Footprints in the Dark

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CarolynKeene

NancyDrewGirlDetective:VolumeTwenty-Nine

The Stolen Bones

Copyright,2008,bySimon&Schuster,Inc.

 

I'm hunting for something other than clues for a change: dinosaur bones! Bess, George, and I travel out to the desert to join a paleontology dig. The other volunteers are a pretty quirky bunch, but we're all having a great time...until an important find goes missing. It turns out fossils can be worth millions. I'm making no bones about it — the thief is going down.

 

Letmeintroducemyself.I’m NancyDrew.

MyfriendscallmeNancy.Myenemiescallmealotofotherthings,like“thatgirlwhocookedmygoose.”Theyactuallysometimesspeaklikethat,butwhatcanyouexpectfromcriminals?See,I’madetective.Well,notreally.Imean,Idon’thavealicenseoranything.Idon’tcarryabadgeoragun,inpartbecauseIwouldn’ttouchagunevenifIcould,andalsobecauseI’mjustnotoldenough.ButI am oldenoughtoknowwhensomethingisn’tright,whensomebody’sgettinganunfairdeal,whensomeone’sdonesomethingtheyshouldn’tdo.AndIknowhowtostopthem,catchthem,andgetthemintothehandsofthelaw,wheretheybelong.Itakethosethingsseriously,andI’malmostneverwrong.

Mybestfriends,BessandGeorge,mightnottotallyagreewithme.TheytellmeI’mwrongalot,andthattheyhavetocoverformeallofthetimejusttomakemelookgood.BesswouldtellyouIdressbadly.Icallitcasual.GeorgewouldtellyouI’mnotfocused.Bythatshe’dmeanthatonceagainIforgottofillmycarwithgasorbringenoughmoneytobuylunch.ButtheybothknowI’malwaysfocusedwhenitcomestocrime.Always.

NancyDrew

 

Trespass

 

“What have you gotten us into now, Nancy?”

I glanced over at Bess in the front passenger seat. Her eyes were sparkling, so I knew she was only teasing me. Bess and her cousin George are my best friends, and I do get them into trouble sometimes—mostly when we’re on the trail of a mystery. We weren’t trying to find a criminal now, though. We were trying to find a road.

George was hunched over her GPS unit in the backseat. “Hey, we’re not lost. I can tell you exactly where we are. It’s the road that’s lost. And if we had the GPS coordinates of the turnoff, I could tell you where it was too.”

“I did ask,” I reminded her. “They didn’t know the coordinates.”

George snorted. She loves gadgets of every kind, and couldn’t imagine anyone not taking advantage of a useful item like a Global Positioning System. She’d been tracking our progress since we’d left River Heights two days before.

Bess pointed to our left. “There’s a road. Or is it a trail? It’s something, anyway.”

I slowed my car and idled near the turn. The land around us was dry scrubland, with plenty of rocks and weeds, but few road signs. The rutted dirt trail on our left might have been wide enough for a car, but calling it a road seemed generous. Still, our directions said “go six miles, to the third dirt road on the left.” We’d driven ten miles looking for a major dirt road, without luck, as the sun had headed for the horizon. So we’d decided that whoever had written the directions had a definition of road that was different from ours. We had decided to backtrack and start over.

“I guess we can try it.” I turned the car and eased it onto the dirt path. Scraggly brush grew up the center, with deep ruts on either side. I kept my wheels on high ground so the bottom of my car wouldn’t scrape.

“And if we don’t find the place soon,” Bess said cheerfully, “we can turn back to that last town and get a hotel room.”

I smiled. Bess doesn’t like to be away from her shower and hair dryer. I wondered if her perfectly manicured nails, painted a soft pink to match her rosy cheeks, would survive this trip.

“We’re hardly roughing it,” I said. “We’re car camping, so you won’t even have to carry a pack. We’ll have our cooler right there, and even a camp cook to fix our meals.”

George muttered, “Yeah, talk about roughing it. I’ll be away from my computer for almost a week!”

Bess and I laughed. George must have had a dozen gadgets with her, but without her full computer setup, she acted like she was living in the Dark Ages.

“Look,” I said, “this is going to be fun. How often do you get to see dinosaurs in their natural habitat?”

Bess grinned. “So long as they’ve been dead for a few million years, I’m happy.”

George leaned forward. “I’m excited too, Nancy. We’re just teasing you. I think volunteering for a paleontology dig is a great idea!”

“Thanks. I just hope we can find it.” The track crossed what looked like a shallow old streambed. I eased the car forward, but it only lurched, throwing us against our seat belts.

“Uh-oh,” George said. “That didn’t feel good.”

“No.” I turned off the engine. “We’d better get out and take a look.”

We opened our doors. “Ugh!” Bess said. “The ground is all muddy here.”

I stepped gingerly onto the soft ground and crouched to peer under my car. “Whoops.” This was a streambed all right. The last time it had rained, water must have run across our “road.” The ground was wet and our front wheels had sunk into the mud. “I didn’t realize the ground was so soft here. I guess I should have checked before trying to drive across.”

“So how are we going to get out of here?” George asked.

The wind whipped my shoulder-length hair into my face, so I swept it into a ponytail. “I guess we should try pushing. Bess, why don’t you get behind the wheel, and George and I will shove. We’d better try to go backward.”

Bess slid into the driver’s seat while George and I crouched in front of the car. Our feet sank into the mud. Bess put the car in reverse and gently pressed the gas while George and I leaned against the front. The car rocked slightly. But despite our grunts and groans, the only thing that moved was the mud—as the tires spun, the mud splattered all over us.

Finally George and I stood up, gasping. Bess put the car in park and got out. “We can try digging around the tires and then packing in dry sand and rocks,” she said.

I glanced at the sun sinking toward the western mountains and sighed. We didn’t have much light left. “We’d better get started.”

“Hey!” A loud voice startled us. “What are you girls doing?”

We turned to see a woman hurrying toward us across the field. She was in her forties, thin and wiry, with dark hair and a weather-beaten tanned face. She wore faded jeans and a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

My initial relief that someone had found us faded as I noticed her scowl.

“This is private property,” she yelled. “You’re trespassing!”

 

• • •

 

I forced myself to smile as the woman came panting up to us. “We didn’t mean to trespass,” I said. “We’re going on a paleontology dig, and we thought this might be the road we’re supposed to take.”

The scowl eased itself into a straight line. “Oh. You’re one of them.” She grudgingly admitted, “Yeah, this is the right track. I said them fools could go through my land. I can’t understand why people would want to waste time digging up old bones, but so long as they make their mess on that government land and not on mine, I guess I don’t care.”

“The museum is learning more about the past,” I said. “They might even discover some new species.”

She snorted. “Who cares about that? It’s today that matters. Ranching is real work.” She looked us up and down, her eyes lingering on Bess’s short skirt and sandals. “But it don’t look like you girls know anything about that. I told my Jimmy that’s the kind of foolishness college leads to. Better to get a real job and make some money instead of spending it on school.”

