Kent and Reynold snuggled in the bulldozer, struggling to stay warm during the North Dakota winter. They were there for work in the shale oil fields, but couldn’t find any affordable housing. Workers rotated through the fields every six months, and any apartment, trailer, spare room, shack, basement or abandoned car had a long waiting list. They had arrived together in Kent’s truck, which could be parked but not slept in unless they paid a camping fee that was more than they earned. Reynold drove water trucks to the pumping site; driving a full one out, returning empty, and then driving a new full truck over and over. Kent spent all day in a bulldozer which was essentially fitted to the man (seat adjustment, pedal length, shifter heights) thus he drove the same machine every day. It was fueled every night, with a heater in the engine block to keep the diesel from turning into gel. That heat kept the cab above freezing.
***
Although scientists had successfully engineered a tyrannosaurus rex from old DNA, their lab was shut down once the world learned of their work. It was deemed too dangerous, with too many unpredictable consequences. Thus Alpha, as he was ambitiously named, was alone in the world. To keep him entertained backhoes, excavators and bulldozers operated by remote control frolicked with the deadly reptile; their guttural exhaust sounds matching his grunts and growls. At night, he sometimes snuggled with the bulldozer to steal heat from its cooling engine block.
***
Federico’s mind was wandering. He’d been working on the highway project in Chile for over a year, doing the same work every day. He ran the lead bulldozer, which meant he made the first cut into the side of the mountain. His blade carved an abrupt right angle through the mountainside, making a narrow roadway as he went. His outer tread hung beyond the edge of the cut but he long ago stopped worrying about the danger. It was just another day at work, and he was thinking about laying in bed, snuggled under his thick down comforter, his cat on his chest purring him to sleep.
***
At first, Kent and Reynold slept awkwardly; one man behind the bulldozer seat with his legs splayed across the shifters, and one at the steering wheel. After several attempts, many sleepless nights, crippling backaches and cramping legs they figured out a comfortable solution. Recline the seat all the way back, jam cardboard boxes beside the seat to expand the usable surface area, then snuggle side by side with their feet under the pedals. The engine block heater kept their feet toasty, and their insulated jumpsuits worked like sleeping bags. In the morning, Kent was the first man to his dozer and Reynold was already on site, ready to pick up a water truck.
***
Remembering that some large animals enjoyed having smaller animals as companions the scientists tried introducing Alpha to a goat, a dog, a cow, a pig, a bear and a hippo but all of these play dates ended in tragedy. Although lonely, Alpha was never alone as specialists studied him extensively. Every discipline had a reason to get a sample of blood or skin or scat or nail or to put Alpha through intelligence tests or memory tests or tool-making tests. Costly testing by the scientific community as well as public viewing of Alpha paid for the state-of-the-art compound and research center that had grown around him.
***
Behind Federico’s lead dozer other bulldozers followed via a laser-guided path defined by the engineers. Drones, feeding information back to offices around the world, hovered around the worksite. The whole procession would stop several times per week due to a giant bolder or grove of trees that intersected the path for the road. To simply tear them out could mean damage to the work below or an unstable pocket under the would-be highway. Federico would stop the procession and call his boss. As the drones and their remote engineers buzzed around the problem, Federico would open his cab, sit on the giant tread with his feet dangling into space, look over the jungle and enjoy as many cigarettes as time allowed.
***
Kent joked to Reynold after a few nights of their cozy solution; “Now don’t go all ‘Breakback Mountain’ on me.”
“What’s that?” Reynold asked.
“You know, ‘I just can’t quit you.’ That movie about the gay cowboys.”
“Why the hell would they make a movie about gay cowboys? And what the hell does it have to do with us? Are you a gay?” Reynold asked.
“Forget it. It was a joke. Our situation is sort like the movie. Never mind, bad joke.”
“Now look, I like you, but I’m not a gay. I’m married, which is why I’m working in this shit hole; nothing against you if you’re a gay. Don’t ask, don’t tell is my policy. What you do is your business. What’s your wife think about you being a gay?”
“It’s not ‘a gay,’ it’s just gay. And I’m not a gay.” Kent was flustered. “I’m not gay. It was a bad joke, that’s all. Let’s just go to sleep.”
***
“What about an elephant? A big African male with tusks could defend itself against Alpha,” Anton the suggested.
“We want them to be friends, not get into a death match. Besides, I’ve seen him pull the tires off a backhoe and flip a bulldozer to get at its soft underbelly. It would be a public relations disaster to have him finish off and eat an elephant,” Roger responded.
“That reminds me of a joke. How do you eat an elephant?” asked Anton.
“I’m really not in the mood –“
“One bite at a time! Ha! I love that one!”
“It’s not a joke, it’s a parable. It means you tackle a big problem with many small solutions,” Roger explained. “Go check on the Chinese paleontologists, make sure they’re not trying to steal any of Alpha’s stem cells.”
Periodically the research team would put Alpha to sleep. When he was unconscious, teams clad in environmental suits would scurry over him, taking measurements, probing orifices, collecting samples of skin, nails, blood, marrow and whiskers (a surprise finding; around his nose, eyes, over all his major joints and almost bristling around his tail). His compound operated like a clean room, to make sure he was never exposed to any potentially dangerous pathogens.
***
While the drones worked to solve the problem of an oil tanker-sized boulder, Federico wondered how long he would do this work. His current schedule was ten days on, three days off with a contract for a year. But he could feel himself getting bored, which was dangerous. If his mind wandered too much while he broke trail, he could miss a hazard, catch the blade on a rock outcropping and wind up tumbling down the mountain. As Federico contemplated his fate, the drones suddenly sped down the mountain. His boss called.
