Danger at the Dinosaur Stomping Grounds

by Judy Young

  “Wow!” he said. Buck was not looking at the water that trickled out of a spring at the base of the rock wall, or the thick mosses that grew on the rock above the spring. His gaze was centered on the alcove’s back wall. Painted on the rock were rust-colored stick figures, some with their arms extending out to their sides like crosses, and others that looked like they were wearing headdresses or crowns. There were also dozens of small yellow and orange handprints, as well as dark shadowy ones, barely visible. The more Buck looked, the more he saw.

  “Those were made by Native Americans long before the cowboys came here,” Nash told Buck. “This was a perfect place to live because of the water source.”

  Toni walked over to a nearby sign. “‘Do not touch or mark pictographs,’” she read aloud. “‘It is a violation of federal law to vandalize archaeological sites.’”

  Buck held his own hand up several inches away from the painted handprints. “They’re about the size of my hand,” he said. “Do you think they were made by kids?”

  “No, the Ancestral Puebloans were smaller than humans are today,” Nash said. “The average adult would be about your size.”

  “Hey, Dad,” Buck said, grinning, “since I’m the size of an Ancestral Puebloan adult, can I drive the Green Beast back to the campground?”

  Everyone laughed, but Dad said, “As an Ancestral Puebloan, you have about three thousand and five years to go before you’re old enough to get a driver’s license.”

  Shoop filmed the handprints, and they continued on along the trail. It now wound its way through big boulders until it came to a wooden ladder that leaned up against a vertical rock wall. Buck climbed up and stepped off onto a wide ledge as Shoop filmed.

  Once the camera was off, Nash pulled his cord and carabiners from his backpack. “Let me have that case,” he said to Toni. “You’ll need both hands.” He hooked one carabiner through the handle and the other to his belt loop. The case remained below as Nash climbed up and stepped next to Buck. As Nash pull the case up, Toni and Dad climbed the ladder, but Shoop stayed at the bottom.

  “This is nothing more than climbing up the ladder of a playground slide, Shoop,” Toni said, picking up the case.

  “I’ve never liked slides,” Shoop muttered, then took a deep breath and climbed up.

  “Before you know it, you’re going to be doing technical climbing,” Buck teased when Shoop reached the top.

  “A ladder is as technical as I’m going to get,” Shoop said. “I’m not doing anything that requires climbing with pitons, ropes, and carabiners.”

  Walking single file, Buck led them along the ledge to a shorter rock wall only a few yards past the ladder. A cairn was clearly visible on the top. Although there was no ladder to scale this wall, there were plenty of handholds and footholds. Buck put his foot in one and reached above his head, sliding his hand into a slit in the rock. Stepping up, he put his other foot into another crack and, pushing himself upward, reached for another handhold.

  “Buck, freeze!”

  Buck heard Nash’s forceful command at the same moment he heard the rattle. He’d never heard that sound before, yet he instantly knew what was making that buzzing noise. Coiled on a small ledge inches from Buck’s leg was a rattlesnake, its split tongue going in and out of its mouth, tasting the air, its tail raised and shaking.

  “Don’t move a muscle,” Nash said.

  Without making any sudden movements, Nash took the black case from Toni. He opened it, pulled out the shotgun mic, and quickly slipped the furry windscreen over the end. Not even taking the time to lengthen the pole, Nash slowly advanced toward Buck. All the while, the rattlesnake made its namesake sound with its tail. And all the while, Buck stayed frozen inches from it, his heart beating as fast as the snake’s rattle.

  Nash slowly raised the pole. Perhaps sensing a slight stir in the air, the snake’s rattle quickened and its tongue flicked more rapidly. It slowly raised its head and pulled it back, putting itself in strike position, all the while tasting the air, tasting the air. Buck involuntarily stiffened, his leg moving slightly. The snake sprang forward, its mouth open, fangs exposed. In a lightning-fast movement, Nash jabbed the pole between the snake and Buck’s leg. The snake’s fangs clamped down on the furry windscreen.