I was still trying to think of a response when George said, “There is money in paleontology! Dinosaur bones can sell for millions of dollars.”

The ranch woman gaped at her. “You don’t say? You mean some of them bones out there might be worth millions?” She laughed. “If I’d known that, maybe I would have kept them for myself.”

I glanced at the setting sun. We still had two miles to go on this road and we were running out of light. I pasted on my brightest smile. “We really are sorry to cause you any trouble, but our car is stuck. Do you have a couple of boards or something that we can stick under the wheels?”

She frowned at the car. “I guess if I want you off my property, I’ll have to rescue you. Hold on a minute. I’ll get my son.”

She trotted away. George, Bess, and I stared at one another and simultaneously let out a long sigh of relief.

George whispered, “You sure do attract interesting people, Nan. I can’t wait to meet her son.”

“I just hope he hurries,” I said.

We watched the sun drop behind the distant hills in a blaze of pink and gold. The temperature also dropped about ten degrees, so we retrieved our sweaters from the car. George frowned at her watch. “We have about half an hour of fading light left. Looks like we’ll be setting up our tent in the dark.”

At last a dirty white pickup bounced toward us. It turned and backed up so it was about ten feet in front of my car. The woman got out, along with a young man, maybe eighteen or twenty. He, too, was thin and wiry, with tangled dark hair.

I stepped closer and smiled. “Thank you for helping us. I’m Nancy Drew, by the way, and these are my friends Bess and George.”

He stared at us. Like his mother, he studied Bess especially closely. I think his opinion was different, though—his eyes widened and his jaw dropped open. Bess is a natural beauty who usually looks like she just stepped out of a fashion magazine.

Bess gave him a dimpled smile and said, “Hello. Thanks for helping us out. It’s really nice of you.”

He only continued to stare. I started to wonder if he could even talk.

His mother stepped forward. “I’m Erlinda and this is Jimmy. Now enough chitchat; let’s get you out of here.”

We weren’t arguing with that! Jimmy reached into the back of the truck and pulled something out. He attached it to his truck’s trailer hitch, and then pulled the other end toward my car.

“Oh, a come-along!” Bess said. “That will make things so much easier.”

Jimmy paused again to stare at her, until his mother gave him a shove. He bent his head and fumbled around under my front bumper. He tightened the come-along, got back into the truck, and slowly pulled the truck forward. The car finally came out of the mud with a sucking sound. Jimmy kept going until my car was safely across the muddy area. Then he got out and unhooked the come-along as we picked our way across the mud.

“Thanks so much,” I said. I wondered if I should offer money for the help. “Um, can I give you—?”

Erlinda interrupted. “You said them dinosaur bones could be worth millions of dollars? Is that true?”

“Well, I don’t know about these particular bones. Fossils can sell for a lot of money, but they have to be rare to get millions.” I worried that Erlinda might have ideas about scavenging the dig after the paleontologists left. “Of course, you need a special permit, like this team from the museum has. If you steal fossils, you can get big fines and jail time.”

Erlinda nodded. “Oh sure, but bones on my own land, they’d be mine, right? And if there’s bones just down there, maybe there’s some here, too!”

“You would probably own any fossils you find on your own land,” I said cautiously. “But I don’t know if you’d find anything valuable. It depends on lots of things. The age of the rock, for example.”

She kept nodding, but I wasn’t sure whether or not she was actually listening. “Right, right. Well, just keep going down this road and you’ll find them diggers.”

After we thanked her, Erlinda got into the truck with Jimmy and they drove away.

“Ten minutes until dark,” George said. “Let’s get moving.”

We did our best to scrape the mud from our shoes, and piled into my car. Everything was gray, like a faded black-and-white photo. I turned on the headlights and drove slowly along the dirt track.

George leaned over the seat back. “Well, Nancy, you’ve done it again.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You found a mystery already,” she said, laughing. “Why are these people so odd?”

I smiled. “Odd maybe, but hardly mysterious. Not everyone can be as normal as you are, George.”

Bess burst out laughing. When she caught her breath, she said, “I guess we should expect people to be different here in New Mexico, anyway.”

“Oh, come on,” George said. “We’re not in a foreign country. New Mexico is one of the fifty states, you know.”

Bess twisted in her seat to poke her cousin. “I know that! But it’s still going to be different from River Heights, don’t you think? All this desert, and the Spanish culture.”

I let them tease each other. Bess and George may be cousins, but they couldn’t be more different, in everything from looks to temperament. George is tall and thin, with short dark hair and a cynical attitude. Bess is blond, shorter, and curvy, with optimism that some people would call naïve.

I guess I’m somewhere in the middle. I try to see the best in people, but I’ve uncovered too many criminals to think that people are nice all the time.

At that moment, driving needed my full attention. The track twisted around, and my wheels kept slipping on big rocks. I winced as a bush scraped against the side of the car. This was one place where a big truck would have been handy. I had to remind myself of all the fuel the hybrid had saved on the long drive from River Heights.

I was hunched over the wheel, clutching it tightly, when I noticed another glow ahead, over a hill. The sun had long since vanished, and we were miles from any city. I squinted and focused on the glowing light.

I smiled, realizing what I was seeing. This mystery was easy to solve—campfire. “Hey, I think we found the camp!”

Finally we’d arrived. I put the car in park and slumped back. George bounded out of the car, and Bess and I followed her.

I’d parked among the other vehicles—trucks, SUVs, and one Land Rover. A cheerful fire sent warm light and dancing shadows over a group of people sitting in camp chairs.

A man got up and walked toward us. Bess nudged George, whispering something. Even without hearing her words, I could guess her reaction to the tall, well-built form striding toward us. We went over to meet him.

“You must be the River Heights crew,” he said. “We were starting to worry about you.”

“You’re not the only one,” George muttered.

I held out my hand. “I’m Nancy Drew. This is Bess Marvin and George Fayne.”

He shook hands with each of us. “I’m Kyle, the dig leader for this trip. It’s great to have you here.”

“We’re excited,” I said. “I’m sorry we couldn’t get here earlier, but my dad needed help at his law office, and George and her mother had a big catering job to do.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kyle said. “We still have plenty of work to do!”

“Have you found anything interesting so far?” George asked.

Even in the dark I could see his face light up. “You bet! Our best find is still over at the dig site. We can’t take it out until it’s encased in plaster for protection, so you’ll see that tomorrow. We also picked up some loose pieces that are really cool. Come on; I’ll show you.”

I glanced over at the group sitting around the fire. I was more interested in getting some food, but Kyle wanted to share his find. We followed him to the back of the Land Rover, where he pulled out a plastic tub.

As he pried off the lid, Kyle said, “These vertebrae are from a creature sort of like a crocodile—” He stopped mid-sentence and his jaw dropped open. He looked around, as if searching for someone. “Steffi!”

