A Dawn of Mammals Collection Read online

  She took Jodi and Zach with her to hunt for springs, back near the plateau where they had landed after the timegate brought them here. The rest of the people, including Bob, she left with Rex and told them to get a net done by early afternoon. “We’ll all go fishing later.” She assumed it was going to take some hours of trial and error to catch any fish with it.

  It took her an hour to get her group back to the plateau. “I wonder if it’s worth tearing away some of these vines from our path,” she said as they emerged from the dense forest, “to make this trip easier from now on.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” Jodi said.

  “They may grow back faster than we can cut them down.”

  “You need a whatchamacallit. Machete,” said Zach.

  “And a rifle and a pair of binoculars and a shovel and a good honing stone,” Hannah said.

  “And a Subway sandwich shop, like right there on the plateau,” Jodi said, pointing.

  “That’s right, dream big,” Hannah said, laughing.

  “What does it take to make bread, anyway?” Zach asked.

  “Grain to start with. I think we’re walking through a world that had no grain.” She pointed ahead to a wall of rocks. “So, we’re looking for damp rocks on that face. If you see a darker patch, that might be a place to start.”

  Zach said, “Don’t we need a trickle of water?”

  “A damp patch is probably enough of a sign, if we can knock out rocks and let the water flow more.” She said, “Stick together, and don’t forget, keep looking around for danger.”

  “Mr. O’Brien said there weren’t going to be any big animals,” Jodi said.

  “Not that we know of from fossils. Or that he remembers. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any.”

  “And there’s that huge bird he talked about,” Zach said.

  Hannah had quizzed Bob about what he knew about it, the Gastornis, out of hearing of the kids. He didn’t know much more, but he did know its nickname:

  Terror Crane.

  It was not a comforting piece of information.

  For an hour, they circled the plateau, keeping to the part that had been too steep to climb down. The vines underfoot fought them. Hannah caught sight of a different fern species and pointed it out. “If you see one curled up, a new frond, a fiddlehead, tell me.” She couldn’t assume that because both ferns they’d tried were safe to eat that they all would be. Each one would have to go through the testing process. And they couldn’t live on ferns alone. She hoped the fishing net would work, and soon.

  But now her worry wasn’t food but water—safer water that didn’t involve risking sticking your arms into the maw of the crocogator.

  “Have you ever thought,” she said aloud, “that it doesn’t really matter what we call the animals? With M.J. gone, we don’t know the right names. It’s possible there were no fossil specimens of most of what we’re seeing. It’s really random, the name we assign an animal or plant, anyway. We may as well name them A, B, C, as we encounter them.”

  “You sound like my cousin Johnny who smokes pot every day,” Jodi said.

  Hannah laughed. “I guess I might.”

  “Except you should have sounded more mystical and said ‘wow’ at least twice.”

  “I’ll do better next time I get philosophical,” she promised.

  “Is that a shadow? Or are the rocks wetter right there?” Zach said, pointing to a spot that had morning shade and an abundance of ferns.

  Hannah walked toward the spot. “I think it’s both.” When they hit the patch of shade, she reached her hand out and touched the rock. Definitely wet. Sniffing her fingers, she nodded. There was no distinct odor. “So far, so good.” She always wore the heavy fossil collections belt, and from there she pulled out an empty Altoids container and pressed it up against the rock, tilting it one way and then another until a few drops began to trickle in.

  “So it’s water?” asked Zach.

  “Well, duh. I don’t think the rock is peeing,” Jodi said.

  They both snorted.

  Hannah said, “Is one of you watching our backs? I can’t do that and this too.”

  “Sorry,” Zach said.

  Jodi said, “It’s easy to forget.”

  “I know,” Hannah reassured her. “I do sometimes too.”

  “So why don’t you bang out some rocks and make it flow harder? Isn’t that what you said you’d do?”

