Trail Ride (7 page)

“She sounds really desperate,” Kate said.

Carole nodded. “Yeah. That line about Veronica is a dead giveaway.”

“That’s her mortal enemy back at your riding stable, right?” Kate asked.

“Uh-huh. Stevie volunteering to spend time with her is like Dorothy offering to hang with the Wicked Witch of the West,” Lisa told her. “I wish there was something we could do to help.”

Carole gave a hearty sigh. “At least our e-mail back won’t be overly exciting. I’ll tell her about how Paula doesn’t like us.”

“Yeah,” said Lisa. “And don’t forget to mention all the chores Kate made us do.”

“I did not!”

“Be sure to describe the agony of my dishpan hands after she insisted we wash all the dishes,” Lisa continued.

“I did not,” Kate repeated. “You guys volunteered!” She put her hands on her hips. “If you’re so exhausted, maybe you shouldn’t come with me tomorrow.”

Lisa was filled with anticipation. “Where? Is it as good as the pond?”

Kate shrugged. “Different.”

Lisa and Carole tried to press her for more details,
but it was no use. They were going to have to wait to find out about Kate’s next surprise.

L
ISA WAS THE
first out of bed. She roused Carole, who yawned and stretched and scratched at her ankle. “The local fauna picking on you?” Lisa asked sympathetically as she slipped into her old jeans, feeling a twinge of guilt that she hadn’t actually worn any of the new clothes her mother had bought her yet.

“Guess so. If there’s a mosquito within a mile, I’m the one it heads for,” Carole lamented. “Hey, Kate! Up and at ’em!”

Kate slowly sat up in bed and, with hardly a word, began to pull on her clothes.

Lisa was surprised. Usually Kate bounded out of bed full of life and fun. “Everything okay?” she asked tentatively.

“I didn’t sleep well, that’s all. I couldn’t seem to get comfortable.”

“You still want to go out today?” Carole asked.

“Let me see. I can stay at the ranch and do more chores, or I can take my friends on another adventure.” She gave Carole a smile. “You do the math.”

“We’re outta here!” Carole and Lisa exclaimed.

The day’s plans were almost derailed by Mrs. Devine
at breakfast. “Kate,” she said with concern, “You look a little flushed. Are you all right?”

Kate dodged the hand her mother put out to feel her forehead. “I’m fine, Mom.”

“Well, okay,” her mother said. “Maybe some fresh air would do you good.”

The girls saddled up and headed off, this time with Kate taking them in the opposite direction of the pond. After a brief ride over a few hills and through a small wooded area, Kate announced they were there.

The girls sat on their horses and looked over a deep horseshoe-shaped canyon. From their position at the rounded curve of the back of the horseshoe, Lisa could see the rocky left and right branches stretching away on either side of them. The steep walls looked treacherous and uninviting. “Exactly what are we doing here?” She gulped, backing chocolate a little farther from the edge.

Kate pulled her neckerchief off and wiped at her sweaty forehead. “Prepare to journey with me back through time,” she announced grandly. “Back to the days when dinosaurs ruled the earth!”

Carole guffawed. “Have you been out in the sun too long?”

Lisa did think Kate looked overheated.

Kate urged Stewball down a rocky slope. “Forward, nonbelievers!”

Moving cautiously, the horses sent tiny rivers of rocks rolling down the steep grade before them. Lisa was glad Chocolate was such a reliable horse; a fall down these rocks would be a nasty experience.

At the bottom, Kate paused in front of a house-sized boulder. “The doorway to the past is the doorway to the future.”

“Will you stop already?” Carole told her. “Pretty soon you’ll be gazing into crystal balls and reading tea leaves.”

Kate laughed. “All right, come on. I want to introduce you to some friends.” She led them around the boulder and into a beehive of activity.

Lisa pulled Chocolate to a halt, staring with wonder at the sight in front of her.

Much of the floor of the canyon had been roped off into small sections. There were people everywhere. Some were pushing what appeared to be wheelbarrows full of dirt from place to place; others were meticulously sifting the soil through large screens. A few individuals were simply crouching in place, staring fixedly at the ground. Lisa could even see distant figures standing on a scaffold suspended high up on the canyon wall.

“What on earth is going on here?” Lisa asked. “Are they building something?”

