Things That Go Bump in the Night 2 страница
Her teeth flashed in the moonlight. “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”
Kyle said, “Thanks for your help. I’ll stay with Steffi for a while. You’d better get back to bed.”
They obviously wanted to get rid of us, and I was feeling the cold despite my coat. I handed the flashlight back to Bess, and she led the way to our tent. We didn’t speak until we were tucked away inside.
“Nancy, what did you get us into?” Bess said. “I’m sure you didn’t mention coyotes.”
“Coyotes aren’t what’s worrying me.” I filled them in on the tracks I’d seen.
“Who could it be?” Bess said. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“Exactly,” I said. “As far as we know, there are only nine people besides us within a few miles of here.”
George counted on her fingers. “Kyle, Steffi, and five other volunteers. That means you’re counting Jimmy and Erlinda?”
“Yes. Of course, we don’t know if anybody else lives with them. If not, the tracks had to be Jimmy’s.”
“I knew he was creepy,” George said. “But what about Steffi’s reaction? Either she didn’t know it was him, or she doesn’t care.”
“What do you suppose it means?” Bess asked.
I could feel my sixth sense tingling. “I don’t know, but add this to the missing bones, and I have a feeling we’re going to have an interesting couple of days ahead of us!”
• • •
I awoke to the sun shining through the blue nylon of the tent. I blinked a few times in the strange light before realizing where I was. My sleeping bag was warm enough, but the air on my face felt cold. From outside I heard voices and the slam of a car door.
George groaned. “What time is it?”
“Almost six o’clock,” Bess said. “I told you we should have set an alarm.”
George grumbled something and snuggled deeper into her sleeping bag.
I yawned and stretched. “I guess they want to start before it gets too hot.”
“So they start when it’s too cold?” George said. “Come back for me in an hour.”
“You’ll miss breakfast,” Bess said. She was already sifting through her clothes. I wriggled into my clothes, then ran a brush through my hair and pulled it into a ponytail.
George sat up with a sigh. “All right, I’m awake.”
“I guess it’s too cold for shorts,” Bess said.
“We’re going to be out in the sun all day,” George said. “Wear long pants and long sleeves.” She frowned at Bess’s pale skin. “And I hope you brought a sun hat. Sunscreen alone isn’t going to do it for a full day.”
Bess pouted prettily. “You take all the fun out of getting dressed.”
I grinned at her. “Don’t worry. I’m sure Kyle will notice you no matter what you wear.”
She grinned back. “All right, you win.” Somehow she still managed to look great, in tan pants and a long-sleeved white shirt, with her blond hair curling over her shoulders. George’s short hair was tousled, and I avoided looking in a mirror. But leave it to Bess — even without a shower she could look like a model from an outdoors catalogue.
We shrugged into our coats and started toward the fire. I glanced around. “Steffi isn’t here yet. I think I’ll check on her.” Bess and George nodded and went forward while I turned back. I didn’t want to be a pest, but I knew I’d feel better after making sure Steffi was fine.
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-high 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!”
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 should 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.”
I ran my hand over a section. “How do you tell? The whole thing feels like solid stone.”
“Well, that’s basically what a fossil is. Minerals seep into the bones and turn them to stone. But it’s different from the surrounding area, so the rock will tend to come away.”
I picked up a hammer and chisel. “So pound away until I find bone?”
“Right. We’re not trying to get the bones out individually, of course. We just want to get as much rock as possible off of the top before we jacket it.”
“Why? Wouldn’t it be safer to just plaster the whole thing?”
“Safer, maybe, but not easier,” Tom said. “Most of these jackets weigh between fifty and two hundred pounds, and big ones will weigh more. Extra rock means extra weight.”
I gaped at him. “But we’re a mile from the cars!”
“Yup. It’s the fun part.” He grinned at me. “We put the heaviest jackets on a big rescue sled and drag it. But believe me, that’s no walk in the park, especially with uneven ground. And smaller fossils just go into our backpacks. Excavating is the easy part.”
“I guess I’d better get busy, then.” I picked up a chisel and started tapping at the rock. At first I tried to be delicate, but nothing happened. I had to tap hard to break up the rock at all.
Tom worked quickly and confidently, brushing away loose rock chips with a wide paintbrush. I thought about what he’d said. Stealing fossils wasn’t like stealing jewelry. You had to know what you were doing to identify and retrieve valuable fossils. That meant the thief was an expert in the field.
Could the thief even be a paleontologist? Paleontology was a lot of work, and probably didn’t pay well. “What’s it like being a paleontologist?” I asked Tom.
“It’s the best job in the world,” he said. “At least, if you can get a job.”
“Is it hard to find a job as a paleontologist?”
He sat back and wiped his face with a bandanna. “There aren’t a lot of jobs. Take the museum here. Most of the staff is young, and far from retirement. And if a position does open up, you can bet that Kyle will make sure Steffi gets it.”
