Tyrannosaur Canyon

DOUGLAS PRESTON has worked for the American Museum of Natural History as well as with his frequent collaborator, Lincoln Child. He has authored such bestselling thrillers as Brimstone , The Cabinet of Curiosities , and Relic . His latest solo novel is The Codex . Amazon.com Exclusive Content Rex-ommended Reading You won't need to do any research before reading Douglas Preston's exciting novel Tyrannosaur Canyon , but it's easy to see he did plenty. Check out his list of recommended reading to learn more about the mighty T. Rex and the fascinating world of dinosaurs in general. From Publishers Weekly At the start of this improbable thriller from bestseller Preston ( The Codex ), innocent bystander Tom Broadbent is riding his horse through a New Mexico canyon when he comes upon prospector Stem Weathers, who's just been shot. Before Weather dies, he gives Tom a notebook filled with mysterious numbers, asking him to pass it on to his daughter. Taking this assignment to heart, Tom puts himself and his wife at ever greater, more pointless risk as he tries to deliver the notebook. Soon the Broadbents find themselves the target of the prospector's assassin—a jailbird hired by an evil British paleontologist seeking the perfectly preserved remains of a Tyrannosaurus rex—as well as a rogue government operative who's trying, with a commandeered army squad, to kill almost everyone in the book. Lively yet ridiculous, the narrative loses all plausibility as it becomes clear that the characters do what they do solely in order to keep the plot churning to its conclusion. The recent real-life discovery of a Tyrannosaurus rex fossil containing soft tissue makes this particularly timely. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist Tom Broadbent and Sally Colorado, introduced in The Codex (2004), Preston's first book without writing partner Lincoln Childs, reprise some of their heroics in this thriller, which abandons the Honduran jungles for hot, sandy New Mexico. Upon investigating what sounds like shots on a remote mesa, Broadbent discovers a dying prospector, who gives him notebook and extracts a promise: "Bring this to my daughter." Broadbent takes his pledge to heart, keeping the book a secret from investigating authorities while trying to decode the contents and identify its writer. Of course, the book isn't some simple memento: it maps an amazing scientific find that puts Broadbent and Sally (now his wife) at risk from a psychopathic killer whose employer has no idea he's not the only interested party. Preston smothers his cast under a blanket of action and contrivance, and his perfectly delicious scientific premise gets less than its due. Give him lots of credit, however, for thrills. He can write gripping escape scenes and bloody confrontations with the best of them. Stephanie Zvirin Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "Raiders of the Lost Ark meets The Amazing Race! A fast-paced, clever adventure."-- Entertainment Weekly (A-) on The Codex "Preston keeps the adventure high, springing plenty of nifty surprises along the way."--- People (3 ½ Stars) on The Codex "Fascinating characters, exotic jungle scenery, and surprising twists make this nonstop thrill ride well worth deciphering. For all fiction collections."-- Library Journal on The Codex "Preston flies high and fast . . . a briskly involving science-based thriller. Rip-roaring jungle adventure, outfitted with a nasty villain, a beautiful blonde, two memorable Indian characters, hosts of wild animals, terrific atmosphere, and cliffhangers galore. Preston delivers the goods."-- Publishers Weekly on The Codex Preston's exhilarating and absorbing science-based effort will thrill readers....Michael Crichton wishes he could write half as well. ( Library Journal (starred review) )I would put Tyrannosaur Canyon up with the best of Michael Crichton's novels (Lincoln Child)Preston has accomplished the impossible: he combined the cutting-edge science of Michael Crichton and the thrills and chills of Stephen King. (W. Michael and Kathleen O' Neal Gear) DOUGLAS PRESTON has worked for the American Museum of Natural History as well as With his frequent collaberator Lincoln Child, he has authored such bestselling thrillers as Brimstone, The Cabinet of Curiosities, and Relic . His latest solo novel is The Codex. