A Dawn of Mammals Collection Page 22

  “Too big.”

  “We could look for something similar. Maybe that’s part of their growth habit and we could find a smaller ring. Or a tighter one.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Split into two groups, or not, do you think?”

  Two groups could cover more ground, but in this dense jungle, she feared losing them. “One. Even then, let’s talk about marking your trail in a way you can retrace it.”

  She gave another lecture on marking a trail while the water filtered. When there was another bottle’s worth, she told Ted and Garreth to not drink from it and pass it on to the others. When Garreth looked surprised, she said, “We’re going to be staying here. We can drink our fill by the time they get back.”

  The others left to hunt for a campsite. As the sun rose past noon, the three of them worked on collecting clear water. “Is anyone feeling bad from drinking this? Cramps, diarrhea coming on?” she asked the two boys.

  They both shook their head. “Good. Let’s hope it stays that way.”

  She spent the time waiting for the water to filter by going through her pack, inventorying, and re-arranging things. While Garreth babysat the filtration process, she told Ted to take apart his tool belt and think through any new uses for the items on it. The tools had been selected for gathering small fossils. Rock hammer, dental picks, a small paintbrush, a small flat screwdriver, the tiny resin bottle. Tweezers, a couple of empty Altoids cans. The zippered plastic bags and labels for fossils. Most of the bags were tiny. She had a few larger ones in her backpack, but the assumption had been that they’d be picking up teeth for the most part, so the belts had only been packed with tiny bags.

  Ted had laid out his collection of stuff neatly on the ground. One by one, he picked each tool up and turned it around while he thought. He tested the balance of a few. Hannah looked around for predators every few minutes.

  After a careful inventory, Ted finally said, “Honest, I can’t think of anything at all.” He tossed the plastic bottle of dissolved plastic resin in the air. “Like this. What possible use is it?”

  It came to Hannah in a flash, the way such solutions often did. “It might close a wound. Like superglue.”

  Ted’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah, maybe. But wouldn’t the blood keep it from working? Just wash it away?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “If I could take a stitch or two, or put pressure on, elevate the arm or leg, I might slow the blood flow enough to apply it. With the acetone, it dries fast, though.”

  Garreth said, “Is acetone good for people?”

  “Probably not. Though girls use it to remove fingernail polish,” she said, “so it can’t be completely bad.”

  Ted said, “Or boys.”

  “Yeah, whoever. Poodles, probably,” she said, smiling at him. She liked Ted. She shouldn’t play favorites, but she liked some of the kids more than others. Claire, Ted, Garreth, and Zach were probably her favorites. The rest were fine. Nari’s timidity wore on her patience sometimes, and Dixie was irritating more times than not, and Laina was simply hard to figure out, but mostly it was a good group. And so far, considering the circumstances, they had held up admirably well.

  She wished she could say the same for herself. She no longer had the resiliency of youth and was feeling the burden of her responsibilities here. M.J.’s death was an extra weight that was hard to bear.

  Garreth said, “I have three empty bottles now.”

  “May as well do it,” Hannah said. She and Ted went back to the bank and she hung over again. She took up the first bottle, dunked it into the warm lake, and was about to pull it out when something splashed not a foot from her hand.

  She screamed, then yelled, “Pull me back, pull me back.” She was flexing her back, her arms in the air, hoping against hope some ancient lake monster wasn’t about to bite her head off, when she realized Ted was laughing.

  But he was pulling her back.

  “Did you throw a rock or something?” She twisted around and sat up as soon as she could, ready to light into him for being a practical joker. Her heart was pounding.

  “No,” he said, still laughing. “It was a fish. I saw it. Just a fish.”

  “Geez,” she said, rubbing her chest, where her heart’s pounding was making it ache.

  “You shrieked like a girl.”

  “I sort of am one,” she said. “And that’s sexist. And some fish have teeth.” But she could feel herself flush as she said it. She got control of herself and clamped down on her defensive urges. “Well, it’s a good news-bad news joke.”