“This looks like an archaeological dig,” Carole said almost breathlessly.

Kate clucked Stewball forward. “That’s exactly what it is. Can you believe our luck? The university has started a dinosaur dig practically in the Bar None’s backyard!”

Lisa was enthralled. She had always wanted to see a real dig in action. In her fantasies it had always been somewhere in Egypt, with pyramids and mummies scattered around, but dinosaurs were even better. “When did they get here?”

“At the beginning of summer. I was going to tell you over the phone, but then I decided to make it a surprise. Come on, I’ll introduce you to Professor Jackson. He’s the paleontologist in charge of the whole thing.”

“He won’t mind our being here?” Lisa asked.

“Naw, I’ve been down here lots of times. He said I could come by whenever I want. I think he’s hoping to recruit me as another worker,” she laughed.

“What a great opportunity,” Lisa said enthusiastically, hurrying to catch up.

Kate led the way toward a small group of tents nestled against the valley wall. As the girls moved
through the dig, she called and waved to several of the workers, who smiled and waved back. “There he is,” she said, pointing to a short, skinny man bending over a folding table. His clothes were dusty and rumpled, and he was mopping his face with a faded red handkerchief. He removed his hat, revealing a nearly bald head with unruly tufts of white fluff.

“Doesn’t look much like Indiana Jones, does he?” Carole giggled.

“He’s the real thing,” Kate told her seriously. “Professor Jackson is very distinguished in his field. A private museum is paying a lot of money to have him head this dig for them.”

Lisa considered that. “I didn’t realize there was a lot of money to be made in archaeology.”

The girls dismounted and Kate led them up to the table. “Hi, Professor. I brought my friends to meet you.”

Professor Jackson looked up. “Ah, Kate, my dear. Welcome.” He swept a pair of wire-rimmed glasses off his nose and perched them jauntily on his head. “Brought me a few diggers, have you?”

Kate nodded. “That’s me, Slaves-R-Us. Their folks will never miss them, but make sure the money is in my bank account by sundown.”

Professor Jackson clucked his tongue. “First we’ll have to see how good they are.”

“This is Lisa and Carole,” said Kate, making the introductions. “They’re from Willow Creek, near Washington, D.C.”

“Is that so? I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure of working in your part of the country.”

“We only have a rock quarry,” Lisa said, then felt herself redden.
What a goofy thing to say.

The professor smiled at her. “Some interesting things have turned up in rock quarries, my dear. But this part of the country does seem to have more than its fair share of artifacts. Who knows? This canyon may prove to be as famous as Dinosaur National Monument when we’re finished.”

“Dinosaur what?” Carole asked.

The professor looked surprised. “You’ve never heard of it?”

Lisa and Carole shook their heads.

“It’s an area covering about three hundred and thirty square miles in northwest Colorado and Utah. It’s protected by the government because of all the rich fossil remains they’ve found there,” Kate told them, looking superior. “They’ve even found dinosaurs, which is how it got its name.”

“I see you’ve been doing your homework since we last spoke,” the professor said.

“Let me guess,” Lisa whispered in Kate’s ear. “You looked that up last night.”

Her friend blushed.

“By the way, have you been introduced to Joanne?” the professor asked.

Lisa shook her head.

“Then we shall have to fix that right away.”

“We wouldn’t want to interrupt your work, professor,” Carole said politely.

Lisa was disappointed. She was dying to find out more, and who better than the professor to teach them?

“It so happens I’m heading in that direction,” he said, looking at his watch. “It’s time for me to check in with the guards anyway.”

“Guards?” Lisa asked. “Why would you need guards?”

“Just because these bones have been hanging around for between 65 and 245 million years doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of people competing to dig them up,” he told her. “A dinosaur skeleton in reasonable condition would bring a large amount of money on the black market.”

Lisa was amazed. “There’s a black market for dinosaur bones?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” He stopped next to a roped-off section of ground. “There are a lot of wealthy people in this world who like to collect unique treasures such as these and keep them locked away for only themselves to view.” He shook his head sadly. “And there are a lot of unscrupulous people who will stop at nothing to provide them with those items, as long as the price is right.”

“Wow. I had no idea it was such a cutthroat business,” Carole said, wide-eyed.

