Dinosaur Summer (38 page)

"Is he going to live?"

"We'll do our best," Tannenbaum said.

A bottle of plasma was hung from a hook over Anthony's cot. The doctor blocked Peter's view of Anthony's legs. Gauze and surgical instruments were passed from hand to hand, and a caged workshop light was suspended from another hook and switched on, silhouetting the doctor and his assistants.

Peter looked down at the other cots. Billie lay on his side, strapped in, with a blanket over him. Blood from his nose stained the white pillow. His eyes were closed. "He's asleep," a young woman said. Peter stared at her in surprise. He hadn't noticed her before. She wore a white blouse and slacks. Drops of blood stained her slacks. Blood seemed to be everywhere. "He's had quite a blow on the head, but no concussion."

Billie moaned and opened his eyes. Peter hunkered down beside the Indian. "Where are we?" Billie asked.

"We're flying to safety," Peter said.

"Did I face the Challenger?"

"You sure did," Peter said.

"And we are not dead?"

"No."

Billie smiled. "I am dreaming of jaguar," he said, and closed his eyes again.

OBie sat up forward of Billie's cot, arguing with Schoedsack and a very young-looking man in a dark uniform. The plane was crowded. Ray maneuvered between the cots and around the medical team and crouched beside Peter.

"OBie has a wrenched shoulder and a fractured tibia," he said. "I have a lot of cuts and bruises and a sprained wrist. It's amazing we got as far as we did. How's your father?"

Peter looked down at Anthony's face. His father's expression was dreamy and he smacked his mouth as if trying to say something. His head rolled to one side. Peter felt a new kind of fear now: fear of going on without this strange, difficult, wonderful man.

"He'll make it," Peter said.

The plane continued to climb through grayness and white clouds. Rain beat against the fuselage and transparent blisters. A gust of wind struck and they slipped sideways and down, then recovered.

Peter suddenly remembered. "What happened to the eggs?" he asked Ray.

"The raft," the cameraman answered.

Peter thought he meant the eggs were lost. "I picked them out of the raft before it sank and gave them to someone in the plane. They should be here somewhere. Good Christ," Ray Harryhausen said, wiping his face with his hands. He shook his head and slumped against a crate, drawing up his knees. "I never want to see another dinosaur as long as I live."

The young female nurse stepped forward and smiled at Peter. "Your father's lost a lot of blood . . . but he's tough as nails. They're suturing his vessels now and cleaning his leg and getting ready to sew it shut. He's going to be OK." She looked at Peter's bruises and his bloody arm.

"I'm fine," he said.

"I'll tend to those scrapes," she insisted. "You, too," she said to Ray.

As Peter and Ray submitted to her treatment, Cooper and Schoedsack came aft and huddled beside Ray and Peter. Schoedsack goggled at them through his thick glasses. Cooper wiped his forehead with a handkerchief.

"This is the damnedest mess I've ever seen, and I've seen more than my share," Cooper said. "We've been trying to fly due north, but the storm's too thick. Now we're flying southwest to find some clear air. We'll have to circle--"

Peter jumped at a loud sound, like popcorn popping.

Cooper and Schoedsack instantly covered their crotches with their hands. The nurse, Ray, and Peter stared at them, dumfounded.

"Those arebullets! " Cooper shouted. "Who in hell is shooting at us?" He jumped up and ran forward. Magically, a hole opened in the floor of the airplane between Peter's feet. The nurse grunted; the loose part of her sleeve had been pierced. Two holes showed as she flexed her arm and stared at her elbow.

"I'll be damned," she said.

The plane made a sudden quick bank. Ray and Peter grabbed for something to hold on to, then looked at each other and reached down to cover their own crotches.

One of the oarsmen from the raft came forward, face white but grinning. "Back in '44, we sat on our helmets! Hands ain't any good."

The nurse returned to her work, wrapping gauze and clipping tape around their wounds.

Cooper returned a few moments later. "Must have been some of the Army troops below Pico Poco or on the Caron�We've ticked off the Army generals for sure--but now they've gone too far. Damned if they'll get any good press from us!"

"You couldn't get permission?" Peter asked. "I mean, to fly in?"

"Hell, no!" Schoedsack stormed, waving one arm. "They told us to leave youestupido gringos there to rot!" He motioned for Ray and Peter to follow him forward. "OBie's worn out. You're going to have to explain what happened."