George, Bess, and I exchanged looks and shrugged. A petite young woman—Steffi, we assumed—strode over to us. “What’s wrong?”

Kyle held out the plastic tub. It was empty. “The bones are gone!”

 

Noise in the Night

 

Steffi’s pretty face puckered in confusion. “But I didn’t move them. I labeled them, wrapped them in paper towels, and put them in the box.”

Kyle looked worried. “And you brought the box back to camp yourself?”

Steffi shook her head. “Tom carried it back to camp for me.” She ran her hand through her short dark hair and, without turning around, called, “Tom!”

A young man walked toward us. “Something wrong?”

Kyle and the woman turned to him. “Where are the bones we found yesterday?”

He glanced at the open tub Kyle still held. “I have no idea. You mean they’re not there?” His face went hard. “You’re not suggesting I—”

“No, no,” Kyle said quickly. “We just wondered if you took them out to study them or something.” He looked at us and seemed to suddenly remember that three strangers were witnessing their exchange. “I’m sorry. This isn’t much of a welcome for you.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “If something’s wrong, we’d like to help.”

Kyle shrugged. “I’m sure it’s nothing. The bones will turn up.” His unhappy face didn’t match his confident words.

Steffi smiled at us and held out her hand. “Hi. I’m Steffi.” She barely came up to my shoulder but she had a strong handshake and moved like a gymnast.

“Steffi is my assistant here,” Kyle said.

“You’re a paleontologist?” I asked. She looked only a couple of years older than us.

“I’m a student, working toward my master’s degree. So is Tom.”

The young man managed a smile and shook hands. He was medium height and medium build, with brown hair and tan skin. Bess glanced between him and Kyle, and I could almost see her mind working. Tom wasn’t bad-looking, but Kyle was definitely Bess’s type, with close-cropped blond hair and a strong jaw. I smiled. Bess could have her pick; I was perfectly happy with my boyfriend Ned back home.

Kyle turned toward the fire. “Come meet the rest of the team.”

We joined the cozy circle. A man shifted with a groan, getting ready to rise. I said, “Please, you don’t have to get up. You must have all had a long day.”

“Thanks,” the man said. “I think my leg muscles have seized up. Kyle, next time why don’t you get a hot tub out here?”

Kyle smiled. “That’s Grayson. This is his first time with us.”

“Hi, Grayson,” I said. He was an older man, with white hair, but he looked like he was in pretty good shape despite his complaints.

The woman next to him gave a small wave. She was about forty, with silvery blond hair that hung over her shoulder in a thick braid. “I’m Abby. They’ll tell you I’m the flaky one.”

“We’ve never said that,” Grayson protested. “At least not within your range of hearing!”

Abby just laughed. “Don’t worry; I’m used to it.”

“I’m Russell,” the next man said. He was probably in his fifties, with a stocky build and a thick brown beard. “Just another volunteer here. I’ve gone on these digs all around the country, but this is my first time with this group.”

“Russell really knows his bones,” Kyle said. “Some of our volunteers know more than Steffi and I do. And that brings us to Felix.”

The last one of the group stood up, despite my protest. He was easily the oldest person there, perhaps over seventy, with hunched shoulders but a firm handshake.

“Felix has been coming to these digs for almost forty years,” Kyle said. “What he doesn’t know about fossils probably isn’t worth knowing.”

“I don’t have any formal training,” Felix said. “I’m just an interested amateur, but I’ve been around a long time. Unfortunately, I can’t dig anymore, with my bad heart. But they let me come along anyway. Now I’m the camp cook.” He grinned around at all of us. “Speaking of which, who’s ready for dinner?”

Bess, George, and I had gotten a warm enough welcome, but everyone greeted food with cheers. Felix dished out sloppy joes, the thick meat sauce spilling over hamburger buns. Steffi offered sodas from a big cooler. Then she and Kyle sat together on the cooler and gave us their chairs. Tom insisted that Bess take his chair, and he sat cross-legged on the ground.

“This place is dangerous,” Bess said, eyeing her plate. She usually tries to be careful about what she eats.

George shoveled food into her mouth. “You’ll work it off tomorrow.”

Steffi laughed. “It’s not health food, but after a long day of work, nothing beats Felix’s culinary creations. We’re lucky. On most digs the volunteers have to bring and fix their own food. This is a real treat!”

Felix gave a dismissive wave. “So who’s ready for seconds?”

I was stuffed after firsts, but everyone who’d been working that day went back for more. I studied their faces, reminding myself of the names. It seemed like a nice bunch, and they teased one another like old friends. Even the first-timers had had two days to get to know each other.

When everyone was finished, we burned the paper plates in the fire. Felix washed the silverware in a little water from a bucket. The bottles and soda cans went into special bags for recycling later.

It was still pretty early, but people started drifting off to their tents.

George stretched and yawned. “You guys ready? We still have a tent to set up.”

Bess made a face. “I’d forgotten.”

“At least we’ll be able to see by the moon,” George said. “It’s full tonight.”

“How do you know?” I asked. George picks up all kinds of trivia on the Internet, so I figured she’d checked a site with moon data.

“It’s rising right over there.”

I turned. A huge golden moon seemed to float above the eastern horizon. “Wow. It’s beautiful!”

We watched for a minute. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flicker a movement. When I turned, I saw Steffi and Kyle heading back to the Land Rover and poking around in the back. “Just a minute,” I told my friends. “I want to ask Steffi and Kyle about those bones again. Something tells me they’re more concerned than they’re letting on.”

When I reached them, Steffi turned with a small plastic tub in her arms. “These will be safe, anyway. I’ll keep them in my tent tonight.” She gave me a smile and walked off.

“Oh, hi,” Kyle said. “Do you need something?”

“I just wanted to ask about these missing bones,” I said. “Were they something important?”

“We had some very nice phytosaur vertebrae. Not the most important thing we found, but good specimens.”

“Valuable?”

“Sure, but—” His eyes darted around at the people entering their tents. “No one here would take them. It has to be an accident.”

Steffi must disagree, I thought, if she was taking the other fossils to bed with her. “Is fossil theft a big problem?”

Kyle scowled. “You wouldn’t believe it. People pull off some pretty brazen thefts. There’s been a rash of them in the Southwest lately—” He stopped suddenly. “It’s nothing for you to worry about. It’s perfectly safe here. I promise.”

“I wasn’t worried about our safety—”

He cut me off. “You had a long drive today. Get some sleep.” He put a hand on my arm to turn me away.

I sighed and left him to close up the Land Rover. I could ask more questions in the morning, when we were both rested.

I joined Bess and George. “Anything interesting?” George whispered.

I shrugged. “I didn’t get much information. Kyle probably doesn’t want to sound suspicious of his volunteers. But from the way he and Steffi are acting, I’d say the bones were stolen, not just lost. Keep your eyes open tomorrow.”

