Hi, kids! If you're coming over from the Boneyard, I should probably warn you that this isn't normally a paleo-blog (or any kind of science blog - it's really just a bunch of whinging) and isn't really suitable for any audiences. (If you've been here before, well; you're used to me by now.)


For The Boneyard, Edition #20 - Theme: Meeting a Prehistoric Creature - The Hills Have Ancient Eyes



_{Image: Dracorex hogwartsia, National Geographic, December 2007}


You know what your problem is? You don't just want to see wonderful things; you actually think you're going to find them - but there's nothing new under the sun, sweetheart. There are no more tombs, no lost worlds, no Loch Ness Monster. The sooner you accept that, the happier you'll be.

But that's why I moved out here, isn't it? Out West, where there are still wild places and endless skies and room to breathe. Room to believe.

Of course, they were right - I didn't find a damned thing. Just barren desert and the blazing sun and a new block of condominiums going up over that ridge. But when you've sold half your life, packed up the rest, and dragged it two and a half thousand miles for a pay cut the size of a Texas tax break, there's not much you can do about it unless you strike gold - and I certainly haven't yet.

Well, maybe I'm lying. I did get one good thing out of all this, and that's Polly - my Appaloosa. Around here, you've almost got to have a horse - or twelve. There are just too many places cars can't go - if it's not too rocky, it's too narrow, and if it's not too narrow, it bogs down on the one day of the year it actually rains - and if you're not bogged down, there's a good chance you're just broken. You can't cut a cow with a car, either - or so I'm told. It sure isn't part of my job to try. Theoretically, I'm a writer. Granted, I haven't touched my novel in months. These days, I'm sending reviews to a travel rag back home - restaurants, dude ranches, the open road. I'd be ashamed to admit it to the cowhands next door - they're convinced I'm nothing but a city slicker as it is - but it pays the bills, and it gives me an excuse to spend most of the day with Polly and the dogs.

Polly's a good girl - she's only ten, so she ought to have some good years left in her, but she's seen enough that nothing short of a bomb would phase her - and I'm not sure she wouldn't still be standing afterwards; herding the cockroaches and wondering when the Twinkies are coming. Before I bought her, she belonged to one of those cowhands I was talking about - she didn't quite have the spunk to be a cutting horse, but she's a doll on the trails. Terrific feet, too - never had so much as a cracked hoof.

There aren't many places that a horse can't go in these parts, but there's one that they won't - if you take the main trail into the hills, eventually, you'll come to a fork. Following the right branch brings you back to the valley. Go far enough, and you'll find the picnic tables the Lay-Zee Dayz Ranch set up for their Family Fun Package. The left just keeps climbing before it peters off. The horses get antsy well before that point, though - supposedly, they're picking up the scent of wolves, but there hasn't been a wolf in Dandy Valley in a hundred years. The ranchers wiped them out when they started practicing a firm policy of It's comin' right for us! It wasn't long before the coyotes and the mountain lions followed them into extinction - I really can't remember the last time I saw so much as a fox. Even the buzzards are gone, looking for the promised land where roadkill still bakes in the sun.

It's sad, really.

Mind you, Nature takes her share from our side, too - there are a dozen smaller trails that branch off from the main forks, and a dozen more from those, and by the time you realize you're riding a dried-up riverbed instead of a man-made road, it's too late. About three years ago, a couple of kids died trying to get up Wolf Ridge - nobody thought they'd go where the horses wouldn't, and it was days before they found the bodies. They blocked it off after that - or tried to, anyway. Jeb Drahler broke his ankle dragging a two-by-four up the peter-off, and that put a damper on the party. In the end, they settled for a chain at the fork and went into town for a beer to celebrate a job well done.

So I was more than a little freaked out the day I realized I was in a creekbed. The best you can hope for at that point is that if you follow it down, you'll come out in the inhabited part of the valley. Those creeks twist through the hills and drop into ravines, though, and if you don't freeze once the sun goes down, you're just as likely to end up in the desert as the ranchland. There's not much alternative, though - it was six o'clock on a Friday, and when you work from home, no one notices if you don't show up on Monday.

