The Stolen Bones Read online

I nodded and took a deep breath. “At least now we know where Jimmy is, and it sounds like his mother is inside too.”

  “But we don’t know if Jimmy has brothers and sisters,” Bess said. “And what about his father?”

  “We’ll have to risk it,” I said, “but it might be better if we don’t all go up to the house. Why don’t you two search the barn. If Jimmy has been stealing fossils, maybe he’s hiding them in there.”

  When they had closed the barn door behind them, I dashed toward the house. I tiptoed along the wall. Through one window I saw a small bedroom with shabby furniture. The next room was probably Jimmy’s. Men’s clothes lay across the bed, and farm equipment catalogs covered the desk.

  I glanced through the next window at the kitchen. Erlinda was washing dishes at the sink. A flickering glow from the next room suggested a TV. I pressed against the wall out of sight and listened.

  Several minutes passed with no noise besides the splashing of water, the clinking of dishes, and the murmur of the TV The air had cooled rapidly with the sun going down, and I shivered. I glanced at the barn, a darker shape in the gathering dusk, and wondered how Bess and George were doing. It would be even darker inside the barn, and they wouldn’t want to risk turning on a light.

  Finally I heard a creak and Jimmy’s voice. “All right, Ma, I’m going to look at the new issue of Ranch and Range before bed.”

  Erlinda grunted and Jimmy’s steps moved away. I slid back along the house to Jimmy’s window and peeked in. Jimmy was backing out of the closet with a brown paper parcel in his hands. The same one Steffi had given him?

  He took a step toward his door, opened it, and looked down the hallway. Then he closed the door, sat at the desk, and started unwrapping the parcel. It was a grocery bag folded over and taped down. Jimmy withdrew a book.

  Steffi was giving Jimmy books? That didn’t seem so suspicious, but I craned my neck to read the title. Jimmy flipped it open before I could tell.

  I stepped back and thought about what to do next. Then I got an eerie feeling that someone was watching me. I froze and scanned my senses, trying to figure out what sight, sound, or smell had warned me. My nose twitched. What was that musty stink?

  A growl rose behind me.

  I whipped around so fast I lost my balance and sat down hard. When the world stopped spinning, I looked up into a pair of yellow eyes. Sharp teeth glistened in the fading light.

  10

  Behind Closed Doors

  The animal let out two loud barks. It was just a dog.

  I remembered what George had said about dogs being more dangerous than coyotes. I swallowed hard and croaked, “Nice doggie.”

  The dog—some kind of shepherd and rottweiler mix, from the looks of it—growled again and let out a series of barks that made my eardrums throb. Its hot breath stung my eyes.

  I heard the window above me slide open. “Sugar, be quiet. Sit down.”

  The dog sat down and whined.

  “Steffi, is that you?” Jimmy whispered out the window.

  Erlinda’s voice came from somewhere in the house. Jimmy called out, “Yeah, Ma, I’ll take a look.” I tore my eyes away from the dog and looked up as Jimmy leaned out the window. “It’s all right, you can get up now.” He offered his hand, and I was glad to take it. My legs were shaky. He stared at me as the light from inside fell on my face. “You?”

  “Nancy,” I reminded him. “I’d like to talk to you for a minute.”

  He glanced back at the door of his room. “All right, but you’d better come in through the window.” I scrambled in, and he whispered, “Stay right here.”

  He slipped out the door and closed it behind him. I stepped toward the desk. Jimmy had covered the book with a magazine. I lifted it and saw the book title, Dinosaurs of the Cretaceous. I took a quick peek in the paper bag and saw two more paleontology textbooks.

  Voices came down the hall. Jimmy said, “But I’m still reading it.”

  Erlinda answered, “I just want to get that response card.”

  I grabbed the dinosaur books and ducked into the closet, leaving the door open a crack so I could look out.

  I heard the room door open, and saw Erlinda cross to the desk. Jimmy hovered behind her. As she flipped through the magazine, he glanced around the room. Erlinda pulled something from the magazine and walked out of my field of vision. I heard the door close.

