Dinosaur Summer Page 7

"Where are we going, Father?" Peter asked as they walked alongside the brightly colored animal cars.

  "I thought you would have figured it out by now," Anthony said.

  "Did they tell you?"

  "They told me to be prepared. And I'm still keeping my mouth shut until we're on that ship—if we ever get aboard. We've been disappointed before. I'll let Cooper and Schoedsack confirm things."

  Peter clenched his fists.

  They met Harryhausen and O'Brien near the biggest train car. The dismantled cages from the center ring had been mounted on a huge wooden pallet. A big rolling crane on its own tracks had straddled the train, lowering on thick steel cables a hook almost as big as Peter. Stevedores—dockside workers, big and brawny and wearing sweat-stained T-shirts— joined with the circus roustabouts to strut and tell stories, waiting for the action to begin. Anthony wandered off to take pictures of the men.

  "What do you know about this?" Peter whispered to Harryhausen

  Harryhausen said, "OBie says we may have more work than we thought—for several months, at least. Monte and Coop— Mr. Schoedsack and Mr. Cooper—didn't want the newspapers to know until it was a sure thing. Whatever it is."

  O'Brien's camera crew and several reporters and newsreel photographers were also waiting. Harryhausen introduced them to the two-man crew: Caleb Shawmut and Stony Osborne. Shawmut stood little more than five feet tall, and with his round grizzled blond head and short jaw, resembled a pugnacious bulldog. Osborne was dark and lean and intense and seldom said anything.

  Osborne complained about giving up the lease on his apartment in Los Angeles. "Took the goddamned airplane," he said. "Last minute flight. My first time. Got sick in the little bag. This better be good, OBie!"

  O'Brien warned the newsreel men to stay out of his sight lines. Harryhausen drew diagrams on a big sketch pad and pointed out camera positions. Shawmut and Osborne efficiently laid steel track for the dolly.

  Anthony surveyed the shadows and bright sky, then took his Leica up and down the length of the Libertad for the sixth time that morning.

  "Your dad's particular," O'Brien said.

  "He just wants to know where to be when the action begins," Peter said.

  "Me, too," O'Brien said. "Only I've got two guys behind big hunks of metal. Not very flexible once we're set up." O'Brien watched the brawny stevedores with a grin. "They remind me of boxers," he said. "Used to do a little boxing. I was a wild one when I was a boy. How about you? You give your daddy a rough time?"

  "No," Peter said.

  "How's he going to know what it's like to be a dad?"

  O'Brien's tone was jocular, but beneath the banter lay something large and distant and sad. Peter felt uneasy, but Anthony, passing on another foray close to the train, heard OBie's question and laughed. "Peter's my mainstay," he called. "He keeps me out of trouble."

  OBie gave Peter a respectful, amused look. " So maybe you're the dad?"

  Peter grinned and gave a little nod.

  "They're going to unload the venator first," Harryhausen said. "They think he'll stay calm if he can't see what's happening." While they waited for the cables to be rigged, he took up the sketch pad and began drawing the venator and the roustabouts. Peter looked over his shoulder. In the drawing, the venator was busting out of the cage, toothy jaws gaping, big clawed toes spread wide, scattering panicked workmen in all directions.

  Peter looked at the cage, then at Dagger's train car, which was quiet. "I hope you're wrong about that," he said to Harryhausen, pointing to the sketch.

  "If I were in charge, things would be a lot more exciting," Harryhausen admitted. "Do you draw?"

  "A little. I'm not very good."

  "Takes practice. OBie and I sketch a lot. We could teach you."

  "Sure," Peter said, his spirits lifting a little.

  A man with a forklift unloaded big flat black iron plates one by one from the forward end of the venator's car. The plates were lined up along a steel scaffolding that led to the cage, and Peter realized this was another assembly of the runway that had guided the venator into the center ring. He admired the flexible design. The circus workers had had years of experience, perfecting the handling of these animals—even the venator.

  Anthony stopped his pacing and focused his camera on the cage. "They're going to hang his breakfast from the top bars," he told Peter.

  O'Brien gave the signal and one big Mitchell camera on a heavy tripod whirred, running on power from a small crate full of car batteries.

