"Real Boomerangs don't come back"
2 hours later...
The Peterson brothers reached a spot where the dirt track intersected a paved but still primitive road. On the left, the road went south; a sign showed, "To Willys Station." On the right, it turned northeast; a second sign showed, "To Barkly."
"Well," said Leonard, "which way do we go? Willys is closer, and I hear the new hospital there is the best between Darwin and Alice. But the nearest public hospital is the one in Barkly."
"Barkly," Christopher croaked without hesitation. "They'll ask fewer questions."
20 hours later...
Willys Station ("Willys" for short) was a loose-knit settlement of 657 in the arid but marginally habitable lands to the northeast of Alice Springs, and south of the Barkly Highway. Its historic livelihood was the raising of sheep and cattle, which still employed fifty people. Lately, mining had become the biggest business, and it now employed over a hundred people, many of them recent immigrants from Eastern Europe, Indonesia and the Phillipines who had received visas specifically for work in the mine. In the wake of the new arrivals, the settlement had become comparatively centralized. Almost 400 people, mainly miners and their families, lived in a development by the historic station homestead, which had been converted into a general store to supply their needs. In the wake of the influx of new workers, the settlement had also finally created its own school. This had been built 18 km from the town center, on the property of its teacher and headmaster, Carlos Wrzniewski.
No one was certain of Carlos's heritage, beyond the fact that he was part Aborigine and had at least one ancestor from Eastern Europe. His skin was black, though slightly lighter than many aborigines, and his nose was large, tall and hooked. His hair was curly, and had long since turned a gray-tinted silver. His own past was well-known. He was a doctor of paleontology and a former soldier. In his military career, he had served in the Serbo-Albanian War, where it was rumored he had fought in a battle that somehow ended the war in early 2047, and then in a war with Indonesia in 2054. As a paleontologist, he had spent more than a decade as one of the senior staff for the world's first time travel company, Naughtenny Moore Time Travel, Ltd. After retiring, he had moved to a vacated farm house in Willys Station, where he had lived for 6 years.
The school's main classroom was a low-slung barn, converted to seat 70 people. Carlos taught his lessons here. 35 students attended regularly, and 60 more received the lessons by webcast. 20 more children were taught in a purpose-built kindergarted and preschool, by an Alice Springs emigrant named Colleen Fitzhugh. At the moment, Carlos was wrapping up the lesson with "story time".
"...So I fall just bout three meters of the truck, and land roight on my bum. The tyrannosaur is leaning against the truck with 3 rounds in its chest, and it's not happy about it. I lift my head, and see the head coming down. It lets out this shriek, and blood sprays all over me. I get just enough time to raise my rifle and fire. Now, the .38 is nowhere near as powerful as the Eliminator or even an original H&H .600. But firing a bunch of shots semi-auto from a prone position is more than enough to beat the snot of ya. I don't stop shooting until the clip's empty, and I never know how many shots get fired. Between the flashes, the sound and the bloody recoil, I don't even see the tyrannosaur until it's over. It's dead, no question- but the hind legs are still kicking. The truck's the only thing that keeps it from trampling me. It finally twists around and falls- back.
"That was the scariest dinosaur I ran into. But the thing you need to understand is that it wasn't dangerous because it was big, or mean, or because it ate meat. It was dangerous because of where we were. We chose to go in there, looking for a Tyrannosaurus bataar nest. We found it. That's why they attacked us. We could have stayed away, and they would have left us alone. But once we set foot on the nesting ground, nobody had any more choices. As far as they knew, we were there to kill their young, and the only way to stop us was to kill us first. That's why no animal- or person, for that matter- is more dangerous than one protecting its young." He checked his watch. "Well, I guess we're a little over. See you next time, kids." As class dismissed, and other children filed out, one student pushed forward. Carlos cracked a broad smile. It was 10-year-old Billy Weis, one of his most gifted pupils.
