The Tyrannosaurus Vegetariandwightclough.com/books2/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Tyrannosaurus... · A war between crocodiles and man, between men and women. A war not unlike other

The Tyrannosaurus Who Wanted to Be a Vegetarian

The

Tyrannosaurus Who Wanted to Be a Vegetarian

Pirates

When Tom left the house, Sue wasready for him. “A plan is what youneed,” she said, pointing to a crudeoutline in the sand. “This is a croco-dile. And this is the crocodile’s brain.About the size of a boiled peanut.Just about there.” She indicated an“X” near the animal’s eyes. “You onlyneed. to hit it once.” Tom imaginedhis small spear bouncing off thetough crocodile hide.

“These are the teeth,” she continued.“Avoid them.”

5

Dwight A. Clough

You’re forgetting the tail, thoughtTom. One swing from the tail couldbreak a man’s legs.

“I suggest finding one that’s asleep.Sneak up on it. It’ll make your job alot easier.”

Tom smiled.

“And remember: No fish. No rabbits.We simply cannot eat them any more.Concentrate on crocodiles.”

“I see them in my dreams,” said Tom,hoping that would end the lecture.Ever since the door-to-door salesmanhad shown Sue that crocodile purse,her heart hadn’t been the same.

When Tom reached the garden, Marylooked up. “You be careful, Tom. Stayin your league.”

“I’m always careful,” he said, avoidingher eyes. Which sister was worse, hedidn’t know. Since dad died, theytook it upon themselves to tell himhow to hunt even though they knew

6


less about hunting than he knewabout cooking. “Makes you wonder,”he said to himself.

When he reached the river, he lookedboth ways (for crocodile traffic) andthen swam across. It is a war, hethought to himself, as he reached theother side. A war between crocodilesand man, between men and women.A war not unlike other wars, he de-cided as he shook off excess water.Fought by ordinary people who shouldbe content to live and let live if itwasn’t for those who desire a littlemore—those who are willing to getothers to pay the price for what theywant. Agitators. Revolutionaries.

As Tom thought about this, he beganto smile. And then he said to himself,“So tell me: Did you serve in thewar?”

“Did I serve in the war?” his answer-ing self answered, sounding indig-nant. “Did I ever! I served on agalley.”

7

Dwight A. Clough

“‘On a galley,’ you say?” Tom wasskeptical. “Did you see much actionon a galley?”

“In a war, there’s no place like a gal-ley. No place at all.”

Tom’s conversation alerted all croco-dile-sized animals and they stayed arespectable distance away. Larger an-imals were bored by it and by him;his feeble spear presented no threatto them.

But the little animals, the fish andthe rabbits, were attracted to thistalking hunter. When they saw himcoming, they moved in as close asthey dared, hoping not to miss thestory.

“Oh, come on now!” Tom continued,“Give me one advantage to serving ona galley. Just one.”

“Land and sea. There’s one for you.Pirates and enemies and explorationson the side when you can spare thetime. Sneaking up in the fog. And

8


sunrise over the ocean.”

Tom was taken aback. “‘Over theocean,’ you say. I’ve never been to theocean before. What’s it like?”

“It’s just filled with glorious things.Islands and treasures and tidal wavesand whirlpools.”

As Tom and his answering self talkedon, they positioned themselves overthe stream. The fish that came to lis-ten to his story were all a little tooyoung and a little too small for him tospear and take home. So he went on.

“What about pirates? Did you everhave a run in with pirates?”

“I remember the first time we ever ranacross the Thievin’ Hoard we calledthem, though they called themselvesthe Gentlemen of the Sea. It was myfirst year aboard. I was hired on as arower, but when my real talents be-came evident to the ship’s master, Iwas taken off that assignment andgiven the run of the ship with my new

9

Dwight A. Clough

job.”

“Your new job?”

“I was the cook. “

“Didn’t the ship already have acook?”

“We did, but not a very good one. Noone wanted to eat anything he made,so he ended up eating most of it him-self. I suppose that’s how he camedown with the poisoning.”

“Poisoned himself?”

“I don’t reckon he meant to, but hedid. Anyway, after two days with nocook, the crew was getting hungry;we close to had a mutiny on ourhands.”

“What did you do?”

“What could I do? I talked to the mas-ter myself I did. I said to him, ‘Sir, ifyou please, you’ll take my advice andget a new cook.’ I said it to him plainand simple.”

10


“And what did he say to you?”

“He said, ‘You’re hired. You have din-ner (mess they called it) ready intwenty minutes. If you don’t, we’re li-able to cut you up and fry you forsupper. So I became the cook.”

“What did you cook?”

“All sorts of things. Biscuits andcrackers and coconuts and, well, therest wouldn’t be polite to say inpresent company.”

