Dragons Teeth Crichton 2017 (WWT)

Badlands
The Judith River, a tributary of the Missouri, flowed from the Little Belt Mountains and connected
with large creeks in a confusing meander of waterways.
“There’s damn good trout in those waters,” said Cookie. “Not that I expect we will be fishing.”
The Judith River basin itself consisted of badlands, rocky outcrops that formed, for the eye, into
mysterious shapes, demons and dragons. A place of gargoyles, said Toad.
Toad’s arm was now swollen and red; he complained of pain. Sternberg said privately he thought
Toad would have to be sent back to Fort Benton, where the army surgeon could amputate his arm with
the benefit of whiskey and a bone saw. But nobody mentioned it to Toad.
The scale of the rock formations in the Judith badlands was enormous; great cliffs—Cope called
them “exposures”—reaching hundreds of feet into the air, in places towering more than a thousand
feet above them. With pastel bands of pink and black rock, the land had a stark and desolate beauty.
But it was a harsh land: there was little water nearby, and it was mostly brackish, alkaline,
poisonous. “Hard to believe this was a great inland lake, surrounded by swamps,” Cope said, staring
at the soft sculpted rock. Cope always seemed to see more than the others did. Cope and also
Sternberg: the tough fossil hunter had the practiced eye of a plains explorer; he always seemed to
know where to find game and water.
“We’ll have water enough here,” he predicted. “It won’t be the water that troubles us. It’ll be the
dust.”
There was indeed an alkaline bite in the air, but the others did not mind it so much. Their
immediate problem was to find a campsite near a suitable place for excavation, and this was no mean
task. Moving the wagons over the terrain—there were no wagon trails here—was difficult and
sometimes dangerous work.
They were also nervous about Indians, because they saw plenty of signs around them: pony tracks,
abandoned cook fires, the occasional antelope carcass. Some of the cook fires looked recent, but
Sternberg professed complete indifference. Even the Sioux weren’t crazy enough to stay in the
badlands for long. “Only a crazy white man’d spend all summer here,” he laughed. “And only a crazy,
rich white man would spend his vacation here!” He slapped Johnson on the back.
For two days they pushed the wagons up hills and braced them down hills, until finally Cope
announced that they were in a suitable bone region, and they could make camp at the next good site
they found. Sternberg suggested the top of the nearby rise, and they pushed the wagons up a final time,
coughing in the dust of the wheels. Toad, unable to help because of his swollen arm, said, “Do you
smell fire?” but no one did.