  A roustabout entered the cage with a stepladder and strung chunks of beef from the bars on the inside of the runway. He and two others lifted and hung a whole haunch from the top of the cage. As they folded the ladder to leave, another roustabout made a move as if he were going to slam the cage door and lock it. The men inside stretched out their thumbs in unison, poked them between the first two fingers of their fists, and thrust them defiantly at the other. The workers laughed.

  "Cut," O'Brien yelled, disgusted. "Hey, guys, this is a family film, okay?"

  Harryhausen put away his drawing of the rampant venator and sat on the seat behind the big camera mounted on the dolly. Shawmut and Osborne prepared to push him along the steel tracks.

  Out of nowhere, startling Peter, Shellabarger appeared, clutching a cup of coffee and frowning at the commotion. Gluck walked beside the train with hands pushed deep into his pockets. He wore a dark blue suit and vest.

  "Looks like we're taking your babies back home, Lotto," Shellabarger said.

  "Yess," Gluck replied, shaking his head. "I give them to you now. They're all yours until you set them free."

  Peter felt the sweat bead under his arms and on his back.

  O'Brien shouted, "Slate it, rolling!"

  The right-hand door on the big car rumbled open. Peering into the gap where the iron plates covering the runway did not quite meet the car, Peter saw a quick brown motion. The car rocked slightly, then the ramp bowed under a heavy weight. They all heard a low chuff and snort.

  "Blowing out the morning boogers," Shellabarger said. "I do the same thing myself—don't you?"

  Peter forced a grin.

  "Maybe it wantss some of your coffee, Vince," Gluck suggested.

  Eight men with hook-tipped wooden poles lined up along the runway. Harryhausen sat behind the camera as Shawmut and Osborne rolled it smoothly toward the ramp and runway. The camera panned the length of the runway to take in the expectant roustabouts and the cage sitting on the loading pallet. "Not very exciting, all covered like that," O'Brien commented.

  Everybody's eyes followed the progress of the venator as it walked down the steel-sheeted runway. Ropes holding the pieces of meat snapped one after another. Peter could hear Dagger's big jaws crunching and chewing, then, near the cage, the top of the runway banged.

  Shellabarger wryly lifted the corner of one lip and mimed the big beast leaning his head back to jerk at the piece of meat. Shellabarger's nose bumped his flattened hand, representing the top of the runway. Peter nodded, then turned back. Anthony had positioned himself beside the cage, his camera lens poking into a gap between the plywood sheets covering the cage.

  "He's in," Shellabarger said, tapping out a cigarette from a box. He stared at the cigarette with a disgusted frown, and then at Peter. "I only smoke when we're transferring the animals."

  "All right," shouted Rob Keller, the chief roustabout. "Close him off and shut the car door." The door rumbled and clanged. Two men climbed to the top of the cage and secured the hook. The cage vibrated once but the venator seemed quiet.

  A man in a black coat and pants, wearing a broad-brimmed white officer's hat set with gold stars and braid, strolled toward the assembly, hands gripped behind his back.

  "I am Capitan Ippolito," he said to the group. "Who is Senor Shellabarger? Senor Gluck?"

  "I'm Shellabarger."

  "The loading is going well?" Ippolito's long brown face and dark, amused eyes took them all in quickly, judging and cataloging his passeng
ers.

  "Fine so far," Shellabarger said.

  "I am still expecting clearance from your Department of State. Have the officials arrived yet?"

  "Haven't seen them," Shellabarger said. "Mr. Gluck tells me we got our verbal OKs last night."

  "You have been in the hold to look over the work our men did last night?"

  "Everything's shipshape," Shellabarger said.

  "Good," Captain Ippolito said. "You know these animals better than I. But if there is a storm, some difficulties, or we have to wait in port a week or so—not unusual in Venezuela—all will still be well?"

  Gluck stepped forward. "Your concern is undersstandable, Capitan, but I believe all iss in order."

  Ippolito leaned his head to one side, politely neutral.

  The big crane's motor began reeling in the slack on the cable to the venator cage. The hook tugged at the cables and the cage shuddered on its pallet. The venator's two tons did not seem to bother the crane or its motor in the least. The pallet rose flat and smooth and from inside the cage came an almost comic snort of query.