The granddaddy trout that was mov-ing in to hear more about pirates andgalleys and poisoning came at thelast moment to his senses and swamaway.

Tom frowned. He would try to steerthe conversation away from food.

“So tell me more about these pirates.”

“It was a foggy October day. We werein pirate waters and we knew it. Butnone of the men had spotted a thing.I was keeping an eye peeled. too, but,

11

Dwight A. Clough

to tell you the truth, it was Aber-nathy, my cat, that first sniffed themout.”

This caught Tom by surprise. “A cat!”he exclaimed. “They have cats on gal-leys?”

“I should say so. They never set outto sea without a good cat aboard. It’sone of the things that got me hiredoriginally. I had a cat and he was justright for seagoing.”

“You learn something every day,” saidTom, still incredulous.

“Were these the … what did you callthem?”

“The Gentlemen of the Sea. They cer-tainly were. And it was an awful sighttoo.”

Tom’s next guest was getting closer.It was a beautiful catfish, big enoughto feed three.

Tom’s answering self went on. “Thefog was lifting and there was a light

12


rain coming down. I was looking offthe starboard because Abernathy wasnailed to that side nose to the wind..Normally, he would go below at thefirst sign of a rain. But, no, he wasglued. So

I came up to him and I whispered,‘Nathy, what is it?’ And he didn’t lookback to me or nothing. So I justlooked out across the water strainingmy eyes to see what it was he wassniffing out.”

“Then what happened?”

“It was then,” Tom’s self replied, “thatthe bow of that pirate ship brokethrough the fog. It was comingstraight to us, and let me tell you,they were rowin’ hard.”

“What did you do?”

“At first, I could hardly talk, I was sosurprised. I went to yell, and all thatcame out was this little squeak. ‘Cap-tain,’ I said, ‘pirates!’ We were mightyfortunate that Endraker—he was the

13

Dwight A. Clough

drummer—was walking by at thetime. He looked up and, by this time,saw both the bow and the flag. Hehad a powerful voice, and he loved touse it. ‘Captain,’ he roared, ‘pirates tothe starboard.’”

“What did the captain do?”

“The captain, I mean to tell you, wasa man of action. He had us rig thecannon right away. We filled it withpowder and lead and wheeled it intoposition. By this time, they were get-ting close, uncomfortably close. Wewere afraid they might have a cannonof their own.”

“Are you sure you had a cannon?”asked Tom sounding skeptical.

“If you were to hear the blast fromthat big gun just once, you’d be surefor life you had a cannon,” Tom’s selfreplied. “And we did fire, but the shotwent wide. Endraker was all for load-ing up and firing again, but the cap-tain ordered out the grappling hooks.We were going to take ‘em on man-to-

14


man.”

“What did you fight with?” asked Tomas the catfish moved almost withinrange.

“Endraker and the captain carriedbattle axes, but I myself had a sword.They rushed in ahead of the rest,swinging away and shouting as loudas they could. It didn’t matter howugly the battle got, you could alwayshear Endraker over the sound of ev-eryone else saying, ‘Come along, lad-dies, I’ll give you a tune to sing by,’and then he would swing his mightyaxe, laughing all the while.” Tom’sanswering self paused for a momentas though deep in thought. “Funny,you know, in all the battles we wereever in, I never saw Endraker get somuch as a scratch.”

“What about you?” asked Tom, “Whatdid you do?”

“I had a sword,” self answered alsoeying the catfish, “and at first I was alittle shy in its use. But I got rapped a

15

Dwight A. Clough

couple times and I woke up to it. Thekey is to wait for just the right oppor-tunity. You see a man coming towardyou and you know his weak spot. Youstudy it, but you study it quick. Andthen you dive into it with all you’reworth.”

Tom’s spear went diving into the wa-ter. It dived in and stuck to themuddy bottom. And Tom fell in be-hind it. The fish scattered. The cat-fish swam easily away.

“Good gravy!” sputtered Tom as hestruggled to his feet. “That was one ofmy best stories.”

Tom pulled the spear out of the muckand dragged his feet to the bank. Ly-ing down in the grass he decided tolet himself dry before he tried hisluck with a rabbit. For a while hewatched clouds drift by and won-dered to himself what it would be likeif a man could ride on a cloud. Wouldthe oak next to him seem so big? Orwould it seem like a child’s toy, some-

16


thing to be cast aside by these cloudriders, these rulers of the wind? Andwhere would the rulers go when theday was over? Would they meet thestars? Or have tea with the moon? Orwould they just relax, maybe stretcha bit, and fade away into the world ofdreams?

Malcolm

Afternoon had started before Tom re-turned, before he awoke to continuehis hunt. From somewhere hot rainfell. Sunshine faded. Darkness de-scended like a presence that could befelt.

Tom shook his head and opened hiseyes.

Spear. Stick. Some kind of club. Any-thing.

