The column resumed its march.
The undergrowth became thicker. There was no trail and no way to hack one out. They had to squeeze between boles and hand packs across the narrow passages by hand.
The smell of standing water came into the air and it was rank as dishwater in a heat wave.
"Watch him fall into the bleedin' water," Thorpe muttered for Nancy's benefit.
Then the cry went up. This time it seemed to shake the impossibly green leaves, and frightened monkeys flashed from treetops.
HARRUNK!
Skip King's voice volleyed back, high and excited.
"It's just ahead!"
And he went plunging into the brush. They lost sight of him before anyone could react.
"That idiot!" Nancy hissed.
The boom of the rifle echoed back like a cannon blast.
"Oh no!"
King's voice seemed to be all round them in its exultant joy. "I nailed it! I nailed it!"
"That colossal idiot!"
They almost collided with him. King was threshing back the way he had gone. His foxy eyes were bright and wide.
"I bagged it! I bagged it!"
"Not bloody likely," Thorpe spat.
"Did it go down?" Nancy demanded.
"I didn't wait to see," King said excitedly. "Isn't this great? I'm the first man ever to bring down a dinosaur."
They pushed past him.
The ground became mushy. The bush grew thicker, more impenetrable, and rank as swamp grass.
Ralph Thorpe went right up to the edge of the great lake. There was no bank or shore. The trees just stopped and there was water and open sky.
And in the center of the pool, a vast shape loomed.
It was orange and black and glossy as a wet seal. But no seal ever grew so big. The neck was banded in black, and along the ridged back it was dappled in orange blotches as large as fry pans.
And as they stood looking at it, it swung its undersized serpent's head around like a crane and looked at them with goatlike eyes that were as big as their own heads.
The eyes were dull and incurious. the mouth was moving. Some leafy greenage was in its jaws and the jaws were working, lizard fashion, up and down.
The leafage quickly disappeared down its gullet and the black-and-orange bands of the neck began pulsing in time with the long bands of throat muscles.
King was shouting, "I hit it! I hit it dead center! Why is it still on its feet?"
"It doesn't even know it's hit," muttered Thorpe, the British nonchalance in his voice evaporating like the morning rain.
"Bring the cameras," Nancy whispered. "Hurry!"
Skip King stumbled back, his face flushed. He paled when he saw the great beast looking back at him, unfazed.
"What's with that thing?" he complained. "Doesn't it know enough to lie down when its been tranked."
"Evidently not," Thorpe said dryly.
"Well, I'll fix that!"
And before anyone could do anything to stop him, Skip King brought the rifle up to the leather-padded shoulder of his safari jacket and began pumping out rounds, deafening everyone around him.
"You unmitigated cretin!" Nancy screamed.
"It isn't going down!" King shouted. "More guns! We need more firepower!"
The beast in the jungle pool began to advance. The ground shook. Water sloshed on their boots.
And the Bantus began lining the pool.
Thorpe took command. "All right, lads. Make the best of a bad situation, now. Let's bag the brute!"
Rifle stocks dug into sweaty shoulders. Fingers crooked around triggers.
And the rifles began to spit thunder.
Chapter 2
His name was Remo and he was explaining to the assorted rapists, cannibals, and serial killers on Utah State Prison's death row that he was from the American Civil Liberties Union.
"I already got me a lawyer," snorted Orvis Boggs, who had been scheduled to die of lethal injection on October 28, 1979 for eating a three-year-old girl raw because his refrigerator had broken down in a heat wave, spoiling three porterhouse steaks he had shoplifted from the local supermarket.
"I'm not a lawyer," Remo told him.
"You an advocate, then?" called DeWayne Tubble from the adjoining cell.
"You might call me that," Remo agreed. Agreeing would be faster. He would tell the quartet of human refuse anything they wanted to hear.
"Yeah? Well, advocate us out of this hellhole. My TV's been busted for a damn week. This is cruel."