Viv pushed the dog crate through Central Park at dawn. It was much further north than where all the skyscrapers and Broadway theaters and giant train stations were. It’s amazing that this dense city had this perfectly rectangular block of trees and exposed bedrock the size of Rhode Island in the middle of it. There were lights along the path, but not enough.

  It was the week before Thanksgiving, a really cold morning. Viv wore her usual green leather jacket on the plane from Nevada, but after three minutes of New York in November, she realized she needed something heavier. So she went from JFK to a department store, spending an hour buying a blue puffy coat designed for skiing, size child large. She always had mixed feelings about shopping in the kids’ department. But it was cheaper, and fit better, and when you’re 4’ 10” these were your options.

  Central Park was windy. Wasn’t it Chicago that was windy?

  She walked the path she had walked yesterday afternoon, following the asphalt path that led roughly east from Central Park West. The American Museum of Natural History and its dinosaur exhibits were a mile north, but she wasn’t here because of that. She took out her phone to verify she was closing in on a spot marked as a coyote sighting.

  The crate was on four wheels and empty, so it was easy to push around. It was off-white plastic with a hinged metal gate held by a squeeze latch. She went about half a block into the park before she realized she should have bought gloves when she bought the coat. The off-white plastic was warming slightly as she pushed it, but that warm spot vanished whenever she repositioned her hands.

  The crate was for capturing a dinosaur.

  Viv was here because of reports of a coyote shredding a pheasant a few nights ago. The very long feathers in a puddle of blood ruled out pigeons and most other birds native to the area. to pigeons.

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  This could very well still be a coyote. Or a prank. Or the return of that nut job that dropped a dead bear in Central Park just to be weird. There was a chance, though, that the blood belonged to the prey, and the feather to the predator, an animal that most six-year-olds would be happy to tell you should be drawn with feathers. Feathers gave dinosaurs thermal protection long before they gave any ability for flight.

  Would feel good to have feathers right now.

  Viv pushed the cart up a gentle hill, and then held on it as it began to roll down the hill without her. It wasn’t hard: this cart weighed nothing with just a chicken inside. Oh, there was a rotisserie chicken inside, still with the plastic dome on. If this crate wasn’t big enough for the possible dinosaur, well, she’d deal with it. Right now, she just hoped she wouldn’t stand here all morning freezing to death for no reason.

  She had scoped out the attack site yesterday afternoon, in the sunlight, and left before it got dark. She wasn’t afraid of a dinosaur attack, but a human attack was something else. She was a short girl, with pepper spray so old it might be corroded shut.

  She reached where she pegged the spot to be. The blood and feathers had been cleaned up when she arrived yesterday, but a parks employee emptying the garbage was happy to point out where it was. It was just a regular bit of pathway in the park with no lights around it.

  Viv swung open the dog crate door. Then she popped off the dome off the chicken, which was not her favorite thing to eat but admittedly smelled great. She stepped back about 50 yards, and stood in the mulch and dead leaves behind a tree. There was no one around.

  The abandoned crate on the cold morning looked a little weird if someone moseyed on by.

  A jogger moseyed on by. He just went around it.

  Two more joggers ran by, running side by side. They split around the crate and met back on the other side. No one was taking notice of a sign essentially saying “FREE BIRD SEED” under an anvil. Gotta love New York.

  Viv tried to listen for rustling. Or the calls of dinosaurs, which were generally deep-throated bird calls. There was perpetual low traffic noise from outside the park and nearby roads - there were something like a dozen roads running through the park.

  She suddenly had a worry that if there was a hungry dinosaur in the park, an isolated short human might be a better meal than a two-pound chicken.

  Gulp.