  "For a moment, just like itss coussins," Gluck said, smiling. "It flies."

  The cage was twenty feet from the ground when the venator decided to get upset. It paced back and forth, making the big cage sway on the end of the cable. The swaying agitated the beast even more and it made a staccato screeching sound, then a deep-throated bellow. The plywood covering the cage bent outward and Peter heard that unforgettable racket of tail banging against bars.

  The crane operator quickened the lift. The cage seemed to soar over their heads, swaying a yard back and forth now, above the level of the ship's gunwale. The venator screamed like a furious woman. More staccato protests followed like the cawing of a monstrous crow.

  Peter saw Harryhausen elevate the lens of the big camera, focusing on the swaying cage.

  Gluck wiped his brow with a handkerchief.

  Shellabarger sniffed and watched the cage come into position above the hatch to the number one hold. The plywood ten feet up on one side of the cage suddenly splintered and a long brown and yellow arm thrust through, claws snatching at the air. As the cage was lowered into the hold, the arm continued to seek for something to kill, to vent the animal's rage.

  Men shouted inside the hold, but Shellabarger appeared unconcerned. "He's fought that cage for fifteen years," he muttered. "Once he's stowed, the rest will be a piece of cake."

  For a moment, there was little going on that interested Anthony. He stood by Peter. "Looks like it's really going to happen," he said.

  "What's going to happen?" Peter asked, his voice cracking. "What are we going to do?"

  Anthony put his hand on Peter's shoulder. "Grosvenor came up with an idea. 'Close the circus down,' he told Gluck, 'and I'll get the Muir Society to pay you to take the dinosaurs back.'" Anthony puffed out his chest and stuck his fingers in his suspenders—though he was not wearing suspenders—just like a posturing bigwig. "Everybody makes money, everybody's happy."

  "Back to the Grand Tepui?"

  Anthony nodded. "Ford heard about it. He told Cooper and Schoedsack. They all thought it was a swell idea, so they approached the government. They have a lot of muscle in Washington, I guess. The State Department wasn't too keen about the idea, but Cooper told everybody to get ready anyway. And to keep it secret. I'm sorry, Peter. It isn't that I don't trust you."

  "I didn't say anything to Mom," Peter said.

  "I just didn't want to get your hopes up if it all fell through. Maybe I was wrong not to tell you everything."

  "You were wrong," Peter said.

  Anthony accepted this with a slow nod. "The sticky part is getting the Venezuelans to go along. It's dicey down there now.

  But I guess el Presidente Betancourt likes movies. He's agreed— but he and the army generals don't see eye-to-eye."

  "It's going to be dangerous . . . isn't it?" Peter asked again.

  "It could be," Anthony said. "If we aren't careful."

  Peter stared at him, full of one question he could not ask.

  Anthony solemnly asked it for him. "So why take my only son along? Because . . . We're not actually going to set foot on the Grand Tepui itself. There's the Pico Poco, on the southern end."

  Harryhausen, eavesdropping to one side, ambled closer.

  Anthony continued: "We take the old Indian switchback trail the hunters and entrepreneurs carved into a road in 1913. The old motorized steel bridge is still there. We swing it across to El Grande and let the dinosaurs return to the Lost World. We take our pictures and get paid like kings. And then we go home. And you get a little experience of the world you can't get in New York."

  "Jeez," Peter said. He had always loved reading about dinosaurs and about the Grand Tepui. Going there would be something special in any man's life. But going there with a circus, with live dinosaurs . . .

  His father was brave—that was a given. But Peter had always preferred home and a good book to rugged adventures. A hiking trip with Anthony was like going on safari with a restless cheetah. Anthony always outdistanced him in a few minutes, then doubled back and tapped his foot impatiently. Peter preferred to study things slowly and carefully.

  "Is it really going to happen?" Harryhausen asked. He seemed to be feeling the same qualms as Peter.

  Anthony said, "Keep your fingers crossed." He clapped Peter on the shoulder, then lifted his camera and walked off to snap more pictures.

  "I didn't bargain on making a long trip," Harryhausen confessed. "I'm not an explorer. I like my monsters to sit on a table and do what I tell them to, one frame at a time."

