Conard County Watch

by Rachel Lee

  Carlos, Bets and Mason set about building a small fire upwind from Larry so the heat would reach him. Denise, apparently feeling basically useless at the moment, was sorting through the rocks that they had cleared off Larry, looking for interesting pieces. When she found one, she held it up for Larry. “Name it,” she said.

  Larry gave a weak laugh. “Are you kidding? There isn’t enough to identify it. It comes from something big, though.”

  “Maybe a juvenile?” Denise suggested.

  “Could be,” Renee answered as Denise handed it to her. “A big one. Hey, Larry, this would make a great paperweight for you.”

  “Get it engraved,” Maddie suggested. “With today’s date so he’ll never forget.”

  “As if I could.”

  “Does anyone use paper anymore?” Carlos asked from where he was nursing the fire into life with the assistance of Bets and Mason, both of whom were visibly shivering now, beginning to feel the lack of their jackets.

  “Clearly,” Renee said drily, “you haven’t worked enough with computers. All they’ve done is make it possible to generate even more paper.”

  Laughs greeted her, and even Larry brightened a bit more.

  The day wasn’t a cold one, but it wasn’t balmy, either, and the gorge this river was running through drew a steady, swift breeze that was beginning to chill them all.

  Denise spoke. “Think they can get a helicopter in here? Or lower a basket from one?”

  Renee instinctively looked up, as they all did. “I doubt it,” she heard Mason say. “Strong wind down here, and there’s not a whole lot of room. Although I guess Larry wouldn’t notice it now if he got banged against all the trees on the way up.”

  “Word,” said Larry, then added, “not.”

  Renee finally felt the steady breeze beginning to carry warmth from the fire behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that it wasn’t exactly a small one, but to warm all the way over here, it couldn’t be.

  “Feel that?” she said cheerfully. “It’s almost ready to toast Larry over the flames.”

  “Nah,” said Carlos. “He’s broken. We need a perfect offering to the mountain.”

  For some reason that made a chill run down Renee’s spine, a chill that had nothing to do with the breeze or the day’s cool temperature. An offering for the mountain?

  The others were off and running with various rituals they’d read about in their studies, and she could see they were keeping Larry’s attention, so she let them continue. Feeling next to useless, she wrapped her arms around herself, trying to block as little heat as possible from getting to Larry. As her team grew warmer, they talked more freely, and she was glad to hear Larry joining in.

  She looked up at the rocky cascade left by the landslide and hoped no more of those stones would move. If they did, they’d fall right on Larry. Chewing her lip, she tried to remember all her first aid training and figure out if they could safely move him to a place farther from all those loose stones. At this point, however, there was no way to know if moving him a few feet to the side would make him safer, and pulling him straight back would put his head in the stream.

  Dang, she thought, looking upward again. Where were the rescuers? The help Cope had promised?

  She knew she was being unreasonable. Since there was also a slide up above it was probably hard to move yet. How much stone would he and Claudia have to get out of the way without triggering another slide?

  As for Tall Bear, she was sure he’d run as fast as he could for help, but she had absolutely no idea how long it would take him to get somewhere useful and then to bring people back.

  Patience, she told herself. Keep your attention on Larry. At least the area was starting to warm up. The air that blew toward them no longer felt as if it were blowing off a snowfield. Important. They could all take care of themselves, but Larry couldn’t even move.

  Conversation continued to rattle around various rituals, and folks were getting warm enough now to drink from the water jug.

  Larry finally complained, “I’m getting hot under all these jackets. Anyone want theirs back?”

  “As long as you’re not trying to be tough,” Renee answered. “Promise you’ll tell me if you start to feel cold.”

  “Promise,” Larry said. “Man, I feel useless right now.”

  Denise held out the fossil she’d found. “You can hang on to this for me.”

  He made a face at her.

  The fire was doing its job, however. Everyone took their jackets back, but no one zipped up.

  “We should have had this going all morning,” Bets remarked. “Dang, I thought I was going to freeze my fingers off running water through that sieve and looking for stuff.”