His gaze settled on Steffi. She was dipping strips of burlap into the thick white plaster and laying them over the corner of the damaged rock. I couldn’t read Tom’s expression.
He went on. “But one major find can make you famous. Then you’re in National Geographic, lecturing at museums around the world, in demand everywhere.”
I studied him. He wasn’t bad-looking, but his mouth turned down at the edges, and he was already getting frown lines between his eyebrows. “Is that what you want? Fame?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“So how do you get there?”
He sighed. “My best hope is to find something that will make for a great graduate project and get me some attention. That can lead to future funding.”
He lapsed into silence, and I studied him surreptitiously as we worked. Could Tom have a motive? Maybe he wanted to steal the fossil so he could claim he found it somewhere else and get the recognition he seems to want so badly. Could I be working side by side with a thief?
More Mysteries
I had a hard time concentrating on the fossil, with all the questions in my head. Plus, it kept getting hotter. But I didn’t want to damage the bone by being careless. I was trying to help Kyle, not cause more problems.
Conversation died off across the site. All I could hear was the clink of tools, the buzzing of insects, and the shuffling sounds of people changing their positions. The sun beat down on us, and I wiped my face on my sleeve.
“All right, gang,” Kyle called out. “Lunchtime!”
Cheers erupted in the hollow. We got to our feet and stretched. George looked at her watch and said, “Ninety-two degrees.”
I joined Bess, who was wiping wet plaster off her hands. “Do you feel up to using your natural charm?” I whispered.
She grinned. “Always.”
“Walk with Tom,” I said. “It sounds like he’s jealous of Steffi, and Kyle is on Steffi’s side. I’d like to know if there’s anything there, but he might get suspicious if I keep asking questions.”
She saluted. “Agent Bess is on the case.”
I dropped back behind the group as we walked, pondering other suspects. What about Jimmy and his mother? Had our meeting last night given them the idea of stealing fossils? Or had they already been at work?
Steffi was a mystery all by herself. She was smart and strong and tough. My instinct was to like her. But what about the confusion last night? Why had she pitched her tent so far from everyone else? And why would she be having secret conversations with Jimmy, if that was the case? She must have been surprised when he appeared last night, or she wouldn’t have screamed. But then she acted like nothing had happened.
I didn’t know much about the other people in the group. I’d have to fix that. And of course, it might not be anyone in the group at all. But with fossils missing from the Land Rover as well as the dig site, a passing stranger seemed unlikely. Only someone close by would know where to find everything.
I shook my head, trying to clear it.
When I looked around, I realized I had no idea where I was.
George said, “Um, Nancy, I think we’re supposed to go this way.”
“Huh? Oh, right.” It’s a good thing I have my friends to keep me on track while I’m distracted by a mystery. Otherwise I might wind up lost in the desert!
Back at camp Felix greeted us with a smile and a cooler filled with cold drinks. The icy lemon-lime soda coursed down my throat and knocked all other thoughts from my head.
I drank about half the can, then looked at Bess and smiled. “Some morning, huh?”
She nodded and took another sip of her soda. Even in the shade of her sun hat, her cheeks looked pink. Damp tendrils of hair curled around her ears. “It was fun.”
George bounded over to us, full of energy as usual. “Learn anything?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
I shook my head. “Lots of questions, but no answers.”
Bess leaned closer and lowered her voice. “I think you’re right about Tom, Kyle, and Steffi. I don’t think it’s a love triangle. More like professional jealousy. That guy sure knows how to complain.”
“I’ll tackle him again this afternoon,” I said. “But first let’s get some lunch!”
Felix had sandwiches ready to go, piled high with meat, cheese, and vegetables. “Are you sure you don’t want one?” he asked Abby. “I have a vegetarian.” It looked delicious, with roasted red peppers and sprouts spilling out the sides.
She wrinkled her nose. “Thank you, but I’ll stick with my herbed soybeans and millet.”
Grayson picked up a sandwich stuffed with roast beef. “Ah, here’s one just the way I like it — plenty of cow!
Abby stuck her tongue out at him, and he laughed.
We got our sandwiches and looked around for shade. Tom and Russell sat under a blue tarp stretched between two trucks, talking seriously. I caught a few words, and it sounded like a foreign language. Dinosaur names, I guessed. Abby perched nearby, eating delicately like a cat. Grayson slumped against a tree, looking wilted. Steffi headed toward her tent. Felix sat by his sandwiches, ready to offer more.
Kyle looked tired, with his shoulders drooping, but he smiled and came over to us. “We usually take a couple of hours’ break now. We try to head back to the dig around three o’clock. That way we avoid the worst of the heat, but still get in several more hours of work.”
“Why do you do the dig when it’s so hot, anyway?” George asked. “Why not wait until cooler weather?”