In the space behind the cockpit, Ray and Peter took cups of hot cocoa from the young radioman and sat across the aisle from Schoedsack. Cooper had resumed his place at the controls, with a smooth-faced young Navy lieutenant as his co-pilot.

"Merian called in every favor he did during the war," Schoedsack said. "So did I. So did John Ford. We got this beauty on loan from Pensacola the day after we heard on the radio . . . Flew down from New York and took off the next evening."

Cooper pulled aside his earphones and leaned his head back over the chair. "Nothing but jungle and savanna from here to the coast. We'll be over Guyana soon. I reckon we have enough fuel to make it to Trinidad . . . If we don't get hasty."

"Tannenbaum says our wounded are stable. They'll be okay for a few more hours," Schoedsack said.

Cooper clamped his lips, nodded, and turned forward again.

"Now--the whole story," Schoedsack said to Ray and Peter. "Start at the bridge." He looked somber, eyes goggling behind the thick lenses. "Tell us about Vince. And Ray, what inhell happened to your camera?"

One of the oarsmen poked forward. His eyes lit on Peter. "You the kid that brought those eggs on board?"

Peter blushed, as if caught doing something bad. "Yeah," he said.

"Well, one of them's starting to hatch!"

Chapter Nineteen

Bright sun filled the courtyard in front of the archway leading to Circus Lothar's Tampa headquarters. Dozens of reporters paced or lounged or puffed on cigarettes in the open-air training ring. Lotto Gluck, magnanimous with the resources of a circus he no longer owned, personally served lemonade to the reporters from a pushcart, shielded from the sun by a red-striped umbrella. When asked how the babies were doing, he smiled broadly, lifted his finger to his lips, and said, "That's not my story to tell."

"Lotto, we're running out of time," groused one reporter, a burly fellow with carrot-colored hair. "We got to file before noon or it's lost in tomorrow's puppy carpet. So tell us--you were supposed to send the dinos back, not bring more out. What gives?"

Lothar Gluck smiled and shrugged and said again, "That'sss not my sstory to tell!"

"So whowill tell?" the burly reporter asked, wiping his forehead with a plaid handkerchief.

"Why, the proud papa, I ssuposse," he said. "Anybody elsse thirsty?" He was enjoying himself. "I'm willing to tell my own story, to anyone who will listen."

"Yeah, yeah, we know," said a skinny fellow from Boston. He wagged his head and singsonged, "Retired to Sarasota, opens up a shop to sell circus memorabilia--"

"A wonderful assortment, all my own, collected over forty years," Lotto said. "Catalogs free to all legitimate enthusiasts."

The reporters grumbled, but lined up for another cup of lemonade. ***

From behind the sliding door of the equipment barn, Peter Belzoni looked out on the milling reporters clutching their notepads and cameras. Ray stood behind him, resplendent and a little uncomfortable in a new seersucker suit. Behind them, giant arc lights and generators and huge spools of cable sat in the warm shadows. Lazy flies zapped themselves against bare wires running the length of the roof.

OBie sat in a folding camp chair in front of a mobile arc light. He tapped his shoe against one of the carriage's tires. Three men in brownish gray suits, the color of freshly quarried brownstone--two lawyers and a press agent--stood nearby, arms folded.

"When're Coop and Monte going to get here?" OBie asked the RKO press agent. He fanned himself with a straw Panama hat.

"Any minute now," the agent said.

Peter had not seen OBie so nervous since they had wandered into the communisaur nursery. Ray tugged at his shirt collar and picked up a sketchpad and pencil. On the pad was a half finished drawing of the damnedest creature anyone would hope to see--like a kangaroo with teeth, or a venator covered with fuzz and given the head of a monstrous shrew. With powerful hind legs and puny little forelegs, it was so ugly it was cute.

From outside came the sound of a motorcycle. Peter looked up, all else forgotten.

"That must be your dad," Ray said.

Peter walked toward the rear of the barn and opened the sliding panel door a crack. Anthony had stopped a big, brand new BMW motorbike on the gravel outside and was taking off a leather helmet. "Hey, Peter, help me with this kickstand--I haven't caught the knack yet."

Peter stepped out into the hot sun and helped his father bring down the kickstand and swing off the bike. "I'm impressing the hell out of myself, hauling this machine around the roads," Anthony said. He kicked out his prosthetic leg and wiggled the foot. "Almost as good as new. We got two things in the mail." He held up a letter and the latest issue ofNational Geographic. He was getting much better at walking with the prosthetic leg, but he still limped a little--and Peter suspected he did it for effect. With that bike, that leg, and that limp, his father attracted women like hungry mice to cheese. Anthony gave Peter a big smile, then reached down to scratch.

