Rachel Lee - Conard County Watch

The slide show came to an end and Denise looked at her. “Gray Cloud is really your cousin?”

“By marriage. My cousin Mercy is a wildlife biologist. She met him on Thunder Mountain a couple of decades ago when she was studying the wolf pack up there. If you ask her if the mountain is sentient, I’m pretty sure she’ll say yes.”

“And you?”

Renee shrugged. “I’m not here to judge. I’m here in the hope that I can prove a theory of mine. Or disprove it, as the case may be. And that fossil bed is so rich it ought to provide a whole lot of answers, plus new questions.”

Denise nodded and put the camera down. “So you want me to sketch all this before we start poking around? With measurements and a grid so every find can be localized?”

“Exactly,” Renee said, filling two cups with coffee and walking through the door to perch on the edge of the bed.

Denise accepted the coffee and sat cross-legged, clearly thinking. Her gray sweater and blue jeans signified she was used to a far warmer climate. Renee was happy in her T-shirt and jeans.

“Okay,” Denise said presently. “You’ve got your whole team here, right?”

“At least for the start, yes. We may need more later, depending.”

“How would it be if you choose the part of the face where you’d most like to start working? Then I can start the grid there and work outward, so you can get started quickly. All I’d need to do is take a quick survey of the entire face, measurements and so on, so I’d know where I’ll eventually be heading.”

Renee felt her excitement bubbling up again. “I didn’t think we’d be able to start so soon!”

Denise grinned. “It might still be a couple of days. It’s just that the whole grid doesn’t need to be done first.”

Renee felt lighter somehow, as if realizing she might be able to get to work sooner had lifted some kind of load.

Denise picked up the camera again and restarted the slide show. “This is amazing, Renee. Just amazing. Early-morning light?”

“To get the best use of shadows.”

Denise nodded. “Can you get me out there before dawn tomorrow? You can show me where you want to start, and I can begin sketching until we’ve got enough light to do measurements.”

Renee wanted to agree immediately, but she had a slight problem, namely seven members of her team who were planning to meet for breakfast and follow her out to the site. Then she thought of Cope. “Just a sec.”

She had his phone number filed on her laptop because she’d talked to him maybe a half dozen times in the planning stages. Gray Cloud had approved of him when she mentioned Cope wanted to participate, which she took as a good sign.

She picked up her cell and called Cope. “This is Renee. Sorry to bother you but I need a small favor.”

“Sure,” he answered. On the phone his voice sounded smooth and warm.

“I need to go out to the site before dawn in the morning with Denise. The rest of the team is supposed to meet at the diner at seven for breakfast and then follow me. Can you gather them up and show them the way?”

“Oh, I think I can do that,” he drawled, a hint of laughter in his voice. “But man, it’ll be so hard to corral all that youthful energy.”

“Like you don’t do it in a classroom all the time.”

“That’s why I have my doubts.” Then his tone turned serious. “No problem, Renee. I’m the gofer on this job. If you think of anything else, let me know.”

“Gallons of coffee?”

He laughed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Oh, and Cope? I have hard hats for everyone in the back of my car, so when you get them out there, make sure everyone wears one.”

“Now that I can do.”

She disconnected and looked at a grinning Denise. “Done. We’ll have to leave about three tomorrow morning, though. Bring a warm jacket and get as much sleep as you can.”

Denise unfolded and stood. “I was excited when you asked me to do this, but after looking at your photos I’m so impatient I can hardly tell you. Maybe you’ll be rewriting the textbooks.”

Renee hadn’t thought of anything so grand. A paper or three, yes, but rewriting the texts on the Late Cretaceous era?

When she climbed into bed after Denise left, it wasn’t sugarplums dancing in her head. Dinosaurs followed her into her dreams.

Chapter 3

The night still ruled the land when Renee and Denise arrived at the foot of the gorge in the morning. Renee was impatient because she wanted to get to the rock face before the first glow of dawn began to light it, but she was extremely aware that either one of them could have an accident and be stuck on the mountainside until Cope happened on them.

They both had heavy-duty flashlights with strong beams to light their way, but even as the path before them was revealed, the woods became darker. Creepier. A thought that wasn’t familiar to Renee.

She tried to ignore the feeling, wondering where it came from, but she couldn’t escape the sense that from the corners of her eyes she could see shapes flitting among the trees, dark shapes. It almost felt like they were being paced on both sides by something.

Maybe Gray Cloud had some of his people out here, keeping an eye on matters. That would be okay, but she’d like to know about it.

On the other hand, she remembered the guy who’d ridden up there just yesterday, unheralded and curious. He’d said he was a neighbor. Was he?

But who besides another paleontologist could be interested in this area? Sure, you could make money from some dinosaur bones, but you were more likely to have them confiscated the minute the state found out what you were doing if they were in any way unique.

Deliberately, she tried to shake off the feeling that they weren’t alone on this part of the mountain. Dang, maybe Gray Cloud was right. Maybe the mountain itself was watching them.

She reined that thought in immediately. No craziness. For this job she had to remain firmly centered in science.

She glanced around, though, and decided if anything was dancing among the trees following them, it must be the shades of the newly revealed saurian bones. They might be interested in how their discovery was handled. The thought drew a small laugh from her.

“What’s so funny?” Denise asked.

“I’m having early-morning crazy thoughts. Don’t worry, I just need to finish waking up.”

Denise gave an answering laugh. “I hear you. I half feel like I’m still dreaming. The woods are encouraging some nutty images. Too dark under some of those trees.”

Glad to know that she wasn’t the only one with a runaway imagination, Renee said, “Not much farther now.”

“Good, because I’m beginning to see some predawn lightening to the east. I want to see this place the way you did when you took those photos.”

Denise got her wish. A dozen yards later they emerged onto the ledge that had been left behind by the rockfall. There was just barely enough light to see the face of it, but nothing more because the predawn twilight was still so flat.

“It’s weird,” Renee said as she slipped off her backpack and lowered it to the ground. “This was originally a narrow cleft. When Gray Cloud brought me here last year it really was a cleft so narrow we nearly had to move sideways to get into it. Then over the winter the other side thinned out and part of it fell, probably down to the stream below. We’ll have to check all the rubble, but first...” She pointed. “First I wanna get at that.”

“I can see why,” Denise answered as the light strengthened and shadows began to appear. “My God,” she breathed. She hunted quickly for a central position and pulled out her large tablet. On the screen the rock face grew steadily more visible as the light brightened slowly and the shadows grew. Denise wasted no time using a stylus to start a grid.