The professor laughed. “I’m afraid I’m prone to exaggeration, as some of my students will be happy to tell you. Usually digging through miles of dirt under the hot sun is as about as adventurous as it gets.”

“But sometimes you do find whole dinosaur skeletons, don’t you?” Kate prodded.

“They are few and very far between,” said a young woman who was coming to the professor’s side. “But Professor Jackson has dug up more than his fair share.” She swatted him lightly on the shoulder with obvious affection. “How am I going to make my reputation if you won’t leave anything for the rest of us to discover?”

“Just the person I was looking for,” Professor Jackson said with a smile. “Girls, allow me to introduce you to Joanne, my greatest student.”

Joanne was of medium height with dark curly hair pulled back in a low ponytail. Her worn pants and old work boots were caked with dust, and her arms and face were deeply tanned. She nodded at the girls in a friendly but preoccupied way, then held out a small notebook. “More like your greatest disappointment today, I’m afraid.”

The professor took the book and scanned the pages. “No luck in the fourth quadrant?” he asked with a frown.

“Not yet,” she replied.

Lisa noticed that Kate was cricking her neck like it was bothering her.
Maybe she’s bored
, she thought with surprise. Lisa, on the other hand, was absolutely fascinated. She wanted very much to learn more about all this, and the best way to do that, she always found, was to get some hands-on experience. “Is there anything we could help with?” she ventured, throwing caution to the wind. “I know we don’t have any training, but we’d be happy to do anything.” She saw Carole and Kate giving her astonished looks, but she ignored them. “We’re really good with wheelbarrows,” she added, avoiding her friends’ eyes.

Professor Jackson looked pleased. “I don’t know
about wheelbarrow duty,” he said thoughtfully. “We try to get most of that out of the way in the mornings and evenings. Too hot in the afternoons.”

Lisa could sense Carole’s and Kate’s relief, but she was determined to make herself useful. “Isn’t there anything?”

“What do you say, Joanne? Can you use a few more sifters?”

“Are you kidding? I never turn down a free set of hands.”

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” the professor replied. “See you later, girls.”

True to her word, Joanne showed the three of them how to sift huge amounts of dirt through finer and finer mesh boxes. At first the girls were all enthralled, waiting for the sand to reveal some long-buried treasure, but as the day wore on and nothing significant surfaced, Lisa noticed Carole looking bored and Kate pausing to stretch her back more and more often. Finally Joanne reappeared.

“Sorry, guys, I got caught up in something.” She observed the size of the pile of dirt they had sifted and seemed impressed.

“I don’t know if we found anything important, but I
saved everything that looked even slightly unusual,” Lisa informed her, pointing to a box.

“I told her they were only rocks and pebbles, but she insisted,” Carole grumbled.

Lisa gave Carole a withering look and eagerly accompanied Joanne over to the box. To her disappointment, Carole turned out to be right. There were no dinosaur bones to be found, not even a lizard tooth.

Nevertheless, Joanne seemed very pleased with her attention to detail. “You know, Lisa, you may have the kind of patience it takes to be a good archaeologist.”

Lisa beamed. “I’ve never really considered it as a career before.”

Joanne looked at the other girls, who appeared to be quickly wilting in the heat of the day. “Why don’t you two take a break,” she suggested. “We have some cold refreshments in one of the tents.”

Carole and Kate nodded gratefully.

“Lisa, would you like to help me with something else? It takes patience, but personally it’s one of my favorite things to do on a dig.”

Lisa was flattered to be asked. “I’d love to.”

“Okay. Get yourself a quick drink and meet me at section eighty-five.” Joanne pointed to a particular lot staked out with ropes.

The refreshment tent wasn’t hard to find. The outside consisted of a raised awning that sheltered a few folding tables and chairs. Inside there were chests of iced sodas and large containers of fresh water. The girls helped themselves, then collapsed at a table in the shade.

“You don’t look so good, Kate,” Carole said.

Kate mopped at her face with her neckerchief. “I’m fine, but after sweating in the sun, this wind is giving me the shivers,” she said irritably.

Lisa wasn’t sure what to make of that. She was grateful for the slightest breeze. She finished her water and stood up. “I have to go help Joanne. I’ll find you in a little while.”