Robert Bakker - RAPTOR RED

He sees the giant female’s eyes locked with Raptor Red’s, and he takes the opportunity to move out of the way a few yards to the right. The giant shifts her gaze for half a second, gives him an eyelid threat that means Now don’t YOU move! and returns her stare to Raptor Red.

Raptor Red fought some female-female battles when she courted her first consort, years ago. It was all puffery and shadowboxing, the combatants making fake charges and indulging in grandiose gestures with head and arms. Raptor Red discovered she was very proficient at this sort of Darwinian histrionics.

The giant female won’t play this game. She makes no theatrical movements. She just sways back and forth on her hindlegs, the motion that raptors use just before they lunge forward to kill.

Raptor Red watches the giant’s ankles. One, two, three swaying cycles. There’s an almost imperceptible pause, and the ankle tendon tenses. Raptor Red throws herself to the left.

Whmmmmp! The giant’s hindclaws land on the spot where Raptor Red had stood.

SssssssSSS. The long arms swing outward and a claw tip rips a thin, shallow wound down Raptor Red’s calf.

Raptor Red retreats another three yards. She stares at the giant’s chest - it rises and falls slowly, evenly. The female giant isn’t breathing hard, and that makes her much scarier.

Raptor Red’s thoughts evaluate the dreadful situation. That one isn’t normal… She’s not a courtship-competitor… She’s a murderess.

Raptor Red makes a high-pitched distress call. She listens for her sister’s response. There is none. She repeats the call. Sisters are supposed to help each other in tough situations like this one. Normal Utahraptor genes are coded for dual-courtship, when two sisters join together to win a desirable mate.

Raptor Red tries the sister-assistance call once more, but she already knows that no help will come. She knows that her sister-bond isn’t a normal one.

The female giant takes a few long, smooth strides in the direction of the young male. Raptor Red notes that the giant isn’t merely huge - she’s also quite limber and possesses great balance.

Raptor Red isn’t ready to give up - not yet. She gives ground slowly, keeping enough space between her and the giant so she can dodge the next attack. The giant tenses. Raptor Red jumps. But she’s been fooled - the giant doesn’t lunge.

Raptor Red feels a twinge of panic. She begins to worry not just about losing this courtship fight, but losing her life.

The giant’s eyes are bright yellowish orange and show no emotion other than a steady confidence. Raptor Red stops monitoring the ankles and watches the giant’s eyelids.

The two females make a slow half-circle, the giant advancing to her left, Raptor Red retreating to her right. And then Raptor Red sees a slight flutter in the giant’s eyes, a contraction of the pupil. The big female holds her breath for a moment, exhales noisily, and moves her weight back on her right foot and tail.

Raptor Red feels the hot breath of another dinosaur behind her left shoulder. She doesn’t have to turn around - she knows from the musky scent that it’s her consort. He starts to hiss, louder and louder.

The giant hesitates, then very slowly backs up. Raptor Red is now shoulder-to-shoulder with her consort, and they raise and lower their heads together, smacking their jaws open and shut. He snaps his muzzle forward and bites at the air a few feet from the giant’s nose.

The female Goliath knows she’s beaten. These two Utahraptors work as one double-headed adversary, and their demeanor shows that they will attack in another step or two.

The big female sighs, her head lowers, and her body language becomes submissive. She’s very sad. All day males have rejected her. All day her unusual size has caused anxiety in potential mates. She’s the victim of discrimination built into the courtship instinct, the inbred distrust of anyone who is too different from the norm.

With her body held low, the unhappy giant walks away, not looking back.

Raptor Red bumps her forehead against her consort’s, and they make cooing noises. The male grooms the nape of her neck with his small front teeth, smells the wound on her leg, and licks it gently.

What is she doing? The young male Utahraptor turns his head one way, then the other, trying to understand what Raptor Red’s sister is up to.

Raptor Red can’t figure it out either. Her sister is grunting and growling with her head stuck down a hole in the ground. Now she pulls her head out, sticks her thumb in, and pulls. Nothing happens, so she pulls her thumb out and sticks her big left hind-claw inside the burrow.

OOPH! Her claw cuts through the soil, and her body falls over backward. She squints, growls, and repeats the procedure.

She’s trying to dig outfurballs, the young male concludes. That’s foolish.

Raptors are poor diggers. Their sharp, curved claws don’t make good shovels. But Raptor Red’s sister has decided this morning that her chicks must have food, that furballs are food, that furballs are down in their burrows, and that she’ll get them out.

GrrrrRRRRRRRRR - OOOP! She tries to cut away another burrow wall but falls sideways.

Ck-ck-ck-ck-ck. The furry four-pound multi clicks his gnawing teeth in defiance from three feet down. Raptor Red’s sister loses what little composure she has left. She whacks at the burrow opening with both forepaws and bites the rocks embedded in the dirt, breaking three tooth crowns.

Ck-ck-ck-ck.

The young male raptor senses that sanity will return to the pack only if they find meat. He looks around, sniffing and listening. Far away there’s a low, haunting sound.

WHOOOOooo - CLUNK!

WHOOOOooooo - CLUNK!

Raptor Red picks up the sound too - she doesn’t recognize it. Her sister doesn’t pay any attention -she’s too busy trying to untangle her thumbs from roots growing around a multi burrow.

Whoooooooooo - clunk!

But the young male thinks he knows what the sound means. It’s a noise he heard three years ago, when he was still with his own family. A sound that may mean a pack of Utahraptors can do something otherwise impossible - kill the spike-armored herbivore.

The young male gets up and starts down the hill. Raptor Red looks at him, gets up, looks at her sister, and sits down. Her sister isn’t budging. In fact, she’s stuck, with both arms and her left foot entangled in the base of a small tree growing over a big burrow.

Raptor Red calls to her sister. Her sister grunts, pulls herself free, and turns away, refusing eye contact, a gesture that says, I won’t go hunting with that male friend of yours.

Raptor Red gets up again and nudges her sister’s neck gently. There is no reaction.

Whmmmp!

Raptor Red kicks her sister’s ribs hard. Her sibling’s eyes fly open, and she raises her head in a jerk.

With a deep sigh, Raptor Red’s sister stretches her thighs and ankles, raises her body off the ferns in slow motion, and stands up. The family needs food.

The two sisters trot downslope, and the chicks follow.

WHOOOOOO - CLUNKKK!

Raptor Red pauses. The noise is much louder now, and she can hear an undercurrent of struggle-sounds - heavy feet pushing in the mud, giant unknown creatures huffing and puffing and snorting.

A canebrake of tall horsetail plants blocks her view.

WhhhhhOOO - THUNK-CLUNK-OOOOF!

CRASH!

A wide, ugly object smashes through the horsetails. The thing wriggles back and forth in a huge arc, breaking off the brittle horsetail stems.

Raptor Red backs up.

WHACK-WHACK-CRASH!

The object grows larger - it’s a horrible headless monster with a long tapered neck. Sharp-edged chunks of bone armor stick out in every direction.