The Stolen Bones Read online

  But the desert had its own challenges. Thorny bushes snagged at our clothes. We had to watch for cactus patches in the dim light. You could brush right past a small cactus and not realize it until you felt the thorns in your ankle.

  Still, I was tingling with excitement. The cold night air, the bright moon washing out the starry sky, the scent of the desert, and most of all the chase—I felt so alive!

  The light went out.

  We walked for a few more minutes without seeing the light again. I stopped and turned slowly, staring in every direction. My ears strained for any sound in the night. I heard the wind rushing past bushes, and a faint distant rumble—a train, miles away?

  Bess whispered, “George, where are the nightvision goggles?”

  “Yeah,” George said. “That’s what we need. Or at least some of those binoculars for looking at stars. They gather more light so you can use them at night.”

  I smiled as I imagined George back home, scheming to get new toys. But that didn’t help us now.

  “What should we do?” Bess whispered.

  I hesitated. “Keep going, I guess. Maybe the thief dropped down into a ravine, or went around a hill.”

  “Or he’s waiting for us there in the dark.” Bess groaned.

  “Either way, we can’t just stand around doing nothing,” George said.

  We walked for another five minutes without seeing the light or anything else of interest. Finally I stopped. “There’s no point in wandering around randomly. I guess we should head back.”

  Their shoulders drooped. We were doing a lot of hiking, and not learning much. “If someone wants to steal the fossil, why were they heading so far from the dig site?” Bess asked.

  “Maybe the thieves are lost,” George said.

  “Or maybe they heard us with Kyle, and we scared them away from the dig.” I sighed. “I think we’ve all had enough for tonight. Let’s go back and check on Kyle. If everything is all right there, I guess we go to bed.”

  George nodded. Bess smiled and I knew she was relieved. She’s a good sport, but after her brush with heat exhaustion earlier, she must have been beyond ready for sleep.

  George pulled out her GPS. “I’ll just get a reading …” Her voice trailed off.

  “What’s the matter?” Bess asked.

  George peered at the GPS and punched some buttons. She muttered something I couldn’t quite catch.

  “What?” Bess demanded. “What’s wrong?”

  George stared at the GPS, and then looked up at us with wide eyes. “There’s no power. The batteries are dead!”

  12

  Between a Rock …

  You mean we’re lost out here?” Bess whispered.

  “I can’t believe it!” George sounded outraged that technology should fail her. “I recharged the batteries right before we left.” She flipped over the GPS and popped off the back. She grabbed her flashlight, turned it on, and shone it on the battery compartment. “These aren’t my rechargeable batteries! Someone stole mine and replaced them. They must have put in batteries with just enough juice to turn the GPS on at the beginning, so I wouldn’t notice.”

  We stood in silence for a minute. “What are we going to do?” Bess asked.

  “We’ll find our way back,” I said, trying to sound confident. “We can follow our own tracks back.”

  George turned her flashlight to the ground. “We came that way. This won’t be so hard.”

  She took a few steps. Her flashlight flickered and went out.

  Bess moaned. “Don’t tell me—bad batteries.”

  Bess and I checked our flashlights. Hers didn’t have any batteries at all. “I put in new ones when I packed,” she groaned. My light went on, but the beam looked weak. “We’d better use it only as necessary,” I said.

  I wondered how many miles we had walked. George’s GPS could have told us, if it was working. However far we’d come already, we had that much more to get back to our tent. And going back would take much longer, since we had to move slowly.

  The moon shone on silvery bushes and sent shadows between the pale rock outcroppings. As much as possible we used that light to see our tracks. Sometimes the path was obvious, because bushes or patches of cacti left only one route. When we weren’t sure, we turned on the flashlight for a few seconds.

  We walked in silence. The excitement had evaporated. We were lost in the desert, with no water or food. If we didn’t show up by morning, Kyle would look for us. But would he know where to look? We might have covered a couple of miles, chasing after that light. Now it looked like it had all been a trick, to get us out of the way. And while we were busy being lost, the thief might have been causing more trouble.