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter One STEM WEATHERS SCRAMBLED to the top of the Mesa de los Viejos, tied his burro to a dead juniper, and settled himself down on a dusty boulder. Catching his breath, he mopped the sweat off his neck with a bandanna. A steady wind blowing across the mesa top plucked at his beard, cooling him after the hot dead air of the canyons. He blew his nose and stuffed the bandanna back into his pocket. Studying the familiar landmarks, he silently recited the names—Daggett Canyon, Sundown Rocks, Navajo Rim, Orphan Mesa, Mesa del Yeso, Dead Eye Canyon, Blue Earth, La Cuchilla, the Echo Badlands, the White Place, the Red Place, and Tyrannosaur Canyon. The closet artist in him saw a fantastical realm painted in gold, rose, and purple; but the geologist in him saw a set of Upper Cretaceous fault-block plateaus, tilted, split, stripped, and scoured by time, as if infinity had laid waste to the earth, leaving behind a wreckage of garish rock. Weathers slipped a packet of Bull Durham out of a greasy vest pocket and rolled a smoke with gnarled, dirt-blackened hands, his fingernails cracked and yellow. Striking a wooden match on his pant leg, he fired up the quirly and took in a long drag. For the past two weeks he had restricted his tobacco ration, but now he could splurge. All his life had been a prologue to this thrilling week. His life would change in a heartbeat. He’d patch things up with his daughter, Robbie, bring her here and show her his find. She would forgive him his obsessions, his unsettled life, his endless absences. The find would redeem him. He had never been able to give Robbie the things that other fathers lavished on their daughters—money for college, a car, help with the rent. Now he’d free her from waiting tables at Red Lobster and finance the art studio and gallery she dreamed of. Weathers squinted up at the sun. Two hours off the horizon. If he didn’t get moving he wouldn’t reach the Chama River before dark. Salt, his burro, hadn’t had a drink since morning and Weathers didn’t want a dead animal on his hands. He watched the animal dozing in the shade, its ears flattened back and lips twitching, dreaming some evil dream. Weathers almost felt affection for the vicious old brute. Weathers stubbed out his cigarette and slipped the dead butt into his pocket. He took a swig from his canteen, poured a little out onto his bandanna, and mopped his face and neck with the cooling water. He slung the canteen over his shoulder and untied the burro, leading him eastward across the barren sandstone mesa. A quarter mile distant, the vertiginous opening of Joaquin Canyon cut a spectacular ravine in the Mesa de los Viejos, the Mesa of the Ancients. Falling away into a complex web of canyons known as the Maze, it wound all the way to the Chama River. Weathers peered down. The canyon floor lay in blue shadow, almost as if it were underwater. Where the canyon turned and ran west—with Orphan Mesa on one side and Dog Mesa on the other—he spied, five miles away, the broad opening to the Maze. The sun was just striking the tilted spires and hoodoo rock formations marking its entrance. He scouted the rim until he found the faint, sloping trail leading to the bottom. A treacherous descent, it had landslided out in various places, forcing the traveler to navigate thousand-foot drop-offs. The only route from the Chama River into the high mesa country eastward, it discouraged all but the bravest souls. For that, Weathers was grateful. He picked his way down, careful with himself and the burro, relieved when they approached the dry wash along the bottom. Joaquin Wash would take him past the entrance to the Maze and from there to the Chama River. At Chama Bend there was a natural campsite where the river made a tight turn, with a sandbar where one could swim. A swim...now there was a thought. By tomorrow afternoon he would be in Abiquiú. First thing he’d phone Harry Dearborn (the battery on his sat-phone had died some days back) just to let him know . . . Weathers tingled at the thought of breaking the news. The trail finally reached the bottom. Weathers glanced up. The canyon face was dark, but the late-afternoon sun blazed on the rimrock. He froze. A thousand feel above, a man, silhouetted on the rim, stared down at him. He swore under his breath. It was the same man who had followed him up from Santa Fe into the Chama wilderness two weeks ago. People like that knew of Weathers’s unique skill, people who were too lazy or stupid to do their own prospecting and hoped to jump his claim. He recalled the man: a scraggy type on a Harley, some biker wannabe. The man had trailed him through Espanola, past Abiquiú and Ghost Ranch, hanging two hundred yards back, making no effort at deception. He’d seen the same joker at the beginning of his hike into the wilderness. Still