  “Until I know it’s okay, there’s no reason to spend the energy.” Survival was still a calorie game, as it had been for most of human existence. They couldn’t spend zero calories over their base metabolic needs because they had to hunt and gather, but they were taking in too few for what survival work required they expend.

  Nowhere was this inequality in calories more obvious than with Jodi. She had dropped a lot of weight, probably two sizes. They all had slimmed down, but it showed most on her. But in this world, that wasn’t good news. Nobody was going to be a fashion model—not even Dixie, whose skimpy, poorly made clothes were looking the worse for wear. They’d simply become more and more unhealthily thin. Skeletal.

  Or literally skeletons.

  The tiny can was finally half-full. “Here goes nothing,” she said, tilted her head back, and drank it. It tasted fine, actually. Maybe a bit of iron taste?

  “Can we have some?” Zach said.

  “After we’re sure I don’t keel over. Or get the runs.”

  “How lo—”

  A cry from the terror crane came from the trees—from far too close for comfort.

  Chapter 11

  Hannah ducked involuntarily while the kids froze.

  Jodi looked at her, eyes wide. Zach looked at the trees.

  Hannah held her finger to her lips. The ferns were tall here, and the area of the spring shaded. She reached for Zach’s shirt and tugged until he looked back. “Get down,” she mouthed.

  She tugged the kids around until they were flush against the rock, then patted the air, indicating they should crouch down.

  The scream came again, like something out of a monster movie, part hawk, part elephant, part creature from the bowels of Hell. Hannah arranged the ferns so they hid Zach and Jodi entirely, then crowded as close to them as she could. She could feel the dampness from the rock spring seep through her shirt.

  She was about to shift when, from out of the trees ahead, stepped the biggest bird she had ever imagined seeing. No, strike that. She had never imagined this. She had known, intellectually, that birds like bluebirds and crows were avian dinosaurs, after sixty million years of evolution had its way with them. But this bird? One look, and you didn’t doubt that relationship at all.

  It was as tall as a double-decker bus. It raised a foot and showed three fat claws, not long and sharp, but dense, gleaming black like obsidian.

  Taking another step, it hit a patch of sunlight and its crest feathers shone with iridescence, like a peacock’s, almost. It was blue, and had naked thick legs with textured skin that reminder her of a chicken’s. Kill one of these, and that’d be one heck of a roast chicken dinner.

  Odds were that it’d kill her first.

  Its eye had red feathers around it, and it tilted its head, looking for food—looking for her, in fact, if she did not stay perfectly still. Crazily, the saying “the early bird gets the worm” ran through her head, but she’d never imagined that from the worm’s perspective before. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling being the worm.

  The long neck swept down as the terror crane went for something in the vines. Animal? Insect? Flower? Berry? Hannah had no way of knowing. And she didn’t care, as long as it wasn’t her.

  The bird continued to hunt through the vines and ferns, making its way along the edge of the trees at first, but then drifting into the middle of the low-growing area.

  Hannah’s legs were starting to shake from the strain of squatting against the rock, but she made herself remain perfectly still, counting on the shadow to hide her. Even though its head was three-quart
ers turned away now, she knew birds could often see almost 360 degrees. And they were great at seeing movement.

  So stay perfectly still.

  It continued to hunt, stepping along slowly. Or rather, it was slowly for the bird, but its pace was so long, it covered the ground quickly. From Hannah’s left to her right, it walked along, browsing for its breakfast. It passed their position, and it moved on.

  She waited until it had disappeared from sight before standing and easing the strain on her legs. Taking no chance, she leaned down to the patch of ferns and whispered, “I think we’re okay, but be quiet a while longer.”

  Zach and Jodi both stirred, probably stretching out the kinks. Hannah did the same, and then retied her boots in case she had to run.

  Jodi whispered, “Is it still gone?”

  “Yeah,” Hannah said. “You can stand up, I think, but quietly.”

  After another five minutes had passed without incident, Zach said, “Does it fly?”

  Hannah shrugged.

  Jodi said, “It doesn’t need to.”

