The Stolen Bones (6 page)

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,” Kyle added.
“We’ve never had a snake in camp before.”

“It was probably just looking for shade,” Tom added.
“Make sure you keep your tent flap zipped when you’re gone. That should
prevent any more nasty surprises.” They headed off to the Land Rover.

I looked at my friends. “Does anyone think that snake got in there
by itself?”

Bess shook her head. George said, “No way. That tent flap was
zipped.” She tipped her head to one side. “Tom sure was good with the snake.
You could tell he’d handled them before.”

“He knew what he was doing, all right,” I said. “But
would he let us see his expertise if he was responsible?”

“He couldn’t refuse when Kyle asked him to help,” Bess
pointed out. “That would have made Kyle suspicious. Kyle didn’t seem fazed
by the snake either. Maybe they find snakes all the time on these digs.” She
shuddered.

I frowned. “Tom was at the dig all morning.”

“He might have slipped away for a few minutes during lunch,”
George suggested. “And don’t forget about Jimmy. He had all morning to prowl
around here, and if he lives out here, he’s probably used to snakes and knows
where to find them.”

“Other people here might be good with snakes
too.” I sighed. “We have a lot of work to do. But I have to lie down for a
few minutes. I still feel all jittery.”

“Me too.” Bess glared into the tent. “I’m trying
to forget that the snake was on
my
sleeping bag.”

“You know, maybe we should check the insides of our bags, just to be
safe,” George said. Bess moaned. We picked up our sleeping bags, held them at
arm’s length, and shook them out. Then just to be sure, we felt them from bottom
to top, checking for lumps.

Finally we all settled down. George adjusted the tent flaps for maximum
airflow. I lay back and took deep breaths to relax my jangled nerves. “Don’t
let me fall asleep,” I said.

George yawned. “No way.”

“How could we sleep after that?” Bess mumbled.

All right, I guess I slept. That’s the only way I can explain the
dream. Cartoon dinosaurs hid behind our tent, asking for help. Tom turned into a snake
and hissed at me. I awoke with a gasp.

“What?” George mumbled. She sat up, yawning and blinking.
“Shoot,” she said. “I should’ve set an alarm.”

Bess sighed and rubbed her eyes. “I needed that.”

I guess I did too. Oh well, a long afternoon nap meant it would be easier
to stay awake at night. That’s probably when anything would happen.

We joined the others and hiked back to the dig site.
It still felt hot, but at least the sun was at an angle so you could find shade.

As we neared the site, I heard a strange noise. A kind of chugging rumble.
At first I thought it was thunder, but it was too long and steady. “Hear
that?” I asked.

George frowned. “Some kind of car?”

Bess had the answer, of course. “Sounds like an ATV—an
all-terrain vehicle.”

“You mean we have visitors out here?”

Kyle picked up speed. George, Bess, and I hurried after him.

As we broke out into the hollow, I saw the ATV parked up on the cliff
ahead. Then I saw the two men standing over the rock that had been damaged.

Kyle charged toward them like a bull. “What are you doing?” he
bellowed.

T
he men looked up with friendly smiles and stepped toward us. They must have been around twenty. Both had blond hair and strangely light gray eyes. They were tall, lean, and good-looking. It took me a minute to decide that they weren’t actually twins, although they had to be brothers. One was a bit taller and broader, with an air of leadership, so I guessed he was older.

Something struck me as familiar about them, but I knew I’d never seen them before. Maybe it was just seeing the two of them, so much alike, that gave that sense of déjà vu.

The first one said, “Hi! I hope we’re not disturbing anything. We were just looking around.”

“How did you find us?” Kyle demanded.

The guy kept his friendly grin. “We didn’t. You found us. We wondered where the people were.”

“I mean how did you find this site?”

He gestured toward the ATV. “We were just tooling around in our little buggy and saw this stuff. We wondered what you could possibly be doing, out here in the middle of the desert.”

Kyle crossed his arms. “That’s my question exactly. You know this is federal land.”

The stranger kept smiling. “Yes, and I know it’s legal for me to be here. This area isn’t restricted.”

“It may be legal,” Kyle admitted, “but it’s still a bad idea. Off-road vehicles cause erosion, damage the vegetation, and disturb the wildlife.”

The guy shrugged. “You’re entitled to your opinion too.”

The younger brother hadn’t spoken yet. He just watched everything with those pale eyes. The rest of the volunteers had gathered around us and were listening to the exchange. Bess sauntered toward the ATV. She stood at the base of the cliff and looked up at it.

The younger brother walked over to her and they spoke for a minute. Then he led her toward the end of the hollow, and helped her scramble up a path to the top of the cliff. A minute later she was examining the vehicle.

I knew Bess was doing her best to find out everything she could about the vehicle. George, meanwhile, had pulled out her digital camera and was casually taking a few pictures. I turned my attention back to the first brother, who was asking about the fossils. Kyle still looked unhappy, but I guess he couldn’t do much. He had no real reason to think that these men were thieves.

