Dinosaur Lake (6 page)

“Yeah.” They were big; held up to sixty people. “Was anyone with him?” Collaboration was the first thing a good reporter checked on.

“Nope. Claims he was alone. He’d emptied his last tour group of the day at Cleetwood Dock and was heading back to Wizard Island to put the boat away. He swore he wouldn’t have said anything, but he thinks the creature is a menace and not only to him, but for everyone on the lake.”

“We going to do a story on it?” Ann’s thin face was battling a grin. She was too pragmatic a person to believe in boogey men and lake monsters.

“Well, it might be what we need. A good oh-my-god-there’s-a-creature-in-the-lake story might stir up some commotion around here, might help bring up the paper’s numbers.”

“Oh, give me a break.” Ann laughed. “It might also help bring all the crazies from miles away to camp out in the park day and night waiting for the thing to reappear, too. Like Loch Ness. Only here it’ll be worse because Americans don’t respect privacy as much as the Scots.”

A slight scowl touched her face. Like her husband, she adored the park the way it was, uncluttered and unpeopled most of the time anyway, thank you. Henry would hate to see his peaceful retreat invaded by hordes of wild-eyed monster hunters. He was fretting enough over the fossil find. Now, monster sightings? He’d have a conniption fit.

“I thought I’d send you out to talk to the guy,” Zeke finished.

“Thanks a lot.”

“Well, you live in the park. Wouldn’t be too far out of your way.”

“You don’t think it’ll create a panic among the park’s inhabitants? Reporting about some combative creature lurking in the lake?”

“No, not if we don’t play it too seriously. It might turn into an interesting piece if we do it right. Whimsical like.”

“It might.” Her voice held no sarcasm. It would make a good story. People ate that kind of stuff up. “Okay. I’ll go talk to the guy. What’s his name?”

“Sam Cutler. He captains a tour boat called the Sea Bird. In the mornings you can find him docked at Cleetwood Cove waiting for his passengers. The boat has a flying bird painted on the side. Can’t miss it.”

“I know the one. I’ve seen it on the lake before.”

“Good. Try to talk to him sometime in the next couple days and we’ll see if we can plug it in the next edition. We’re going to be lean on material anyway. We’ll need the filler.” Then Zeke tacked on: “Hey, you’re a fairly good artist, too, as I recollect. So why don’t you try to make a drawing from his description of the thing?”

Ann snickered under her breath, shaking her head. Her drawings were a town joke. She could draw, but no one could say she was the next Rembrandt, not by a long shot. But Zeke thought her sketches had character. Kinda like those things Grandma Moses used to do. Yeah. Kinda cute and primitive. They made Zeke chuckle. But most of the townies made fun of them.

“The things I do for you and this rag,” Ann groaned with a small smile, pretending he was forcing her to do something she didn’t want to do. When in truth, she got a kick out of seeing her doddles in the paper. When she’d worked in New York, her editor would have died before allowing her drawings to accompany her stories. New York was too cosmopolitan for that. Klamath Falls wasn’t.

“Okay. I’ll try to recreate the mysterious creature of the lake. No promises, though. I’ll get photos of Wizard Island and Captain Cutler on his boat, too. Does he know a reporter’s coming out?”

“That’s the problem.” Zeke threw his hands up. “As soon as I mentioned I’d send someone out to take pictures and get more details, he hung up on me. I’m afraid he’s sorry he called. He might be a tough sell.”

“So he might not talk to me?”

“Oh, but I have considerable faith in your powers of persuasion, Ann. You’ll get the story, no sweat. You’re a hell of a reporter.”

“Flattery, flattery,” she said, “will get you everything.”

Digging into one of his pockets, Zeke retrieved a tattered brown wallet, slid out a twenty that looked as old as he was and handed it to her with a flourish.

“Offer him this. It’ll help. If I know Sam, it’ll loosen his tongue quick enough. Money is his life.”

Ann took the twenty and tucked it into her purse. Things must be truly bad if Zeke was willing to pay for a story. He never did. But she didn’t say a word, merely went back to work.