He clawed at tree roots and rocks,pulling up grass. Where was his

17

Dwight A. Clough

spear? He scrambled to his feet andfell. He pulled himself up again,steadying himself against the trunkof the oak. Where was the spear?

His nails dug into the palms of hishands as he stepped back to face thevisitor that towered over him. Whenhe felt the spear in his hand, when herealized it was there all along, at thatmoment he knew he lacked thestrength to use it.

Not that it would do any good.

“Talk to them,” his dad had said be-fore Tom became the man of the fam-ily. “Talk to them. It doesn’t matterwhat you say. Let them hear in yourvoice that you are the master.”

It worked to scare away wolves andwild dogs. With the right story, itworked to lure deer and rabbits andfish into the range of Tom’s spear.But would it work with this? Therewas no other option.

Running was pointless—he would be

18


eaten alive before he took ten steps. Ifhe swam the stream behind him, thecreature would step across and meethim on the other side. Climbing theoak would only put him closer to thedinosaur’s teeth. And—as for thespear—at best he could hope to irri-tate the beast.

Talk to him. Tom searched for a voiceof courage and spoke. But his wordssqueaked and whined like the wailingof a small child.

“What do you mean by sneaking upon a sleeping man like that?”

The Tyrannosaurus didn’t blink anddidn’t answer. But, having said some-thing, Tom had a chance to look himover a little better. He took a stepback. Another backward step andTom could see the animal clearly. Hewas nearly the size of the oak treeTom had been sleeping under. But,for all his size, the Tyrannosaurusseemed anemic, weak or tired. Hisskin hung loosely over his body and

19

Dwight A. Clough

his belly seemed shrunken to half itsnormal size. And his rib cage wasclearly visible.

My guess is that I’m looking at a hun-gry animal, Tom thought to himself.Then he noticed that the dinosaurwas crying.

Tom was still alive. Maybe it works totalk to dinosaurs. “So those weretears hitting me. For a minute Ithought you were drooling over me.”

At that remark, the dinosaur sobbeduncontrollably. The Tyrannosauruswailed loud and long, as though hehad just lost his best friend. Hewrung his little hands and stompedhis huge feet.

Not knowing what else to say, Tomsaid, “I see that you’re crying. Is theresomething I can do to help?”

“No,” the dinosaur said. “No, thankyou. I wish there was. But there’s nohope for me. No hope at all.”

20


“Why, what’s the matter anyway?”Tom said, before he realized the di-nosaur had spoken. “Hey … you …you’re talking!”

The Tyrannosaurus rubbed his eyesand shook his head. “I’m sorry,” hesaid. “I really didn’t mean to makesuch a scene. I didn’t mean to at all.Allow me to introduce myself. Myname is Malcolm.”

Malcolm bowed and extended hisgnarled hand with five sharp claws.Reluctantly, Tom took his scaly handin a handshake that placed Tom fartoo close to Malcolm’s enormousteeth.

“It’s nice meeting you, Malcolm,” Tomlied. “I didn’t know that dinosaurstalked.”

“What you have to realize, sir, is thatlanguages are our specialty.”

There was an awkward pause andthen Tom remembered his manners.“I’m Tom.”

21

Dwight A. Clough

Malcolm bowed again, and again theyshook hands.

As they did, Tom looked at Malcolm’srazor sharp teeth. “You must spend afortune on dental bills,” he said.Maybe they like humor.

Malcolm’s expression changed to oneof surprise. He stared at Tom for along, uncomfortable moment. Thenhe slapped his side and stomped hisfoot and roared with laughter. “Oh,you’re a fine jokester, Tom, just likeyour father before you.”

The force of Malcolm’s laughternearly knocked Tom over. “Nevertrust a strange animal,” Tom remem-bered his father saying. But no ani-mal had ever talked to Tom.

“My father? You knew my father?”

“A fine man, if ever there was one.And good to the Company. By that Imean good to the dinosaurs. A manto be respected.”

22


“Dad never mentioned knowing anydinosaurs.”

“Friendship with a Tyrannosaurus isnot something that humans talkabout—at least, not among them-selves.”

“So you and Dad were friends?”

“We talked nearly every day there fora while,” said Malcolm.

“He disappeared, you know.”

“And I was sorry to learn of it,” saidMalcolm. “Very sorry.” At that hesniffled a little more.

“But that’s been over two years now,”Tom said. He didn’t talk about hisdad to strangers, and he was alreadyangry with himself for being luredinto discussing his dad’s disappear-ance. The dinosaur knows I’m alone.The realization wasn’t comforting.

“I suppose it has been two years,”Malcolm said sniffling harder.

23

Dwight A. Clough

Malcolm was about to break into afresh round of sobs. Tom changed thesubject. “How did you get to knowour language?”