  Garreth said, “How do you mean?”

  “Good news, there’s fish for dinner tomorrow if we can get a net set up. Bad news?” She shook her head. “I dropped the bottle.”

  Ted said, “We have more.”

  “Not enough,” she said. “Come on, get me back in there, and I’ll try to fish it up. But keep your eyes peeled, please, for whatever ate that horse.”

  That sobered him. She soon had herself perched over the water again, fishing around in the muck for the water bottle. Her wrist hit it, floating halfway between muddy bottom and surface, when her fingers in the mud touched a hard curved surface. Probably just a rock. But she grabbed it and pulled it up.

  She held a clam, or mussel, or maybe something else, a species long extinct. It was about the diameter of a golf ball. “Aha,” she said. “Dinner.”

  “What is it?”

  “A fresh water clam, I’m thinking.” She handed it over her shoulder to Ted and went back for the bottle. She got all three filled and capped, and said, “I need a break. My back is killing me.”

  “Lats,” said Ted, hauling her back onto the bank. “You’re doing reverse snow angels, just like the football coach has us do. That and planks. Looks simple, but it burns.”

  “Yep,” she said. She rolled over and lay on her back on the dirt bank, hugging her knees to her chest to relieve the strain.

  Ted said, “Why don’t you let me take over that part? You can hang onto me instead.”

  “I don’t want to put you at risk.”

  He snorted. “Look around, Hannah. We’re all at risk. Every minute.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “You talk like it’s your fault,” he said.

  “Maybe it is.”

  Garreth said, “No it’s not. We all walked through the timegate the first time. Everybody made that choice. No one got pushed through or dragged through.”

  Hannah said, “But I went through. If I would have held up, thought it out, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.”

  Garreth said, “Not followed M.J., you mean?”

  “Of course, then he would have died. Probably never come back, and we’d have never known.”

  “Hannah,” Garreth said, “he’s dead anyway.”

  And she’d as soon she hadn’t witnessed how. “But that doesn’t support the argument I should have followed him. It says I shouldn’t have. He’s dead anyway, and when I walked through, I started something. An exodus. And here we all are.”

  Garreth said, “You need to quit thinking of it like that. I don’t blame you. And I’m not 100% upset that I’m here.”

  “No?” She gave him a sad smile.

  Ted said, “Me neither. It’s interesting. I mean, I miss my family, and there are big things that could eat us and all.” He shrugged. “But in a way, it beats sitting at home and flipping through channels on the TV, having to settle on watching golf or poker.”

  Garreth said, “Don’t feel bad, Hannah, really. Sometimes stuff just happens.”

  She felt fractionally better. “I’m proud of both of you. And I’ll try not to feel bad. If I can keep every one of you alive, I’ll feel a whole lot better. So be careful, okay?”

  Garreth nodded.

  Ted said doubtfully, “I’ll try.”

  She had to laugh at that. It wasn’t his nature to hang back, that was for sure. “Let’s go over to the shallow bank and see if there are signs of clams over
there.”

  Ted said, “You sure? That thing might be hunting there.”

  “Take your spear,” she said.

  Garreth said, “I’m going to think about a fishing net. I think these vines will work as rope. It’s not like the grass, where we have to make our own. We only need to weave some vines into a grid, basically,” he said.

  She and Ted left Garreth with the water bottles and went around to the shallow place where the horses had been drinking. A buzz by her ear made her shy from it.

  “Dragonfly,” Ted said. “But look at it.”

  She turned to where he was pointing. It was something like a dragonfly, its wings iridescent in a patch of sunlight. But it was huge, the wingspan twice the size of her spread hand. “I hope it doesn’t sting.”

  “They don’t back home,” Ted said. “But I guess that doesn’t mean anything here.”

  “I wish—” She stopped herself. She had been about to say she wished M.J. were still here. But of course that was true. No sense dwelling on it.

  “What?” Ted said.