Soon she’d forgotten about Captain Cutler and the creature in the lake. She had stories to write and ads to sell and was too busy to spend time thinking about mythical monsters.

***

Henry stared out the window, lost in thought. Dressed in a heavy burgundy sweater and faded jeans, a cup of cold coffee poised, forgotten, in his hands, he waited. The rain had abated to a light drizzle, and he was restless.

He longed to see if those strange tracks Justin discovered were still there. Yeah, sure, his good sense told him. They’re long gone, washed away from a night of storms.

The imprints had been scored deep, though; perhaps he could get something on film.

Henry put his cup down on the table and got his coat.

He was pulling out of the driveway as the paleontologist came slogging across the muddy yard towards the front door. Henry would have missed seeing him, except for the kid’s brightly colored coat fluttering in the wind. He’d gotten smart and was wearing heavier clothes.

Henry zipped back into the driveway and turned the engine off.

Justin sauntered up, a stack of books cradled in his arms, and stood waiting while Henry rolled down the jeep’s window. The scientist’s expression held restrained excitement.

“What’s up?” The wet air hit Henry in the face.

“They said at park headquarters it was your day off, and directed me here. I thought I’d come by and save you a trip down to the lake, Chief Ranger.”

“I told you to call me Henry.”

“Okay, Henry. The tracks aren’t there any longer. Well, they probably aren’t. It rained so much the level of the lake rose and covered them. I have no idea now where they are or if they’re visible because they’re most likely under water.”

“Crater Lake has no inlets or outlets. The only way the level in the lake changes is when it rains, or the water evaporates, so I’m not surprised the tracks are covered.”

“We’d have to go under in wet suits with air tanks,” Justin grumbled. “I detest the water. And I’m no skin-diver, that’s for sure.”

“I’m trained as a diver,” Henry confessed, “but I don’t think I’d have any luck finding those tracks underwater. The lake’s water is cloudy. So, thanks, you saved me a trip, I suppose. A wet and muddy one at that.”

“That’s where you were headed, huh?”

“Yes, that’s where I was headed.”

“I come bearing information, however, that might shed light on what those prints could have been.” The scientist lifted his arms up so Henry could see the stack of books. “Last night after our adventure I called a colleague of mine at John Day’s and had him Federal Express some of my research books overnight. There’s something quite interesting in a few of them I wanted you to see.”

“Good, come on in and you can show me,” Henry said, climbing out of the jeep and heading for the front door. “I’ll make a fresh pot of coffee, since I have nothing else much to do now.” But he was glad to see Justin and his smile showed it. Now he could talk about the fossils.

Henry unlocked the door, Justin trailing behind like a big puppy. Henry had the feeling he’d been adopted or something. Didn’t the kid have a family?

“I brought lunch if you haven’t had it yet,” Justin spoke cheerfully.

“No, I haven’t. That was mighty kind of you.”

The scientist hesitated as if he wasn’t used to being thanked or wasn’t used to doing acts of kindness, his long hair uncombed and wild around his head.

“You like cheeseburgers and fries?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Some don’t. Though I don’t know any.” Justin produced a sheepish grin. Again, Henry thought how young the paleontologist seemed. Or maybe Henry was just getting old.

“The food’s from your lodge’s kitchen. One of their picnic lunches.”

“I know. I can tell by the box. The visitors buy them up like crazy so they can eat out in the woods with the trees and the wild animals. They like that.”

Inside the house, Henry led his guest into the kitchen. Flicking on the overhead light, he motioned Justin to the table. He started a pot of coffee, pulled out two mugs, sugar and cream, and carried them to the table as the java perked.

Justin placed the stack of books and the box lunches on the table and slouched into a chair. “Last night after you left I remembered what had been bugging me about those tracks.” He had his lunch open and was devouring it as if he hadn’t eaten in days, talking between bites.

“What?”

“I’ve seen the tracks or something similar to them before in a book.” His glasses slid down his nose and he used a greasy finger to shove them upward in an unconscious gesture. He put the cheeseburger down and picked up a book with a strip of torn paper marking a place, and opened it.