“Oh, Human isn’t hard to learn. Imean once you know Squirrel andFrog and Fish and all the rest.”

“Wow,” said Tom, not sure whetherhe should believe Malcolm or not.“How many languages do you know?”

“I don’t have an exact count. Twohundred forty-seven, two hundredforty-eight, something like that. I’vealways been good with languages,even for dinosaurs. Sometimes toogood …” Malcolm’s voice trailed off.

“You speak the clearest Human ofany foreigner I ever met,” said Tom,meaning to be complimentary. He’stelling me stories, just like I do when Ihunt. He trying to soften me up. He’stoying with me before he comes in forthe kill. He’s a hunter just like me.Keep him talking.

24


“Could you teach me a word or two inDinosaur?”

Malcolm wrinkled up his nose andlaughed again. “Now there’s a goodone. Yes, you’re quite a comedian.”

“What’s so funny?” Tom asked, feel-ing left out of Malcolm’s joke.

Malcolm stopped laughing. “Oh, I’msorry, Tom, but didn’t you know thatdinosaurs have no language of theirown. No sir. That’s why they keeplearning other tongues. Or at least,that’s one of the reasons.”

“One of the reasons?”

“Well, yeah, at least that’s the bestreason, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I suppose,” said Tom, unsureof what Malcolm was driving at.

There was another awkward silencewhile (it seemed to Tom) Malcolm waslooking him over, and he didn’t likethe way it felt. So he searched hardfor another subject to discuss. Grasp-

25

Dwight A. Clough

ing for a question, he ended upon atopic he didn’t want to discuss. “So,tell me, what did you and dad talkabout?”

Malcolm sighed. “I guess you’d saythat nutrition was our big topic. Nu-trition, diet, that sort of thing.”

Tom looked at the skinny dinosaur.“Nothing personal,” he said, “but thatlooks like an area where you mightwant to be doing some improvement.What do you eat anyway?”

At that question Malcolm let out along, long sigh. “I was doing prettygood, Tom, there for a while. Up untilyesterday I hadn’t eaten anything forbetter than two months. Sixty-fivedays to be exact. But, I guess it’s onlyreasonable to expect that a Tyran-nosaurus has to eat once in a while.What do you think, Tom?”

It was an evil question, and Tomwrestled with how to answer it. Fi-nally, he settled on a diplomatic re-ply: “I should think that if I were a

26


Tyrannosaurus, eating would be oneof my specialties.”

Malcolm sighed again. “And I sup-pose it was, I mean when I wasyoung. But I’m not young any more.Tom, do you know what I’m meaningto say?”

Tom didn’t know, but he thought itwise to ask, “How old are you?”

“This March, the twentieth to be ex-act, will be my six hundredth hatch-day. They’re planning quite acelebration, but I just don’t know if Ican go.” Malcolm broke into tearsonce again.

“Why not?” said Tom, who still wasn’tfollowing Malcolm’s logic. “Is someonekeeping you away?”

Malcolm didn’t answer. Instead heexplained, “When I was young, a bodycould get by all right, first of all onsnails and crickets and that sort ofthing. I got to be a little older andthen I’d catch a fish or a rabbit like

27

Dwight A. Clough

you do. Lord knows how many poorinnocent rabbits I’ve eaten, youknow, just to fill my stomach.”

Malcolm’s words unsettled Tom.

“It got worse. The bigger I got, theworse it got. Do you have any ideahow many rabbits I’d have to eatnow, just to say I’ve had a decentmeal?”

“No sir,” Tom said quickly.

“I could eat ’em like popcorn,” Mal-colm replied.

Tom nodded his head. “Go on,” heencouraged.

The Crocodile

“I was still young and foolish when Icame across the crocodile. He nevertold me his name, and, to tell you thetruth, I don’t believe I ever asked. Iwas out looking one morning when

28


the thought struck me that it wouldbe nice to fry a crocodile for break-fast. Now, I had never caught a croco-dile before, so I knew nothing of theirtreachery. But that didn’t hold meback at all. I figured I could handle it.In fact, I even passed by a couple ofsmall ones. I told myself I was goingto have a big juicy crocodile, all bymyself, all for myself.

“Then I found him,” Malcolm contin-ued. I knew he was the one right fromthe start. I had just come over therise and there he was with a youngcroc, and they were having words.

“‘Nobody, I mean nobody, moves intomy territory without my say so,’ thebig one was saying to the young one.

“But the young one needed some ed-ucation; he was sassing back. ‘Showme the sign,’ he says, ‘what gives youthe right to claim this river as yourown? I’m just as good as you are, andif I want to fish …’

“Well, that was all that came from the

29

Dwight A. Clough

mouth of that young crocodile. Thebig one just got this mean look in hiseyes and he crawled around a bit andthen with one swing of his tail hesent the little one rolling. He endedup belly up and just lay there for aminute, moaning and pawing at theair.