  She picked something else out of her long list of wishes and what-ifs. “That I’d taken home more books from the park library these past couple months. Maybe I’d know more about the flora and fauna of the time if I had.”

  “I bet dragonflies don’t fossilize.”

  “You’re right, they wouldn’t,” she said. “But there might be casts of them in mudstone.”

  “Mr. O’Brien taught us that we probably know nothing more than a fraction of the animals that were around. That we know more about 20,000 years ago. 20 million years ago, we’d know less. 200 million years ago, we probably don’t know one percent of what was around.”

  “Smart guy,” she said. “Keep your spear handy in case I get into trouble here.” She was hoping that she might see holes in the sand of the beach that suggested clams were there too, but there weren’t any. They were going to be in the water itself.

  She went up the bank to hunt for a digging tool. If she couldn’t find one in a few minutes, she’d use her knife and fingers. She dropped to her knees to look through a patch of vines at the base of a tree. Aha. A rock. She dug it out. Too round for digging, though.

  An inarticulate cry from Ted made her leap to her feet and turn. A—something. Alligator? Crocodile?—was halfway out of the water, and Ted had it pinned with the spear.

  “The spear is about to break!” he said.

  Chapter 7

  The animal was thrashing at both ends. It opened its mouth and turned to snap at Ted.

  “Let it go!” she said, as she ran for him.

  “It’s fast,” he yelled.

  She reached the standoff and scooted around, trying to distract the animal—neither alligator nor crocodile, she saw now. Something entirely different. About four feet long. It was whipping its tail furiously.

  “It’s about to let go,” said Ted. “The spear, I mean.”

  Hannah had a split second to decide. Get away from it? Or kill it?

  She circled it and scooted up to its hind end. As the tail reached its furthest curve , she jumped on it.

  Immediately, she could feel it trying to shake her off. Maybe this hadn’t been the right choice.

  “Knife,” Ted said, dancing out of the way of its snapping jaw.

  “Try to stand on its head!” she said, fishing out her knife.

  She really, really did not want to get on her hands and knees, but it would give her more strength behind her stabs. If it got loose, she’d be vulnerable down there.

  Better her than Ted.

  She dropped down and sat on the thing, clutching with her thighs, thinking crazily of rodeo riders. As she felt its muscled wet body twist under her, she used her teeth to get her knife blade out and raised it overhead, plunging it into the center of the creature, near the spear.

  It was tough hide, and the knife did not penetrate far. She raised her arm again and punched down even harder with the blade. This time, it cut into the creature an inch. And it writhed with even more force.

  Ted’s spear snapped in two.

  Garreth was up, running toward them and yelling.

  “Watch out!” she said.

  Ted had found purchase on the animal’s head, but it was strong, and he was fighting for his balance.

  Garreth ran up. “What can I do?”

  She had no idea. She kept stabbing the animal, and stabbing. Blood finally welled up from the wound.

  Ted said, “Find a big rock. Try to brain it.”

  She was aware of Garreth running back to the trees. It was all she could do to keep the animal from bucking her off. Her back was aching at the effort, and she was using both arms now to try and stab harder, which made her balance more precarious.

  Garreth came back dragging a thick branch. He shoved it into the creature’s face. It gave a powerful twist and she found herself rolling off. She saw Ted leap clear. Then the creature’s belly was exposed, nearly a white color, and she rolled back and went for that with the knife, plunging it in to the hilt. It slid in easily.

  Then the creature twisted again and rolled away, ripping her knife from her hands. “No!” she said.

  She was committed, now. No calling this fight a draw and letting it crawl back into the water. “It has my knife,” she said. “We need to kill it.”

  Garreth was deviling it with the branch, and it snapped at it and held on. Ted took the opportunity to jump in and grasp the jaws, wrapping his arms around them and holding them tight.

  The animal thrashed and rolled in fury. Ted held on.

  It rolled back her way and she grabbed her end, pinning the tail. The middle was arching into the air as it bucked.

  “Garreth, get my knife!” she said.