  The closet door slowly opened. Jimmy smiled at me, and looked at the book in my hands. “Thanks,” he whispered. “Did Steffi send you?”

  I hadn’t had time to cook up a story, so I said, “No, she didn’t.” I took a deep breath. “Actually, I was spying on you.”

  Jimmy’s mouth dropped open. “You—did my mother—” He glanced toward the door and lowered his voice. “She wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t ask you.”

  I smiled. “Your mother will barely speak to me. No, this is about the fossil thefts at the dig. Did you know about those?”

  He shook his head. “Ma doesn’t like me going over there during the digs. I’ve hardly had a chance to talk to Steffi.”

  “But she gave you these books.” I handed him Dinosaurs of the Cretaceous and he hugged it to his chest.

  “I got interested in the dig last year. I want to become a paleontologist, but Ma don’t hold with that. Steffi’s been helping me get into college. Only, Ma will flip if she finds out. Steffi promised she wouldn’t tell anyone but Kyle, just to make sure no one mentioned it to Ma.”

  “But your mother is interested in paleontology now that she knows bones can be worth something,” I said.

  He hesitated. “She might let me volunteer on a dig to learn how to find stuff, but I want to be a real paleontologist, not just dig up things and sell them without understanding what they are. Anyway, she doesn’t have the money to help pay for it.” He sighed. “Steffi is amazing, but I don’t know how much she can help. I don’t have the money for college.”

  “How about a scholarship?”

  He shook his head. “My grades weren’t that good. I wasn’t interested in school before.”

  I put a hand on his arm. “Keep trying. Something might turn up. I’m sorry I suspected you.” I moved toward the window. “I’d better go. Is that dog all right now?”

  He came to the window with me and leaned out. “Here, Sugar. This is Nancy. You be a good girl and don’t give her no trouble.”

  I held out my hand for the dog to sniff, and swung a leg over the windowsill. “Her name is Sugar?” I asked.

  Jimmy grinned. “She was awfully sweet as a puppy.”

  I smiled at him, then headed back toward the barn. As I got close, I heard a whisper. “Nancy! Over here.”

  I went around the corner of the barn and found Bess and George. “Are you all right? We saw you in there!”

  I quickly explained what had happened.

  “So Jimmy’s all right, and so is Steffi,” Bess said. “I’m glad of that, anyway.”

  I nodded. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t leave us with many suspects left. We’d better get back to camp before we miss something.”

  We started back toward the road. The last glow of dusk faded. “Where’s that moon you promised?” Bess asked.

  “I don’t know. But come to think of it, the moon doesn’t always rise at the same time.”

  “Can you believe how dark it is?” George said. “No city lights at all.”

  I tipped my head back and gazed up at the stars—I couldn’t believe how many stars! I could actually see the sweep of the Milky Way. A shooting star flared briefly.

  The air was cool and clear, and just thin enough to remind me that we were at over six thousand feet elevation. The breeze raised goose bumps on my arms, but I warmed up as we walked. We stumbled a few times in the dark, and George got a chunk of cactus stuck to her leg. Finally we made it to the road.

  “Now the moon comes up,” George muttered. We stopped and watched it rise, a huge pale globe. It sent long shadows along the road. Unfortunately it was
behind us, so our own shadows hid the road in front of us. But eventually we made it back to camp.

  Steffi called to us as we got closer. “Everything all right? We were starting to wonder about you.”

  “We just went for a walk,” I said. “What an amazing night sky!”

  We grabbed our jackets and joined the others for mugs of hot cocoa. We chatted for a while, but everyone looked tired. Abby was the first to get up. “I know it’s early, but I’m wiped out. Good night, everyone.” She headed to her tent.

  Soon others started drifting away. George, Bess, and I went to my car. We popped the trunk, got a jug of water for rinsing, and brushed our teeth. I watched the other volunteers crawl into their tents or get things from their cars.

  “Are you guys totally exhausted?” I asked Bess and George.

  “Not a bit,” George said.