“But the big croc wasn’t satisfied still.He went over to inspect his handi-work, and then, just for spite, he bitthe poor young fellow clean in two. Iwatched the whole thing.”

“What did you do?” Tom asked.

Malcolm looked at Tom. “First of all Iwatched. Then I figured. I figured tomyself, If ever anybody deserved to beeaten for breakfast, this here croco-dile deserved it. And he deserved itbad. So then I moved in.” Malcolmpaused. His mind seemed to be wan-dering.

“What happened next?” asked Tom.

“What happened,” Malcolm said, re-

30


turning to his thoughts, “what hap-pened was that he showed himself tobe a real scrapper. He took a chunkout of my finger before I got a goodhold on him.”

Malcolm showed Tom his left hand.One finger was noticeably shorter.

“But I did, out of luck or determina-tion, I did get a hold on him and Iknocked him silly. Then I threw himover my shoulder ’til I could figureout what I wanted to do with him.”

“What did you do with him?” askedTom.

“I said to myself, I said, ‘Malcolm, youfry this and it will be the toughestbreakfast you ever ate.

Better hang this one up for a whileand let him tenderize.’”

Tom was relieved to find someoneelse who talked to himself, even if itwas a dinosaur.

“I figured on hanging him to dry and

31

Dwight A. Clough

then cutting him up for snack food.So that’s just what I started to do. Itook him home and got ready to hanghim up by his tail when he gave methis sly look.

“‘What are you looking at?’ I saidwhen I shouldn’t have said anything.I should have just hung him up andwalked away. But I said it and he an-swered back.

“He said, ‘You’re a rabbit eater if I’veever seen one.’

“I didn’t like him very much so I waspretty snappy in reply. I said, ‘I was arabbit eater. Lately, I’ve switched tocrocodiles.’

“‘Then I don’t suppose you’d be inter-ested in learning the Rabbit tongue,would you?’ he said in his sly way.

“From then on he had me hooked.There’s nothing a dinosaur lovesmore than to learn a new language.I’ve seen times when a Tyran-nosaurus would let a good meal spoil

32


for three days just to get an eagle’sdialect down straight.”

Tom was amazed. “Don’t you gethungry?”

“You get hungry, but you don’t thinkabout it,” Malcolm answered. “Whenthis crocodile said to me that hecould teach me the Rabbit language, Iforgot all about breakfast; I forgot allabout snacks. All I could think aboutwas how handy it might be to knowRabbit. You know, you could putyour ear down to one of those rabbitholes and listen. And, if you listenedlong enough, you just might hearabout when and where those rabbitscongregate, when and where theyhold their meetings. And, for a Tyran-nosaurus, that would be mighty valu-able information.” Malcolm looked atTom and Tom thought that maybe hewas looking just a little too long anda little too hard.

“So did he teach you Rabbit?” Tomasked.

33

Dwight A. Clough

“He taught it to me all right. And hetaught it proper. But not before wedid a little bargaining. He wanted tobe let go. But I’m sure you realizethat would never do. Nothing worsethan to wake up in the middle of thenight and find yourself surroundedby a pack of angry crocodiles. So Ikept him penned but agreed to feedhim a chicken from time to time, ormaybe an aardvark or a good-sizedfish. In return he taught me Rabbit.

“At first I didn’t think he’d know itvery well, being a crocodile, youknow. But he knew it right, becauseafter every lesson I’d test it, and in-side three months I was speaking andhearing Rabbit like I was born withit.”

Tom had never learned a foreign lan-guage before, but three monthssounded impressive to him.

“I wasn’t what you’d call principledback in those days. After I learnedRabbit, I was feeling hungry again, so

34


hungry in fact that I was ready to eatthat crocodile raw.”

Tom anticipated Malcolm’s words:“But he talked you out of it.”

“I was walking over to the pen where Ikept the croc and he said to me,‘Someone with your abilities is proba-bly an expert in the Sturgeon dialect.’

“That got me thinking. Those Stur-geon get to be over ten feet long. Theymake a nice supper, even for a bigboy like me. And Sturgeon is hard tocome by. Up until that point, I hadnever met an expert in Sturgeon. ButI didn’t want to sound desperate. So Isaid, ‘I know my Fish pretty good.’

“Then the crocodile said to me, hesaid, ‘I don’t blame you for not beinginterested. It’s not something that theaverage dinosaur would want toknow.’

“When you’re young, Tom, you don’tknow it when people are playinggames with you. And that’s what this

35

Dwight A. Clough

crocodile was doing with me. But all Iknew is somebody called me average,and I didn’t like that at all. So I saidto him, ‘You ain’t looking at no aver-age dinosaur.’

“Do you know what he said then?”Malcolm asked Tom.

