Robert Bakker - RAPTOR RED

The young male rises very tall and sniffs. Then there’s an awkward silence as he stares at Raptor Red. He comes over and gives her a snout nuzzle. It doesn’t last long, and he walks away.

This complex social drama has occupied the entire pack. They’re not as vigilant as they would be if they were a stable family.

A huge acrocanthosaur is sitting behind the crest of a pale yellow sand dune. Her three-ton body is hidden from the beach. Since the sun rose an hour ago, she’s been watching the raptor family wake up slowly from their temporary nest not far from the water’s edge. The wind is with her - it’s blowing in from the shore.

This acro is a mature adult. She has chicks back in a nest two miles away. And there’s nothing an acro mother hates more than a pack of raptors near her family. Raptors are the deadliest menace to other predators' chicks. Raptors are nest-raiders.

The acro’s mate crawls up next to her. He stares down at the beach. The two acros are looking for the right moment to leap over the dune crest and attack the raptor family, but they’re momentarily puzzled. Something strange is happening among the raptors.

Raptor Red stands frozen in fear, her head trembling. Tiny pathetic squeaks are coming from her throat. Her pupils are dilated even though the morning sun is bright. She’s staring at her sister, who is staring at the male raptor.

The male raptor has the little raptor chick in his mouth. It’s squealing.

He didn’t plan to do it. The chick was getting on his nerves, playing games with his tail. Usually the male’s strong attachment to Raptor Red modulates his urge to bite the chick in half. His strongest instinct is to please Raptor Red - so she’ll agree to have chicks with him.

But not this morning. The chick has been too obnoxious. Its mother has been too bloody-minded. And the male is just too edgy. The final insult came when the chick tried to bite him, just as its mother had. The chick imitated its mother too precisely - for a second the male thought Raptor Red had not one, but two hellish sisters.

That’s a thought that makes him lose control.

So he didn’t exactly intend to grab the chick in his mouth. He snapped at it to keep it away from his tail. But the chick zigged in the wrong direction, and the male’s jaws, almost by accident, closed tight on the chick’s calf.

Now the chick is screaming. The male’s jaws tighten just a bit, then relax.

He’s fighting instinct with reason. His reflex emotions say, Bite hard and get it over with. His rational inner voice says, Drop the chick and act submissive.

Raptor Red is afraid for the chick. It’s her niece, and blood ties are strong. But she’s even more afraid her sister will rip the male to pieces.

Raptor Red’s sister stands on her tiptoes, making herself look as tall as possible. Ripples of muscle contraction pass through her entire body until every ounce of body mass is tensed.

She’s uttering a low, guttural snarl.

Raptor Red advances slowly toward her sister, keeping her head close to the ground. It’s a walk of appeasement, the submissive display of a sibling trying to defuse a deadly situation.

The male looks at Raptor Red, then at her sister. He’s frozen where he is, unable to move.

Suddenly, Raptor Red’s sister slashes out with her left hand. Raptor Red staggers. She looks down at her elbow, where a fresh wound is beginning to bleed. Raptor Red sinks down on her knees. She’s never, NEVER been struck in anger by her sister before. She doesn’t know what to do.

Then a cloud of sand comes flying into Raptor Red’s face, stinging her eyes. She blinks hard. She sees a blur of hindfeet churning up the beach. Her sister is charging the male.

Raptor Red tries to run to cut her off, but the sand is so soft, it’s impossible to accelerate fast, and she stumbles.

Her sister is coming at the male with her arms flailing. He drops the chick, who runs away toward the surf, splashing out until the water is lapping at her knees. She focuses her eyes at her mother and doesn’t notice the dark mass breaching the surface, gliding toward shore, out beyond where the waves start to break.

There’s a gentle disturbance in the surface as the immense body changes course and steers directly at the chick.

The male raptor turns and starts running uphill. Raptor Red’s sister tries to follow but slips and skids sideways down the sand dune. Raptor Red sprints between them. She stops, looking in panic both up - and downhill. But then she doesn’t know what to do. Her sister gets up and just misses Raptor Red with a swipe of her fore-paw.

Out of the corner of her eye, Raptor Red sees the body shadow of a sea-monster coming at the chick.

She gives the alarm call, but her sister ignores it and begins to climb the dune after the male. In the next instant, an avalanche of sand bowls the male and Raptor Red’s sister over. They lie sputtering at the foot of the dune. A four-foot-long head juts out from the dune crest and snarls. Then the neck and shoulders emerge. Then the massive thighs of the acrocanthosaur.

Raptor Red screams another alarm call. The chick standing in the surf sees the acro and backs out further into the water, unknowingly putting herself in an ideal spot to be attacked by the sea-monster. The chick is now in water up to her hips and she’s having a hard time staying upright in the tidal surge.

Raptor Red’s sister is lying on her back, half buried in the dune. The male acro is crashing clumsily down through the sand. The sister looks at the acro, then at the male raptor, then back at the acro.

She twists her body around and attacks the male raptor.

Raptor Red yells in exasperation. The hoarse scream means You IDIOT!

Raptor Red grabs her sister’s tail and drags her down the slope. The charging acro pauses. He’s confused by all the raptors yelling at each other. It seems to be some newfangled group defense he’s never seen before.

The female acro walks briskly along a diagonal route across the dune face. She’s older and wiser than her consort. She knows sand and she knows raptors. She knows that the raptor pack is fighting among themselves.

Raptor Red recognizes immediately that the female acro is the real threat to her sister and the male raptor. But the giant sea-reptile is closing in on the raptor chick.

For a horrible second Raptor Red is sure she’s going to lose her mate, her sister, and her niece.

But then the thought strikes. Her brain puts two things together.

Raptor Red charges the female acro, screaming her loudest. She brushes past the snapping acro muzzle. A mouthful of four dozen enormous ivory teeth, each saw-edged, clamps shut a few inches from Raptor Red’s skin.

Raptor Red whirls and strikes. Her index finger makes a shallow but painful cut on the acre’s upper lip.

The female acro blinks hard. She looks at the male raptor and at Raptor Red’s sister, hissing at each other as they retreat to the left. Then the acro looks at Raptor Red, yelling defiantly to the right, at the edge of the water.

The acro runs after Raptor Red. I’ve got it cornered - its back is against the sea, the acro thinks to herself.

And the charging acro does close the distance rapidly. Raptor Red splashes noisily out into the salt water.

I’ve got it -1 can wade out farther than she can! The acro’s brain sends messages of confidence to her legs.

Raptor Red turns and runs through the water, parallel to shore. She passes the raptor chick, frozen in fear, and knocks it down.

The acro ignores the chick and follows Raptor Red through the surf. The long, strong acro shins and ankles slosh through the water with ease.

The distance is down to a few yards. Another second, and I’ll strike, the acro thinks. Her sensory system preps her neck and jaws.