  I went over and over the clues in my mind, trying to find something useful. Every time I thought I had a suspect, the clues turned into nothing. Yet somebody had stolen those fossils!

  The second flashlight went out after ten minutes. “At least I have my key chain penlight,” I said. “It doesn’t give much light, but it should help.” I managed a smile. “And I know the thief hasn’t gotten to it, because it’s been with me the whole time!”

  I tried to be cheerful, but my energy was fading. Bess’s shoulders sagged with fatigue, and George stifled a yawn.

  Fortunately, the soft desert soil showed our tracks well. In some places we could identify clear boot prints. Where the ground was sandy, we sometimes saw only shallow depressions. Then we came to an area of bare rock extending one hundred feet in every direction.

  “I don’t remember crossing this,” Bess said.

  “We must have,” I said. “We just weren’t paying attention on the way out.”

  “We’ll search the edge until we find our tracks going out the other side,” George said.

  Bess sat on a rock, folded her arms on her knees, and put her head down. “Call me when you find it.”

  I glanced at George. “Maybe we all need a short break. Wait a minute—” I fished in my jacket pockets. “I have an energy bar!”

  I broke it into thirds and wished again for some water. How foolish to go out into the desert, even at night, without it!

  A high, quavering cry pierced the night air. The hair stood up on the back of my neck.

  The howl faded in the distance. “Coyote,” George muttered. “Not dangerous.”

  I nodded. My logical mind knew that coyotes hunted small animals and avoided humans, but some primitive part of the brain shouted, “Danger!”

  Bess looked up and said in a tight voice, “I’m ready to go now.” Her eyes widened as she stared over my head. She ducked back and screamed.

  Something passed over my head so close that my hair moved in its breeze. Next to me George yelped. I choked on the last bite of energy bar.

  My heart pounded as I watched a large bird swoop away from us. Its wingspan was as wide as my outstretched arms. “It’s all right,” I gasped. “Just an owl. Probably out hunting rabbits.”

  “Nice scream, Bess,” George complained, rubbing her ear. “You just about burst my eardrums.”

  Bess glared at her. “Oh? It may have been loud, but I could still hear your scream.”

  “I didn’t scream,” George said, wide-eyed. “I maybe just exclaimed a little, in surprise.”

  I chuckled, the tension broken. “All right, you two, let’s get out of here and back to our beds.”

  We walked directly across the open rock, and then scanned the edge for footprints. It might have gone faster if we’d been willing to split up, but somehow we all wanted to stick close together. I used my penlight, for speed, even though I was getting worried about that battery. The night seemed to be getting darker. I glanced up. Sure enough, the edge of a cloud bank was eating the moon.

  “Here,” George said, “this bush has a broken twig.” We searched around it and found disturbed areas in the dirt and finally, a few feet away, a clear footprint.

  “Are you sure it’s one of ours?” Bess asked.

  “It has to be one of
ours, or the thief’s,” George said. “Who else would be out here?”

  We looked at one another in dawning excitement. “Everyone compare your prints!” I said.

  We studied our treads. The print belonged to Bess. “Oh, well,” she said with a sigh. “Maybe we’ll find some other good prints.”

  “We can’t spend much time looking,” I said. “We need to get back to camp, both for our sake and for Kyle’s. I don’t want to waste time, or the penlight battery. But try to remember what our prints look like, and if you see anything different, we’ll take a closer look.”

  I don’t know how long we walked that night. I resisted the urge to look at my watch. It seemed like hours later when Bess cleared her throat. “Um, you guys? I keep seeing these little red dots following us. I know I’m really tired, but I swear this isn’t just my eyes playing tricks.”

  I looked around. Sure enough, I saw two small red dots off to my left. I heard a rustle like a bush moving in the breeze, and the dots disappeared.