  Peter tried to put on a bluster. "You don't think it's exciting, going to El Grande?"

  "Maybe too exciting," Harryhausen said.

  Two black cars, a hump-backed green De Soto and a long black Packard, drove up as Sammy the centrosaur was being led down the ramp from his train car and into his cage for loading. The struthios, Dip and Casso, and the avisaurs had already been put aboard. Shellabarger had ridden alongside the Aepyornis in its cage, soothing her with his voice. He returned with the empty platform to the dockside and stepped off, eyes on two men in long black coats and gray hats, who stood by the De Soto. They looked like the men who had come to the train the night before. Ippolito watched from the wing of the ship's bridge, leaning on the rail.

  The two men walked over to the Packard.

  Schoedsack and Cooper stepped out of the Packard and conferred with them, took a sheath of papers, and carried them to Shellabarger and O'Brien. Schoedsack held the papers just a couple of inches from his thick glasses, flipping them back crisply. Cooper guided him. Peter stood beside Harryhausen near the dolly.

  "It's go all the way," Schoedsack said. "Foggy bottom has no objections."

  " Give our regards to Carl Denham," one of the men from the State Department called to Cooper. They smiled and got into the green De Soto.

  "Yaaah!" Cooper said, waving his hand at them.

  Schoedsack turned to O'Brien. "You heard what Ford said. Get a story for us, something we can really fly with . . ."

  "Indians, dinosaurs, rivers, jungles, mountains," O'Brien said. "What more can an audience ask for?"

  "We'll be getting the rushes on the circus tomorrow," Schoedsack said. "You'll be under way by then. I'll radio you, tell you what they're like."

  "They'll be good," O'Brien said evenly.

  "Well, it's in your hands now," Cooper said. He shook hands with O'Brien and watched the centrosaur's cage being lifted into the hold. "Remember, if anything happens to you—"

  "I'll be fine," O'Brien said. He waved Cooper and Schoedsack back into the Packard and slammed the door on them. "You're just jealous," he said, leaning on the doorframe.

  "I'd give my eyeteeth to be on that ship with you," Cooper drawled. Schoedsack grunted agreement and looked longingly through his thick glasses at the Libertad.

  "You've got lots of responsibilities," O'Brien said with a twinkle in his eye. "Movies t
o produce . . . airlines to run . . . government committees . . . no time for big adventure."

  "Don't rub it in." Schoedsack winced, leaned back in his seat, and waved. "Anything's easier than making movies in a studio nowadays." O'Brien closed the door with a solid thunk. The big black car rumbled down the pier. O'Brien walked past them, shaking his head. "Monte and Coop won't let us have all the fun, believe me."

  "Which cage do you want to ride?" Anthony asked Peter.

  "Huh?" Peter swiveled to face his father.

  "Just fooling. We should get our bags aboard now." Anthony looked Peter over. "You look pensive."

  "I still think we should call Mom," Peter said, eyes lowered. "Let her know we're leaving the country, at least."

  "If we do, she won't let you go," Anthony said, two thin lines forming beside his lips. It had always been a bone of contention between his mother and father that when she did spend time with Peter, she coddled him. Anthony always expected him to pull his own weight, and that had started any number of fights before his mother and father had parted.

  Peter thought of the caged venator and of the big black ship with its hold full of wild animals. He had never been at sea before. He wondered if he would get seasick. Worse things could happen.

  Anthony watched him intently, the lines still present at the corners of his lips.

  Peter took a deep breath. "Let's go," he said.

  "My lad," Anthony said.

  That night, wrapped tightly in blankets in his narrow bunk in the small, neat ship's cabin, Peter wrote:

  My stomach still hurts. Maybe I am a coward.

  My father and I explored the ship all afternoon while the animals were being stowed and the cages locked down. The captain and crew ignored us and got ready for the voyage. I am just getting used to what it feels like to be aboard a ship. The deck is steady enough but not as steady as land. When another big freighter went to sea and passed our pier, the ship rocked a little. Tomorrow we'll be going to sea ourselves.

  Loading all the animals took a long time because some of the cages aren't strong enough to be lifted. The venator cage and the centrosaur cage are strong enough, but the ankylosaur cage needed to have new braces welded to the sides and bottom,