Conard County Watch

Still it seemed a bit strange, although Butler had left easily enough.

But being a fairly normal man, he soon forgot his inventory of Renee as a potential warrior and returned to his inventory of her as a woman. He suspected she’d object mightily to such thoughts, with every right. But he neither needed to act on them, nor needed to reveal them.

Instead as he stood in his hot shower, he could remember her lifting her arms to regroup her hair. Her breasts had been suggestively outlined by the T-shirt she wore under her unzipped jacket. Full, but not too full. Nicely rounded. Inviting.

All of her was female, though. He’d walked behind her on her way down the mountain and had been able to tell she wasn’t afflicted by the need to be so thin it had to be unhealthy. No, she had a good set of hips, a nicely rounded bottom and a bit of a sway to her step.

She was also graceful as she navigated the broken and unsteady terrain. A woman in command of her body.

He liked that. Hell, he liked her. And if he were smart, he’d just leave it at that. He’d volunteered to work this dig because of a huge curiosity and a desire for the experience. What he didn’t want to do was blow himself out of the water by expressing too much interest in the team leader. By making her uncomfortable.

The Marines had taught him self-control. Time to use it.

But then his thoughts drifted toward that unexpected visitor again. The neighbor. The man on horseback continued to trouble Cope, though he had no reason to explain it. It was just so soon after Renee’s arrival. Too soon.

Maybe Butler had just wandered that way out of curiosity, not knowing whether anyone was there, having heard about the new cleft. It was possible.

But Cope had spent too many years in a uniform in dangerous places to just dismiss the guy. He couldn’t imagine any reason the man could become a problem, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a reason.

If he showed up again... Cope told himself to let it drop unless something else happened. He’d spent too long at war, and didn’t even trust his own suspiciousness any longer. Paranoia, he told himself.

Cope reached out and reluctantly turned off the water and reached for a towel. Renee planned to get out there before dawn. He’d better get his sleep so he could follow along and be useful.

* * *

Over at the motel, Renee had taken Denise to her own room to talk. The room itself was pleasant enough, although it showed its age. The days when rough wood paneling on walls had been charming were long ago. The blue-checked curtains looked nearly worn out over the mini blinds; the chair and table in one corner might have been used as modern in a 1950s sitcom. The bedspread was a brown-and-blue plaid. But, Renee admitted, it was spotlessly clean as far as she could tell.

Denise followed her in and perched on the edge of the bed.

Renee spoke as she closed the door. “In the morning, before dawn, I want you to come up with me to the site. I don’t have to tell you what the early light does to shadows.”

“Heck no,” said Denise. Her artistic ability was one of her biggest entrées into this world. “Got any photos for me?”

Renee handed over her camera and flipped it to begin a slide show. Then she went to the bathroom and used the motel’s cheap coffeemaker to brew some for the two of them. At least there was more than one packet of coffee on the counter.

“Wow,” she heard Denise breathe. “Renee, you gave me no idea!”

“I didn’t want too much information getting out. You know of Dr. Bradley?”

Denise glanced up. “The site thief? Everyone’s heard of him. I’m sure he’s not the only one.”

“Exactly. Once we’re established I won’t feel it’s as important to keep a shroud over all this, but in the meantime... I’m thinking of camping out there.”

Denise nodded as she continued to watch the slide show. “This looks revolutionary, Renee. Maybe we all ought to camp out there.”

Renee gave a quiet laugh. “Nice idea, but once we start working we’re not going to have a whole lot of extra room. Maybe we can establish a base camp farther down the mountain. I’ll have to ask Gray Cloud.”

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.

“Where did you want to begin?”

Renee hesitated only a moment before pointing. “There’s an egg here. I realize I’m going to have to move a whole lot of mountain above it to reveal it, but it’s too promising to pass up.”

“That’s where the grid will start then. But if you change your mind, it’s okay. By the time I’m done, everything will have coordinates on the x and y axes. We also need some GPS to back us up.”

“I can do that,” Renee answered, although she didn’t jump to it. She was growing mesmerized again as the morning light painted the shadows that revealed darn near everything.

“My tablet will get the coordinates,” Denise said. “Just enjoy.”

Renee found a place to settle beside Denise and just drink in the wonder before her.

“It’s amazing,” Denise murmured. “Has there ever been a fossil bed like this?”

“Yeah, there are some good ones. The whole area of Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas is loaded with fossils, and there are some parks devoted to them.”

“So what is it about this one?”

