Things That Go Bump in the Night 5 страница
“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.
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.
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.”
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 loaded 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!”
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.
Steffi twisted her head around. “Get these things off of me!” she croaked.
“I’m working on it.” I glanced at Kyle. “Give her some water.”
Someone handed him a water bottle and he held it for Steffi. She took a few swallows and started coughing. I wasn’t having any luck with the knots, but I remembered my pocketknife. I slipped off my backpack, found the knife, and started sawing through the twine. Finally it came apart. Steffi’s wrists were rubbed raw underneath.
Steffi brought her hands in front of her and started shaking them out as Tom freed her ankles. She hopped to her feet and paced. Everyone was asking questions, but she didn’t answer. She grabbed the water bottle from Kyle and took a long drink. Finally she took a deep breath and snapped, “All right, all right! I’m fine. Just really, really mad.”
“What happened?” Kyle asked.
“I heard a strange noise. A kind of tapping. I waited a minute, but no one came into view. Finally I stuck my head around the corner. Before I could see anything, that bag came down. I got in a few good kicks, but they grabbed me and tied me up.”
“They?” I asked. “More than one person?”
She nodded. “Two men, I think. I didn’t get a look at either of them, and they didn’t speak. But one person pinned my arms while the other tied my feet. I’m pretty sure I kicked that one in the face. He grunted, or at least I think it was a man. The one holding me definitely was.”
“Can you remember anything else about them?” I asked. “The one holding you, was he tall? Did he have any particular smell?”
She paused in thought. “The only thing I could smell was that nasty burlap bag. But the one holding me was definitely tall. At least as tall as Kyle, but skinnier.”
Two men, one at least six feet tall and thin. “It sounds like those two guys who showed up yesterday,” I said.
Kyle muttered something and turned away. “The jacket! They got our fossil.”
“Of course,” Steffi said. “You didn’t think they went to all this trouble just for me?”
Kyle smiled crookedly and took her hand. “I must admit, I actually forgot about the fossil for a minute.”
She grinned up at him. “I’m okay.”
Tom picked the walkie-talkie up off the ground. “So now what? What do we do?”
I looked around at the others. Everyone stared at Steffi and Kyle, looking shocked and confused.
“How long ago did this happen?” Kyle asked.
“Maybe ten minutes after you left,” Steffi said.
Kyle scowled. “They must have been watching, and they waited for me to leave. We thought we were safe, once the sun came up. I can’t believe it.”
“They had to have had a vehicle,” I said.
Steffi nodded. “I think one of them stayed here while the other went to get it. A few minutes after they tied me up, I heard the engine. Then some grunting and thumps. Then they drove off.”
Bess climbed the path up the bluff, to where the off-road vehicle had parked the day before. She studied the ground and called down, “I’m sure there are new tracks here, from the same tires.”
Kyle groaned. “There’s no point in trying to follow them now, I guess. They have at least half an hour on us, and we’re on foot.” He was silent for a minute, as we all watched in sympathy.
Kyle gave a deep sigh. “All right. Priorities. Let’s get these other two jackets finished. I want them out of here today, and the sooner we get the plaster on, the sooner they can dry.”
It didn’t take all of us to jacket two sets of fossils. Kyle and Steffi drew away to one side and talked in low voices. Grayson started helping Russell with one jacket, while Tom and Abby took the other.
I paced restlessly. It seemed like we had identified the thieves, but I still wasn’t satisfied.
Bess joined me. “So, after all we went through, this is how we find out about the thieves.”
I frowned and shook my head. “I’m not convinced it’s that simple. Someone from camp is involved.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“The snake. When it showed up in our tent, we hadn’t even seen those two guys yet. Why would they try to discourage us?”
“They might have just wanted to cause trouble at camp,” Bess said. “Maybe they chose a random tent and it just happened to be ours.”
“Why would they want to disrupt the camp?” I said. “They wanted Kyle’s group to do all the work in excavating the fossils. Otherwise they could have just come out last week, when no one was here. No, someone from camp is involved. Someone who knows I’m a detective.”
“I told Abby that first morning,” Bess admitted. “But I don’t remember who else was around.”
“Just about everybody,” I said. “And of course we told Kyle later that morning. Either Abby or Kyle might have told someone else.” I put my hands on my hips and looked around. “We need to find out more about these people, and we’re running out of time. They don’t need us here. Let’s go see how George is doing with the Internet.”
Bess smiled. “What’s a hundred-million-year-old fossil, compared to modern snooping?”
• • •
We offered to start carrying gear back to camp. Most of the tools could go, along with the empty buckets. Kyle didn’t want to expose anything new, since we wouldn’t have time to get it out of the ground. I grabbed one of the walkie-talkies, too, just in case. They wouldn’t need both at the dig.
We entered camp and put away the tools. George waved and came toward us. We filled her in on what had happened with Steffi. “I hope you found something interesting,” I finished.
“Grayson is a lawyer,” she said. “A federal prosecutor out of Denver, so it makes sense that he knows about cases of fossil theft. Nothing suspicious there. I chatted with Felix a bit, and he said he used to own a deli. That checked out. He’s in his tent now with a book and a battery-operated fan. I found several guys named Russell Stevens, but unless he’s a basketball player, a rock and roll drummer, or a Belgian scientist, nothing on this one. I was just going to work on Abby when I saw you come back.”