The Stolen Bones (2 page)

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!”

S
teffi’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.