  “They look kind of like laser pointers,” George murmured, looking in another direction.

  We stood with our backs together and looked all around. My eyes burned with the effort of trying to see in the dark. One pair of red dots moved closer to another pair. I glanced around and saw more red dots, always in pairs a few inches apart, and about two feet above the ground.

  “What are they?” Bess wailed.

  “Eyes,” I croaked. “Something’s watching us.”

  13

  … And a Hard Place

  We pressed our backs together. My heart pounded in my throat. I took a deep breath and forced myself to think clearly. I tried to speak in a normal voice, but it came out as a whisper. “It must be coyotes. They’ve been tracking us.”

  “I thought coyotes didn’t attack people!” Bess said.

  “They probably just want to know what we’re doing in their territory,” I said. “Think of them like escorts. They want us out of here as much as we want to be gone.”

  “I have a hard time believing that,” Bess muttered.

  I forced myself to stand up straight and step away from my friends. “In any case, if we want to scare them off, we should look big and make noise, not huddle together and whisper.”

  “Open your coats,” George said loudly. She unzipped hers and held it open so she looked bigger.

  “Mine’s a pullover,” Bess wailed.

  “Then wave your arms,” I said.

  We made ourselves as big, loud, and threatening as possible. The coyotes backed off, although we could still see the eyes glowing red at a distance. “Come on,” I said. “The sooner we are out of their territory, the happier we’ll all be.”

  We found our tracks again and walked quickly, using the penlight for speed’s sake. “We should keep making noise,” George said. “Anything you want to talk about?”

  “There’s only one subject on my mind,” I said.

  “Who got us into this mess?” Bess added.

  “Any ideas?” George asked.

  I shook my head. “I think we need a lot more information about everyone. Jimmy and Tom were our best suspects, when we knew just enough to be suspicious. But we hardly know anything about Abby, Russell, Grayson, or Felix. George, I think tomorrow you should find a spot where you can get reception and do some Internet research.”

  We discussed the various people on the dig, coming up with more and more ridiculous reasons to suspect them, as a way to take our minds off the coyotes.

  “Russell is part of a syndicate planning a real Jurassic Park,” George suggested. “That phone call he made when we left tonight—he was calling his partners to make sure the lab is ready.”

  Bess laughed. “No, it’s Grayson. He wants to be like those thieves he was talking about. He thinks he’s Robin Hood, and he’s going to give the bones to the poor.”

  When I could stop giggling, I said, “How about this: Abby wants a dinosaur skull as a talisman. Can’t you just see her with one hanging around her neck?”

  “Yeah, a big T. rex skull.” George guffawed. “Wait, what about Felix? Maybe he wants to open a restaurant serving dinosaur soup!”

  We didn’t even notice when the red dots stopped following us. Finally, our tracks led us to a drop-off. I blinked several times, trying to focus my eyes and brain. Then it hit me. “We made it! We’re back at the dig.”

  We whooped and hugged each other. As the tension drained out of me, I realized just how frightened I had been.

  “Now we just have one more mile back to camp,” Bess said. “I’m almost sure I can make it.”

  “Hold on a second,” I said. “Now that we know we’re safe, let’s take a look for those extra footprints.”

  I shone the penlight around, but couldn’t find anything definite. We had our tracks going out and back. They covered up anything else.

  “Maybe we can look again in the morning,” Bess said pointedly.

  I smiled and got up. “You’re right. Let’s get back to our sleeping bags.”

  George glanced at her watch. “Yeah. It’s already two.” She gave Bess a wicked grin. “Wake-up call in four hours!”

  Kyle stepped out of his hiding place as we crossed the hollow. I had almost forgotten about him. We gave him a brief rundown of our adventure. After we assured him that we were okay, he explained that everything had been quiet at the dig site. Finally, we trudged the last mile back to camp.

  George reached for the tent zipper, yawning. “Hold on,” I said. “We don’t need any more surprises tonight.”