  Larry laughed quietly. “Imagine panning for gold?”

  “Is gold worth it?” Bets retorted.

  It was clear to Renee that the initial fear caused by the rockslides had worn off. Everyone was getting back to normal, including Larry. She just hoped they weren’t being overly optimistic.

  Then Cope’s welcome voice called down. “We’ve cleared a path. Tall and Short are coming down with me and we’ll get Larry up here. Claudia’s checking the rock faces for us.”

  With a rattle of pebbles on the path, rescue began to arrive, first Tall, then his brother Short. Cope followed.

  Cope immediately knelt beside Larry, checking him out. “You’re looking pretty good for a guy who just battled a mountain.”

  “I’m okay,” Larry said. “I was a little woozy when it first happened, but I’m fine now.”

  “You may get woozy again. It’s not going to be a smooth trip up that path or across the ledge above. If the splint isn’t sturdy enough, you may feel it.”

  Larry nodded, but he skipped saying he could take it, which somehow surprised Renee. She was used to the bravado of young men.

  In short order, Cope and Tall checked out the impromptu stretcher and once again tested the splint tied to Larry’s lower leg.

  They exchanged looks and nodded. Without another word, Short bent and lifted the poles at the head of the stretcher. “Strong but a little bouncy,” he remarked. “Hey, kid?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m going to carry you up headfirst, okay? Given how steep that path is, I don’t think you’d want your head down.”

  Larry managed a feeble laugh. “You’re right.”

  “You will, however, have a view of my denim-clad butt.”

  That pulled a real laugh out of Larry, and Short smiled back. “Hey, some might like it.”

  Then he set the stretcher down and lifted it once again so he was carrying it behind him. Tall took the bottom.

  “Lead the way,” he said to Cope. “Eyes on, as they say.”

  “After you douse that fire, everyone else come behind us,” Cope told the team. “Be careful, especially when we get above. Single file. Claudia and I had to be cautious about how we stacked the fallen rocks up there. Got it?”

  Then he astonished Renee, reaching out and taking her hand as he pulled her to her feet. “You come with me. We need your eyes to let us know before we crush something priceless under our boots, okay?”

  “This isn’t the time...” she started to say. Fossils were of much less importance than Larry and getting her team out of here without another injury.

  “This is the time to watch out for everything,” he said sternly. “Nobody thinks that rockfall was natural, so don’t give away the store.”

  What a thought! Someone was trying to push them off this site? She’d been upset about Larry, but if it wasn’t accidental... Rage began to stir in the pit of her stomach. What here could possibly be worth risking a life over? Yeah, the find could wind up rewriting parts of Cretaceous history, but to kill over it? To even risk killing over it?

  “Let’s go,” Cope said, tugging her hand gentl
y. “Eyes on, my friend. We’ve got an intern to save and a site to protect. Time for all hands on deck.”

  “Yeah,” said Larry. “The site’s gotta be protected. I’ll be fine, but if someone’s up to something ugly...” He didn’t finish.

  Cope spoke. “We’ll talk about ugly later. First to get you out of here.”

  Renee nodded and followed closely behind Cope. A glance over her shoulder told her Short and Tall were right behind. The fire was already smoking as Bets and Carlos doused it with river water.

  Why did she feel as if she were leaving for good?

  Shaking her head, she began the trek.

  Chapter 7

  Carrying the stretcher slowed them down considerably. Everyone willingly spelled Short and Tall, who acted as if they could have carried Larry all day. But Cope stepped in at one point, relieving Tall, and Carlos insisted on giving Short a break.

  Getting past the rockslide had proved to be the scariest part. Those rocks looked as if they could let go at any minute, and while Renee scanned the ground beneath her feet as Cope had wanted, she wasn’t really focused on whether there was anything important in the loose stones. If there was, it would still be there in the morning.

  She just wanted Larry safely in the hands of medical professionals. She doubted any of them, Cope included, could say with certainty that a broken leg was his only injury.