“I’ve studied so many dinosaurs and their habits. My favorites have always been the prehistoric sea and water creatures. I’m fascinated by the myth of Scotland’s Loch Ness monster. I’ve read everything published about Nessie and the sightings. I’ve even spent time on the Loch searching for it. Unfortunately, I never got a glimpse. But it’s made me an expert on the water breeds.”

That’s it. He thinks he’s got a Loch Ness monster here
, Henry ruminated.
Good thing I didn’t tell him what I thought I saw in the water last night. He’d be camped out on the lake waiting for it right now.

“Here.” Justin held the book out to him.

Henry looked at the open pages. There were artist’s drawings of dinosaurs from different angles and close-ups of their limbs and feet. He was surprised to feel the same thrill of pleasure he’d experienced as a kid when he’d look at a drawing of a dinosaur. One footprint caught his eye immediately. It did look somewhat like the tracks they’d seen last night. Somewhat. Not exactly.

As if reading Henry’s mind, Justin revealed, “I got a better look at them yesterday than you. That’s it, kind of, except the ones I found were a little different and much bigger. They had an extra webbed claw. From the depth of the imprints I’d guess that the beast that made them was quite large and heavy.”

Nothosaur,
the copy blurb under the footprint illustrations and beside the first picture described,
was a marine reptile that flourished in the Triassic times. It could grow to over twenty feet in length and had a back fin and webbed feet. Water dweller. Triassic period.

On the facing page, Justin had marked another illustration.
Allosaurus.
Probably had a large skull and might have been equipped with dozens of large, sharp
teeth
. It averaged 28 feet in length, though fragmentary remains suggest it could have reached over 39 feet. Relative to the large and powerful hind limbs, its three-fingered forelimbs were small, and the body was balanced by a long, heavy tail. It is classified as an
allosaurid
, a type of
carnosaurian
theropod dinosaur. Land dweller. Jurassic period.

Henry examined both of the creature’s drawings. The Allosaurus had a long snake-like neck and huge gaping jaws full of razor-sharp teeth. Big head for such a slender neck. Fat slick reptilian body with stubby short legs also ended in webbed, almost clawed, feet.

“My fellow paleontologists now believe that Nothosaurs were warm-blooded mammals, and not actually dinosaurs. A powerful swimmer who preferred cooler water, it was probably a ferocious predator that often went after other marine animals, especially short and long-necked Plesiosaurs, if it was hungry enough. It was one formidable, mean creature.”

“Triassic was even earlier than the Jurassic period, right?”

“It was.” Justin inclined his head. “But, none of that matters. I don’t believe the tracks we discovered actually belonged to either of those species in this book. Not totally anyway. They’re something like them, but not. Whatever made those prints is a mutant, big time, a more highly developed strain of their ancestors, something
like
a Nothosaur/Allosaurus combination, because it likes the water and the land, but not really either. A cross breed. Or something else entirely–previously undiscovered and unknown–that lives in water but can also move around on the land. Maybe bigger than a Giganotosaurus, believed to be the biggest dinosaur that ever walked the earth. This could be a new kind of dinosaur. A
mind-blowing
discovery.”

“You don’t say?”

“All theory, of course. Every paleontologist will admit, as much as we know about dinosaurs, there’s still so much we don’t know.”

Out of the mouth of an expert
, Henry thought, closing the book. “Well, its original ancestor, if it was its ancestor, sure was ugly. I give it that much.” As ugly as the creature that had made those tracks? A shiver tingled Henry’s skin. He was being silly. Those dinosaur prints hadn’t been real. There weren’t any live mutant dinosaurs or undiscovered new breed dinosaurs in the lake or
anywhere
in the real world. Nonsense. It was some kind of joke. That’s what it’d been. A big fat joke. There were a bunch of kids laughing their asses off somewhere over it. They’d undoubtedly had watched poor Justin going nuts by the water yesterday and had had a good old time.