  “What do you mean?” Zach asked.

  “Flying has to be either an adaptation to avoid becoming prey, or a way to find prey, right?”

  “I guess,” Zach said.

  “I’ve been thinking about it a lot this past month. Evolution, I mean, and how and why it happens. Here’s what I think. Like the ground is too crowded, so members of the species who can jump or glide or somehow stay up there get more food at that level. And because they eat better, they have more babies, and eventually flight happens, and the ones who fly get even more food—or maybe are able to get out of the way of predators better. So they have even more babies.”

  “Maybe,” said Zach, frowning.

  Hannah was keeping her eye out for the return of the terror crane. She realized the subtle sounds of the forest had returned to normal—and only then did she realize that the terror crane’s passage had startled everything into silence. Now the small creatures were going back about their normal ways. That reassured her more than anything that the predator bird was safely past.

  Jodi said, “So anyway, it’s the biggest, meanest thing around. It doesn’t have competition, or a serious predator. So it doesn’t need to fly. Flying must take a lot of energy. If you can get away without doing it, then wouldn’t it make sense for evolution to erase it when it isn’t needed any longer?”

  Hannah said, “It probably can’t fly, I agree. Physics limits how big a thing can be and still fly. It didn’t have huge wings, did you notice?”

  Zach said, flushing, “I was trying not to look, to be totally honest.”

  She smiled at him. “I understand the urge.”

  “Like a kid,” he admitted. “You close your eyes, and maybe the scary thing won’t be there when you open them again.”

  Jodi’s face was a study in thought. She was typically quick to a silly joke, and Hannah was grateful for that, for there were times they needed comic relief. But it made it easy to forget she was smart too, just like the rest of them. Jodi looked up at Hannah and said, “If it can’t fly, all we’d need to do to stay away from it is to get up on the plateau. Right?”

  Hannah looked behind her. It might be climbable, but she’d hate to have to try it fast, with clunky hiking boots on. To Jodi she said, “Good point.” She checked her watch. “I think we should go.”

  Zach said, “Is it safe?”

  “It’s never safe,” Jodi said. “Is it, Hannah?”

  “No. Not entirely.” The words made her feel two opposite things: relief that it was sinking in, that the kids were beginning to really understand that the world was dangerous, and that they needed to stay vigilant. And at the same time, she felt sad they had to think like that. It was an anxiety-producing way to live, and very far away from the life they had been living just five weeks ago.

  All three walked while turning now and again to check every possible direction, and they made their way quietly across the expanse of vines and ferns and into the shadows of the trees, breathing easier when they were in the shadowed areas. Hannah stopped them, turned, and pointed back at the bit of rock where they’d found the running water. “We need to memorize that spot, so we don’t lose it,” she said. “So you both come up with landmarks, a way to recognize it again, even at a different time of the day, when the shadows are different.”

  Then, darting in and out of the trees at the edge of the woods, they made their way back to the trail they’d marked, and back to the campsite.

  Everyone was there.

  Bob said, “Success?”

  “Yes.”

  Garreth said, “We saved a bottle of water for you.” He handed her a twenty-ounce bottle, and she gratefully drank a third of it before passing it to Jodi.

  As Jodi was drinking, Zach said, “We saw the terror crane. The bird that screams.”

  He took the bottle from Jodi, who started telling the story. “It was like the size of a delivery van, if you put it on its end,” she said.

  Everyone had questions, and Hannah let Jodi and Zach answer them. As the kids discussed the bird, her and Bob’s eyes met across the circle. He raised his eyebrows, a question she didn’t understand. She’d have to grab a moment alone with him later.

  After the discussion about the terror crane had grown repetitive, she said, “Is the fishing net ready?”

  Rex had been sitting quietly. Now he stood and said, “Yeah. And I’m really interested to see if it works. We might have to adjust a thing or two.”

  “Great,” Hannah said. “So we’d better get to it, if we plan on having supper tonight for a change.”