It was almost a relief when Polly started acting up. Without a snake in the vicinity - and I checked - there was only one thing that could account for it: We were on the far side of Wolf Ridge. As long as I kept it to the left of us, eventually, we ought to find our way alright. We might have to ride the rough, but she's a sure-footed little thing and I didn't think she'd lead me wrong. Even so, I decided to dismount until we passed the ridge - she wasn't going without being pulled, and I didn't want her to mis-step if she was panicked. I wasn't worried about the possibility of being eaten alive - like I said, there'd have to be something to eat me, first.

Turkeys. That's what I read a while back, isn't it? The size of turkeys. I remember how unimpressed I was with that - or maybe I was just disappointed. But damned if that isn't exactly right, because my first thought was, What the hell are a pack of mad turkeys doing in Dandy Valley?

"You," I sad to the Velociraptor, "are not supposed to exist anymore."

I knew the thought was wrong as soon as it settled - Velociraptors were from the Asian branch of the family; like that mail-order bride of Jeb's. They weren't big enough to be Deinonychus, though - which let Utahraptor right out, too - and I couldn't think of many other American options at all, unless -

Great. I finally find the lost world, and it's full of Bambiraptors.



_{Image: Bambiraptor skeleton, Wikipedia Commons}


The Bambiraptor didn't say much - just cocked its head and stared right back at me, and made a sort of funny chirrup that reminded me more of a cat I used to have than anything else. Not the sort of sound I'd expect a dinosaur to make, anyway - if I'd ever thought much about what sort of sound I'd expect a dinosaur to make.

Once I managed to get a better look at it, I could tell that it really wasn't so much of a turkey after all - the feathers were there, alright; but not the sort of feathers that fall from the wings of eagles or crows or even a chicken - they were more akin to a duckling's down; a smooth layer of fluff in shades of sandy brown and mesa red. And that body - it was too sleek, too elongated, to belong to anything in the modern Aves; let alone the realm of poultry. It didn't even strike me as particularly reptilian; if by reptilian, we're speaking of geckos or monitors or crocodiles. There's nothing in the world that looks like a dinosaur but a dinosaur, and this...looked like a dinosaur.

That was about the time I started wondering if Polly had in fact toppled into a ravine and I'd hit my head on the nearest sharp rock; but honestly, the times I've fallen off - and I've fallen off in some stupid ways doing stupid things - I've always remembered it. Even when I spent a perfectly good Saturday night in the ER waiting to find out if I had a concussion. (I did.) I didn't remember it then, though, and given that the sun was going down and I didn't see a white light replacing the darkness, I also didn't think I was dead. I'm not sure why there'd be dinosaurs in Heaven, anyway; unless it was a Heaven tailored specifically for me - and then I would have expected Johnny Depp to show up, too. There wasn't a pirate to be found, though - just a pack of undersized dromaeosaurs, as surprised to see me as I was them.

I counted five; three that came just up to my knee and two that were slightly smaller. Sexual dimorphism? Juveniles? I couldn't tell, and there was no way I was sticking my hand up a raptor's cloaca to test for the former. Still, I couldn't resist getting close enough that I could have tried.

Now, I'm not normally the sort of girl who goes around poking wild animals. I have more respect for them - and their defenses - than that. But how often do you get the chance to do some hands-on research with a dinosaur? Well, let me tell you what I learned, kids - those little Bambiraptors? They'd do just fine even without sickle claws. Those teeth are sharp.

I don't think it wanted to hurt me, honestly. I suspect it could have done some real damage if it had wanted to. It was a test bite, like sharks supposedly take when they've mistaken humans for prey. Fortunately, it wasn't the great white of the dromaeosaurids, or I'd be typing with one hand now. It hurt like hell, though, and I wasn't sure I wanted to stick around now they'd had the taste of blood. I backed off until they vanished around a curve and led Polly on home.