“No, what?”

“He said, ‘Well, it don’t make any dif-ference. Because I refuse to teach itto you.’

“I don’t need to tell you that set myblood boiling. I wasn’t used to any-body refusing anything. I stomped myfeet and I shouted and I told him,‘You’re in no position to refuse any-thing.’

“But he just looked at me andlaughed. He laughed loud and helaughed long. And that made me feelmighty uncomfortable. So finally Iasked, ‘Why are you saying you’re re-fusing anyway?’

36


“That, of course, was just what hewas waiting for. So he turned to meand he said, ‘Wouldn’t be worth mywhile. I taught you Rabbit and whatgood did it do me? I’m locked in thiscage. You feed me nothing but ascrawny chicken once in a while. I’drather be dead.’

“I was still steaming, so I said, ‘I cantake care of that.’

“But he didn’t answer me at all, notat all. He just rolled over onto hisback with his belly up and closed hiseyes and waited for me to bite.

“I stood there for a minute, still mad,but, at the same time, the thoughtwas going through my mind, Mal-colm, you learn Sturgeon and you’ll bethe first dinosaur in the Company,maybe the first ever, to master it. Itain’t something to be overlooking, es-pecially if you intend to do any court-ing come springtime. With thosethoughts in my mind I knew, what-ever the cost, I had to learn Sturgeon.

37

Dwight A. Clough

So I said to the crocodile, ‘You’re justlucky I’m not hungry.’ Then I walkedaway.”

“He ended up teaching you Sturgeon,didn’t he?” Tom rested his spearagainst a rock and sat down.

“That’s right, and I ended up puttinghim on a leash and tying the leash toa tree down by the river. I don’t re-member how he talked me into it, butI remember wrapping him up in hisleash. I tied it around his neck andthen around his arm and thenwrapped it around his body four orfive times. He kept saying, ‘It’s tootight; it’s too tight.’ But he was lying.I came back a day later and therewas the leash, sitting in the water,but he was gone. The crocodile wasgone for good.

“At first I was mad at myself. It was adumb mistake and for a long time Inever told anyone about it, no one inthe Company and certainly no one onthe Outside.”

38


“You mean putting him on theleash?” said Tom.

Malcolm smiled. “I was so busy curs-ing myself for letting a good meal,and more than that, a good teacher,get away, that it took me a long timeto realize my real mistake.”

Malcolm’s Mistake

“Your real mistake?” Tom was lost.

“It started with the very next meal. Iwas pretty hungry, so I caught a wa-ter buffalo. I had been watching himfor a good twenty minutes. Then Imoved in. You know how it is, Tom. Ihad him just where I wanted him,and I was about to take the first bite,but I started wondering. I wonderedto myself. I said, ‘Malcolm, for all youknow, maybe water buffaloes mightknow Fox or Ostrich or maybe evenCheetah. Give it a second thought,

39

Dwight A. Clough

Malcolm.’ And as I wondered, I hesi-tated, just for a split-second, to besure, but it was long enough to lookhim straight in the eye.

“I never looked a kill in the eye be-fore,” Malcolm continued. “It’s badluck and it’s something you learnearly on, to watch their eyes beforeyou jump, not after, never after.”

Tom nodded. “Good advice for anyhunter,” he said.

Malcolm sighed. “Good advice I didn’ttake. I looked straight into those wa-ter buffalo eyes. Eyes that should benoble and proud. But he looked at meand all I could see was the pleading,the pleading for life, the pleading offear mixed with sorrow. And for thatsplit second I wondered to myself ifthis was a daddy I was looking at.Were there children at home—homewaiting? Or maybe a gal.

“But then my better sense caught upwith me. ‘This is ridiculous!’ I said tomyself, almost aloud. I got back to

40


the job at hand and finished it prop-erly. But from the very first bite, itwasn’t quite right. I kept wondering ifI was eating the best Ostrich teacheralive. That was my main concern. Butin the back of my mind was the ideathat maybe this water buffalo, ‘Fred’ Ihad named him by that time, maybeFred had a little one or two that wasgrazing just over the hill. And nowmaybe they were coming back to talkabout the grazing over there, or flow-ers they had seen, or who knowswhat. I looked up and all around, butthere was no one, nothing. Nothingbut a solitary eagle circling highabove.

“I took a couple more bites andlooked up again. It was quiet. Realquiet. I guess I had never noticed thatbefore, but I’ve noticed it many timessince. And, as I sat there eating, Iwished for a little chatter. Maybe arabbit family talking or a couple ofrobins singing songs about theweather. But there wasn’t anything.

41

Dwight A. Clough

Not a blasted sound.” Malcolm’s voicetook on an intensity that Tom foundunnerving.

“And then do you know what I did,Tom? Do you know what I did?”

Tom shook his head.