Bess grinned. “So you found a real mystery after all. And if you don’t count the long drive out here, it came up within the first five minutes of our vacation. This may be a record.”

I laughed along with their good-natured teasing. We got our tent and flashlights from the car and scouted out a flat place. It didn’t take long to put up the tent.

At home I can be ready for bed in ten minutes. Out there it took more like half an hour. We had to find everything in our luggage, brush our teeth with bottled water, and trot off into the darkness to go to the bathroom. Finally we settled down in our sleeping bags. I shivered despite my flannel pajamas, and snuggled deeper.

“Should I set an alarm?” Bess asked.

George groaned.

“I expect we’ll hear everyone else getting up,” I said.

“Still, I could set one just to be safe,” Bess offered.

“No thanks!” George said. “Besides, we don’t even know what time they want to start.”

I tried to change the subject. “This is kind of like a slumber party.”

Bess giggled. “Who brought the popcorn?”

George said, “If I had my laptop, we could watch movies.”

“We could watch one movie, before the batteries ran out.” I yawned. “Anyway, I’m tired, and it sounds like we’re going to be working hard tomorrow.”

They mumbled their agreement. The night was filled with the chirping of crickets. It was hardly quiet, but made a nice change from city noises. I felt myself sinking into sleep.

Until someone screamed.

 

Footprints in the Dark

 

I tried to jump up, but I hit my head on the tent and stumbled in my sleeping bag. I collapsed back. Bess squealed and pushed me off of her. I fumbled for my sleeping bag zipper, but by that point I was tangled and disoriented. I started wiggling out the top.

A light flashed in my face. It danced around the tent, then settled as George hooked a big flashlight to a loop in the roof.

“That was a scream, right?” George asked.

“That was me,” Bess said. “Nancy sat on me.”

I shoved my sleeping bag aside and unzipped the tent. “Before that. Someone definitely screamed out there.” I found my shoes just outside the tent and slid my feet into them.

George and I crawled out of the tent together. Someone ran past, and I thought I recognized Kyle.

“Kyle!” I called. “What’s going on?”

He yelled, “That was Steffi,” and kept running.

George and I followed, stumbling in the darkness. It was a good thing Kyle knew where Steffi had pitched her tent. She was pretty far from the camp, hidden between a rock outcropping and one of the few small trees. She was crouched in the tent opening when we arrived.

Kyle knelt in front of her and took her arms. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” She sounded perfectly calm. “I’m sorry I startled you.”

“You scared me half to death!” Kyle exclaimed. “What happened?”

A light came bobbing up, and I turned to see Bess. Somehow she’d managed to get fully dressed. She handed George and me our coats and we pulled them on gratefully.

Tom and Russell jogged over from the campsite. Grayson trailed behind them. We were missing only Abby and Felix. Maybe they’d slept through the noise.

Steffi stood up. “I’m sorry I frightened everyone. I heard noises outside my tent. Probably just an animal.”

Kyle said, “But you’ve never—”

Steffi shot him a look and he closed his mouth.

Bess wedged herself between George and me and shone the flashlight into the shadows. “What kind of animals do you have here? Anything dangerous?”

“Not really,” Steffi said. “Just rabbits, possums, skunk, maybe deer or coyote.”

Bess’s light jerked. “Coyote?”

Steffi laughed. “I’ve never heard of them attacking a person. Now why don’t you all go back to bed?”

Russell and Tom headed back toward camp. Grayson said, “Save the next wake-up call for nine a.m.,” and gave us a friendly grin as he passed.

“Do you really think it could have been a coyote?” Bess whispered. “Maybe I’ll sleep in the car.”

“Probably just a rabbit,” I said, to comfort her. “Let me see the flashlight.” I examined the ground around Steffi’s tent. I saw tracks all right, but they weren’t animal tracks. I found human footprints, with the thick heel and pointed toe of cowboy boots. They came from the direction of the road, toward the tent, and away again. The return tracks were deeper at the toes, and farther apart, as if the person had been running. And they looked fresh. The wind that afternoon would surely have softened the edges more.

I put my foot next to the track. The footprint was much longer, probably a man’s. I glanced at Kyle’s heavy hiking boots.

He was watching me, and must have seen what I saw, but he didn’t say anything. Steffi spoke sharply. “I said everything’s fine. Why don’t you go back to bed?”

Steffi didn’t sound scared—more like angry. Was she just embarrassed because she had screamed? She didn’t seem like the type who would scream for no reason. But if a man was sneaking around her tent at night, maybe she should be scared. “Steffi, someone was here,” I said. “A man. Don’t you think it would be safer to move your tent closer to the others?

Her teeth flashed in the moonlight. “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”

Kyle said, “Thanks for your help. I’ll stay with Steffi for a while. You’d better get back to bed.”

They obviously wanted to get rid of us, and I was feeling the cold despite my coat. I handed the flashlight back to Bess, and she led the way to our tent. We didn’t speak until we were tucked away inside.

“Nancy, what did you get us into?” Bess said. “I’m sure you didn’t mention coyotes.”

“Coyotes aren’t what’s worrying me.” I filled them in on the tracks I’d seen.

“Who could it be?” Bess said. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“Exactly,” I said. “As far as we know, there are only nine people besides us within a few miles of here.”

George counted on her fingers. “Kyle, Steffi, and five other volunteers. That means you’re counting Jimmy and Erlinda?”

“Yes. Of course, we don’t know if anybody else lives with them. If not, the tracks had to be Jimmy’s.”

“I knew he was creepy,” George said. “But what about Steffi’s reaction? Either she didn’t know it was him, or she doesn’t care.”

“What do you suppose it means?” Bess asked.

I could feel my sixth sense tingling. “I don’t know, but add this to the missing bones, and I have a feeling we’re going to have an interesting couple of days ahead of us!”

 

•••

 

I awoke to the sun shining through the blue nylon of the tent. I blinked a few times in the strange light before realizing where I was. My sleeping bag was warm enough, but the air on my face felt cold. From outside I heard voices and the slam of a car door.

George groaned. “What time is it?”

“Almost six o’clock,” Bess said. “I told you we should have set an alarm.”

George grumbled something and snuggled deeper into her sleeping bag.

I yawned and stretched. “I guess they want to start before it gets too hot.”

“So they start when it’s too cold?” George said. “Come back for me in an hour.”

“You’ll miss breakfast,” Bess said. She was already sifting through her clothes. I wriggled into my clothes, then ran a brush through my hair and pulled it into a ponytail.

George sat up with a sigh. “All right, I’m awake.”

“I guess it’s too cold for shorts,” Bess said.

“We’re going to be out in the sun all day,” George said. “Wear long pants and long sleeves.” She frowned at Bess’s pale skin. “And I hope you brought a sun hat. Sunscreen alone isn’t going to do it for a full day.”

Bess pouted prettily. “You take all the fun out of getting dressed.”