wearing the biker head scarf, he followed him on foot up Joaquin Wash from the Chama River. Weathers had lost his pursuer in the Maze and reached the top of the Mesa of the Ancients before the biker found his way out. Two weeks later, here he was again—a persistent little bastard. Stem Weathers studied first the lazy curves of Joaquin Wash, then the rock spires marking the mouth of the Maze. He would lose him in the Maze again. And maybe this time the son of a bitch would remain lost. He continued scrambling down the canyon, periodically checking his back trail. Instead of following, however, the man had disappeared. Perhaps the pursuer thought he knew a quicker way down. Weathers smiled, because there was no other way down. After an hour of hiking down Joaquin Wash he felt his anger and anxiety subside. The man was an amateur. It wasn’t the first time a fool had followed him out into the desert only to find himself lost. They all wanted to be like Stem, but they weren’t. He’d been doing this all his life, and he had a sixth sense—it was inexplicable. He hadn’t learned it in a textbook or studied it in graduate school, nor could all those Ph.D.s master it with their geological maps and synthetic aperture C-Band radar surveys. He succeeded where they failed, using nothing more than a donkey and a homemade ground-penetrating radar unit built on the back of an old IBM 286. No wonder they hated him. Weathers’s ebullient mood returned. That bastard wasn’t going to spoil the greatest week of his life. The burro balked and Weathers stopped to pour some water into his hat, letting the animal drink, then cursed him forward. The Maze lay just ahead, and he’d enter there. Deep in the Maze, near Two Rocks, was a rare source of water—a rock ledge covered with maidenhair ferns, which dripped water into an ancient basin carved in the sandstone by prehistoric Indians. Weathers decided to camp there instead of at Chama Bend, where he’d be an open target. Better safe than sorry. He rounded the great rock pillar marking the entrance. Thousand-foot canyon walls of aeolian sandstone soared above him, the majestic Entrada Formation, the compacted remains of a Jurassic desert. The canyon had a cool, hushed feeling, like the interior of a Gothic cathedral. He breathed deeply the redolent air, perfumed by salt cedar. Above, the light in the hoodoo rock formations had turned from electrum to gold as the sun sank toward the horizon. He continued into the warren of canyons, approaching where Hanging Canyon merged with Mexican Canyon—the first of many such branches. Not even a map would help you in the Maze. And the great depth of the canyons made GPS and satellite phones useless. The first round struck Weathers in the shoulder from behind, and it felt more like a hard punch than a bullet. He landed on his hands and knees, his mind blank with astonishment. It was only when the report cracked and echoed through the canyons that he realized he’d been shot. There was no pain yet, just a buzzing numbness, but he saw that shattered bone protruded from a torn shirt, and pumping blood was splattering on the sand. Jesus God. He staggered back to his feet as the second shot kicked up the sand next to him. The shots were coming from the rim above him and to his right. He had to return to the canyon two hundred yards away—to the lee of the rock pillar. It was the only cover. He ran for all he was worth. The third shot kicked up sand in front of him. Weathers ran, seeing that he still had a chance. The attacker had ambushed him from the rim above and it would take the man several hours to descend. If Weathers could reach that stone pillar, he might escape. He might actually live. He zigzagged, his lungs screaming with pain. Fifty yards, forty, thirty— He heard the shot only after he felt the bullet slam into his lower back and saw his own entrails empty onto the sand in front of him, the inertia pitching him facedown. He tried to rise, sobbing and clawing, furious that someone would steal his find. He writhed, howling, clutching his pocket notebook, hoping to throw it, lose it, destroy it, to keep it from his killer—but there was no place to conceal it, and then, as if in a dream, he could not think, could not move... Excerpted from Tyrannosaur Canyon by Douglas Peterson. Copyright © 2005 by Splendide Mendax, Inc. Published in September 2005 by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected under copyright laws and reproduction is strictly prohibited. Permission to reproduce the material in any manner or medium must be secured from the Publisher. Read more