  “Go, Buck! Now!” Nash commanded as he pushed on the pole, pinning the snake’s head to the back of the ledge.

  Buck didn’t hesitate. He scaled the rockface and reached the top without even thinking about his route up. Keeping the snake pinned, Nash turned the end of the pole, extending it to its full length. With the snake’s fangs still tightly gripping the windscreen, Nash tried to fling the snake off the cliff. The snake held on tight, the length of its body twisting and curving in midair. Nash shook the pole violently. Finally the snake let loose. It landed twenty feet below them, near the base of the ladder, and slithered away.

  “Whew!” Buck said. He didn’t realize he had been holding his breath the entire time. “I thought I was going to be bit for sure. Thanks, Nash!”

  “It’s a good thing I knew what was in that case,” Nash said.

  “It’s a good thing I told Toni to bring it,” Shoop added.

  Toni looked at her dad. “And it’s a good thing you didn’t stay down there by that ladder, Shoop.”

  TAKE 7:

  “THE ALLOSAURUS LIVED ABOUT 150 MILLION YEARS AGO. SO BIG AL WAS WANDERING AROUND 85 MILLION YEARS BEFORE T. REX CAME ON THE SCENE!”

  Standing on top of the Cave Spring rock formation, Shoop panned over the mesas and canyons that stretched beyond, zooming in on the famous North and South Six-Shooter Peaks that looked like guns pointing up in the air. When he finished filming, the group followed cairns across the top. Their way gradually sloped down to a sandy path at the bottom of the rock formation.

  “That trail just led us on a big loop up and over that rock,” Shoop stated, then turned to Nash. “Why didn’t you tell us we could just go the other way and get up there without climbing that ladder?”

  Before Nash could respond, Toni answered. “Then Buck wouldn’t have gotten a chance to see a rattlesnake up close and personal.”

  “I don’t ever want to get that chance again! I risked my life for that shot, Shoop, and you didn’t even have the camera on,” Buck said teasingly.

  “No, but I did,” Toni said. With a big grin on her face, she pointed up to the head-mounted camera.

  “That’s my girl,” Shoop said proudly.

  On this side of the Cave Spring rock formation, there were no cowboy artifacts or ancient handprints. Yet when Buck went around a bend, he stopped. At eye level was a long ledge that cut deep into the rock. Crammed into it was a huge pile of twigs, leaves, and other debris.

  “What kind of creature built that nest?” he asked. “It’s bigger than I am.”

  “It’s not a nest. It’s a midden,” Nash answered. “A pack rat’s stash. The pack rat doesn’t sleep in it. It’s just where it stores stuff. Some middens are huge and can be fifty thousand years old, used over the centuries by hundreds of thousands of different pack rats. Scientists actually study midden contents to analyze and compare environments and climate changes.”

  Buck looked closely at the midden. “It’s not just twigs. There are bottle caps, soda can tabs, and bits of ribbon and string. There’s a gum wrapper, too.”

  “And a piece of foil and lots of shiny candy wrappers,” Toni added. “Look. There’s even a ring. It has a turquoise stone.”

  “Pack rats really like shiny things,” Nash said. “The little thieves will steal anything that strikes their fancy.”

  “Look at that snake skin,” Buck said, pointing. “It’s a long one.”

  Shoop shuddered.

  “It’s not alive, Shoop,” Toni said. “It’s a shed.”

  “Which means the snake has to be someplace,” Shoop said, looking skeptically at the ground as the others chuckled.

  “Do you think that came from my rattlesnake?” Buck asked.

  �
��It could have,” Nash said. “They’re not territorial, but rattlesnakes do have home ranges.”

  When they returned to the Green Beast, Buck rushed to his desk and turned on the computer.

  “What are you doing?” Toni asked, coming in to sit next to him.

  “I’m looking up to see how long pack rats have been around,” Buck said as he pecked at the keyboard.

  “Why?” Toni asked.

  “I want to know if a pack rat would have been able to put a dinosaur bone in its midden. Some dinosaurs were really small, you know,” Buck answered. He read the information that showed up on the monitor. “Wow! It says pack rats have been around for fifty-four million years!”

