should eat something and try again when the rain lessens. She stum-bled downhill, cold and defeated, to get the tooth and cut some more meat. When she approached the Tyrannosaur, she noticed that some of its rib cage was exposed. It wasn't like that before! She was positive that part of the carcass had been untouched when she climbed the hill. Something else is eating it, too. She looked about warily into the gray rain. Nothing. Nevertheless, she was not reassured. Con quickly cut some meat from another part of the carcass, then retreated to her shelter. She bailed out the puddle on its floor with her hands, assured herself that the rock wall was intact, and removed her shirt before entering. Inside, she carefully stretched the tee shirt across the doorway. Then, she placed her rock and the Tyrannosaur tooth where they were readily at hand. Only then, did she eat. As she curled up half-naked in the mud, a bit of warmth returned to her. The racing metabolism that kept her constantly hungry also allowed her to warm up. Within half an hour, only her bare feet felt frigid. Now, she shivered only when she thought of what might be outside.
RICK AND JOE slogged by the riverbank in the gloomy half-light of noon. Despite wearing ponchos, they were wet and miserable. The rainfall had increased all morning until it fell in a near-blinding torrent. Everything more than twenty yards ahead was obscured. Still, they contin-ued, keeping tense eyes out for whatever the river had washed up. Both pretended they were looking for food. They were really looking for Con's body.
"I should have been the one to hold on to her," said Joe in a low, sad voice. Rick reacted as if Joe had struck him. "I didn't let go, goddamn it!"
"I was going to protect her ..."
"And I screwed up," said Rick. "Why don't you come out and say it."
"She's gone, isn't she?"
"She let go of my hand to grab her shoe."
"So that makes it okay," said Joe bitterly. "As long as it isn't your fault. . ."
"Is that what you think, Joe?" shouted Rick with anger and anguish. "I loved her!"
"Love?" scoffed Joe. "You only knew her a few days. You had the hots for her. That's not love."
"How the hell would you know?" answered Rick.
"I'll tell you what love is," said Joe. "It's holding your baby girl for the first time and knowing the woman you adore is her mother."
"Too bad you abandoned them to make drugs."
Joe's face tensed with rage. He turned on the gun and flicked off the safety. "I could kill you for that."
"Go ahead," said Rick. "You think I care?" He strug-gled to keep from sobbing. "Come on. Do it. Then I'll be with Con."
As Joe watched Rick, the anger left his face to be re-placed by profound sorrow. He switched off the gun. "I'm sorry, Rick. I'm so down, I'm talking shit."
"I never met anyone like her, Joe. She was so damned brave and funny and smart and pretty. She was wonder-ful."
Joe sighed deeply. "She was something, all right."
"I know she went down fighting."
"No question about it," said Joe. "We'll find her and put her to rest." They walked for a while in the gloom before Rick spoke again. "Joe, I didn't mean it about..."
"I know your didn't," said Joe. "What made me mad was, in a way, you were right. I was so wrapped up in my company, I forgot to take care of them." He shook his head dolefully. "Yeah, I abandoned them." The shape of a mangled duckbilled dinosaur, washed up by the river, loomed out of the rain. A nightstalker was feeding off the carcass. Joe raised the gun and fired. The little carnivore tumbled into the river. Rick ran to fetch it before the current swept it away. When he re-turned, Joe looked at the dead animal with undisguised disgust.
"Filthy creature," said Joe.
"It's better than eating carrion," said Rick. He began to butcher it on the spot.
"It tastes like carrion," replied Joe. "We are eating car-rion, only secondhand."
"I was hoping for a change, too," said Rick. He cut off the lower leg at the knee, then sliced off the meaty upper leg close to the pelvis. It looked like a huge turkey drum-stick. Rick did the same to the other leg, then threw both on his shoulder as he and Joe resumed walking. The rest of the nightstalker lay in the mud to rot.
"I don't understand why there are so damned many of those things," said Joe. "They're the only living animals we've seen since the fire."
"I don't know why either," said Rick. "Maybe they lived in burrows and were protected. Maybe they're just tough."
"They're tough, all right," said Joe. "Even Pandit couldn't make one edible."
"Chewing gives us something to do at night."
"At least Pandit cooked it," said Joe.
"We will, too," said Rick. "When the rain stops."
"I'm not holding my breath."
The rain fell unabated as Rick and Joe continued their melancholy search. They walked another a mile before encountering a swollen stream that barred their way. For the third time since they abandoned the plane, they had to make a lengthy detour into the foothills to find a place to cross. By the time they approached the river again, it was getting dark.
"Better find some high ground," said Rick.
"Yeah," said Joe tiredly.
They climbed to the crest of a small hill overlooking the river and dug a circular drainage trench. Rick placed his poncho over the muddy ground inside the circle; then, Joe stepped on it as Rick slipped under Joe's poncho. Rick and Joe sat down and used the shared poncho as a tent. Taking out his knife, Rick peeled away part of the hide on the nightstalker's drumstick. He cut a piece of the muscle and handed it to Joe.
"Thanks," said Joe as he made a wry face and began to chew. After he swallowed, Joe pulled out a water bot-tie. "Care for some Chateau de Floodwater? I recommend it with nightstalker."
"What vintage?"
"I believe it's 65 million B.C."
Rick sniffed. "A disappointing year."
"You can say that again."
Eating together under the poncho, Rick and Joe shared body heat. The warmth they obtained was the closest thing to comfort they had the entire day. As Rick ate his foul dinner, he felt a deep bond to the man so close to him. Despite their differences, theirs was the special comradeship that soldiers had experienced since the be-ginning of time. It was a kind of love, though Rick would not have used that word. Now, it's only the two of us against the whole world. Their adversary, Rick had little doubt, would win eventually. But not before we bury Con, Rick resolved. After that, I don't care what hap-pens.
27
AFTER DARKNESS FELL, THE PATTER OF THE RAIN LESS-
ened. Huddled in her den, Con could hear soft, squishy foot-steps and occasional hisses from beyond her thin cloth door-way. There seemed to be more than one animal outside. How can they know what they're doing? she wondered. Somehow, they did. Her hearing, made acute by fear, picked up the sounds of teeth scraping bone and of sniffing. Perhaps one is sniffing outside my doorway, tired of rotting meat. The image terrified her, and she clutched her rock and the tooth harder. How can I fight something I can't see? The answer was she couldn't.
Sometime during the long stretch of night, Con's exhaus-tion substituted the terror of dreams for the terror of what roamed outside. She awoke, tired and stiff, to dim light, rain, and fear. She had not dared to drink from the puddle all night, and she was very thirsty. / can't hide here forever, she told herself. Cautiously, she pulled the shirt aside and peered out. The nocturnal visitors were gone. Emboldened, she drank deeply from the puddle, despite the water's unpleasant taste. When her thirst was quenched, she withdrew into her den to eat. The raw flesh that lay on the muddy floor smelled. Con questioned the wisdom of eating it, but decided she had little choice. She swallowed only a few bites before she vom-ited.