Dinosaur Lake (2 page)

“What creature?” Henry was smiling.

“Oh, the serpent creature…the one that lives in the lake? My friend, Martha, was here last summer and she told me she saw this…
thing
…swimming in the lake one night. Looked sort of like a huge snake, only with a shorter neck and a fatter body. She swore it was greenish in color, and scaly. A water serpent. Just like that thing in Loch Ness, only smaller. Loch Ness, in Scotland, you know?”

Henry could only nod. He couldn’t believe the woman was going on and on about a lake monster. There were no such things. Into his mind stomped the image of Godzilla climbing out of Crater Lake, spiked tail swinging and beady marble eyes scowling as it frantically waved around its tiny, clawed front arms. Henry had to stop himself from laughing.

“My friend said the creature nearly scared her to death. She’d gotten separated from the rest of her tour group exploring Wizard Island, and saw the thing in the water off shore. It circled three times glaring at her. She was terrified it was going to come up on land after her. She wasn’t the only one who saw it, either. Herman, her boyfriend, saw it, too.”

“Did she get a photograph of it?”

“Well, no. She was so scared she forgot all about her camera, and by the time she remembered the creature was long gone. She said it was really fast.”

All eyes were on Henry. He didn’t know what to say. Was the woman a crack-pot, or what? She seemed normal enough, no drooling or twitches, but one could never tell.

He sighed, trying not to appear rude. “Ma’am, as far as I know there is no serpent, no huge creature of any variety in Crater Lake. And believe me, if there was one, I’d be the first to know it,” he insisted, with a casual shrug. “One of my rangers would have seen and reported it long before this. They patrol the lake every day.”

The woman grunted in a dismissive way, didn’t say anything else, but her eyes kept squinting out at the water from under her raised palm. The sun was beginning to set in all its splendor. The whole park was bathed in a mist of golden pinks and yellows. Clouds raced across the sky like candy-colored wisps of cotton.

What bizarre things people can come up with, Henry thought.

With an amused smile, he turned and started to lead the group back down the mountain when the ground began to shake, the trees around them swayed violently and the earth heaved beneath their feet. From far off came the sound of crashing rock and distant screams. Henry barely had time to steady himself against a rock and to see the panic in his tour group’s eyes before the quake was over–as suddenly as it had begun.

He quickly checked on his charges. No one seemed hurt. No real injuries though everyone was shaken up and frightened.

Relieved, the ranger hoisted up some of the visitors from the ground where’d they’d fallen or had simply plunked down in surprise. While they brushed off, he apologized for the unusual and unfortunate occurrence. Then, to get their mind off any aftershocks, exclaimed, “I think that’s the last of it. It was only a slight earth tremor, folks. No danger at all. So why don’t we just keep on moving? Hot chocolate and a nice warm fire’s waiting for you down at the lodge. Our treat.”

As swiftly as he could, without starting a full-blown stampede, he herded them down the trail towards the lodge. Waiting for the big one to hit. Praying it wouldn’t.

He wondered how bad the damage below the rim was this time.

They were a third of the way down when the guy with the beard spied something in the middle of the path. He bent down and snatched up an object in his hands, abruptly careening off through the bushes towards a wall of crumbling rock that hadn’t been there on their way up.

“Well, would you look at this,” the man shouted over his shoulder. “The earth has split open. There are bones all over the place–animal bones of some kind. They’re too big to be human.” The man’s voice drifted off into silence, as something else caught his attention.

The crowd, lemmings, followed.

Henry nudged through the park visitors and strode up to the bearded man as the guy leaned over something on the broken ground. He wanted the man to rejoin the group and get going again. Besides, he was concerned about Ann, his daughter, Laura, and granddaughter, Phoebe. He hoped Ann had made it home from work before the earthquake had hit. The thought of her caught out alone somewhere on the winding roads with the earth tossing around her and night coming, made him uneasy.

“What are they?” Henry asked.

