The Stolen Bones (10 page)

“We’ll be more visible,” George murmured, “if anyone else is up there.”

I thought for a moment. “You two wait here. I’ll go up slowly, and take a look around. It won’t be so noticeable with just one of us, and I can crawl. If it’s all clear, I’ll come back for you. We can find a nice hiding spot and camp out.”

They nodded. I moved carefully up the slope, trying not to dislodge any rocks that might fall and make noise. When I could peer over the top, I took a long look around. I couldn’t see anyone, so I went up the rest of the way.

I stayed low, on my hands and knees. The bushes released a spicy scent, and I remembered that sagebrush grows in the desert. I had to crawl only about fifty feet, but it seemed to take forever. The sharp
rocks gouged into my knees and the plants caught at my coat. One thorny branch dragged across my cheek, leaving it stinging. Did everything in the desert bite or scratch?

I crawled to the edge of the dig site and stared down, trying to see into all the shadows. Moonlight glinted on the white buckets and the smooth plaster covering the fossils, but nothing moved.

I didn’t feel like crawling back across those rocks. I looked for a place where I could drop into the clearing. I moved along the cliff a few feet, to where a wide crack split the wall. I could shinny down that.

I swung my feet over the edge. A few pebbles clattered down. I froze and waited, listening for any response.

I thought I heard … breathing? I shook my head. Impossible. It had to be the wind, or just my imagination. I strained my ears, and couldn’t catch the sound again.

I stared into the dark crevice, but nothing moved. If I kept waiting, I would trick myself into thinking I saw a face or hand, but those lighter spots had to be just paler rocks.

I took a deep breath and lowered myself into the crack. I wormed my way down until I stood hidden in the shadows. It would make a perfect hiding place. It was a little small for three people, but we
could manage. We’d be hidden, and sheltered from the wind.

I took a step forward. Something rose up in front of me.

I gasped and tried to step back, but the cliff pressed in close as a pair of hands reached out for me.

I
opened my mouth to yell for Bess and
George, but the person spoke. “Nancy? What are you doing here?”

“Kyle? Is that you?” I leaned back against the cliff, my heart
pounding. “You gave me a scare. What are you doing?”

“Watching for thieves. Which brings me back to my
question—what are you doing here?”

I was glad it was dark so he couldn’t see the flush rising in my
cheeks. I realized what he must be thinking, and hurried to explain. “Same as you.
Bess and George are waiting around the corner. We wanted to keep an eye on the
fossil.” I grinned, though I wasn’t sure if he could see that in the dark.
“I was just thinking what a good hiding place this would make!”

He sighed and scratched his head. Did he believe
me?

I squeezed past him. “I’d better get Bess and George.
They’ll be wondering what happened to me.”

I quickly explained the situation as I led them back to Kyle. He stepped
out where we could all see one another in the moonlight. We spoke in whispers.

“I’ve got things covered here,” Kyle said. “I have
my sleeping bag and I’m ready to spend the night. We don’t all need to hang
around.”

“All right,” I said. “We won’t worry, now that we
know you’re here. But I wish we could find some way to help tonight.”

“What’s that?” George asked.

We all turned to follow her gaze. “I saw a flash of light,”
George said. “It looked like a flashlight.”

We all stared. “There it is!” Kyle exclaimed.

“Where exactly?” Bess asked. “Oh, I saw it too! What
could it be?”

I grinned at my friends. “There’s one way to find out. Kyle,
you’d better wait here and protect the fossil. We’ll check out the
light.”

“Be careful. You don’t want to get lost in the
desert.”

George patted her pocket. “I have my GPS turned on. I’m
tracking our every move!”

I felt better knowing that George was keeping
track
of our path. It was easy enough to follow the river channel, but if we had to chase
someone across the desert, we could lose our way. George’s GPS could also mark the
spot if we found anything useful, like tire tracks.

We waved to Kyle and headed across the hollow, then up the path to where
the ATV had parked that afternoon. We saw the light again and scurried toward it. It had
to be someone with a flashlight.

