The Stolen Bones (7 page)

“She wouldn’t have had time to go back to camp, so she couldn’t have been there.”

I shrugged and we went back to the group.

Kyle looked up as Abby approached. “Oh, there you are,” he said. “Good. Let’s get this jacket turned over.”

He grabbed a long pry bar and slid it into the gap beneath the jacket. He glanced at Grayson and Abby. “I hope you don’t mind if I take over now?”

“Please,” Grayson said. “I wouldn’t want to be responsible.”

Abby just nodded. She seemed distracted, or maybe she really was sick.

Kyle worked carefully, wriggling the pry bar and moving it to different spots. There definitely seemed to be an art to the whole thing. The plastered fossil broke free with a crack, and the audience cheered. Steffi jumped forward with a small cargo net and laid it next to the jacket. “All right, let’s get the muscle in here.”

Kyle and Tom crouched next to her. Kyle counted off “One … two …THREE!” and with a collective grunt the three of them turned over the jacket so it lay on the cargo net.

We all stepped closer to see. The underside mostly looked like rough rock. Kyle grinned. “Great job with the excavation. There’s hardly anything exposed on this side. This will make a real treasure for the museum.” Kyle’s expression darkened suddenly. “If we can get it there,” he muttered. He stood up. “All right. Let’s finish the jacket. We need to take away a little more rock, to make it lighter, but not much—this fossil is delicate. Then we can get this side plastered.” He addressed Abby and Grayson. “Do you two feel like working on it more?”

They agreed, and Steffi got them started.

“Now what should we do with the rest of you?” Kyle asked.

“I’m ready to try some excavating,” Bess said.

“And I wouldn’t mind jacketing,” George said.

Tom broke in. “I’d like to scout around a bit. See what else is out here.”

“All right,” Kyle said. “Russell? Do you want to keep working where you are, or do something different?”

“I could use a break,” he said. “How about I take over Tom’s fossil and start the jacketing?”

Kyle nodded. “Sounds good. That means George can help you with the plaster. Bess, you can work on this other one. Nancy, what do you want to do?”

“Is it all right if I go along with Tom? I’d like to get an overview of the area.” And keep an eye on him.

“Sure, whatever you want,” Kyle said.

I pretended I didn’t notice Tom’s scowl as I said, “I’m ready when you are.”

“Wait!” George said.

I turned back quickly. “What’s wrong?”

George pulled out her water bottle. “Better drink before you go.”

I grinned and did as she suggested. Then I followed Tom to a pile of tools. He picked up a hammer with a curved head and said, “Might as well grab yourself a rock hammer. I’m not just going for a walk; I want to do some real work out there.”

I opened my eyes wide. “Of course. I’m ready to help.”

I took one last look around the hollow to make sure everyone was at work. Abby and Grayson had started chiseling at the underside of the fossil. Kyle was showing Bess how to use a small chisel. Steffi was explaining to George and Russell how to paint the exposed fossil with glue, to strengthen the bone, before jacketing. With Tom, that was everyone.

I trotted after Tom as he strode out of the hollow.

We went up the dry streambed. The width varied from five to fifteen feet. The sides were mostly taller than my head. Tom slowed down and started looking more closely at the rock walls.

“What exactly are you looking for?” I asked.

“Anything interesting. It rained here last week. We sometimes get an inch or two of rain in an hour. It pours into these channels—arroyos, they call them here—and suddenly you’ll have several feet of rushing water. Those flash floods can wash away some of the rock and expose new fossils. I’d like to find another area like that hollow.”

“So you might see fossils right up on the surface of the ground?”

“Sure. Or sometimes bones sticking out of the wall.”

We moved down the streambed. It got wider, and some of the rock changed. “See this dark fine-grained rock?” Tom said. “That’s mudstone. Mud settled here
millions of years ago and eventually compressed into rock. It’s a great place to find impressions.”

“Um, impressions of what?”

“Well, leaves for one thing.” He pointed at a design on a smooth, flat piece of rock.

I leaned closer. Sure enough, you could see the delicate veins of a leaf. “Wow! You mean that was really an ancient leaf?”