"Damn!" he said, shaking his head. "Itches like the devil, but there's nothing there! Doesn't that beat anything!"

Peter could not decide whether to open the letter or the magazine first. The letter was from his mother, and in the magazine was his first published piece, accompanying his father's article and photographs. S TRANDED ONKAHUHIDI, the cover read, and in smaller type beneath,Sunset of a Mighty Hunter.

Peter looked at Anthony, who seemed to be taking his measure by what decision he would make. Not willing to play that sort of game anymore, Peter stuffed the magazine under his arm and opened the letter. Dear Peter,

My apologies for taking so long to write. I have been going through chills thinking about what happened, and have tried to find the right words. I am so angry I could spit, and I've already got enough on your father that forgiveness is out of the question. But of course I am so glad you're still alive. I look forward to your visit, but I suppose you are a man now and will only stay a little while. I understand you have a new job and many future prospects. Grandmother sends her love.

I know this hasn't been easy on you--though you say it was an adventure, a mother can read between the lines, and I know you were scared and miserable. As I said, I could just spit. But if you've learned anything from your father and me, it should be that a young man must become his own person. I do love you, Peter.

I know it does not make sense, but I am proud of you, too.

Love,

Deirdre

your mother

Peter folded the letter and slipped it back into the envelope. He suppressed a sigh. She always signed her few letters with that unnecessary reminder.

"Smells like her old perfume," Anthony said briskly. He pointed to the magazine. "The pictures came out well."

"Peter!" a voice shouted from the small animal barn. The Ringling Brothers veterinarian, lanky J. Y. "Doc" Henderson, pulled a rubber-wheeled cart from the barn into the sunlight. On the cart rested two cages.

Peter handed Anthony the magazine and grinned. Anthony returned the grin, but shook his head. "Go see your babies," he said.

Peter crossed the gravel and met Doc Henderson halfway. He knelt down beside the cages. In the first cage, young Stiletto blinked at Peter and made a plaintive high-pitched squawk.

"Still won't let anybody feed him but you," Henderson said. Stiletto stood on thick smooth legs, pressing his head against the wire mesh, his large golden eye blinking at Peter. At the age of four months, Stiletto stood three feet high, with a mouthful of sharp teeth as long as the small blade on Peter's new pocketknife. He was already showing signs of Dagger's cantankerous independence. Peter took the can of shredded beef and raw egg--mixed with Vince Shellabarger's secret herbs--and made several meatballs, then pressed them between the mesh. Stiletto pulled them through with surprisingly agile lips, like a horse's, and swallowed them whole.

"They've both passed inspection," Henderson said. "Healthy as can be. And surprisingly, they seem to like each other. Stiletto gets very upset when Frankie isn't with him." Frankie was as odd a creature as anyone had ever seen. Ray's drawing barely did her justice. Now a little smaller than Stiletto, who was outgrowing her rapidly, she stood on two four-toed feet, the middle toes prominent and splayed. Her forelimbs were stunted, even smaller in proportion than Stiletto's, with tiny, ineffectual paws. From the tip of her long tail to her pointed, flexible tube of snout, she was covered with fine mousy-brown fur. Her small, piggish eyes blinked rapidly in the sun; she was born to be a creature of night, but had adjusted her waking schedule to her "sibling." Despite her faint resemblance to a kangaroo, Frankie did not hop, but walked on her hind limbs with ballerina grace, using the long, flexible tail as a balance, much as Stiletto did.

Beyond the bipedal gait and long tail, Frankie and Stiletto parted evolutionary pathways radically. As Doc Henderson had confirmed, Frankie was of a line of mammals known only from fossils. No one had ever encountered them before on El Grande; the old plateau was still full of surprises. She had hatched from an egg only slightly smaller than Stiletto's--and she had hatched first. Her delicate long jaws carried sharp canine teeth, for hunting, but she would never outmatch a venator, or even a bobcat.

On Kahu Hidi, had her egg been left in place and the venator survived, Frankie would have hatched first, then killed and eaten her dinosaur siblings. She would then have departed the nest to live as a nocturnal hunter of small animals. Her species, as yet unnamed, relied on dinosaurs to raise their young--like cuckoos. Henderson guessed she would be about eight feet high when fully grown--a true mammalian marvel.