We chased the light for the next half hour, getting farther away from camp
and the dig. We had to go around hills, and slither down one slope of loose rocks. One
good thing about the desert, we could move over the land and keep the light in sight all
the time. It wasn’t like a forest, where you have to fight your way through thick
trees.

But the desert had its own challenges. Thorny bushes snagged at our
clothes. We had to watch for cactus patches in the dim light. You could brush right past
a small cactus and not realize it until you felt the thorns in your ankle.

Still, I was tingling with excitement. The cold night air, the bright moon
washing out the starry sky, the scent of the desert, and most of all the chase—I
felt so alive!

The light went out.

We walked for a few more minutes without seeing
the
light again. I stopped and turned slowly, staring in every direction. My ears strained
for any sound in the night. I heard the wind rushing past bushes, and a faint distant
rumble—a train, miles away?

Bess whispered, “George, where are the nightvision
goggles?”

“Yeah,” George said. “That’s what we need. Or at
least some of those binoculars for looking at stars. They gather more light so you can
use them at night.”

I smiled as I imagined George back home, scheming to get new toys. But
that didn’t help us now.

“What should we do?” Bess whispered.

I hesitated. “Keep going, I guess. Maybe the thief dropped down into
a ravine, or went around a hill.”

“Or he’s waiting for us there in the dark.” Bess
groaned.

“Either way, we can’t just stand around doing nothing,”
George said.

We walked for another five minutes without seeing the light or anything
else of interest. Finally I stopped. “There’s no point in wandering around
randomly. I guess we should head back.”

Their shoulders drooped. We were doing a lot of hiking, and not learning
much. “If someone wants to steal the fossil, why were they heading so far from the
dig site?” Bess asked.

“Maybe the thieves are lost,” George said.

“Or maybe they heard us with Kyle, and we
scared them away from the dig.” I sighed. “I think we’ve all had
enough for tonight. Let’s go back and check on Kyle. If everything is all right
there, I guess we go to bed.”

George nodded. Bess smiled and I knew she was relieved. She’s a good
sport, but after her brush with heat exhaustion earlier, she must have been beyond ready
for sleep.

George pulled out her GPS. “I’ll just get a
reading …” Her voice trailed off.

“What’s the matter?” Bess asked.

George peered at the GPS and punched some buttons. She muttered something
I couldn’t quite catch.

“What?” Bess demanded. “What’s wrong?”

George stared at the GPS, and then looked up at us with wide eyes.
“There’s no power. The batteries are dead!”

Y
ou mean we’re lost out here?” Bess whispered.

“I can’t believe it!” George sounded outraged that technology should fail her. “I recharged the batteries right before we left.” She flipped over the GPS and popped off the back. She grabbed her flashlight, turned it on, and shone it on the battery compartment. “These aren’t my rechargeable batteries! Someone stole mine and replaced them. They must have put in batteries with just enough juice to turn the GPS on at the beginning, so I wouldn’t notice.”

We stood in silence for a minute. “What are we going to do?” Bess asked.

“We’ll find our way back,” I said, trying to sound confident. “We can follow our own tracks back.”

George turned her flashlight to the ground. “We came that way. This won’t be so hard.”

She took a few steps. Her flashlight flickered and went out.

Bess moaned. “Don’t tell me—bad batteries.”

Bess and I checked our flashlights. Hers didn’t have any batteries at all. “I put in new ones when I packed,” she groaned. My light went on, but the beam looked weak. “We’d better use it only as necessary,” I said.

I wondered how many miles we had walked. George’s GPS could have told us, if it was working. However far we’d come already, we had that much more to get back to our tent. And going back would take much longer, since we had to move slowly.

The moon shone on silvery bushes and sent shadows between the pale rock outcroppings. As much as possible we used that light to see our tracks. Sometimes the path was obvious, because bushes or patches of cacti left only one route. When we weren’t sure, we turned on the flashlight for a few seconds.

We walked in silence. The excitement had evaporated. We were lost in the desert, with no water or food. If we didn’t show up by morning, Kyle would look for us. But would he know where to look? We might have covered a couple of miles, chasing after that light. Now it looked like it had all been a trick, to
get us out of the way. And while we were busy being lost, the thief might have been causing more trouble.