“All the dozers need to back up two-hundred meters, and you all need to clear out. They’re going to blow the boulder. It’ll take a couple of days.” The bulldozers were parked on the mountain, and the men driven down a virgin trail in a convoy of jeeps. Back at his apartment Federico found his cat on the kitchen table, pawing at a bird that wasn’t moving.
“Bad kitty!” he scolded. The cat meowed in protest and jumped away. Federico examined the bird, which was breathing rapidly. He put it in a paper sack atop the fridge in the hope that it might recover.
***
Waking from their night in the bulldozer, Kent said to Reynold, “Dude, turn your head the other way; your morning breath is like rhino ass.”
“You spend a lot of time with rhino ass?” Reynold replied. As they slowly woke and stretched, Reynold noticed a bird nestled against hood of the bulldozer, nearest the engine block. It was a little grey sparrow, all puffed up with its eyes shut. “Hey, check out this little guy. Pretty smart way to survive the cold.”
“Is it still alive?”
“I think so. Lemme check.” Reynold opened his door and the rush of subzero air made his eyes water. Leaning over the door hinge, he picked up the bird, still too cold to move. “I think he blinked, and it looks like he’s breathing.”
“Keep him the cab, he’ll be good luck,” Kent suggested.
Reynold nestled the bird inside a work glove, which it seemed to appreciate.
***
When Anton reached the Chinese paleontologists, he found them fiddling with the environmental control panel.
“Get away from that!”
In a panic at being discovered the Chinese scientists quickly tried to shut down the control panel, accidentally opening the glass dome covering part of the compound. Before it could be closed, a sparrow fluttered in, settling in a tree high in the canopy. An alarm sounded when a heartbeat other than Alpha’s was detected, and an urgent meeting was held to decide what to do.
“Gas them both and get the bird out of there before Alpha dies from bird flu!”
“The Chinese need to be sent home!”
“Damn right!”
“Let’s focus on the best way to preserve the only dinosaur in existence, and worry about who to blame later, okay?” Roger said.
The meeting rolled on for a couple of hours, and in the meantime the little bird went to work grooming Alpha’s bristles and skin, which Alpha seemed to enjoy.
“Ah shit, he’s contaminated. We’re fucked,” Anton lamented.
“Maybe. Maybe not. The bird’s already made contact. So any infection it brought in is all over Alpha by now.” The bird was hopping around Alpha’s nostrils and eyes, cleaning up crusted fluids. “It’s in his respiratory system by now, so no point in trying to scrub him down. All we can do is keep a close eye on him and see how it plays out.”
***
Federico woke, started some coffee and carefully opened the paper bag. The bird was hopping around inside, still looking confused but certainly improved. He moved it to a cardboard box with saran wrap over the top and holes for air. He set out water and some crushed saltines. Later that morning while he was checking his Facebook feed, he heard the bird chirping. It looked much better, tilting its head to look at him, and attempted to fly out against the saran wrap. Federico removed the plastic and the bird flew out, but quickly fell to the floor. His cat immediately moved on the bird, but Federico grabbed him saying “bad kitty!” and put the cat outside. He set out some newspaper on the counter, along with the water and crackers, and a hand towel rolled in the shape of a bird’s nest. He retrieved the bird and put it on the towel.
“Let’s see if you can get better, my little friend.”
***
The sparrow in Kent’s cab had taken to perching on his dashboard as he drove the bulldozer, chirping along to Kent’s ongoing chatter with his excavation team. He and Reynold had attached two sardine tins to a metal shelf; one filled water, the other with breadcrumbs. The bird slept in the glove at night, safe and snug.
Through the winter and early spring, the sparrow learned to sing tunes that Kent and Reynold would whistle and hopped into their hands to be fed. They named the bird Phoenix, and it became their primary topic of conversation. Like new parents they shared every nuance of the bird’s behavior and took pride whenever it learned a new song or bravely hopped on their shoulders or heads.
One morning in the late spring, the sun was already peeking above the horizon as they woke. The heater for the engine had been unplugged for a month and Kent and Reynold no longer had to sleep in their insulated jumpsuits. Reynold opened the door as he had dozens of times before, and Phoenix fluttered out and headed to the tree line.
“Phoenix! No!” they cried out in unison, and then went silent for long while.
“They have to leave the nest sometime,” Kent offered.
“Yeah, suppose so,” Reynold replied softly. They were both quiet for a few minutes, looking off toward the trees.
“Well, better get going. See you tonight,” Reynold said.
“Yep. See you tonight.” Kent took threw out the sardine tins but put the glove in his chest pocket, and buttoned it.
***
Alpha lost all interest in the construction equipment once the sparrow arrived. He let the bird pick meat off his knife-like teeth and chased the bird around the compound playing a game of tag watched by nearly a billion viewers around the world.
“They’re supposed to be related, according to Steven Spielberg. Maybe that’s why they get along so well,” Anton said.
“Seriously, how did you get this job?” Roger asked. But it was clear that Alpha was a happier dinosaur with his bird companion so it was decided that a flock would be added. After the proper quarantines, the birds and their eventual offspring became a permanent addition to the compound. The birds would flock and swirl around the great beast as he ran through the bushes and splashed in the water, keeping him immaculately groomed, fit and in good spirits.
***
After the boulder was blown from the mountain, Federico’s boss called him to return to work. Federico was tending to the sparrow, which was gradually getting better.
“I’m sick. I can’t come in for a few day, at least,” he told his boss.
“If you don’t come in now, then don’t come back,” his boss warned.
Federico stayed with the bird, nursing it back to health. He added perches to his apartment, far out of the cat’s reach. The bulldozer job had paid very well, and he saved enough to cover his expenses for a couple of years. He took a job at the zoo in an empanada stand, and only smoked outside his apartment to protect the sparrow’s lungs.