All that week, though, I kept looking at the bandage on my hand and thinking about how it got there. Those critters up on Wolf Ridge, that shouldn't have been there any more than the wolves. The bandage was real, though - and so was what was under it - and that meant they had to be. Somehow, they'd defied all logic and all odds - the great extinctions and sixty million years of continued evolution. Was it their size? Had they been able to hide in tiny caverns inaccessible to the larger beasts, to blend in with mammals on the rise? Or was it something even more absurd - a rift in time?

Were they the only ones? And if not, what else was out there?

The next Friday, I picked up three pounds of stew beef from the butcher, threw Polly's picket line into my pack, and headed off for Wolf Ridge via the far end of the valley. I'd made a mark on a boulder at the base of the trail we finally took down, and once I found that, I staked Polly out in the shade of the hill and started to climb.

I must have spent three hours combing those hills. This time, I took a piece of chalk so I could leave myself a map home - but I still didn't want to be out there after dark, and the shadows were stretching long. I was just about to turn around when I heard that odd, familiar chirrup.

They were on a ledge just above my head, peering down with those black-and-gold eyes and sniffing the air. Smelling the meat, no doubt. I turned the pack up and let it slop onto the ground, paper and all, and waited to see what would happen.

They were down like a shot, as agile as any mountain goat. The largest of the five leapt from its perch, while the rest picked their way down the slope. I figured they'd go for the easy meal, but it didn't stop me from taking a step back regardless - seeing something like that coming at you - it evokes something instinctual. Something primal.



_{Image: Dilong paradoxus, National Geographic News}


It didn't take long at all for them to devour the beef, and I started wondering if I'd brought enough after all - and what I'd do if I hadn't. When the last of it had been lapped from the ground, though, they settled down; licking their claws and combing their coats.

I didn't push them - just hovered in the near distance, letting them get used to the idea of me. I couldn't have stayed much longer, anyway - I'd cut it close enough as it was, and I had to get home. But I was out there again the week after that, and the one after that, and eventually, the leader of the pack let me put my hand out without taking it off. Once he - she? - accepted me, the rest were no contest. I don't know if they thought I was a funny-looking featherless raptor or had just decided I was no threat, but whatever the reason, it seemed I had a new set of friends.

As many times as I've touched them, now, I'll never forget the day I first got a hand into those feathers. They weren't quite as akin to down as I'd thought - they were soft, sure, but they reminded me more of a terrier's fur than a baby bird - or even an adult. There's that flexible stiffness to them, that oiliness that doesn't actually come off on your fingers; but they don't lay flat the way real feathers do. They're not so vaned, not so sleek. They even have a tiny bit of a wave, as if Bambi had a prehistoric perm. And they're warm - just like something you'd bring into your house and let sleep at the foot of your bed. Don't get me wrong; I wouldn't recommend them as pets - but they're not bad little critters. Not bad at all.

It was an even bigger thrill to find the nest - I followed them through a crevice I was afraid I'd have to be buttered to get out of, but on the other side, I slid into a basin in the sun - almost into the nest itself. It was piled with dry grass and creekbed rocks, and in the center, there were ten perfectly-oval eggs. I took a tap of the topmost - watching over my shoulder all the while, in case mamasaur decided I was there for lunch - and it was hard, almost ready to hatch. It was all I could do to keep from shouting to the mesatops - I felt like I'd laid them myself. The next time I came up, I brought a celebratory feast of pork and lamb.

That was the day I found out there are wolves on the ridge after all. Release program. Damnedest thing, isn't it? The researchers dropped them off a hundred miles away, and somehow, they ended up here. It's all the cattle, I guess. Easy pickings.

I don't actually know how many there were, or are. The one I found was dead when I got there - they'd torn it up pretty well, which makes me think there must have been at least two: One for the pack to leap on in defense of their own, and one to pick them off as they took the first down. I don't know what the actual odds on are a Bambiraptor/grey wolf showdown, but that's the only way I can see it playing out to that end.