“It’s there?”

Denise laughed. “I’m serious.”

“So am I. The fact that it’s here would be enough. But the density of the fossils makes it especially interesting. So many packed in like this raises a bunch of interesting questions.”

And that egg, Renee thought. That egg. If there were more of them, if most of the fossils appeared to be the same species...well.

While Denise worked, Renee continued her study of the rock face and the fall around it. Soon, unable to hold still for long, she began moving along the ledge, studying the spoil beneath her feet. Every so often she spotted what appeared to be some bone poking out of a rock, but she left it alone.

Then, as she stood staring down at it, she remembered the hundred pin flags poking out of her backpack. Hurrying over to it, she pulled a handful out and made her way cautiously back to the bones she had noted. A bright orange pin flag soon marked each spot. There would be plenty of others, she was sure, and now that she had spotted these, she realized she’d better get to it before the team started arriving and important things might inadvertently get stepped on or buried before they were noticed.

The richness of the fossil bed probably extended to the rubble at the bottom of the rock face. They’d need to take extra care so as not to crush something.

The dynamics of this dig were beginning to sink in. They wouldn’t only be removing the large fossils from the rock, but they’d have to scour every inch of this ledge for items they’d never want to miss. In her initial bliss at the big find, she’d forgotten to think about all the minor details.

She almost laughed at herself. This wasn’t her first rodeo. She’d let her enthusiasm override her sense, but that had to stop immediately.

“Give it a rest,” Denise said eventually. “You’ve covered the whole ledge and you’re distracting me by moving.”

So Renee plopped down behind her on a larger boulder and waited patiently.

“And don’t look over my shoulder. It drives me nuts for some reason.”

“I’m not.” Nor was she. The shifting shadows on the fossil bed entranced her. She kept picking out new shadows that suggested great wonders. If this proved at all as productive as it appeared now, she’d probably work this site for the rest of her career. Happy thought.

* * *

The rest of the team arrived around nine. Renee had begun helping Denise measure out the area and place red pin flags for each point there would be a vertical line in the grid.

Before long, she’d sent most of the students below to hunt through the rubble beside the river. Fortunately, getting down there proved to be reasonably easy. A short way up the gorge, there was a narrow path leading down to the stream. The team went ahead with flag pins and soon their excited voices could be heard rising up from the stream.

Cope remained on the ledge with her and Denise. For a few minutes, Renee allowed herself to be distracted, thinking that he drew her interest almost as much as the fossils. Almost. Grinning inwardly, she decided to enjoy the unusual attraction.

She noted, however, that he seemed to be extremely alert, and his gaze never stopped wandering the woods around them, above them and below them.

Finally, she stepped over beside him, speaking in a voice that couldn’t easily be overheard because of the rush of the stream below.

“Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know.” His blue eyes snapped to her face. “Did you feel strange coming up here?”

“Like someone was hiking along with us?”

“That’s what you felt? Close enough. There are eyes on us, Renee. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to just watch. That Butler guy wasn’t shy about coming forward to ask what we were doing, after all.”

She had believed she was feeling weird when the thought crossed her mind that the mountain was aware of them. But now, for the first time, there was an icy trickle down her spine. “You’re sure someone is there?”

“No, I’m not. I didn’t see anyone, but I learned not to disregard this sensation.” All of a sudden, he smiled at her. “Ignore me and go back to what you were doing. I’ll play sentry for a while just to ease my mind.”

She nodded and returned to a rock where she’d been sitting with her large tablet, using a stylus to overlay outlines on some of the photos she’d taken yesterday. The egg continued to grab her attention, and it amused her to note how many photos she had taken of it yesterday morning. Carried away.

But as she outlined it, using the setting to give her fine lines resembling a sharp black pen, she pulled more detail out of it. She was definitely not losing her curiosity about it.

She lifted her head after a bit, noticing that the stream was louder today than yesterday. Much louder. It nearly swamped the voices of her team below. Had it rained up higher on the mountain? She could still faintly hear the voices. They called to one another and sounded as if they were having a good time poring through the rubble.

She lifted her gaze to Cope, and found him walking slowly around, his attention fixed on the dark places beneath the trees. The same dark places that had bothered her earlier.

He moved with remarkable grace considering the surface was rough and unstable, but his feet came down lightly and didn’t seem to disturb much when they landed. He was wearing desert boots, she realized. Probably left over from the Marine Corps days that he’d briefly mentioned. The limestone and sandstone dust that seemed to be everywhere disappeared on those boots.