The older brother crouched and examined the bones Russell and George had partially uncovered. “How do you know what’s what?” he asked. “I mean, how do you know when you’ve found something valuable?”

“Experience,” Kyle said brusquely. “And we’re not treasure hunters. We’re looking for scientific evidence.”

The young man looked up and grinned. “Sure. I meant valuable to scientists. Who else would care about a bunch of old bones?”

Kyle’s expression almost made me laugh. Finally he said, “That’s right. They’re not much use to anyone else. No value at all. But we should get back to our pointless work. And I’m sure you have other things to do.”

This time the guy took the hint. “I guess so. Thanks.” He gave a cheerful wave and joined his brother by their vehicle. Bess exchanged a few laughing words with him, then headed back down
the path. Kyle watched them all solemnly. The ATV backed up and pulled away in a cloud of dust.

When Bess joined us, Kyle hissed, “Did you see anything in their car? Anything that might be a fossil?”

“No,” Bess said. “They have a toolbox in the back, but I couldn’t get a look inside it. I’ll know the tire tracks, though, if I see them again.”

Kyle’s eyes widened. I suppressed a chuckle. Guys are always fooled by Bess’s girly exterior. It’s fun to watch when they realize that there’s a sharp mechanical mind inside the pretty, model-like exterior.

George was oblivious to the exchange of smiles. She stepped up to Kyle and said, “So, can we switch places? I’m ready to try something different.”

Kyle looked around, noticing for the first time that everyone had been waiting and watching him for the last ten minutes. He took off his hat and ran his hands through his hair. “Right. Let’s see what needs to be done.”

He started at the damaged fossil, where Steffi and Grayson had been plastering. He crouched, poked at the plaster, and then bent to look under the edge. “Nice work, you guys. This one’s ready for flipping. Let’s do that first, so everyone can watch.”

He looked around. “Where’s Abby?” She had disappeared. Kyle frowned. “Didn’t she come back with us after lunch?”

“I’m sure she did,” I said. I’d checked for everyone.

“Maybe she forgot something and went back,” Bess said.

“She worked on this, so I don’t want her to miss it,” Kyle said. “We’ll give her a few minutes. But I want to get the other side plastered today.”

He stood and looked at the other fossils under excavation. He deemed Russell and George’s ready for plastering.

Tom and I hadn’t been quite so successful. Kyle pointed out areas between the bones where we could remove more rock. Plus, he wanted us to go a little deeper into the ground. “This leg bone is going to be thick. We’ll want to dig down at least six inches underneath it.”

I paced restlessly. How could I stay interested in bones when I had a mystery to solve?

Bess sidled over to me. “What’s up?”

“I want to look for clues, but I’m not even sure what kind of clues to look for.” I gazed around the hollow. “What kind of clues would a fossil thief leave behind?”

“If it’s Tom, probably nothing. Since he’s supposed to be here, footprints or dropped items don’t mean anything.”

“True. But what about tire tracks?” I took a deep breath. “All right, here’s our first question. Did the thief take the fossil away on foot or in a vehicle?”

Bess frowned. “I thought it had to be by foot, but now that I’ve seen that ATV out here …”

“Tom said jacketed fossils weigh fifty pounds and up. That sounds like a lot to me, but he said they carry the lighter ones out in backpacks. The piece of the fossil that broke off probably wasn’t that heavy, but they may have hoped to get the whole thing. Either way, it would be easier to use a vehicle. We know now that an ATV can drive up from just about anywhere. Let’s look for tire tracks all around the rim.”

“People will wonder what we’re doing.”

I shrugged. “Judging by the snake, I’d say someone already knows we’re investigating.”

We scrambled up the path Bess had used before, and we looked at the tracks left by the two young men. “Kyle was right; those ATVs do tear up the landscape,” I said. “And this dry ground would show the tracks for days.”

“There’s more than one turn, but they may have circled around a couple of times for fun,” Bess said. “Heading out from here, it looks like just one set out and one back, but if they drove over the same path, you might not see the older tracks.”

“So nothing definite, unfortunately.”

We scrambled down into the streambed to complete the circle. “No more tracks,” I said. “Unless they parked farther away and walked the last part.”

“Look, here comes Abby.” Bess pointed. Abby was hurrying down the streambed from the direction of camp. We climbed down the cliff edge to meet her.

“What are you doing?” she snapped.

I stared at her, wondering why she suddenly seemed so rude. “Um … just looking around.”

“Kyle has been waiting for you,” Bess said.

“I had to go to the bathroom,” Abby mumbled. She pushed past us.

Bess and I raised our eyebrows at each other. “What got into her?” Bess whispered.

I glanced at my watch. “Abby was gone more than twenty minutes. Maybe she isn’t feeling well.”