  He dropped the branch and ran toward her. “Where is it?”

  “In its belly.”

  He straddled the animal and when it turned, he took hold of the knife hilt. Instead of pulling it out, he grabbed it and yanked, pulling the knife along. A slit opened up in the belly and blood flowed out.

  “Losing my grip,” Ted said. “Too strong!”

  Garreth pulled harder. Then he yanked the blade out and plunged it in again.

  “Jump back!” Ted yelled, as he lost his grip on the jaws.

  The animal folded itself in half. The jaws were coming at Garreth.

  “Get away, Garreth!” she yelled at him.

  He scampered backward, as the jaws came closer and closer to Hannah’s own leg. “Uhhhh,” she said, watching the jaws open wide, the sharp teeth so close she could see the fine serrations. Like shark’s teeth.

  Ted dashed forward with the branch and stuck it in the open jaw.

  The thing bit down. The branch, as big around as her arm, snapped in two.

  Hannah bounded to her feet and jumped back. “Get back, get back!” she yelled to the boys. “Farther!”

  They all backed as far away as the little beach would allow them and watched as the bleeding animal thrashed another few seconds. Then, realizing it was free, it walked on fat, short legs back to the water’s edge and slid in.

  With a blurp, it was gone.

  Hannah leaned over, rested her hand on her knees, and just panted for thirty seconds. Then she straightened up and said, “Everyone okay?”

  “We’re alligator wrestlers!” said Ted, and he began to laugh. Garreth joined him and the two boys met for a high-five.

  Hannah began to laugh too, with crazy relief that it hadn’t turned out worse. “Tell me you have the knife.”

  “Right here!” said Garreth, raising it into the air. Blood dripped down the hilt and onto his hand.

  Hannah walked to the boys and collapsed, sitting there and trying to calm herself. “Maybe we should forget about the clams.”

  “It won’t come back now,” Ted said, grinning.

  “Maybe it has a big brother,” she said.

  “Oh.” That sobered him. “I’m not sure I want to wrestle a bigger alligator.”

 
“I don’t think it was one, actually.”

  “What was it?” Garreth asked.

  “I don’t know, but there’s nothing like it where we come from. Some extinct thing.” She remembered the shark’s teeth and wondered if it was related to them, or if it was some leftover dinosaur. “In fact, I want to get off this bit of beach,” she said. “In case it’s really amphibious.”

  “Makes you not want to put your hands back in the water, I bet,” Garreth said.

  “You have that right,” she said.

  Ted said, “It was my turn anyway.”

  “No,” she said. “I can’t let you do that. Not now.”

  “You can’t stop me,” he said, but not in a sneering teenage way, just matter-of-factly. “Look, the clams are pretty easy pickings, right?”

  That was true.

  “And we need to eat.”

  “Maybe I should build a fire,” said Garreth.

  Hannah, realizing that they had to eat tonight, sighed. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll dig for the clams I think are off the bank as soon as you two have better weapons. You’re my guards, okay?”

  “Should I keep the knife for now?” Garreth asked.

  “Absolutely.” If both her hands were in the water, pulling up clams, she would have no use for it.

  Ted said, “We’ll have your back. I promise.”

  “I trust you,” she said, which was no less than the truth. Nari and Rex were a bit more skittish, and Jodi was still a bit timid after her experience with being clawed by the saber tooth, but these two, she trusted. She knew they would step up to fight. Ted too much so, in fact. “But don’t risk yourself needlessly.”

  The two boys scavenged at the edge of the forest, collecting branches, rocks, and other potential weapons. While they piled them up in two weapon caches, Hannah took up the two ends of the broken spear to dig at the muddy lake bottom.

  For the next half-hour, she pulled clams—or maybe something else, but they looked like clams, and without M.J. alive to correct her, she settled on calling them that—out of the mud. The most nerve-racking part was when she dipped them back in to rinse them of mud. The two boys flanked her, weapons in hand, but nothing bothered her. Still, her hand shook the whole while.