  I stood to the side of the tent and slowly opened the zipper. I peered around the edge and didn’t see anything dangerous. Still, we pulled our sleeping bags outside and shook them out before crawling inside. I fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow.

  • • •

  By the time we dragged ourselves out of our tent in the morning, we could smell the bacon and sausage sizzling. I started forward, ravenous after our exhausting night.

  Bess grabbed my arm. “Nancy, at least brush your hair, please.”

  “Oh. All right.” I quickly ran a brush through my tangles and pulled my hair into a ponytail. After two nights camping, miles of hiking, and no shower, I figured nothing much would help my appearance. George just smashed a hat onto her head.

  Bess had some kind of gel that was supposed to clean your hair as you brushed it. “Try it,” she said.

  I grinned. “Sorry. I can’t hear you over my stomach growling!”

  “Hurry up,” George said. “Tom and Kyle are already getting food, and I’ll bet they can eat a lot.”

  Kyle was back? I wondered who was guarding the fossil, but first things first. George and I practically pounced on Felix.

  “Smells great!” George said. “I’ll take my first and second helpings right now.”

  Felix beamed at her and scooped a slab of omelet from an enormous cast-iron pan. “Western omelet, with onions and green peppers. There’s toast on the grill, and coffee in the pot.”

  I pulled a chair close to Kyle. After I had a few bites of food in my stomach, I turned toward him and whispered, “Everything all right last night?”

  He nodded. He had dark circles under his drooping eyelids. “You were the most exciting thing that happened. Steffi relieved me at dawn and sent me back here for breakfast. If anything had happened since then, we would have heard about it.” He pulled his jacket open enough to show something that looked like a radio.

  “Is that a walkie-talkie?”

  “Yep. The range is good enough to reach the dig. Steffi has the other one.”

  I hadn’t even noticed that she wasn’t at breakfast. I guess hunger interferes with my observational skills. I glanced around and counted heads. Everyone else was accounted for.

  Kyle took a last swig of coffee and stood up. “All right, people, this is our last full day. Let’s get going so we can haul out that first jacket before it gets too hot.”

  We finished breakfast and loa
ded our backpacks with water. George whispered, “I’m going to stay behind. I’ll go back up that hill where I can get Internet reception.” She pulled out her handheld computer. “I’ll need everyone’s full name, though.”

  “I printed out the e-mail where Kyle listed the people coming on the dig.” I rummaged through the car and found it. “Here you go.”

  George took it and walked off with a wave. Bess and I started for the dig. “My feet hurt,” Bess groaned. I nodded. My legs ached too, but after a few minutes of walking, the stiffness left them.

  Kyle walked quickly, but his step had lost its bounce. Grayson alternately yawned and blew his nose. Abby’s violet eyes had lost their sparkle, and the dark circles under them suggested she had not been sleeping well.

  Russell looked awake, but caught up in his own thoughts. Out of everyone, Tom looked the most cheerful. He caught my eye and smiled.

  We straggled into the dig site. Kyle stopped and looked around. “Steffi?” He took a few steps forward, frowning. “Where is she?”

  A muffled grunting and scuffling came from the crack in the cliff where Kyle had been hiding the night before. I hurried toward it.

  “Steffi!”

  14

  Secrets Revealed

  A petite figure squirmed on the ground, her hands tied behind her back and her feet bound. Even with the burlap bag over her head, I recognized Steffi.

  Kyle pushed past me and tugged the bag off. He gathered Steffi into his arms. “Are you all right?” he demanded.

  Steffi just gasped and squirmed. I knelt behind her and examined her wrists. Rough twine went around and around them until the ends joined in a complicated knot. “Hold still,” I said. “I’ll get this off.”

  Steffi stopped squirming but she was still trembling. The knots were unbelievably tight, probably because Steffi had struggled against them so much. My fingers stung with splinters from the coarse twine.