“I did something that I had neverdone before. I dragged Fred into aravine. When I got there, I looked allaround to make sure that nobodycould see me. And then, though hehad long since stopped tasting likeanything, I ate him all, bite by bite,until there was nothing left, not evena trace.”

This left Tom out of sorts and hewasn’t sure what to say.

Malcolm went on with his confes-sional, and Tom had no choice but tolisten. “The next day I decided that Ihad to find that crocodile of mine.Once I found him, I figured I’d penhim up good. He’d teach me his lan-guages, and I’d take care of getting

42


food, plenty of food for both of us. I’dcatch him whatever he wanted.

“You see, Tom, by this time I had fig-ured that crocodile knew all the lan-guages. I didn’t know that for a fact,but you know how your mind canrun away with you.”

Tom nodded again.

“That was the start of a long and badtime for me. I caught crocodiles; Icaught plenty of them, and I ate a fewtoo. But, mainly, I asked them ques-tions. ‘No,’ they told me, ‘no,’ theydidn’t speak nothing but Crocodile,wished they did, but sorry, theydidn’t. And, no, they didn’t knowabout my crocodile, except there wasa mean one up by Jackal’s Creek thatkept to himself but nobody had seenhim for a while.

“In time I took to asking other ani-mals if they had seen my crocodile.But most of them were so scared theycouldn’t even talk. So I just let themgo and they ran away.

43

Dwight A. Clough

“This was a new thing for me. We di-nosaurs love to learn languages, but,except for talking among ourselves,we don’t use them for talking. We usethem for listening. For example, Imight know Monkey and never say aword to a monkey. But if I’m in theneighborhood of a bunch of monkeysI know just what they’re saying. I’msure you can see the value in that.”

Tom nodded once again.

“I didn’t know how to deal with thisproblem of these animals being tooscared to talk. At first I just tried tocatch them and make them talk. Butit didn’t work. They were too scared. Ieven had a couple die of fright righton the spot; I mean die.

“Then it occurred to me that I had areputation problem. These animalswere scared of me because they fig-ured I was going to eat them clean.They probably figured this was a newTyrannosaurus game, talk first theneat them right off the face of the

44


earth. So I said to myself, I said, ‘Mal-colm, you need to change your image.You got people scared of you andyou’ll just have to turn that rightaround.’

“But I found out something prettyquick. I found it’s fine to talk aboutchanging your image, but really doingit is something entirely different. It’sone of those things that works in the-ory, but real life presents all kinds ofpractical problems.”

“Such as?” Tom asked.

“For example, Tom, I had to eat. So Itried an experiment. During the day Ijust talked to animals. At night, I atethem. I never talked to the animals Iate, and I never ate the animals Italked to. I thought it was a prettyneat system.”

“Did it work?” Tom asked.

Malcolm shook his head. “It didn’twork for them and it didn’t work forme. They were still as scared as ever.

45

Dwight A. Clough

Maybe even more scared, because Iused to hunt in the daytime only, soonce I started hunting at night, theycouldn’t even sleep. And it didn’twork for me either. Every animal I ateat night, I was sure that he was thecontact, the missing link to my croco-dile. And, when I talked to the onesduring the day, my stomach startedgrowling and my mouth started wa-tering and … ”

“So what did you do next?” Tomasked quickly.

“It was a long time, maybe five years.I tried this thing and that. But noneof them worked. I mean reallyworked. Until one day I stumbledright on what I was looking for. Therehe was, my crocodile, lying on theside of the river, right where I hadfound him that very first day. He car-ried in his body … I must havecounted five or six spears, spearsabout the size of yours there besideyou. I imagine he took a couple ofthem with him before he left to swim

46


home, to crawl up on the bank, tocrawl up on the bank for the lasttime.”

Malcolm’s voice trembled. “I knewright then that there was at least onelanguage he didn’t know; he didn’tknow Human and the humans didn’tknow him. I stood there over him andI tried to laugh, but I couldn’t. ‘Itserves you right,’ I said to him. ‘Itserves you right,’ I repeated. But henever answered me.”

Malcolm wept.

His next words came haltingly. “Andit was then … for the first time … Irealized what I know now … that Iwasn’t looking for that croc … thatstupid crocodile … because I wantedto know Ostrich or Impala or the finepoints of Chimpanzee. I was lookingfor him because I missed him. Imissed the old double-crossing, two-faced … I realized that I liked catch-ing chickens for him. I stayed out ex-tra long looking for the best chicken I

47

Dwight A. Clough

could find. And I liked listening to thesound of his voice. I can still hear itin my mind. It’s hard to explain. Itwas like losing a pet, but it was morethan that, it was like losing a friend.

