The Stolen Bones Read online

  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-hi
gh 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!”

  4

  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 sh
ould 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.”