I grinned at her. “Don’t worry. I’m sure Kyle will notice you no matter what you wear.”

She grinned back. “All right, you win.” Somehow she still managed to look great, in tan pants and a long-sleeved white shirt, with her blond hair curling over her shoulders. George’s short hair was tousled, and I avoided looking in a mirror. But leave it to Bess—even without a shower she could look like a model from an outdoors catalogue.

We shrugged into our coats and started toward the fire. I glanced around. “Steffi isn’t here yet. I think I’ll check on her.” Bess and George nodded and went forward while I turned back. I didn’t want to be a pest, but I knew I’d feel better after making sure Steffi was fine.

I managed to find the path we had taken during the night. In a few minutes I saw Steffi’s tent. She was standing outside, talking to a man. It took me a minute, but I finally recognized who it was—Jimmy!

I hesitated and pulled back behind a small tree. I didn’t want to interrupt, and I didn’t really want to spy on them. I decided I’d just wait a minute to make sure Steffi had everything under control.

Jimmy was staring at his feet. Steffi smiled and put a hand on his arm. If anything, it looked like she was comforting him. I shook my head. It was none of my business, so long as everyone was safe.

I started to back up, but as I did, I tripped on a rock and tumbled to the ground. When I got up, Jimmy was running off and Steffi was heading toward me. I brushed myself off and gave her an embarrassed smile. “Good morning.”

“Out for a morning stroll?” she asked.

I nodded. “I think breakfast is about ready, though, so I’m turning back.”

“I’ll join you.”

As we walked back to camp, I asked, “Did you sleep well?”

“Like a log.”

“No more disturbances, then?”

“A perfectly quiet night.”

We went the rest of the way without speaking. I still wondered about Jimmy, but I gathered the paleontologists had been working at the site for a couple of years, so it made sense that he knew Steffi. Perhaps he even had a crush on her. His mother wouldn’t like that, so it would explain why he had to sneak around. But I remembered the missing bones as well. Surely anyone sneaking around camp had to be considered suspicious. And Steffi had said she was keeping some bones in her tent last night. But if Jimmy had come after the bones, Steffi would have raised the alarm.

I shook my head to clear it. I didn’t have enough to work on yet. I’d keep my eyes and ears open, and see what happened.

Felix waved a spatula as we approached. “Just in time! How does hash and eggs sound?”

“Great!” Steffi said. “And do I smell coffee?” She jogged over to Felix. He had a four-burner camp stove set up on the tailgate of a truck.

“I’ll take anything warm,” I said. George handed me a mug of steaming coffee and I thanked her.

Tom was stirring up the fire and adding sticks. He grinned up at me. “I just love the smell of piñon wood burning.” I inhaled deeply, and had to agree.

Kyle was sorting through some gear. I heard him mutter, “That’s funny. I thought we had another one of these.”

Grayson crawled out of his tent and came to stand near the fire. In daylight I realized his hair wasn’t actually white, but rather a very light blond. He probably wasn’t over fifty. He sniffled, pulled out a huge handkerchief, and blew his nose. He saw me watching and said, “Apparently I’m allergic to fresh air.”

I heard a clatter of loose rocks and turned to see Russell slithering down a hillside. He too came to huddle over the fire. “Brr. It’s windy up there, but the only place I can get cell phone reception is at the top of that hill.”

“You can get cell phone reception here?” George poked me. “See, Nancy, I told you I’d want my PDA.”

“Great,” Bess said with a yawn. “Now you can stand on a hill in the wind and check your e-mail.”

“Exactly!”

We were still missing one person. I decided Abby must be a heavy sleeper, if she could ignore Steffi’s scream and now all the morning activity. Then she appeared from behind Russell’s hill. Her face looked pinched with cold, but she gave us a serene smile. I noticed her eyes were an unusual color, almost violet.

Felix hurried over to her with a mug. “Up early again? You look frozen. Here’s your green tea.” He winked at her. “Organic, of course.”

“Thank you,” Abby said. “I don’t feel the day has started properly unless I can do my sunrise rituals.”

“Rituals?” I asked.

“Rhythmic chanting and dancing to greet the new day. I have to align my chakras with the earth’s energy zones.”

“Oh, I see.” Actually, I didn’t, but I wasn’t sure getting her to explain further would help.

Abby sipped her tea. “It’s so peaceful being out in the desert alone, and these ancient sites have a special spirituality.”

Russell said, “You know, we’re digging up dinosaur bones. There were no humans here. This isn’t one of your mystical what-do-you-call-its, where your ancestors came to chant and beat drums. If your ancestors ever touched this continent, which I doubt.”

Abby gave him a disapproving look. “We all came from the same mother, thousands of years ago. And all creatures can offer a spiritual connection to the earth. Humans aren’t the center of everything.”

I decided to break in before an argument could start. “So, what do you do, Abby? I mean, as a job?”

She turned to me, her smile serene again. “I have a little shop in Arizona. I sell jewelry and semiprecious stones with special powers.” She pulled the necklace from her coat collar to show me. The smooth stone had shimmering bands of brown and yellow. A piece of silver wire held it on a leather thong. “Tiger’s-eye helps focus the mind, and it offers protection during travel. I thought it the perfect stone for this trip.”

“Well, it’s very pretty,” I said.

Bess joined us and admired the stone. “If it offers protection, you should get one, Nancy!”

Abby’s eyebrows went up. “Oh? Do you need protection?”

Bess laughed. “Nancy has a habit of getting in trouble. She’s an amateur detective.”

Abby studied me curiously. I shrugged and said, “I’ve had a little luck.”

“Breakfast!” Felix shouted. “Come and get it!”

The hot food tasted wonderful. I noticed that Abby wasn’t eating the hash and eggs. She saw me eyeing her bowl and said, “Barley and tofu, with a bit of seaweed. I keep a macrobiotic diet. You can’t be one with the world if you feast upon nature’s creatures.”

I gave her a noncommittal smile. By the time we’d finished breakfast, cleaned up, and brushed our teeth, the sun had warmed things up. We shed our coats and grabbed our backpacks.

“Everyone have plenty of water?” Kyle asked. “We’re going about a mile from camp, so be sure to bring enough to last until lunchtime.”

George had already checked our supplies of water, sunscreen, and insect repellent. We also had our big floppy hats. “We’re all set. What’s that stuff?”

Tom and Russell each picked up a covered five gallon bucket. Kyle took one in each hand. Steffi and Grayson grabbed large packages.

“This is plaster,” Steffi said. “And that’s the water we mix into it. We cover the fossils with plaster so we can move them without damaging them.”

“I’ll take one,” George said. She hefted a bag.

“That’s enough plaster, then,” Steffi said. She smiled at Bess and me. “Maybe you two can take another bucket between you?”

I picked up a bucket. It was heavy. Bess grasped the handle too, and we carried the bucket hanging between us.