“Don’t have a clue to what they are.” The bearded man stood up, dusting the dirt from his hands, the interest fading from his eyes quickly. “But they’re damn big, that’s for sure. Maybe bear bones?”

“Maybe,” Henry speculated, staring at the huge bones strewn about on the ground and embedded in the wall of crumbling earth, trying not to let his shock show. He’d seen plenty of bear bones before and what was in front of him were bigger than any bear bones he’d ever seen. The earthquake must have uncovered them. Must have split the earth open. Whatever they were, they were well-preserved, nearly perfect specimens. For a second, he believed he might be looking at a prehistoric graveyard, full of ancient dinosaur fossils. A remarkable find. Then, reality returned.
Dinosaur fossils?
Impossible!

The man who’d discovered the bones glanced up at the sky. “I guess we should get back, huh? Who cares about a bunch of old bones, anyway?” He strode away from Henry and didn’t look back. The others wandered away. They were too shaken up over the earthquake, too eager to get off the rim, to care about dirty bones.

Disbelief muffled Henry’s reaction as he glanced at the protruding white bones, but caution silenced his tongue. It was better that he voiced none of his suspicions. He wanted time to come back and have a better look. Until then he’d keep it to himself. Could they really be dinosaur fossils?

Henry had been obsessed with dinosaurs as a kid and had read every book about them he could find. He’d been a shy, fat child with no brothers or sisters and few friends. Most of his time was spent alone, reading books and living either in a far distant future or in a Jurassic dream world.

He’d collected and built model dinosaurs, as well, of every species unearthed. He thought of all the dinosaur movies he’d sat through, all the museums he’d haunted, the countless pictures of fossils he’d studied in books. Though he wasn’t an expert on the subject by any means, he knew a great deal more than most amateurs.

For years his ambition had been to become a paleontologist, go on digs around the world. The dream of a child. That was before he’d grown up and had somehow, one day, found himself a cop. His family hadn’t been able to send him to college. They’d needed him to work and help out financially during tough times when his mother had fallen ill. Becoming a cop had been his second choice. But being a cop as long as he’d been had enabled him to achieve Chief Park Ranger in a place as close to heaven as he could have ever found. Not a bad trade, after all.

Now here he was, all these years later, recapturing his first and fondest dream–possibly discovering a dinosaur bone yard. Henry scanned the remnants one last time, trying not to be too obvious or hopeful. They might turn out to be something else entirely.

Henry’s tour group had noticed the darkness enveloping them and was getting edgy, shivering in their coats. They wanted to get going. After the earthquake, they were anxious to leave the rim behind and didn’t seem interested in the discovery. And he had to get them down to the lodge before nightfall.

Tomorrow he could deal with the bones. He made a mental note to call John Day Fossil Beds National Monument when he returned to the lodge and have them send out a staff paleontologist to check out the site. He’d better do things by the book to protect the find, otherwise he’d have every amateur paleontologist in the country arriving in droves and flooding the park. Henry was elated at the possibilities, but also worried. They’d have gawkers and the curious, as well, no doubt. The bones could turn the park into a circus. He’d seen it before. The park was crowded enough with the usual yearly visitors. He liked things the way they were.

Henry raised his head, his eyes taking in the beauty of the place. A cold northern wind cut across the slope, a mist hung in the air filled with the smell of coming rain. Gray jays cried to each other across the distances, signaling the end of the day. The sun was settling on the horizon in a bed of darkening shades of apricot and pink.

Peering at the watch on his wrist, Henry said, “Well, people, it’s getting late.” Part of him hated leaving the bones, but the night was taking over and his tour people were spooked and tired. Time to go.

“If we don’t arrive back at the lodge in the next hour, they’ll send out a search party.” Flashing his lazy park ranger smile he gathered them around him for the descent down.

***

Twenty-five minutes later Henry delivered the group to the lodge. Then he checked his office for messages and contacted John Day Fossil Beds National Monument to leave word about the bones for one of their paleontologists. They always had one or two on staff at all times.