  God, the horror of all that rock falling on him. She’d been so afraid as she raced down from the upper level that she was going to find Larry in dire straits, possibly even dying. To get off with what seemed like only a broken leg was nothing short of a miracle.

  For the first time she wondered if pursuing this site might be a big mistake. Yes, the fossils were exciting, perhaps even revelatory, but as she’d thought earlier, they certainly weren’t worth a life.

  And why was everyone being so quiet about the slide? Most of her team, when they could catch their breath, talked lightly about other things, but she didn’t fail to notice that Claudia and Cope were grimly silent, and Tall and Short about the same.

  Something unnatural had happened and she supposed she just ought to be damn grateful that when the upper level slid it hadn’t caused more rock to fall down below and onto Larry.

  The rest could wait. It would have to wait. Right now, all that mattered was Larry.

  Before they cleared the last trees before their campsite, the sound of a helicopter became unmistakable. The tops of trees tossed in rotor wash as they marched closer. Apparently medical help was waiting.

  So, she discovered, were the Conard County sheriff and a couple of his deputies. No one could say much because of the noise made by the chopper, so they all hung around while Larry was checked out by the EMTs, then carefully transferred to a Stokes basket and strapped safely in.

  Before the chopper departed, one of the EMTs took a moment to tell Renee, “He seems to be doing pretty good. By the time you get to town, he’ll probably be ready for a visitor or two.”

  Then they were gone, powering up into the sky and away.

  Which left the dig team, Tall and Short, and the three members of Conard County law enforcement.

  Renee had recognized Gage Dalton on sight. Last year when Gray Cloud had shown her the fossil site, she’d taken the time to meet with Dalton. A man who bore burn scars on one side of his face, limped painfully and had a rough voice, he’d apparently been the victim of a bomb years ago. Beyond that, Renee hadn’t tried to pry. She’d also met his wife, the county librarian known to everyone as “Miss Emma” for some reason. Emma had been thrilled beyond words at the fossil find on Thunder Mountain, and Renee had been delighted to have someone to share her enthusiasm with.

  So there was Gage, and two deputies identified by brass nameplates on their khaki uniforms: Marcus and Sanchez. Once the world had quieted down a bit, Gage put a hand on his hip and looked at Renee. “Gray Cloud said it was deliberate.”

  She caught her breath and looked immediately at Claudia. Remaining silent, Tall and Short had folded their arms and barely nodded. Cope was the first to speak. “I’m taking Tall’s word for it. I haven’t been up there to look, but Claudia, who’s a great geologist, agrees. The rockslide had a little help.”

  “Well, doesn’t that beat all,” Gage remarked. “Why would anyone want to shut you folks down? Fossil hunting on tribal land doesn’t seem like it would get in anyone’s way.”

  “Unless there’s something else up there we don’t know about,” Claudia remarked. “I found quartz, usually a sign of gold, but I doubt there’s enough gold up there to make it worth digging out. You’d have better luck panning the stream.”

  Gage nodded. “We had gold mining around here about a hundred and twenty years ago. It played out fast, nobody could find enough to make it worth their while, and most of them moved on.”

  Claudia spoke again. “There are also rare earths. Essential to electronics, but honestly, most of them are as common as copper. While copper is worth money and people might fight against mining it because of the pollution, they’re not going to kill over it.” She shrugged. “Unless I find something that stands out—and I’ve got some people working on it even now—I can’t give you a reason anyone would want to violate sacred lands to stop a fossil dig.”

  Short spoke. “Violating sacred land doesn’t disturb most people if they want something.”

  “True,” Gage muttered. “Well, I guess I need to take a look. They might have left some evidence behind.”

  Tall held up a hand. “It’s a hike, Sheriff. You might want to spare your leg.”

  Dalton scowled. “To hell with the leg. Marcus, bring your K9. We’re going for a hike.”

  “I’ll ride shotgun,” Claudia said. “I’m a geologist.”

  Dalton nodded.

  Renee was torn. She wanted to climb that mountain and be there for whatever they found. She also wanted to be with Larry to make sure he was all right. And regardless of which she chose, she couldn’t leave the site unprotected. Not after this.