I went over and over the clues in my mind, trying to find something useful. Every time I thought I had a suspect, the clues turned into nothing. Yet somebody had stolen those fossils!

The second flashlight went out after ten minutes. “At least I have my key chain penlight,” I said. “It doesn’t give much light, but it should help.” I managed a smile. “And I know the thief hasn’t gotten to it, because it’s been with me the whole time!”

I tried to be cheerful, but my energy was fading. Bess’s shoulders sagged with fatigue, and George stifled a yawn.

Fortunately, the soft desert soil showed our tracks well. In some places we could identify clear boot prints. Where the ground was sandy, we sometimes saw only shallow depressions. Then we came to an area of bare rock extending one hundred feet in every direction.

“I don’t remember crossing this,” Bess said.

“We must have,” I said. “We just weren’t paying attention on the way out.”

“We’ll search the edge until we find our tracks going out the other side,” George said.

Bess sat on a rock, folded her arms on her knees, and put her head down. “Call me when you find it.”

I glanced at George. “Maybe we all need a short break. Wait a minute—” I fished in my jacket pockets. “I have an energy bar!”

I broke it into thirds and wished again for some water. How foolish to go out into the desert, even at night, without it!

A high, quavering cry pierced the night air. The hair stood up on the back of my neck.

The howl faded in the distance. “Coyote,” George muttered. “Not dangerous.”

I nodded. My logical mind knew that coyotes hunted small animals and avoided humans, but some primitive part of the brain shouted, “Danger!”

Bess looked up and said in a tight voice, “I’m ready to go now.” Her eyes widened as she stared over my head. She ducked back and screamed.

Something passed over my head so close that my hair moved in its breeze. Next to me George yelped. I choked on the last bite of energy bar.

My heart pounded as I watched a large bird swoop away from us. Its wingspan was as wide as my outstretched arms. “It’s all right,” I gasped. “Just an owl. Probably out hunting rabbits.”

“Nice scream, Bess,” George complained, rubbing her ear. “You just about burst my eardrums.”

Bess glared at her. “Oh? It may have been loud, but I could still hear
your
scream.”

“I didn’t scream,” George said, wide-eyed. “I maybe just exclaimed a little, in surprise.”

I chuckled, the tension broken. “All right, you two, let’s get out of here and back to our beds.”

We walked directly across the open rock, and then scanned the edge for footprints. It might have gone faster if we’d been willing to split up, but somehow we all wanted to stick close together. I used my penlight, for speed, even though I was getting worried about that battery. The night seemed to be getting darker. I glanced up. Sure enough, the edge of a cloud bank was eating the moon.

“Here,” George said, “this bush has a broken twig.” We searched around it and found disturbed areas in the dirt and finally, a few feet away, a clear footprint.

“Are you sure it’s one of ours?” Bess asked.

“It has to be one of ours, or the thief’s,” George said. “Who else would be out here?”

We looked at one another in dawning excitement. “Everyone compare your prints!” I said.

We studied our treads. The print belonged to Bess. “Oh, well,” she said with a sigh. “Maybe we’ll find some other good prints.”

“We can’t spend much time looking,” I said. “We need to get back to camp, both for our sake and for Kyle’s. I don’t want to waste time, or the penlight battery. But try to remember what our prints look
like, and if you see anything different, we’ll take a closer look.”

I don’t know how long we walked that night. I resisted the urge to look at my watch. It seemed like hours later when Bess cleared her throat. “Um, you guys? I keep seeing these little red dots following us. I know I’m really tired, but I swear this isn’t just my eyes playing tricks.”

I looked around. Sure enough, I saw two small red dots off to my left. I heard a rustle like a bush moving in the breeze, and the dots disappeared.

“They look kind of like laser pointers,” George murmured, looking in another direction.

We stood with our backs together and looked all around. My eyes burned with the effort of trying to see in the dark. One pair of red dots moved closer to another pair. I glanced around and saw more red dots, always in pairs a few inches apart, and about two feet above the ground.