If I'd ever thought I had a broken heart before - nah. Ben dumping me for that cheerleader on prom night was nothing compared to this. Now I know how the mothers of sick children feel, watching their babies die. Oh, maybe they weren't human, but they were my babies nonetheless - my Bambis. And there wasn't a damned thing I could do but hold the one still breathing and wait for it to stop, too. The other three there were already gone, and the last - I don't know what happened to her, but I'm sure it wasn't good.

I went home and borrowed a gun from the cowhands next door - coyote roaming around my land; worried about my horse - and took it straight into the hills. Honestly, I didn't know if I'd be able to shoot a wolf if I saw it - I'm just not that kind of girl, either - but that was alright. I wasn't really there to shoot wolves. I'd taken something else up there with me, too - and when I slid out of the crevice and into the nest, I put every last egg into a fleece-lined pouch and brought them home.

It was two in the morning when they finally decided to show themselves to the world. If you've ever seen a baby eagle, they're about that ugly - squinty-eyed and half-covered in fuzz, and cheeping to beat the band. I could hear them even before the first broke through the shell. I didn't want to give them too much help - if they can't get out of the egg, how will they ever manage in the world? - but in the end, I couldn't stand and started peeling off shell as soon as the egg teeth poked through. I wrote it off as doing my part to preserve an endangered species. Of course, they don't put out manuals for the care and feeding of extinct species, and there was a lot of trial and error involved the first few days. At least being - well, sort of like birds - you can hazard a guess that they're going to do alright on pureed versions of their parents' food, and not have to worry about whether or not you got the fat content of the milk right - but I was up every two hours with the blender, the daily delivery of meat (I got some strange looks from the butcher boy, let me tell you). and a hand puppet.

I did lose one - thought my heart was breaking all over again - but the rest grew up alright. When they started eyeing the dogs more than what the puppet was puking up, I realized the time had come to let them go. I couldn't keep nine carnivorous dinosaurs on my half-acre - Bambi-sized or not - and I sure couldn't let them run wild on the ranchers' land. As soon as they started taking cows down, they'd be shot - and then all sorts of hell would break loose. The only thing to do was take them up to Wolf Ridge. I hated to do it, but I kept telling myself they'd been up there for longer than my entire species had been alive. Somehow, they'd always managed before - and with a pack of nine, they'd have a better chance of driving off the wolves -

Right?

I bought a few chickens for practice hunts, just to make sure they knew what they were doing - let 'em give chase at night, where they wouldn't be seen. Up in the hills, they'd more likely be after rabbits, but I didn't think I could bring myself to watch that. A half-billion years of evolution produces some vicious, vicious instincts, and it's a shock to see them in action for the first time - but at least I knew they'd be alright.

I had to smuggle them up in baskets just before dawn. That was the hardest the going's ever been, and not just because I didn't really want to. I needed both hands to climb and had a basket in either, and every time I had to resort to hauling them up via a rope, the critters inside took to chirping and flapping like their world was coming to an end.

I let them go on the far side of the ridge, on the slope where I first met their parents. I sat out there until the sun was overhead, letting them get used to the idea of the wild the way the wild had once gotten used to me, and then I got up to go. I was afraid they'd follow me - and one or two of them did - but there's so much out there - it's not hard to distract a young creature experiencing the world for the first time.

It still hurt.

Sometimes, I wonder if I did the right thing. Not in rescuing the eggs, but in keeping them a secret. There are scientists whose entire careers would be made if they had an opportunity like this - and maybe if people knew that there are still things to be found in this world, they'd do more looking. If there are any more secrets hidden in the hills, they'd finally come to light. The mysteries of the ages. The eons.

But for every person with good intent...there are just too many without. The hills would be crawling with government agents and unscrupulous researchers, and hunters looking for a new trophy to hang on the wall. It's better this way. I know, but if I'm the only one - then the secret will die with me, and the Bambiraptors will live on.

They remember me, you know. I still go up once in a while, just to check on them, and they always come skittering down to meet me with a chirrup and a nip.

My babies. My Bambis.



_{Image: Mahakala omnogovae, Mational Geographic News}

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