  Mason stepped up. “You need to stay here, Renee. The site needs someone to keep an eye on it.”

  “I agree,” said Cope. “I’ll stay with you. We need to provide protection.”

  The others decided to run into town to keep Larry company, and Renee made a decision. “Don’t come back tonight. I want all of you somewhere safe until we figure out what is going on here.”

  “But how can we keep in touch?” Bets asked. “You’ll be worrying about Larry and we’ll be worrying about you and Cope, and nobody’s cell phone works out here.”

  The sheriff spoke. “Cadell, you got an extra sat phone?”

  The K9 officer nodded. “Always.”

  “Then let’s leave it with Renee here. Now get Dasher ready, because we’re going to sniff around really good.”

  Short spoke again. “Sheriff, I already carried one man down that mountain today. My shoulders would be very grateful if I didn’t have to carry you as well. Not your fault you have a bum leg.”

  Dalton sighed, hitched his gun belt and gave in. “You’re right. Emma would have my hide if she found I was out here gallivanting on a mountain. Okay, I’ll stay here. Sanchez, you go with Marcus and his dog to sniff out any clues.”

  Renee’s decision was made. “I’m climbing up there, too. I want to see what happened.”

  Now Cope put his hands on his hips. “I’m not going to stay behind when you’re out on the mountain.”

  “Sheesh! Someone has to watch the fossils with Gage. After what happened to Larry, I don’t think anyone is safe alone.” But then it struck her that she was being a bit unreasonable. She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath.

  “Okay,” she said finally. “Cope, you and I will keep an eye on the site. Maybe we can find some clues in the rockslide. Claudia, are you still going with Tall and Short?”

 
“Damn straight,” said Claudia. “You know I looked over that rock face when we arrived. No reason there should have been a slide. But I’m a geologist, so you can count on me to notice anything unnatural. Or to notice if I screwed up my evaluation.”

  Renee nodded. She didn’t like this splitting up. Not at all, but she didn’t see how it could be avoided.

  “And I’ll be right here,” Gage said. “I can warn you if anyone comes and keep in touch with base about what you all find. Good enough? And let me know if you want any help. Sanchez?”

  “Yo?”

  “Take your sat phone up there with you. I love this county, but I hate the communications around here.”

  Tall smiled faintly. “You’re beginning to sound like the old sheriff, Nate Tate.”

  Gage’s grin was lopsided. “Yeah, next I’ll be swearing the country’s going to hell in a handbasket.”

  “Isn’t it?” Marcus asked. He clucked. “Come on, Dasher. Let’s go do our thing.”

  Dasher’s entire demeanor changed; the Belgian Malinois with his brown body and dark snout immediately signaled his eagerness.

  Renee watched Claudia take off with the two deputies, the two Native Americans and the dog. “I hate this,” she muttered.

  “Dividing forces?” Cope asked. “I couldn’t agree more. But we’ve got more than one prong here, so we have to.”

  She nodded and turned to Gage. “Can I make some coffee for you, Sheriff? I think I’d like to take a thermos up there with us, too.”

  “I’ve never yet refused a cup of coffee,” Gage responded.

  Renee set about quickly filling the big tin coffeepot with water and coffee grounds, then turned on the gas flame beneath it.

  Gage was evidently feeling talkative. “I can’t imagine any rhyme or reason for this. Nobody should be willing to kill over some fossils, I don’t care how rare they are.” He paused. “Of course, I reckon I’ve seen people kill over less, but it usually wasn’t cold-blooded. And the two of you have no ideas at all?”

  Renee shook her head as she joined the two men at the camp table. “I’ve seen claim jumping in my field, but it usually involves showing up the next digging season only to find out someone with more seniority and a bigger grant has taken over, and oh, would I like to join the team? But that happens almost never. Something like this?” She shook her head vehemently. “I kept it under wraps, didn’t say much about my high expectations, and there are a lot of fossil beds in this state.”