Dragons Teeth Crichton 2017 (WWT)

West with Cope
Johnson awoke in inky blackness, hearing the roar of the train. He fumbled for his pocket watch; it
said ten o’clock. For a confused moment, he thought it was ten at night. Then the darkness broke with
a shaft of brilliant light, and another, and flickering shafts illuminated his sleeping compartment: the
train was thundering through long snow sheds as it crossed the Rocky Mountains. He saw fields of
snow in late June, the brilliance so dazzling it hurt his eyes.
Ten o’clock! He threw on his clothes, hurried out of the compartment, and found Cope staring out
the window, drumming his stained fingers impatiently on the sill. “I’m sorry I overslept, Professor, if
only someone had awakened me, I—”
“Why?” Cope asked. “What difference does it make that you slept?”
“Well, I mean, I—it’s so late—”
“We are still two hours from Salt Lake,” Cope said. “And you slept because you were tired, an
excellent reason for sleeping.” Cope smiled. “Or did you think I would leave you, too?”
Confused, Johnson said nothing. Cope continued to smile. And then, after a moment, he bent over
the sketch pad in his lap, took up his pen, and drew with his ink-stained fingers. Without looking up,
he said, “I believe Mrs. Cope has arranged for a pot of coffee.”
That night, Johnson recorded in his journal:
Cope spent the morning sketching, which he does with great rapidity and talent. I have learned a lot
about him from the others. He was a child prodigy, who wrote his first scientific paper at the age of six,
and he has now (I believe him to be 36) published some 1,000 papers. He is rumored to have had a love
affair before his marriage that was broken off, and then, perhaps in despair, he traveled to Europe,
where he met many of the great natural scientists of the day. He met Marsh in Berlin for the first time
and shared correspondence, manuscripts, and photographs. He is also considered to be an expert on
snakes, reptiles and amphibians in general, and fish. Sternberg and the students (except Morton) are
devoted to him. He is a Quaker, and peace-loving to the core. He wears wooden false teeth, which are
remarkably life-like; I wouldn’t have known. In this way and nearly every other, he is utterly different
from Marsh. Where Marsh is plodding, Cope is brilliant; where Marsh is scheming, Cope is honest;
where Marsh is secretive, Cope is free. In all ways, Professor Cope shows greater humanity than his
counterpart. Professor Marsh is a desperate, driven fanatic who makes his own life as miserable as the
lives of those he commands. While Cope shows balance and restraint, and is altogether agreeable.
It would not be long before Johnson took a different view of Cope.
The train descended out of the Rocky Mountains to Great Salt Lake City, in the Territory of Utah.