Dragons Teeth Crichton 2017 (WWT)

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“So I expect you’ll have to get a job,” Perkins said. “You need to raise over a hundred dollars, plus what you owe me. That’s a good deal of money to come by honestly.” Johnson didn’t need to be told that. “Any work you can do, useful work?” “I dug all summer.” “Everybody here can dig. That’s the only reason folks come to the Black Hills—to mine. No, I mean can you cook or shoe horses or do carpentry, anything like that. A skill.” “No. I am a student.” Johnson looked at the crates of fossils. He rested his hand on one, touched it. He could leave the fossils here. He could take the stage from Deadwood to Fort Laramie, and from there cable home for money. He could tell Cope—assuming Cope was still alive—that the fossils had been lost. A story formed in his mind: they had been ambushed, the wagon had overturned, fallen over a cliff, all the fossils were lost or smashed. It was a pity, but it couldn’t be helped. Anyway, he thought, these fossils weren’t so important, for the entire American West was full of fossils. Wherever you dug into a cliff, you found old bones of one sort or another. There were certainly far more fossils than gold in this wilderness. These few wouldn’t be missed. At the rate Cope and Marsh were collecting bones, in a year or two these would hardly even be remembered. Another idea came to him: leave the fossils here in Deadwood, go to Laramie, wire for money, and with proper funds return to Deadwood, collect the fossils, and leave again. But he knew that if he ever got out of Deadwood alive, he’d never come back. Not for anything. He must either take them now, or turn tail and run without them. “Dragon teeth,” he said softly, touching the crate, remembering the moment of their discovery. “What’s that?” said Perkins. “Nothing,” Johnson said. Try as he might, he could not diminish the importance of the fossils in his mind. It was not merely that he had dug them with his own hands, his own sweat. It was not merely that men had died, that his friends and companions had died, in the course of finding them. It was because of what Cope had said. These fossils were the remains of the largest creatures that ever walked on the face of the earth— creatures unsuspected by science, unknown to mankind, until their little party had dug them up in the middle of the Montana badlands. “With all my heart,” he wrote in his journal, I wish to leave these accursed rocks right here in this accursed town right here in this accursed wilderness. With all my heart, I wish to leave them and go home to Philadelphia and never think again in my life of Cope or Marsh or rock strata or dinosaur genera or any other of this exhausting and tedious business. And to my horror, I find I cannot. I must take them back with me, or stay with them as a mother hen stays with her eggs. Damn all principles. While Johnson was examining the fossils, Perkins pointed to a jumble of material under a tarp. “This yours, too? What’s all this?” “That’s photographic equipment,” Johnson said absently. “Know how to use it?” “Sure.” “Well then, your troubles are over!” “How’s that?” “We had a man who made photographic pictures. He took his camera out on the road south out of town last spring. Just him and a horse, to take photos of the land. Why, I do not know. Ain’t nothing
there. The next stagecoach found him on his back, with the turkey vultures on him. That camera was in a thousand pieces.” “What happened to all his plates and chemicals?” “We still got them, but nobody knows what to do with them.”