  “How long has it been since dinos became extinct?” Toni asked.

  Buck typed something else and waited for the site to come up. “Over sixty-five million years ago,” he said disappointedly. “I guess pack rats weren’t around with the dinos.”

  The Green Beast pulled to a stop at the last place on the morning’s agenda. Toni got up and looked at the script notebook.

  “The ancient granary ruin,” she told Buck. “Do you need to read over the script?”

  “Nah, I’m good,” Buck answered. He turned off the computer and they stepped outside. The parking area was to the side of the main road. Just ahead, on the opposite side of the road, was the park’s visitor center.

  “There’s Nick,” Toni said. Nick was on his bike, riding out of the visitor center parking area. Toni and Buck waved as Nick rode past them. Nick waved back but didn’t stop. He rode on, then turned left onto the paved road leading toward Cave Spring Road. Dad, Shoop, and Nash were already heading up the trail toward the granary, but Buck and Toni lagged behind.

  “I wonder why he didn’t stop,” Toni said.

  Buck shrugged. “Maybe he thinks he’d be in the way. I think he’d be lonely being here by himself, though.”

  “By himself?” Toni asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “His uncle and cousin left in the middle of the night,” Buck explained. “I was going to ask him where they went but got busy showing him the Green Beast.”

  “Well, we ought to ask him if he wants to come with us next time,” Toni said, and the two hurried to catch up with the others.

  The trail ended at a rock formation almost as tall and steep as the one Buck called the Allosaurus. Buck looked up at an alcove high above him. Tucked in tightly against the cliff was a large rounded enclosure made of brick-size rocks mortared with dried clay. Buck had memorized the scripts Dad had researched and written. This one said that the granary was not easily reached, but when Buck looked up, he instantly had different thoughts. Dad’s script is pretty lame. I’m changing it so I can use a real rock climbing term. When the camera’s red light came on, Buck pointed to the granary.

  “The Ancestral Puebloans had to do some major scrambling to get up there,” Buck said, smiling. “They wanted to make it difficult for anyone to get to their corn and grain.”

  “Good job,” Dad said when Shoop finished filming. “I liked your script change.”

  “Thanks!” Buck replied.

  They returned to the Green Beast. Dad and Nash climbed into the cab. Buck went into the camper, but Toni stood just outside the camper door with Shoop as he took off the backpack that held his camera.

  “I took some video of Buck scrambling up a rock that was even steeper than this one,” Toni told her father as he handed her the backpack. “I’ll show you when we get back to the campground. If you mix it with this scene, it’ll look like Buck is climbing right up to that granary.”

  From inside, Buck overheard Toni’s words. When Shoop headed toward the cab, and Toni stepped into the camper, he lashed out at her in an angry whisper.

  “Thanks a lot. I should have known you wouldn’t keep your mouth shut about that.”

  Buck stormed into the bedroom and slammed the door. As the Green Beast started moving, Toni put Shoop’s backpack on the couch, slid the connecting window shut, then went back to the bedroom and opened the door. Buck was in his chair, his arms crossed, staring at the blank computer screen.

  “You don’t need to be ticked—” Toni started.

  “Oh yeah,” Buck interrupted, swiveling around to directly face her. “Nash didn’t even tell them about me scaling the Allosaurus. Now, because of your big mouth, I’m going to be in trouble when they see how I almost didn’t make it.”

  “For your information, I edited the film and deleted the part that showed you frozen to the rock. It looks really good now, like you know what you’re doing. See for yourself.” Toni pulled open a desk drawer, tossed a flash drive onto Buck’s lap, then turned and slammed the door on her way out.

  Buck spun his chair back around. Turning on his computer, he put the flash drive in and brought up the scene. He watched it and then, taking the flash drive out, turned off the computer and opened the door. The Green Beast was just pulling into their campsite.

  “You could have told me,” he said. He was still irritated, but Toni was too.

  “Grow up,” she snapped back. “It’s just like your dad says. You won’t listen to anybody, and you’re always jumping to conclusions.”