"Carlos, I brought something to show you," Billy said excitedly. He added bashfully, "I don't know if it's real." He reached into his book bag and took out a weathered piece of wood in the unmistakable shape of a boomerang. "I got this as a gift from my uncle, and he says he got it from an old blackfellow when he was young. He said it's a real boomerang. But when I throw it, it doesn't come back. Did I throw it wrong? Or is it not a real boomerang?"
Carlos chuckled. "Well, Billy, there's a bit of a misunderstanding about boomerangs. Lots of people, even blackfellows who haven't studied the old ways, think boomerangs come back when you throw them. But there's really two kinds of boomerangs. There are the original boomerangs that the old blackfellows used for hunting. Then there are the ones that come back. So, you might say this is a real one because it doesn't come back. It's a fine specimen, too. I've heard of ones not as food as this selling for hundreds of dollars.
" He took a closer look, and pointed to a stylized symbol carved in the wood, which happened to be identical to the one Kettering had overlooked in the thylacine cave.. "This wasn't just a hunting boomerang, though. Blackfellows also put their totems on boomerangs. Its pretty unusual to have a totem boomerang that's also well-built for throwing... could mean it's very old.
Might ask your uncle who it was he got it from."
Colleen arrived leading Billy's 4-year-old brother Tommy. Carlos and Billy went out the door together. "Carlos, could you throw a boomerang?" Billy asked.
Carlos chuckled again, somewhat ruefully. "Well, I can't say I've ever tried to learn. I know about them, and I've seen competitive events where blackfellows throw them. I got a boomerang once- turned out it wasn't even a hunting kind- and tried throwing it, and I couldn't hit a bloody thing except my stepfather's windscreen. 'Course, my mates in the army said I couldn't hit a thing shooting either."
Most of the children got onto a bus, bound for the company housing. Sixteen children, including Tommy and Billy, remained behind. They were the children of ranchers who had lived in Willys Station before the mining company arrived. Their parents' homes were scattered about, and mostly near the edges of the station lands. They were picked up by their parents. Carlos and Colleen entertained the children during the usually long waits for their parents. Today, the Weis boys ended up waiting more than two hours. It was nearly dusk when Joseph Weis pulled up in a flatbed van used for hauling sheep. Tommy was almost hysterical by then, and had to be restrained to keep from running to the van before it stopped. "Sorry, guys," Joseph said. "We had a hard time on the ranch today. If you can be patient, I want to talk to Dr. Wrzniewski. Why don't you look at the garden with Ms. Fitzhugh?" Colleen led the boys to a small tract Carlos used to grow vegetables.
"What is it?" Carlos said. Without a word, Weis held up a hand-held computer. Carlos immediately grew stern. The picture was of a sheep with its throat torn out and its body partially consumed. As he watched, there were more pictures of sheep in the same condition, seven in all. An eigth showed a dingo carcass, also with its throat torn out. The ninth was of a footprint with five toes. "You know what these mean," Carlos said.
Weis nodded. "Dingos and feral dogs don't normally go for the throat, and they have four toes on every paw. So far we're calling it the `unidentified predator'- we have orders not to call it anything else."
Carlos nodded. "Endangered species are bad for business- never mind ones that are supposed to be extinct."
"It's worse than that," Weis said. He continued, more quietly, "There is a rabies outbreak among my flock and my neighbor's. Between the two of us, we put down fifty sheep in the last 24 hours, and our entire flocks are under quarantine. It seems to be a previously unknown strain, which could mean a previously unknown carrier."
"Every kind of rabies we know about takes weeks to show symptoms," Carlos said. "Is this faster?"
Weis nodded. "I isolated a sheep that I saw bitten by another this morning. It displayed prodromal behavior within 13 hours. And it gets worse. My neighbor keeps cattle as well as sheep, and he put down a cow and a steer with rabies symptoms. He also sent at least one of his hands to the the WilCo infirmirary- no one will say what for, which I'd consider an answer in itself."
"And I suppose I don't need to ask if animal control has been called. Listen... do you think your boys will be safe?"
Weis smiled. "Hey, I'm allowed to carry more firepower than you are. If by any chance you have more..." Carlos just laughed.