  Jodi said, “Always better than being had for supper tonight.”

  Zach said, “Not funny.”

  Jodi smiled at him. “It kinda is.”

  Chapter 12

  As they hiked to the lake, Hannah found herself walking just in front of Garreth, Nari and Dixie.

  Garreth said, “Don’t worry about the bird, Dixie. I bet it won’t attack us.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  Garreth, sounding deflated, said, “Well, no. I guess not.” He took a deep breath—audible even to Hannah. “If you ever need help, just yell. I’ve got your back.”

  “Not Nari’s?” The tone was sneering.

  “Of course. I mean, everybody’s. But I was watching you. You know, when Jodi was talking? You looked scared.”

  “Quit watching me. That’s creepy. I don’t want you to.”

  Hannah slowed, and Dixie pushed past her, Nari trotting in her wake. She glanced back and saw Garreth standing there, his face a mask of hurt. Hannah dropped to one knee and re-tied a bootlace, waiting for him to get control of himself. She glanced up again, and he was turned around, staring behind himself.

  Gosh, was the poor kid crying?

  Hannah cleared her throat. She had no idea what to say to him. “You’re worth more than a hundred Dixies” came to mind, but he wouldn’t believe it. So she just said, “Don’t fall behind, Garreth,” and turned and began walking slowly forward.

  When she heard his footsteps behind her, she sped up to catch up with the last of the group, turning once to make sure he was speeding up. But she kept her look brief, to allow him more privacy to school his features before the others saw him.

  They all had little enough privacy anyway. She hoped no one else had heard his moment of humiliation.

  At the bank, Rex was already setting up. They had tried some net fishing—nets made from cordage of grass—back in the Oligocene, so they already had some trial and error under their belts. But this was different. They weren’t going to stretch a net across a running stream, but toss it off the shore and haul it back in, a more difficult proposition.

  This time, Rex and his helpers had woven a net about fifteen feet wide of vines. It was only six feet high, and the bottom edge was weighted with stones. He handed out four long branches, forked at the end.

  “What are those for?” Hannah asked.

 
“We need to pull it in somehow,” Rex said, “And Mr. O’Brien pointed out we couldn’t just let two people wade into the water to do it. Not with those predators in there.”

  “So you’re going to try and hook it with those?”

  “Yeah.” Rex scratched the back of his neck. “Not confident it’ll work, but we have to do something first—and probably fail—to come around to the method that will work.”

  “Great attitude,” she said. She looked around. “Claire, what do you have there?”

  “Fishing pole.” She reached into her tool belt and pulled out a fossil collection bag that was full of dirt. She gave it a gentle shake. “And a couple worms or larvae, and a cricket-ish thing. For bait.” She pointed to the patch of beach where they’d fought off the crocogator. “I’ll cast there.”

  “Be careful.” Hannah looked around and saw that several people didn’t have jobs yet. “In fact, I want you to have a couple of guards, with spears.”

  Laina said, “I’ll do that.”

  Rex had picked out a team of six. “I’ll direct this, and help wherever I’m needed.”

  Bob said, “I’ll help guard Claire.” He pointed at the net team, his finger drifting to aim at each one. “And all of you, be careful. I don’t want anyone falling in that water.”

  Hannah positioned herself to watch the net team and the others. She’d be ready to run and help whoever needed it. One good thing you could say about the terror crane: at that size, it was unlikely to sneak up on them, so the danger to watch out for would probably come from the water, not from the trees.

  Still, she glanced at the trees from time to time. She didn’t want to get surprised by some new danger.

  Rex had two people hold on to longer vines that trailed out of two unweighted corners of the net. Three people gathered up the weighted part of the net and stood at the very edge of the high bank, ready to throw it out. “On three,” he said, and counted.

  Not quite simultaneously, the three people tossed out the weighted part of the net. It splashed into the water, hardly six feet from the bank.

  “Don’t let the top droop under the water,” Rex said. “Walk back, you two. Keep it up higher.”