She looked down at her jeans and wished they had the same ability. But mostly she wished Cope hadn’t confirmed her uneasiness by saying he felt there was a watcher.

In the first place, she couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to do that. In the second, she didn’t need to be on guard all the time. Every bit of her mind needed to focus on the job at hand. Even a small mistake could cause problems down the road if something was overlooked.

Cope’s voice interrupted her rambling thoughts as her hand continued to sketch. He squatted down beside her. “Why are you sketching over your photos?”

“To bring out some of the details, the stuff the shadows didn’t pull out from the rock. Did you see anything?”

“Not a soul.” The corners of his eyes creased a little, a hint of a smile. “I don’t usually get unnerved this easily.”

“Frankly, I was unnerved all the way up here. I kind of wish I’d been the only one.”

She blew dust off the screen of her tablet and tucked it into its case. “I need to see how they’re getting on down below.”

“They sound like they’re having a good time.” He straightened and offered a hand to help pull her to her feet. “Let’s go see?”

Along with the heap of items the team had brought up here, they had a couple of empty five-gallon water jugs. Cope grabbed both of them before leading the way to the steep path down to the stream. “I’ll bring you some water, Denise,” he said as he walked behind her.

“Thanks. My camel pack is getting low.”

Renee’s had emptied more than half an hour ago. The mountain air was dry and her tongue was beginning to feel sticky. Behind Cope, she slid and climbed down the steep path to the stream bank. Claudia was using her geology pick and hammer to pull small pieces of the bank loose. The other five were setting out pin flags to mark items of interest, and she could see that some of the finds had been washed in the stream already, glistening and dark and standing out from the surrounding rubble.

Smiling faces greeted her. “This is very cool,” Larry—she thought it was Larry, anyway—said. “I think I found half a trilobite.” He held a wet rock up to her and she looked.

“Now that’s old,” she told him. “And you’re right about what it appears to be. We’ll need to study it more closely to peg it exactly in terms of species and probable age.”

He nodded, taking the rock back and gazing at it. “My first find.”

She was tempted to tell him to keep it, but she couldn’t do that until she was sure it was just another trilobite, of which there were a whole lot. If it proved to be perfectly ordinary and offered no insights, she’d tell him to take it home and begin a collection for himself.

But right now, they didn’t know enough to let anything slip by.

Cope had moved upstream, to a point where the water fell from a slightly higher ledge, and was filling both five-gallon bottles with fresh stream water. She saw him pop in the purification tablets so at least they wouldn’t have to boil it to safely drink it.

She decided he could be a very useful guy to have around.

It was starting to get dark here in the gorge, though. Night always came early in parts of the mountain, and she needed to get these students safely out. In a week or two they’d have an easily traversable path from below, carved by their own feet, but not yet.

She looked at Cope. “You want to lead them down and back to town? We’re losing light.”

“Not without you and Denise.” He called out to the others. “You can drink the water in this bottle in thirty minutes, not before. Unless you want to adopt some little amoebas.”

Laughs answered him. “Meet us above just after you have a good drink. Renee thinks we need to beat the light down, and she’s right.”

“We ought to camp out,” one of them said. “It would save a lot of time.”

“I have to talk with Gray Cloud about that first,” she replied. “I told you, we have to walk softly here.” And she’d been trying not to test the limits of their permission to be here, not until they’d had a chance to prove themselves to be respectful. But maybe camping was an idea she could check out right away.

Then she turned toward the path they needed to climb. “Cope?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah?”

“Are you still uneasy?”

“Yup.”

She paused, her hand on a rock she planned to use to steady herself. “You see something?”

“It would be easier if I had.” Then, without another word, he lugged the other water bottle up the narrow, steep path behind her.

* * *

Nice view, Cope thought as he climbed behind Renee, then gave himself a mental slap for the thought. Shame, shame, they were working together.

He was just trying to distract himself anyway. Under other circumstances he’d be trying to get a date with her. Not under these.

He hated the skin-crawling feeling he couldn’t shake. Someone was out there watching. Why? He couldn’t dash off into the woods to look around, and it wouldn’t make any difference anyway. If there was a threat out there, he needed to be close to Renee and her team. Wandering the woods wouldn’t make him much help.

He wished Gray Cloud had shown up today. He’d have liked to question the man about whether any of his people might be watching them. If someone objected to this dig on sacred land, someone he needed to worry about.

If this continued, he was going to have to get some answers one way or another.