  “Actually, I feel better now that it’s cooler,” Bess said. “What did you have in mind?”

  I grinned at my friends. “How about another moonlight stroll? I know the perfect spot.”

  George glanced around the camp. “We don’t want to be obvious, though. We want people to think we’ve gone to bed.”

  “Good point,” I said. “All right, Bess and I will crawl into the tent and make some noise. You slip away and wait for us around the first corner of the path. Then Bess can come out as if she’s heading to the bathroom. I’ll follow a few minutes later. If anyone notices one of us, that person will just come back and wait a little longer.”

  “Great,” George said. “Make sure you have your hat and gloves—it’s going to get colder.”

  The plan worked perfectly. When I slipped out, I saw lights in a couple of the tents. The moon was rising but was still low enough that I could stay to the shadows.

  I joined George and Bess. They were staring toward a hill. I followed their gaze and saw a figure standing there.

  “It’s Russell,” George said. “He’s talking on his cell phone.”

  We listened, and sure enough, I could hear a few words drift down. I caught something about buying and selling, and the word tomorrow, but that was it. Then Russell pocketed his phone and headed back to camp.

  We started walking toward the dig site. We had flashlights, but we didn’t want to attract attention. Fortunately, we didn’t need them since the path was visible, especially as the moon got higher.

  I was a few feet in the lead. I glanced up at the sky, hoping for another meteor, but the moonlight was washing out the stars.

  As I brought a foot forward, my ankle caught on something. I windmilled my arms but couldn’t stop myself from flying forward. I landed with a grunt, sprawled out on the ground.

  “Nancy!” Bess gasped. “Are you all right?”

  Now the stars were in my head. I blinked a few times to clear my vision. Then I wished I hadn’t. A dark, hairy shape loomed inches from my face and I heard a soft hissing.

  I almost went cross-eyed trying to focus on it. The thing, as big as my outstretched hand, reared up. The moonlight shone on its furry body and thick furry legs. “Please tell me that’s not a tarantula,” I whispered.

  “You know I don’t like to lie to you,” George said. “Just stay still.”

  The tarantula didn’t move, except to bob up and down. If the movement was supposed to be intimidating, it was working. I have nothing against tarantulas—at a distance. But having one six inches from my face made me break out in a sweat.

  George found a stick and nudged the tarantula away. I edged backward and sat up, catching my breath. Bess was sitting on a rock with her hands covering her face. “Is it gone?” she asked.

  “That’s funny,” George said. “It’s on a leash.” I stared at her. “Look,” she said. “It’s attached to this string, and the string was tied around that rock.”

  “So maybe this was planned,” I said slowly. I searched the ground. “Sure enough, here’s what tripped me. Somebody strung a wire across the path.”

  “And left our little buddy here as an extra surprise,” George said. “Nice. But what do we do about the poor thing? We can’t leave it tied up.” Bess moaned.

  I said, “People have them as pets, right? They can’t be too dangerous.”

  We still didn’t want to take any chances. I wrapped my scarf around one glove and gently held the tarantula down. Prickles ran along my skin, but I kept telling myself it was just an innocent creature.

  George worked her penknife under the string and it loosened. “Someone just dropped a noose over its head, with a slipknot,” she said. “There you go, fella, all free.”

  We hurried away, leaving the tarantula to its own devices. We walked more carefully after that. “First a rattlesnake, and now a tarantula,” George said. “Someone doesn’t like us getting nosy. But are they trying to hurt us, or just scare us?”

  “Maybe both,” I said. “Neither creature is likely to be deadly, but a snake bite would send us out of here to find a hospital. Either the snake or the tarantula could have scared off some people. The thief seems to think we’re a danger to him or her. I just wish I agreed!”

  “You’ll figure it out, Nancy,” Bess said. “You always do.”

  We walked in silence from then on. When we neared the dig site, I stopped. Bess and George gathered close. “We don’t want anyone to see us,” I whispered. “We can scramble up the slope here. Then we can creep across the top of the bluff and look down into the site.”

  “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.

  11

  Things That Go Bump in the Night

  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.