise around the trampled grass and spraying sand and rocks, toward Billie and Anthony. Billie lay on his side, eyes glazed, blood dribbling from his nose and mouth. Anthony was already on his feet. Together, they lifted Billie like a limp doll and ran for the beach.

The death eagle, now almost blind, fluffed its dish of neck feathers forward and turned its head, listening for their footsteps. It put one foot down, talons flexing, and then another.

They waded to the raft. Billie mumbled something, spit a little blood, and grabbed a rope to haul himself onto the rubber gunwale. Anthony and Ray pushed him in the rest of the way.

The death eagle stood in the lake shallows, making deep drum thumps topped by querying hums like strokes on a cello. It was uncomfortable with the feeling of water on its legs, but its anger, its pain, its pure dominant hatred, drove it to follow the humans. It splashed to within fifteen feet of the raft and cocked its crown toward the sound of oars. It hummed again, its eyes swollen shut, pointing its beak first at Anthony, then at Peter and Ray as they pushed the raft into deeper water.

Anthony picked Peter up bodily and threw him into the raft, then vaulted himself up on stiff arms, lifting one leg to swing it over the gunwale. Wetherford grabbed his shoulder to help.

The death eagle spread its tail, tensed its neck, and lunged.

The beak closed on Anthony's right leg just below the knee. With a sound like huge scissors snicking shut, it removed the lower leg and foot as neatly as a surgeon. Anthony dropped heavily into the boat bottom and blood spurted from the stump. The leg and foot fell into the lake and sank. Wetherford cried out and shielded his face; OBie took aim with the rifle and shot at the beast's head. Stung by the bullet, it pulled back.

Peter grabbed his father's shoulders and held him close. Ray unhitched his belt and pushed it through the loops on his pants.

The death eagle stepped into a hole in the lake bottom and skidded, then lost its balance completely. With a hiss, it toppled into Lake Akuena. The wash from its fall almost swamped the raft, but also pushed them farther from shore.

Peter thought he could still hear the beast's angry hiss despite the fact that the bird's head lay in the water. Then Wetherford reached past him and said, "We're holed."

The raft sank in the rear. The two men in fatigues rowed as fast as they could. The raft only had three oars. OBie grabbed the third oar and Wetherford and Cooper used their hands as paddles.

His father's blood filled the bottom of the raft. Ray wrapped his belt high on the stump, near Anthony's groin, and drew it very tight. It was at this point that Peter's father felt the pain and opened his eyes wide and screamed. Peter held him down as best he could. Rainwater, lake water, and blood swirled in the bottom of the raft.

If I live,Peter thought.If we live --

But he could not finish the thought. There was too much going on and he doubted very much any of them would live.

Over the loud, dull roar of rain on the raft and the harsh scrub of the rain on the lake, Peter heard the PBY's engines cough, turn over, catch, and then bellow to life. They drowned out all other sounds.

He looked up and behind them, but with rain and blood in his eyes, he could only see blurs.Dinoshi flopped and thrashed in the deeper water.

Peter wiped his eyes with his sleeve and spoke into his father's ear. "Hold still, Father.Please hold still. "

OBie shielded his face against the rain and stared out over the water. "Look at that!" he cried and pointed.

Cooper allowed himself a single "Gawww--awww-d-dammmnn!"

Peering through the stinging rain, Peter thought they must all be dreaming. Three giant hooded cobras rose from the water around the death eagle. Jaws wide and hoods spread like sails, the sinuous beasts began to tear at the avisaur, heads striking again and again.

"More lake devils!" Wetherford shouted.

The oars splashed even more frantically. Ray tried to bail water, pushing it over the side with cupped hands.

Anthony slumped in Peter's arms. "Jesus and Mary and all the saints," he said, and his eyes closed.

A long glistening hump swam past the raft with powerful vertical strokes of paddle-like flippers. A head appeared some ten feet from the hump, as if a second animal had joined the first, but the head rose higher and a long neck connected the two. The sleek, broad-jawed head turned in their direction, bright yellow eyes wrapped in translucent membranes. It spread wide its boldly patterned hood. The head swung out over the raft, less than a foot from Peter.

"That's it," Ray said. He covered his face.

OBie whipped up his oar but did not connect. With lightning reflexes, the lake devil jerked its head out of range. The back submerged and the neck and head went with it. The lake devil--a kind of plesiosaur, Peter thought, or something new entirely--swam to join its fellows around the death eagle.

By this time, kicking itself into even deeper water,Dinoshi had managed to get its legs under its body and stand. It defended itself with resounding snaps of its jaws, then turned and waded with some dignity toward shore, even as the lake devils nipped and slashed at its tail and legs.

The raft was awash aft. Ray and Cooper slipped into the lake and hung on to ropes. Cooper lifted the camera barely above water. Peter saw the eggs roll toward the rear, where they fetched up against his father's left leg.

A shadow fell over them, something huge and insurmountable, and Peter hunched his shoulders, hugging his father tight, waiting to die.

But they had made it.

The wing of the PBY sheltered them from the rain. Men reached through the open fuselage hatch. Peter saw Monte Schoedsack's thick glasses. Arms reached out and passed Anthony along, moaning and kicking feebly, and lifted him by the shoulders into the airplane. Cooper hefted the camera by a tripod leg and Schoedsack grabbed it. Wetherford, Billie, and OBie went next, then Peter. Ray clung to the sinking boat.

"Hey! Don't forget me!" he called.

Cooper and OBie grabbed him and hauled him through the hatch.

Peter crawled forward and collapsed at the foot of the cot on which Anthony was laid. Someone covered him with a blanket and patted his wet clothes. He was almost too exhausted to blink. Legs in brown fatigues stepped over canvas-wrapped parcels and steel drums, moving to the rear. Peter saw a flash of red cross on white field as a first-aid kit was carried past.

Whitecaps thumped on the other side of the hull just inches from his face. The plane was moving, taking off. Light from a port streamed diffuse and gray through the plane's interior.

His father screamed again. Peter gathered all his remaining strength, tossed his blanket aside, and knelt beside him.

Chapter Eighteen

Several cots had been rigged forward of the PBY's blisters and slender tail. Anthony lay on the port side. Two men cut away his pants while a third gave him an injection. The third man glanced at Peter as he stepped around him. He wore a wet blood-stained khaki shirt and a fringe of crisp white hair circled his immense and dignified square pate of tanned skin. His nose hooked sharply and his eyes were small and close together.

"Peter," Anthony said between clenched teeth, and he reached out with his left arm. Peter knelt and took his hand. Anthony's grip felt weak. "You're all right," Anthony said.

His father looked very pale, evenold. The realization that his father might actually die made Peter's stomach tighten and his head swim.

"Alive," Peter said. He had become quite hoarse.

"I'm Dr. Tannenbaum," the bald-headed man said. "Coop tells me this is your father."

The plane bounced, fell, hit the lake surface hard, and shuddered; then the thud of waves ceased and the roar of the engines took on a steady, reassuring drone.

"I've given your father morphine. He'll be asleep in a little while. You all need to rest." "What about his leg?" Peter asked.

"We're working on that now."