I glanced back and saw Abby trailing behind us. She wasn’t carrying anything except her own small backpack. I guess the tiger’s-eye offered some kind of protection after all!

 

•••

 

The ground was rough, so I was glad for my sturdy hiking boots. By the time we got to the site, I was breathless and sweating. We put the bucket down, and I shook out my aching arm. Russell sat down on his bucket with a hearty sigh. Grayson mopped sweat from his forehead. Tom and Steffi, on the other hand, were already sorting out equipment. Kyle looked like he hadn’t even broken a sweat. I guess they were used to this.

George dropped off her bag of plaster and joined us, smiling broadly. “What a great day!” She checked something on her watch. “Sixty-eight degrees already, and it’s only seven thirty. Going to be a hot one.” She pulled her digital camera out of her backpack and took a few shots of the scenery as the sun blazed over a ridge.

We were down in a kind of hollow, with ten-foot-high rocky cliffs around us, except for an open passage on each end. Several blue plastic tarps were spread out on the ground and weighted with rocks in the corners.

“All right,” Kyle said. “Most of you can keep going from yesterday. I’ll give our new guests the tour.” He smiled at us. “Then we’ll put you to work as well.”

“We’re ready,” I said.

“First let me show you our great find.” He walked over to one of the blue tarps. Grayson was standing next to it, taking a drink from his water bottle. Abby sat on the ground nearby, cross-legged, eyes closed. It took me a moment to realize that the soft humming sound I heard was coming from her.

Kyle removed a couple of the rocks to free the tarp. He pulled it back with a flourish like a magician. “And here we have—”

He broke off with a gasp. “Oh, no!”

 

Damaged

 

I glanced from his astonished face to where he was staring. The ground was torn up, where someone had obviously been digging around a two-foot-square mound of gray rock. I couldn’t see anything obviously wrong, but the other volunteers were gathering around with cries of dismay. Even Abby had opened her eyes and stood, peering over Grayson’s shoulder.

Kyle knelt next to the pile of rocks and muttered under his breath.

I crouched next to him. “What’s wrong?”

“Someone or something has been at the fossil!”

I frowned at the pile, trying to make sense of it. I thought I could see the end of a few bones. But the bones were dark gray like the rest of the rock, and the whole thing was one solid block. You could never pull out a single bone.

Kyle ran his hand over one end of the rock, where a few chisel marks showed a fresh break. “We had a beautiful jawbone right here. You could see the teeth. And now it’s gone.”

“You mean stolen?” I asked.

Kyle sat back on his heels and looked around at the volunteers. They stared back at him.

“Could an animal have done it?” Bess asked.

Tom moved closer to her and said softly, “Those bones are millions of years old. There’s no meat on them, nothing an animal would want. They’re just rock.”

I thought of the missing fossils last night and looked around at the faces, wondering if one of them could be the thief. They all seemed like nice people, but who else would be out here?

Kyle stood up. “All right. Let’s get to work. We need to get this fossil jacketed.” He strode away, scowling.

George, Bess, and I exchanged glances. We joined Kyle by the equipment pile.

“Kyle?” I said. “Can we help somehow?”

He managed a smile. “I’m sorry, Nancy. I guess it seems like a lot of fuss. But that’s the most important fossil here. It’s the reason we came back this year. We found it on our last day last summer. We couldn’t stay any extra days to get it out, so we covered it up. I’ve been looking forward to getting it all year.”

“What’s so special about it?” George asked.

“It’s a Coelophysis, a small predatory dinosaur. It’s rare to find more than a few bones. Usually after a dinosaur died, its bones were scattered—maybe scavengers carried off pieces, or a river washed some bones away. But this set looked fairly complete, from what we could see. It would have been a real treasure for the museum.”

“Or anyone else,” I said. I was thinking of Jimmy and Erlinda.

Kyle sighed. “Look, I want you guys to have a good time. Don’t worry about this.”

“Solving crimes is our idea of a good time,” George said. “Nancy is an amateur detective.”

Kyle’s eyebrows went up. “Really?” He glanced around at the other volunteers. They were all hard at work, but he lowered his voice anyway. “I don’t know what you could do, except maybe keep your eyes open. You may not realize it, but fossils are worth a lot of money on the black market.”

“Last night you said something about a rash of thefts around here,” I said.

“I’d guess that hundreds of fossils get stolen every year,” Kyle said. “Most we never even know about. Sometimes you see them for sale on the Internet. People claim they came from private land, but you have to wonder. Then in the last year, I’ve heard reports of thefts from digs and storage facilities in the Four Corners area—New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah.”

“Have you had fossils stolen at this site?” Bess asked.

“I don’t think so,” Kyle said, “but it’s always a worry. We try to keep the site location pretty secret, but of course we have to tell the volunteers. We never have money for a full professional dig, so we depend on volunteers. And that means you more or less take whoever you get.”

He shrugged and gave us a sheepish grin, as if just remembering that we were volunteers too.

“Who else knows?” I asked.

“If we need access through private land, we have to tell the landowner. People on the museum staff know. And we report on our digs through the museum website and newsletter. We only name the general location, but it’s possible someone could use that to track us down, or even follow us out here. I think last year’s report mentioned finding this fossil.”

“So anyone could find out if they really wanted to,” I said.

“Yes, I guess so,” Kyle said. “Usually it doesn’t matter too much. The fossils we find are good and important for the museum collection, but they’re not that rare or valuable. I hate the idea of thieves making money off of them, but it’s not a huge loss.”

I glanced back at the spot where Steffi, Abby, and Grayson were working on the fossil. “But that one is rare?”

“Yes.” Kyle stared at them, his jaw set. “That’s why we’re going to keep it safe, no matter what.”

Bess put a hand on Kyle’s arm. “If you have thieves around here, we’ll find them!”

“Kyle, how about giving us that tour,” I said. “How big is the site?”

He gestured around the hollow, which was perhaps twenty feet by forty feet. “Basically what you see here.” He stepped over to the cliff wall, and we gathered around him. We could see bands in the rock, like layers in a cake. The bands had different colors, from pale tan to dark brown to reddish. In some bands the rock looked hard; in others, crumbly.

Kyle said, “Most dinosaur fossils are found in sedimentary rocks, like this. Sedimentary rocks are made up of sediments such as sand, gravel, mud, or clay. They’re usually deposited in bodies of water.”

Bess looked around. “So what are they doing here in the desert?”

Kyle grinned at her. “It wasn’t always a desert.” He gestured across the hollow. “This used to be a river, millions of years ago. Ancient rivers are a good place to find fossils, because the mud covers bones quickly. If something dies out in the desert, its bones might be scattered, or just decay. The river mud protects the bones, so they’re still here for us to find. Plus, this hollow is still a river during flood season. That helps us because the water washes away the soil and exposes new things.”

We walked in a circle around the site. I scanned the ground for footprints or dropped objects, but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. With so many people wandering around the site, I probably couldn’t have identified the thief’s footprints anyway.