He jumped into his cherry-colored jeep and maneuvered the vehicle through the darkening park, making his last rounds of the day. It was another old habit from his time as a lowly park ranger that he couldn’t kick now that he was Chief.

There didn’t seem to be any lasting harm from the earthquake. All the buildings and landscape appeared unchanged. Some of the rangers had reported the quake, and reported no measurable damage. As Henry drove past, he could hear the campfire program in progress at the Mazama Campground. Indian Legends of the Park was the story topic for the night and all the park visitors seemed lost in George Redcrow’s vivid tales. Ranger Redcrow was a wonderful storyteller, and Henry’s best friend, even if the man was a superstitious know-it-all.

Henry pulled into Lost Creek Campground to look over the new arrivals and introduce himself. Didn’t take long. He enjoyed meeting the people who sometimes came from around the world to see Crater Lake. Being a ranger had brought him out of the shell he’d forged when he was a New York cop. Early on, he found he liked chatting with the visitors about anything and everything. Not only did he enjoy the social aspect of meeting them, but it helped him keep his finger on the pulse of the park and its needs.

He didn’t tarry long with the campers, though, home was calling.

The souvenir shops in Rim Village were closing for the day, and the restaurants were full for suppertime. Henry drove by the dormitories that housed over two hundred park employees, mostly young people working their summer vacations, though the workers’ ages had increased with local unemployment the last couple of years. Half the people in the surrounding towns seemed to be working in the park lately. They said there were no jobs left in the outside world.

Everything appeared quiet. Apparently the earthquake hadn’t left much of a mark down below in the park. Most visitors he inquired of said they’d hardly felt it.

Satisfied, Henry continued home, a place nestled on the fringe of the woods three miles past Rim Village. It was cozy and simple, fashioned from stone that was plentiful in the area. He pulled alongside the house as true night replaced twilight, releasing much colder temperatures and the nightly forest sounds.

Getting out of the jeep, he stood silently for a few minutes in the gloom under the trees. He treasured this place. Eight years ago he’d been a stressed out cop in New York City, overwhelmed with the gangs, scum-of-the-earth drug dealers and the never-ending rat race of big city life. In the end, the heartlessness of his job had affected Henry’s morale.

He’d gotten sick of the hypocrisy of police work long before that August night, chasing those punks through dilapidated welfare apartments, when the kid with the gun, who couldn’t have been but ten years old, had stepped out from a shadowy nowhere…and coldly shot him.

Henry had nearly died.

He’d told Ann from the hospital bed that he couldn’t live that way anymore.

Months later, after he’d recuperated, he was offered the job at Crater Lake. Then Ann confessed, with a hopeful smile, that she’d always wanted to live in the wild woods of Oregon. And that was that.

Their life was good now.

Through the screen door, Henry saw Ann setting the table for supper. She was a pretty woman, slim, not real tall, with short blond hair and light gray eyes. Henry noticed a touch of gray encroaching into the blond the last year or so. It looked good on her, matching her eyes. She had a soothing way of making everyone believe everything was all right. Nothing riled Ann.

Laura and Phoebe were in the house, too. They were there often since Laura’s husband, Chad, had run off a few months ago. Chad was a kid when they married and never could handle the responsibility. Once the baby came, he’d split. Laura hadn’t heard a word from him since.

Laura was helping her mother set the table while Phoebe, Henry’s granddaughter, sat trapped in her highchair, watching with big innocent brown eyes, a sad baby grin playing over her face. Her blond hair a soft cotton halo.

Ann looked up at Henry and smiled as he walked in the door. “I picked up some fried chicken and all the fixings at KFC on my way home. It’ll be ready in a jiff.”

“Good, I’m hungry as a bear.” Henry kissed his wife and hugged his daughter.

Laura had gained weight since her husband had abandoned her, but Henry could hardly say what he thought, that she looked like the Good Year Blimp. She always ate herself fat when she was depressed. It was a shame, he thought, because his daughter was a lovely woman, otherwise, with long chestnut brown hair and penetrating blue eyes.