“Not quite. The leaf didn’t turn to rock, the way dinosaur bones turned to rock. Instead, the leaf left its imprint in the mud. The leaf decayed, but the impression stayed. More mud covered up the top.”

He picked up a large rock that was layered like a stack of cardboard. Tom tapped the rock with his hammer, and some of the layers peeled off. “Every flood put down a new layer of mud,” Tom said. “Each layer turned to stone. Sometimes you find imprints between the layers. Plants are most common, but you can also find dinosaur footprints.”

“Now, that would be cool.”

He grinned at me. “Absolutely. Dinosaur footprints are actually pretty common. But it’s still exciting to find some.”

“Would I even recognize them?”

He shrugged. “Depends. Sometimes it’s obvious that you have something unusual. But imagine that you have a huge, heavy dinosaur walking in the mud.
The footprints are going to be smeared. You might wind up with a vague impression of the heel and three toes.”

“So what should I do?”

“Look around, and call me if you find anything odd.”

Tom took one side of the streambed, and I took the other. He moved a lot faster than I did. I guess he could just glance around and spot something interesting. I had to look closely. In the next hour I called him over to examine two actual leaf prints, and maybe a dozen things that weren’t anything. Calling him to look at my finds kept him from getting too far ahead. I started to believe Tom really was just looking for another fossil site. He didn’t seem like he was hurrying to meet anyone or get anywhere.

I crouched to examine something strange. A slab of stone stuck out from the sandy ground at an angle. Three curved grooves on the stone were half-hidden by the sand.

I brushed some of the sand away. The grooves were close together and pretty deep. It looked like someone had scratched through mud with a pencil. I didn’t think it was a footprint, and it certainly wasn’t a leaf impression, but I didn’t know what it might be.

“Tom?” I looked around. I didn’t see Tom anywhere. He must have gotten ahead.

I didn’t want to leave; I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find the scratches again. I cupped my hands around my mouth and hollered, “Tom!”

The desert was eerily silent. No, not silent—for the first time I noticed a low buzz that seemed to vibrate through the air. Insects, no doubt, though I couldn’t tell what kind or where they were. The sound seemed to be all around me, like something out of a horror movie.

A scuffling noise broke through the buzzing. Something on the cliff above me?

What kind of animals had Steffi mentioned? I ducked closer to the cliff wall to stay out of sight. I considered calling out for Tom again but decided to stay quiet. It hit me that I was alone in the desert, a mile or more from the dig site. What if the criminals were out there and had gotten Tom? What if the criminal was Tom?

Something moved above my head. I gasped and looked up.

A cascade of rocks tumbled toward me.

D
ust and pebbles rained onto my face. I leaped back.

A piece of the cliff fell away and crashed to the ground right where I had been standing. Large rocks tumbled past my legs, while smaller shards bounced and hit me in the arms and face.

I stumbled on the rough ground and sat down hard. I scooted backward as rocks clattered and bounced. Dust billowed up in plumes of gray, making me cough.

Finally the noise stopped. I looked up to the top of the cliff.

Tom stared down at me. “Nancy! Are you all right?”

I stood and backed farther away from the cliff.
My heart was racing and I had a few scratches on my arms, but otherwise I felt okay. “I’m fine,” I said shakily.

“Thank goodness. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize the edge was so loose.”

I brushed myself off and then squinted up at Tom. “How did you get up there?”

He gestured farther along the streambed. “You can climb up a little way ahead. I wanted to get higher so I could see landmarks. Then I heard you call out, so I came running.”

“You didn’t have to hurry,” I said. “I just wanted to show you something.”

“Hang on, then, and I’ll come back down.”

He trotted off along the cliff top. I stepped closer to examine the rock. I could see where the top edge had crumbled away.

Had he been trying to hurt me? If I hadn’t jumped back in time, I could be lying under that pile of rocks. I remembered the close call with the snake, and shivered. Someone was trying to scare me, or get rid of me altogether. I’d have to watch my step with Tom, until I figured out if this was an accident or another attack.

He joined me, wiping sweat from his face with a bandanna. “I’m really sorry about that. You’re sure you’re not hurt?”

“Mostly just dirty,” I said.

He grinned. “You and me both.”