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Contents Cover Endpaper Title Page
Page 6 and 7:
Introduction As he appears in an ea
Page 8 and 9:
Young Johnson Joins the Field Trip
Page 10 and 11:
Marsh Professor Marsh kept offices
Page 12 and 13:
The name had an extraordinary effec
Page 14 and 15:
Learning Photography Johnson wanted
Page 16 and 17:
Philadelphia Philadelphia was the b
Page 18 and 19:
puffed-up, brave, and determined to
Page 20 and 21:
“Really? Most families wish to me
Page 22 and 23:
wealthy Quaker merchant, left him m
Page 24 and 25:
“I have made inquiries about that
Page 26 and 27:
informed of this by Red Cloud himse
Page 28 and 29:
Going West The Chicago and North We
Page 30 and 31:
The West Beyond Omaha the real West
Page 32 and 33:
town, it was, noted Johnson, “a c
Page 34 and 35:
The Pride De Paree Theater was a tw
Page 36 and 37:
“I’ll be back, though.” “Wh
Page 38 and 39:
“Oh yes, Mr. Johnson,” said the
Page 40 and 41:
Cope’s Expedition It was immediat
Page 42 and 43:
Established thirty years before, Sa
Page 44 and 45:
e rejoining her husband; indeed, sh
Page 46 and 47:
His personal style—his long curly
Page 48 and 49:
Part II The Lost World
Page 50 and 51:
He was awake for each changing of t
Page 52 and 53:
Incidents on the Plains In the midd
Page 54 and 55:
Sternberg went out and shot an ante
Page 56 and 57:
Badlands The Judith River, a tribut
Page 58 and 59: “I said, ‘I bid you welcome and
Page 60 and 61: that the nomadic Indian lives a fre
Page 62 and 63: Bone Country With these preliminary
Page 64 and 65: potential discoveries lying in wait
Page 66 and 67: cooks it,” Isaac grumbled). Rathe
Page 68 and 69: In 1871, Lord Kelvin, the most emin
Page 70 and 71: Bad Water Cope chose his campsites
Page 72 and 73: They rode on. The sun dropped behin
Page 74 and 75: Dinner with Cope and Marsh The sear
Page 76 and 77: “Very true.” “Though you neve
Page 78 and 79: “Sleep with Your Guns Tonight, Bo
Page 80 and 81: Moving Camp In early August, they w
Page 82 and 83: “Just wait and see,” Cookie sai
Page 84 and 85: “Of these rocks?” Johnson asked
Page 86 and 87: Around the Campfire Any discovery l
Page 88 and 89: Leaving the Badlands The morning of
Page 90 and 91: I am dreadfully ashamed of what occ
Page 92 and 93: Part III Dragon Teeth
Page 94 and 95: they reach us.” “You boys go ri
Page 96 and 97: Badlands Silence, under a waning mo
Page 98 and 99: Little Wind said nothing. “What a
Page 100 and 101: Deadwood Deadwood presented a bleak
Page 102 and 103: he thought. Then he finished fillin
Page 104 and 105: Laramie and Cheyenne?” “That’
Page 106 and 107: “He moved old Jake when the carri
Page 110 and 111: The Black Hills Art Gallery “How
Page 112 and 113: But it was also the beginning of tr
Page 114 and 115: His whole manner changed. “Then y
Page 116 and 117: For his part, Black Dick claimed to
Page 118 and 119: “I got to pack,” Johnson said,
Page 120 and 121: No one in town who knew Dick would
Page 122 and 123: already been to Montana City and Cr
Page 124 and 125: “Fossil bones are rock.” “The
Page 126 and 127: Emily’s News “It’s no good,
Page 128 and 129: All around him, the hotel was silen
Page 130 and 131: “I am sure of it,” the judge sa
Page 132 and 133: “Yes. Ling Chow has tool shed, ve
Page 134 and 135: A Shootout Black Dick showed up in
Page 136 and 137: Keep your eyes on him. Never take y
Page 138 and 139: had hired Kang to help him again, s
Page 140 and 141: Deadwood for the winter, but said t
Page 142 and 143: “Only a damn fool would think so,
Page 144 and 145: Johnson and Miss Emily ducked down.
Page 146 and 147: Red Canyon They reached the town of
Page 148 and 149: Fort Laramie Fort Laramie was an ar
Page 150 and 151: “Well, you’ve just come from De
Page 152 and 153: “How can you say that? Look at hi
Page 154 and 155: other pursuits of no substance.”
Page 156 and 157: “Of course.” “Really?” “D
Page 158 and 159:
“I don’t see why not. She says
Page 160 and 161:
At eight the next morning, feeling
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His father embraced him warmly. “
Page 164 and 165:
Postscript Cope Edward Drinker Cope
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Author’s Note “Biography,” ob
Page 168 and 169:
Afterword Michael’s dedication to
Page 170 and 171:
Taft, Robert. Photography and the A
Page 172 and 173:
Also by Michael Crichton Fiction Th
Page 175 and 176:
Copyright This book is a work of fi
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* Editor’s note: Charles H. Stern
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