While Kyle was explaining some paleontology facts to Bess, George whispered to me, “What do you think? Jimmy?”

I frowned. “He’s the most suspicious person we’ve met so far. But what about those missing fossils last night? If Jimmy and Erlinda had learned how valuable fossils are only when we told them, they wouldn’t have had time to steal those.”

“But they might have already known. Erlinda could have been putting on an act. Or Jimmy might have known, even if she didn’t.”

I nodded. “They’re definitely suspects, but I don’t want to jump to conclusions. I don’t see any cowboy boot tracks here, like the ones last night. Everyone on the dig is wearing hiking boots.”

Kyle turned to us. “Any more questions? I really should get to work. Our priority now is to get that fossil out.”

“How long will that take?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, it won’t be ready today. After we expose the top, we plaster over one side of the fossil, and let the plaster dry. Then we chisel out under the base and flip over the whole thing. We plaster the top side, and once that dries, it’s ready to make the trip back to the museum, safe in its armor. It’s called jacketing. We’ll start plastering soon, but with the drying time it won’t be ready until tomorrow. So, do you want to start with excavating or with jacketing?”

“Excavating,” George said promptly. “That sounds more exciting.”

“I guess I’ll try jacketing,” Bess said.

I pondered. It was tempting to head back to camp and poke around. But what would I look for? A smart thief would simply drop the stolen fossils under a bush until he was ready to leave, and I couldn’t search the whole desert. A thief wouldn’t need any special tools, either, because they were all at the site. Maybe the best thing I could do was work, ask questions, and keep an eye on everything. “Just put me wherever you need me.”

“Good,” Kyle said. “Bess, you can work with Steffi. They should be about ready to cover that fossil, and you couldn’t learn from a better plasterer.”

“Sounds good.” She walked over to Steffi and Grayson.

“What happened to Abby?” I asked.

Kyle glanced around. “I guess she’s gone on another one of her spiritual walkabouts or whatever she calls them. The woman is useless.” He grinned at me. “Sorry. I shouldn’t be so blunt.”

I smiled back. “That’s all right. With volunteers you have to take what you get.”

“Too true. But Abby actually knows her fossils. She just doesn’t want to do any work. So why on earth did she bother to come?” He sighed. “In any case, why don’t you two work with Tom and Russell. Since you’re the newcomers, you can split up and pair off with them.”

I wound up with Tom, while George worked with Russell about ten feet away. Tom said, “This was an aetosaur we call Typothorax. Aetosaurs were weird plant-eating reptiles. The bones are jumbled together, so it probably died at the edge of the river, and the water carried some bones away and dumped others here. You want to get as close to the bone as possible, but you don’t want to damage the fossil.”

I ran my hand over a section. “How do you tell? The whole thing feels like solid stone.”

“Well, that’s basically what a fossil is. Minerals seep into the bones and turn them to stone. But it’s different from the surrounding area, so the rock will tend to come away.”

I picked up a hammer and chisel. “So pound away until I find bone?”

“Right. We’re not trying to get the bones out individually, of course. We just want to get as much rock as possible off of the top before we jacket it.”

“Why? Wouldn’t it be safer to just plaster the whole thing?”

“Safer, maybe, but not easier,” Tom said. “Most of these jackets weigh between fifty and two hundred pounds, and big ones will weigh more. Extra rock means extra weight.”

I gaped at him. “But we’re a mile from the cars!”

“Yup. It’s the fun part.” He grinned at me. “We put the heaviest jackets on a big rescue sled and drag it. But believe me, that’s no walk in the park, especially with uneven ground. And smaller fossils just go into our backpacks. Excavating is the easy part.”

“I guess I’d better get busy, then.” I picked up a chisel and started tapping at the rock. At first I tried to be delicate, but nothing happened. I had to tap hard to break up the rock at all.

Tom worked quickly and confidently, brushing away loose rock chips with a wide paintbrush. I thought about what he’d said. Stealing fossils wasn’t like stealing jewelry. You had to know what you were doing to identify and retrieve valuable fossils. That meant the thief was an expert in the field.

Could the thief even be a paleontologist? Paleontology was a lot of work, and probably didn’t pay well. “What’s it like being a paleontologist?” I asked Tom.

“It’s the best job in the world,” he said. “At least, if you can get a job.”

“Is it hard to find a job as a paleontologist?”

He sat back and wiped his face with a bandanna. “There aren’t a lot of jobs. Take the museum here. Most of the staff is young, and far from retirement. And if a position does open up, you can bet that Kyle will make sure Steffi gets it.”

His gaze settled on Steffi. She was dipping strips of burlap into the thick white plaster and laying them over the corner of the damaged rock. I couldn’t read Tom’s expression.

He went on. “But one major find can make you famous. Then you’re in National Geographic, lecturing at museums around the world, in demand everywhere.”

I studied him. He wasn’t bad-looking, but his mouth turned down at the edges, and he was already getting frown lines between his eyebrows. “Is that what you want? Fame?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“So how do you get there?”

He sighed. “My best hope is to find something that will make for a great graduate project and get me some attention. That can lead to future funding.”

He lapsed into silence, and I studied him surreptitiously as we worked. Could Tom have a motive? Maybe he wanted to steal the fossil so he could claim he found it somewhere else and get the recognition he seems to want so badly. Could I be working side by side with a thief?

 

More Mysteries

 

I had a hard time concentrating on the fossil, with all the questions in my head. Plus, it kept getting hotter. But I didn’t want to damage the bone by being careless. I was trying to help Kyle, not cause more problems.

Conversation died off across the site. All I could hear was the clink of tools, the buzzing of insects, and the shuffling sounds of people changing their positions. The sun beat down on us, and I wiped my face on my sleeve.

“All right, gang,” Kyle called out. “Lunchtime!”

Cheers erupted in the hollow. We got to our feet and stretched. George looked at her watch and said, “Ninety-two degrees.”

I joined Bess, who was wiping wet plaster off her hands. “Do you feel up to using your natural charm?” I whispered.

She grinned. “Always.”

“Walk with Tom,” I said. “It sounds like he’s jealous of Steffi, and Kyle is on Steffi’s side. I’d like to know if there’s anything there, but he might get suspicious if I keep asking questions.”

She saluted. “Agent Bess is on the case.”

I dropped back behind the group as we walked, pondering other suspects. What about Jimmy and his mother? Had our meeting last night given them the idea of stealing fossils? Or had they already been at work?

Steffi was a mystery all by herself. She was smart and strong and tough. My instinct was to like her. But what about the confusion last night? Why had she pitched her tent so far from everyone else? And why would she be having secret conversations with Jimmy, if that was the case? She must have been surprised when he appeared last night, or she wouldn’t have screamed. But then she acted like nothing had happened.

I didn’t know much about the other people in the group. I’d have to fix that. And of course, it might not be anyone in the group at all. But with fossils missing from the Land Rover as well as the dig site, a passing stranger seemed unlikely. Only someone close by would know where to find everything.