“I had never lost a friend outside theCompany before, and it weighed onme. It really set me thinking. Herewas someone who had cheated me,who had lied to me, who had playedme for a fool, and yet I was cryingover him as though I had lost my ownbrother. Yet every day I was eatingcreatures who never meant me anyharm at all. Creatures who justwanted to live their own lives, havetheir own families, enjoy God’s earthjust like all the rest of us.

“And I decided right then and therethat I would never, never eat anotherliving animal unless I had a chance… a chance to … ” Malcolm’s voicetrailed off.

“A chance to what?” Tom asked.

Malcolm hesitated. Then he said,

48


“Can you see, Tom, how a dinosaurmight be driven to want to makesome changes in his life?”

Tom nodded understandingly.

“At first I tried just finding and eatinganimals who had died on their own,you know, like the vultures do. I gaveit an honest try, but I didn’t have thestomach for it. I couldn’t keep any ofit down. Have you ever tried to eat ananimal that you found dead, maybe aday or two old?”

Tom wrinkled up his nose and shookhis head.

“I even thought of having someoneelse in the Company do my huntingfor me. But that wouldn’t have beenright. You can probably see that. Icould have done it in exchange forteaching a language or two, but thatwould have broken an old unwrittencode—you never charge anothermember of the Company to teachhim, or her, another tongue. And, Iguess, even more importantly, I just

49

Dwight A. Clough

would have had someone else doingmy dirty work for me. In the end, thatwould have weighed on my con-science just as much as having doneit myself.

“It took a long time before I men-tioned any of this to any of the Mem-bers. Then one day I was talking toBrother Gregory, the Apatosaurus.He’s a friend of mine, loosely speak-ing. And he said to me, he said, “Mal-colm, you’re starting to look prettythin. It’s a sign of stress, you know.Something’s bothering you, and thesooner you get it out, the better offyou’ll be.’

“I thought for a minute and then Isaw where that was solid advice. So Itold him. I told him the whole story,from beginning to end. And he lis-tened to it. Every so often he’d gochewing on leaves in his casual sortof way, but he listened. And when itwas all over, he had a long chew. Andthen he said to me, ‘Malcolm, you’vebeen a friend for a good many years.

50


And I wouldn’t tell this to just anyTyrannosaurus, but I can see you’reready for it. It’ll be a tough row tohoe, but you need a change of diet.I’ll work up a plan that will keep youin good shape.’

“As you can probably guess, he wastalking about vegetables. And, at thetime, it was a strange, yet excitingidea. I could hardly sleep that nightwaiting until the next morning when Icould come back and see what hehad mapped out. The next day, hehad the whole elaborate plan workedout. It took him a good hour to ex-plain it all—between chews, that is.

“I went to work that same day. And,before long, I had tried everything onhis list and then some.

But it didn’t matter what I tried, orhow I ate it, the result was always thesame. I got sick. One way or another,I just got sick.”

“Wow, that’s too bad,” said Tom sin-cerely.

51

Dwight A. Clough

“I … I was pretty depressed,” saidMalcolm. “And then, I’m ashamed toadmit it, I just went crazy for a while.I must have eaten nearly two hun-dred animals in the next three weeks.I gained over two tons. I don’t knowwhat happened. I guess I justsnapped, that’s all. Then one day (Ihad eaten so much I could hardlymove) I went down to the river for adrink. It was one of those calm daysand the sun was shining. I stoodthere on the edge about to get mydrink, but then I stopped and lookedat my reflection there in the water.

“I don’t know why, but I just startedcrying. And I said to myself, ‘Mal-colm, old boy, you’ve got to get a holdof yourself.’ … ” Malcolm paused andlooked at Tom. “Am I boring you withthis?” he asked.

“No, not at all,” Tom said quickly.

“I did some thinking that day. And Icame up with a plan. I decided I’d eatas few creatures as possible, as sel-

52


dom as possible. Meanwhile, I figuredI’d tell as many as I could about myproblem and maybe somebody couldcome up with a solution.”

“Have you tried corn?” Tom asked.

“Pardon me?” Malcolm said.

“Have you tried eating corn or lettuceor sweet potatoes?”

Malcolm nodded. “All of those. I thinkevery fruit and vegetable that’s everbeen thought of I’ve tried. Word of myproblem even got out to the Com-pany, and, to my surprise, the Mem-bers, I mean the otherTyrannosauruses, have even beengiving suggestions.”

Malcolm shook his head sadly. “No,”he said, “there’s no hope for me. Oralmost no hope.”

“Almost?” Tom asked.

53

Dwight A. Clough

Find the rest of this book at

http://dwightclough.com/books2/dwight-clough-books/the-tyrannosaurus-who-wanted-to-be-a-vegetarian/

54




Documents

The Tyrannosaurus Vegetariandwightclough.com/books2/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Tyrannosaurus... · A war between crocodiles and man, between men and women. A war not unlike other