I looked at his dusty jeans. “Did you fall too?”

“When the rock gave way under my foot, I fell backward.” He held out his hands, which were scraped and bleeding. “But I guess it was better than falling over the cliff.”

“Definitely,” I said, “but you should still clean those scrapes. Here, let me get some water.”

I pulled out my water bottle and splashed some over his hands. “Thanks,” he said, drying them on the bandanna. “Now, what did you want to show me?

“Oh, right. We’ll have to clear away some of these rocks.” We rolled the biggest boulder out of the way and tossed aside some smaller rocks. I kept glancing up at the cliff, but it stayed in place. Finally I uncovered the scratch marks. “Are these anything interesting?”

He crouched next to me. “Hey, this is great!” He dug at the sandy ground until he had exposed the bottom of the scratches. “These are claw drag marks.”

“Oh?”

“Imagine a giant lizard, with long claws.” He held out his hand, with the three middle finger hooked like claws. “When it takes a step, the foot drags back, leaving claw marks.” He demonstrated, dragging his
hand across the sand and leaving three grooves.

I tried to imagine a giant lizard walking through the streambed, dragging its feet and leaving claw marks for me to find millions of years later. I smiled. “So, can you tell what made them? Was it a dinosaur?”

“Probably not an actual dinosaur, but maybe a phytosaur. That was an early version of a crocodile. They lived in the Triassic, but mostly in the water, while the dinosaurs were on land.” He grinned at me. “It’s still an excellent find. Let’s see what else we have here.”

We scraped around in the sand, looking for anything similar. We found a few more claw marks. Then Tom swept some debris off of a flat rock and exposed a long, twisting mark. He sat back on his heels and frowned at it for a minute. “I’ve never seen one in the Triassic before, but I think this might be a tail mark. The museum would definitely want to collect that.”

“That’s great,” I said. “I feel like a real paleontologist.”

Tom stood and craned his neck to see out of the streambed. “We’d better head back now. The sun is getting pretty low. Just let me mark our location.” He punched some buttons on his GPS and then we headed for the dig. This time we stayed together
and walked quickly, without looking for fossils.

“I’m glad you came with me,” Tom said. “At first I thought I’d cover more ground on my own. But you definitely did more than your fair share. Thanks for all your help!”

“After finding this, will you be leading the next dig?” I asked.

Tom grinned. “Could be. First I’ll probably come out with one of my professors to take a closer look. If the site looks promising, we may do a real dig.”

“Maybe you’ll find one of those important fossils, like the one that was damaged,” I hinted. “That would get you started on the road to fame, right?”

He shrugged. “That fossil is important if you’re a paleontologist. Most people have never heard of a Coelophysis, so it’s not really big news.”

“But I thought it was valuable.”

“Oh, sure. It would fetch thousands from a museum, maybe even more from the right collector. But it’s no
Tyrannosaurus rex
to excite the public. Anyway, it’s not my specialty. I’m more interested in those marks you found.”

“You mean your specialty is footprints? I thought paleontologists were all pretty much the same.”

He laughed at my surprise. “You’d be amazed at how specialized we get. People become experts on
specific dinosaurs, certain types of prehistoric plants, or even on coprolite—fossil dung. Even that gets preserved and studied!”

Tom was fading from my suspect list. His motive didn’t seem so good after all. And despite his skill with snakes, and the accident at the cliff, he seemed like a nice enough guy. My instincts told me he was all right—which meant I was on the wrong track.

It took only fifteen minutes to retrace our steps. Bess and George were still at work. Tom paused to talk to Kyle. I crossed the clearing and put the rock hammer back with the other tools.

I turned to study the clearing. Everybody was still there, and seemed caught up in their work. How could I make the best use of my time?

I called George and Bess to join me for a water break. We gathered out of earshot of the others.

“So, how was your hike with Tom?” Bess asked.

I told them about the rock fall and the claw drag marks. “I’m starting to believe Tom is all right, though I can’t be one hundred percent sure.”

“The jury is out on this whole bunch,” George said. “They’re all suspects, as far as I can see.”

I took off my hat and ran my fingers through my hair. “So, what are we going to do next?”