I shook my head, trying to clear it.

When I looked around, I realized I had no idea where I was.

George said, “Um, Nancy, I think we’re supposed to go this way.”

“Huh? Oh, right.” It’s a good thing I have my friends to keep me on track while I’m distracted by a mystery. Otherwise I might wind up lost in the desert!

Back at camp Felix greeted us with a smile and a cooler filled with cold drinks. The icy lemon-lime soda coursed down my throat and knocked all other thoughts from my head.

I drank about half the can, then looked at Bess and smiled. “Some morning, huh?”

She nodded and took another sip of her soda. Even in the shade of her sun hat, her cheeks looked pink. Damp tendrils of hair curled around her ears. “It was fun.”

George bounded over to us, full of energy as usual. “Learn anything?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

I shook my head. “Lots of questions, but no answers.”

Bess leaned closer and lowered her voice. “I think you’re right about Tom, Kyle, and Steffi. I don’t think it’s a love triangle. More like professional jealousy. That guy sure knows how to complain.”

“I’ll tackle him again this afternoon,” I said. “But first let’s get some lunch!”

Felix had sandwiches ready to go, piled high with meat, cheese, and vegetables. “Are you sure you don’t want one?” he asked Abby. “I have a vegetarian.” It looked delicious, with roasted red peppers and sprouts spilling out the sides.

She wrinkled her nose. “Thank you, but I’ll stick with my herbed soybeans and millet.”

Grayson picked up a sandwich stuffed with roast beef. “Ah, here’s one just the way I like it—plenty of cow!

Abby stuck her tongue out at him, and he laughed.

We got our sandwiches and looked around for shade. Tom and Russell sat under a blue tarp stretched between two trucks, talking seriously. I caught a few words, and it sounded like a foreign language. Dinosaur names, I guessed. Abby perched nearby, eating delicately like a cat. Grayson slumped against a tree, looking wilted. Steffi headed toward her tent. Felix sat by his sandwiches, ready to offer more.

Kyle looked tired, with his shoulders drooping, but he smiled and came over to us. “We usually take a couple of hours’ break now. We try to head back to the dig around three o’clock. That way we avoid the worst of the heat, but still get in several more hours of work.”

“Why do you do the dig when it’s so hot, anyway?” George asked. “Why not wait until cooler weather?”

“A lot of our volunteers are students or teachers, so we wait for summer break.”

We lapsed into silence as we finished our sandwiches. The air shimmered with heat. I felt like I was melting, and my eyes wanted to close. Soon people headed to their tents. I hesitated, feeling like I should be doing some detective work. But for the moment everyone was safely tucked away. I decided to lie down for a few minutes and then come out to keep an eye on things.

Bess and George followed me back to the tent. I crouched and unzipped the flap. Under the noise of the zipper I heard a strange sound. I paused a moment, trying to identify it. A dry rattle, like seeds in a gourd. Where was it coming from?

I shrugged and finished unzipping the tent. As the flap fell open, the sound got louder.

Zhhh-zhh-zhhh!

It was coming from inside the tent!

I looked in. I saw a raised head, coiled body, and shaking tail.

I was staring at a rattlesnake.

 

Rattled

 

My breath stopped while my heart raced. I couldn’t move, even though I felt the adrenaline surging through my bent legs.

Behind me Bess stepped closer. “What’s that noise?”

“Get back!” I croaked. I sensed rather than saw George grab Bess and the two of them carefully retreat.

The rattler had to be at least three feet long, and two inches thick. It lay smack on the middle sleeping bag, coiled up, with its head and tail raised. I stared into its unblinking eyes. Its tongue flicked in and out. Every few seconds it paused in its rattling, then started up again, the tail tip a blur.

Chills ran up and down my spine and sweat poured down my face. I took a shallow breath and reached one hand behind me. Slowly I shifted back until I was sitting on the ground. I inched my way back, making no sudden movements, though my pounding heart was telling me to leap up and run.

The rattler shifted and slithered a little closer. It was all I could do not to scream.

George stepped around the tent with a stick in her hands. She poked the back of the tent, rustling the fabric.

The snake turned and lashed out at the movement. I rolled backward, leaped to my feet, and took two more big steps back. Bess put her arms around me. I leaned against her, shaking, with my legs like rubber.

I took deep breaths, trying to calm down. George came around to join us, her face pale and glistening with sweat. I slowly turned my head back toward the tent. I had to force myself to look at the snake again. I imagined it lunging at me, then pushed the thought away.

I cleared my throat. “Suggestions?” My voice sounded funny.

We all stared at the snake. George said without enthusiasm, “On the wildlife TV shows sometimes they use a forked stick…”

“I’m not going near that thing,” Bess said firmly. “We get Kyle. He’s in charge; he can deal with the snake.”

Felix was tidying up his cooking gear, so we asked him which one was Kyle’s tent. The flap was open, and when we called his name, Kyle sat up yawning. “Do you need something?

“Advice,” George said. “How do you get a rattlesnake out of a tent?”

Kyle frowned as if pondering a riddle. “How do you—” His eyes popped open. “What? Do you mean—are you serious?”

I managed a smile. “Sorry to disturb you, but we could use some help.”

“Yes, sure.” He crawled out and stood up. “You’re sure it’s a rattler?”

“Well, it was rattling,” I said. Just the memory of the sound made me shiver.

Kyle nodded. “We’d better get Tom.” He collected Tom and they borrowed one of the giant plastic tubs Felix used for food storage. Back at our tent, they peered inside.

“Boy, that’s a rattler all right,” Kyle said. “A big one too.”

“It’s a beauty,” Tom said.

George whispered, “A beauty?” and rolled her eyes.

“Well, thank goodness it wasn’t an ugly one,” I muttered.

Tom put the tub on its side against the tent entrance. “Rattlers like dark, enclosed spaces. If we annoy it, it will go into the tub for safety.”

Kyle peered through a side vent to keep an eye on the snake. Tom went to the back of the tent and pounded his hands against the nylon.

“Nothing yet,” Kyle said. “He’s just hunkered down.”

Tom grabbed the tent poles and started shaking the tent.

“Why don’t you just dump the tent out?” George asked.

“We don’t want your gear to go into the tub with the snake,” Tom answered.

“Good plan,” Bess whispered.

Tom shook the tent and stomped his feet for a couple of minutes. Finally Kyle called out, “He’s moving! He’s heading for the tub. …Just another foot… He’s in!”

Kyle and Tom rushed around the sides of the tent and flipped up the tub. They peered inside. “Boy, it’s not happy,” Tom said. We could hear it moving and rattling, but didn’t get close enough to watch.

“Let’s put him in the Land Rover, and I’ll drive him a couple miles away,” Kyle said. He picked up one end of the tub and Tom grabbed the other. “Sorry about this,” Ky