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This may be the most effective way—who knows, it could be the only way—to protect Casey. There's no time to explain to Vance. You pull out your gun and fire a single shot, placing it over the head of the beast, well away from both Casey and the RV. Vance jumps like an Olympic pole vaulter. He stares at you. The important thing, however, is that Casey looks up to see the ankylosaur amid the all-it-can-eat lunch buffet. It glares at you and uses its wrecking-ball tail to down a cycad twice its height before trotting away.

As they say, no good deed goes unpunished. Skyler comes running. Casey marches up to you and chews you out for disrupting the ankylosaur while it was grazing. Interestingly, a grudging respect shows in the set of Darien Vance's jaw—which is something, at least. He cuts off Casey and says quite a few words in your defense. Meanwhile, Brett looks on, not exactly comfortable with these developments. Surprised and ill at ease, you spin on your heel and get out of there fast, with Brett trailing behind. You drive away, neither of you saying a word as you follow the river, which grows swifter and louder, breaking into rapids.

By and by, you come to the top of a waterfall. Mist rises from a good hundred feet below you.

Glittering, frolicking, darting in and out of the mist and its rainbows are four or five pterosaurs. The ostrich-necked fliers bear head crests sweeping backward as they tilt their pointy-beaked heads up and down. Great wings gleaming iridescent in the sunlight, the tailless creatures rise and circle and swoop, with cries of delight.

Their nest perches precariously on some rocks jutting from the opposite shore above the falls. A passel of little ones poke their heads over the rim of the nest, intent on watching the marvelous antics of their parents.

Putting aside thoughts of Vance and Casey and Skyler, you watch the adults circle a few feet above the nest as they call encouragement to their offspring, who flap their little wings, doing adorable imitations of their parents. It dawns on you that the four adults are trying to teach the little ones to fly.