Robert Bakker - RAPTOR RED

She feels a warm body leaning against her, and she smells her consort’s fighting scent. She’s not sure that she is still alive, but she’s happy. A very deep sleep envelops her brain.

The light comes again inside her brain, this time an orange-yellow light from outside. It’s morning light, a bright, warm spring morning. Her eyelids become so warm she blinks. Drops of hot water seep into the corner of her eye. There’s a dank, heavy smell all around. She sees a mound of conifer branches heaped up on one side, with steam rising. She opens one eye a little farther and sees a clear blue sky reddened in one quadrant by a midmorning sun.

She smells meat - it’s right next to her - and suddenly she’s ravenous. Strips of fresh segnosaur steak and chunks of liver are within easy reach, and she gobbles down several mouthfuls.

BleacccCCh! She coughs up a piece of bone that got stuck in her throat. Coughing makes her sit up. She finds that she can wiggle her left hindtoes. That’s a welcome surprise. And she can stretch all six fingers, flexing and unflexing the big meat-hook claws.

Feeling has come back to both legs - especially the left, which hurts terribly at the knee. Raptor Red grimaces. She doesn’t know where she is.

She closes her eyes, and the smell of the young male comes back. She doesn’t want to open them again for fear that the image will go away. Hot breath and a snuffling sound are right next to her ear and neck.

Something wet and hot bumps her eyelid hard, making her head recoil.

She slowly opens her eye. There, too close to be in focus, is the muzzle of her consort. She reaches out and pokes his nose with her hand. He’s really there.

The old white dactyl surveys the scene below as he rises on the morning thermal currents. The dactyl sees the two adult Utahraptors preening each other. Two chicks are feeding on meat in a new makeshift nest at the edge of the meadow. All around the nest are the signs of a desperate battle. Two dead deinonychs have been hurled into the lower branches of a tree. Tracks show that other deinonychs have fled with bloody wounds.

All the tracks will disappear in the hot sun by midmorning.

Raptor Red eats her fill and goes back to sleep. She needs to sleep. She wakes again later the same morning. She looks at the clear blue sky. Bright March sun is transforming snow into vapor, and the layers of white evaporate in the open spaces, leaving cold remnants only in the deep shade.

Raptor Red leaves dreamtime gradually, in stages. Her morning dreams have been soft and warm and comforting. She’s seen herself curled up with her male consort on one side and her two nieces on the other. Now, as she is crossing the boundary between sleep and consciousness, she feels safe. In her last dream of the morning, she’s being guarded by a huge white dactyl who won’t let predators come near.

She opens one eye. The light is so bright that she shuts it again. She moves her hand to shade her head and opens her eye again. She sees a huge white dactyl standing motionless six feet away.

Raptor Red snaps her eye shut and reenters the dream. The white dactyl is there, taller, more massive. Raptor Red’s brain grapples with this most unusual duality.

Dreamtime and reality aren’t supposed to be the same.

It wakes her up completely. She opens both eyes - there’s the white dactyl. Raptor Red blinks twice and moves her head back and forth, the way she does to make sure of the identification of an immobile object.

Yes - that’s a white dactyl. In fact, that’s the white dactyl, her aloof companion since her childhood.

The big dactyl jerks his head down into the weeds and yanks on some meat scraps attached to a segno-saur carcass. Raptor Red pulls her head and shoulders back in alarm.

Eeeep! Her pupils dilate, and she utters a little alarm call. The white dactyl jumps straight up three feet and backpedals a couple of yards. The two predators stare at each other.

The white dactyl moves away and clatters his jaws together quickly, his outward sign of inner agitation. He settles down after a minute or two and starts playing with a deinonych body.

Raptor Red sniffs - and the air around her retells the story of the previous day. There’s a dung-scent left by deinonychs - a smell full of anger and fear. But it’s faint and fading away into nothingness. Much stronger and much nearer is the scent of her sister’s chicks. They’ve been next to Raptor Red while she slept.

Raptor Red tries out each of her extremities, one by one, stretching and flexing and stretching. Her injured leg throbs at her first attempt to straighten the knee and ankle. But the other leg operates smoothly and painlessly, and her arms and neck, although stiff, are in operating condition.

It’s already nine o’clock, and the ground is warm around her. She sniffs at the segnosaur carcass and picks out some soft meat. Swallowing three big chunks makes her feel even better.

A light breeze starts up and brings a strong smell from upslope. Raptor Red stops eating. She hobbles to her feet, using both hands and one hindpaw to carry her weight. She shuffles up to the body of her sister.

Her sister’s body looks very slender, very small. Much smaller than it seemed in life. Raptor Red sits quietly for five minutes.

Another powerful scent seeps into her nostrils from a bush twelve feet away. Raptor Red raises her head and stares and sniffs.

The bush has been scent-marked by Utahraptor dung. Raptor Red closes her eyes and breathes in the acrid smell. Excellent. It’s from her male consort. Its message is clear to all raptors: This spot and this family are mine.

Raptor Red’s period of mourning is over. She won’t forget her sister. Dreamtime will bring her back. But her conscious life has just changed. The tangled web of loyalties that has caused her pain for months suddenly becomes simplified.

Something old has clicked off inside her brain, and a new thing has clicked on.

An hour later Raptor Red sees three figures,

Utahraptors, coming down the slope - two tall, one short. The two tall ones are carrying parts of another segnosaur carcass.

Long before she can smell the three raptors, Raptor Red identifies them from their gait. The short one is the younger chick, still gawky and goofy and playful. The tallest is walking with a jaunty, self-assured rhythm, even though he’s carrying a heavy piece of meat. That’s her mate.

The other tall raptor causes a moment of confusion in Raptor Red’s mind. The long stride, the aggressive carriage of the arms, a kind of defiance in the head and neck—

For a brief moment Raptor Red thinks her sister has come back to life.

She lowers her head and rocks back and forth. No, that one is her sister’s older chick. Raptor Red hadn’t realized how very much the chick had grown up to resemble her mother.

Raptor Red gets up as tall as she can and bobs her head in greeting. The male replies, offering the heavy side of meat as a greeting. She replies, performing the bonding dance duet as well as she can in her semicrippled state.

The male follows and spreads his hands wide. He’s going into the full mate-bonding dance, with all the elaborate moves. He walks back and forth with exaggerated steps, lowering his head, presenting the meat, then withdrawing it. It’s the first time he has been able to carry out the full bonding program without interruption.

The chicks don’t like it, but they stand back. The smaller one snarls in a high-pitched voice. The taller one moves away, glaring and showing her teeth.

The male finishes his dance and lays the meat offering at Raptor Red’s feet. She doesn’t look at it. She stares at the male and bobs her head, initiating another round of the bonding dance. She wants to see him do it again.