Read Online The Dinosaur Hunter by Homer Hickam - Free Book Online

see?”
    I saw the BLM. I guess so did the rest of us because nobody said anything. “Look at that hill,” Pick said, nodding toward a steep cone-shaped mound just south of us. “Do you see the layers like a wedding cake? Each tell the story of life and death in a different age. Your fields, Mrs. Coulter, are composed of sediment eroded from all those ages. In other words, your cattle eat the grass that is produced by deep time.”
    While we squinted at the hill, Pick led us farther into his vision. “Those narrow bands of gray, yellow, and dark brown near the top are from what we call the Tullock member of the Fort Union Formation. The Tullock was formed after the dinosaurs so what I would find there, if I cared to look, would be the bones of mammals. Nothing big, mostly prairie dog size. But I don’t hunt mammals, even ones tens of millions of years old. I hunt and find dinosaurs.”
    He said the last five words with a great deal of satisfaction, then continued. “Just below the Tullock on this hill is a thin layer of coal. It’s easily discernable. It is what we call Z-coal and coincidentally in the Hell Creek Formation it marks the K-T or Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. That’s the famous iridium layer you’ve perhaps heard about left from a gigantic meteor that struck what is now the Gulf of Mexico. Above that boundary, there are no dinosaurs. Below, we enter the Cretaceous where once creatures such as this big Triceratops flourished.”
    â€œI’ve ridden past this hill a hundred times,” I said, “and I never noticed these bones. How did you find them?”
    Pick smiled. “I saw what was. That’s what I do.”
    A silence fell over us, the only sound the mewing of the breeze through the little dry hills, and the distant kee-kee of a red tail hawk. It was a bit eerie, I’ll confess. Finally, Ray broke the spell by saying, “When we found Pick, he was lost. Had no idea where he was.”
    Pick nodded agreeably. “I get lost easily. As soon as I got out here, I went looking. I found this Trike in the first thirty minutes. There’s a Hadrosaur over there, although not much of him. Do you see his bones? There, by those two sandstone boulders that fell down from the top of the hill. When it got dark, I had no idea where the truck was so I just sat out here all night.”
    â€œYou’re lucky the rattlesnakes didn’t get you,” Jeanette said.
    I was thinking of our murdered bull and Aaron Feldmark’s cow when I asked, “Did you hear or see anything else?”
    â€œLights,” he said after a moment of contemplation. “And engine sounds.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œI’m not sure. Maybe over there. Or there. I was thinking about something else.”
    â€œDr. Pickford, I really want to know what you were thinking about out here in the dark,” Jeanette said.
    I’d like to say Pick got a far-away, dreamy look in his eyes but the truth is he seemed to nearly always have that look. He said, “I was thinking about the rivers and streams that led to the pond from which this animal drank, and the forest of conifers from which it emerged, and the vegetation that filled the valley where the pond collected, and the slope that eventually led to the sea. I was also thinking about mud. A swollen river created mud to cover and make this Triceratops immortal. Mud also saved it for me. For all of us.”
    It was an interesting little speech and I was impressed. I guess we all were. “How did this thing live?” Amelia asked, which caused Pick to smile in her direction. He liked the question.
    As Pick described the Triceratops I swear those old bones all but rose from the ground, assembled themselves clad with muscles, sinew, and flesh, and came alive. Then, I noticed a circle of stones in a sandy patch nearby. It didn’t look natural and I could see boot prints around it so I asked Pick about