Threads from the Web of Life: Stories in Natural History

Trailrunner: The Opening of Sister Falls Lake

5 Trailrunner The Opening of Sister Falls Lake TRAI LRU N N E R, a theropod dinosaur, stood erect—a meter tall—and stalked the forest trails walking on his hind legs like a bird. He was one with his domain—the broken rhythm of his gait matched the sway of the ferns in the breeze, the sighs of the foliage he brushed aside blended with the constant pulsations of the great river in the background. He was an insectivore but ate what he could catch, including other lizards and—whenever he could flush them from their deep cover—the mousy mammals. On this day he was bent low, inspecting the trailside foliage, watching for leaves to move—leaves that were actually leaf-sized plant-hoppers—when a shiver ran down his spine. Trailrunner had a sixth sense. He could feel subtle signs, cues still too diffuse to recognize specifically but detectable in some subliminal way. He responded to his sixth sense not with action, as he would to a sight or sound, but with the opposite—he froze in place, waiting, watching, wondering what was about to happen, saving his speed until it was needed. After a long moment he slowly straightened, sharpening his senses. It was a vibration he had noticed—an ultra-high-pitched, quavering song he could actually feel better than hear, conducted to his ears from within—through his bones. None of the other creatures in the forest responded to it, or even seemed to notice. He looked left, behind, ahead; he stood alert, blinking, clasping one foreclaw in the other. Unidentified sounds set him on the edge of panic. Then more quickly than even he could react a shiver rushed through the leaves—an instantaneous wind passed across the trees—and he was inexplicably lying in a position he had never before known—on the ground, on his back. His feet had slid as if on slickrock. He knew his footing had been solid, but the ground  Threads from the Web of Life had jumped beneath him. Now he lay petrified in confusion and fright. Sensing motion directly above, he looked up and was seized by the sensation that the sky was falling. No, he realized, worse than that—a barrage of solid objects shaken loose from the canopy fifty meters above was accelerating toward him. Among the oncoming missiles he could see tumbling animals arresting their fall: beetles opening wing covers then wings, a flying frog spreading the membranes between its toes to bend its descent into a controlled glide, lizards falling spread-eagle and hooking passing vines to swing to safety. But the fruits, the pods, dead fronds, and branches soon began crashing against the ground all around him, raising a second wave of chaos in the walls of foliage. The impact of a heavy cone from a cycad palm in the bushes right behind him sent Trailrunner leaping away—flying down the path a dozen paces until he slowed to listen again. The jungle had returned to a preternatural quiet. He stepped closer to the foliage and tried to disappear, his sand-gray skin fading toward a blotchy mottle. The leaves were moving with insects dislodged from their cryptic postures, struggling to regain concealment. He ignored them. He took a few more tentative running strides down the trail but then skidded to an abrupt stop. The unexpected scent of freshly turned soil was suddenly strong in his nostrils. Before him stood a wall of bare earth and rocks, taller than he was. Again he stood frozen in confusion, darting glances around him. He knew where he was—on his own well-worn runway—but stretching off out of sight into the forest on both sides was a foreign berm of broken earth he had never seen before and could not see across. Then he heard yet another alien sound—a building hiss, the distant wind, not in the trees but on the forest floor—the rush of water. An avalanche of tumbling mud and sticks was coming at him from the side, emerging from the forest, advancing along the low earthen ridge. In a single stride, he was over the wall and gone. THE thrust fault had broken the surface of the earth for miles, cutting directly across the path of the river that flowed west through the forest. One side of the fault had slumped below  Threads from...