  Buck grabbed his water bottle, and as soon as the Green Beast stopped, he bolted out the door. As he climbed up onto the ridge, he heard his father say, “What’s up with him?” but Buck didn’t stick around to hear an answer.

  Toni’s always showing off, Buck thought as he walked to the far side of the ridge. “I read this and I edited that,” he sarcastically mimicked aloud. “She’s always bragging about how good she thinks she is.”

  Buck sat down and took a swig of water, staring out across the flat. It was bright out and the noonday sun was glaring. He reached into his pocket for his sunglasses. They weren’t there.

  Buck stomped back to the Green Beast, now even more irritated. As he walked, he heard the sound of a vehicle on the road below him and looked down. A tan jeep drove slowly up the road, and when Buck got to the edge of the ridge, he saw that it had pulled into their campsite. Robert stepped from the jeep, wearing his Terra Cyan shirt.

  “Hi,” Robert said, walking toward the picnic table where Dad, Shoop, and Nash were sitting, a map spread out in front of them. “I thought I’d stop by and see how the filming was going.”

  “Going good,” Dad said. “Nash has been a real help showing us around and giving us details about the place.”

  “Super,” Robert said. “He’s one of our best campers.”

  “Thanks,” Nash said.

  “Have a seat,” Dad told Robert. “We’re just about to eat lunch. Would you join us?”

  “Sure, thanks,” Robert said, sitting down beside Nash.

  Buck climbed off the ridge and went over to his father, a scowl on his face.

  “What’s the matter now?” Dad asked.

  “We need to go back to the cowboy camp,” Buck grumpily told his dad. “I left my sunglasses there.”

  “Toni’s making lunch, and after we eat, Shoop and I are going to do some editing. You can ride your bike over there and get them then if you get your attitude adjusted,” Dad said.

  “My attitude’s fine,” Buck said. He stomped to the back of the Green Beast, dialed the combination to the lock, and took his bike off the rack. As he crammed his water bottle into its holder on his bike, Nick rode in.

  “I saw you guys were back,” Nick said, pulling up beside Buck. “Are you going somewhere?”

  “After lunch,” Buck answered, leaning his bike against the Green Beast. “I left my sunglasses at Cave Spring.”

  “Have you had any lunch, Nick?” Shoop asked. When Nick shook his head, Shoop called out, “Toni, make a sandwich for Robert and Nick, too, will you, please?”

  “Sure,” Toni called out.

  “Come on over here, boys,” Dad said. “Nash was just showing us where to film the dinosaur tracks and fossils.”

  The boys sat down and Nash pointed to the map, whe
re several places had been circled.

  “This is where we are, that’s Arches National Park, and the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry is here. Bones and footprints have been found all over this whole area,” Nash said, his finger making a wide circle on the map between Arches and the quarry. “They even found a new species near here in 2013.”

  “What kind?” Buck asked, his mood improving with the talk of dinosaurs.

  “A Siats meekerorum,” Toni said as she walked toward the table with a tray of sandwiches.

  Everyone looked at her in amazement.

  “I did a little research online last night,” she said. “I bookmarked the website. Thought you might want it for your script.”

  “Super,” Dad said. “Buck, maybe you ought to follow Toni’s example and do some research too.”

  Buck’s irritation returned, full force.

  “I’m going to go get my sunglasses,” he said brusquely, and jumped up from the table.

  “Let’s go with him, Nick,” Toni said, ignoring Buck’s mood.

  “I don’t want company,” Buck retorted. He grabbed a sandwich, picked up his bike, and pushed off down the drive.

  “Buck!” Dad called out. “Get back here right this instant.”

  Buck gripped hard on the brakes and turned back.

  “Enough already!” Dad said. “I don’t know what’s going on, Buck, but they’re going with you, and you better have it worked out before you get back.”

  Buck scowled as Toni rushed into the Green Beast. She came out, stuffing two water bottles into the mesh side pockets of her backpack. After Nick helped her take her bike from the rack, they each grabbed a sandwich. Then the three of them rode off.

  TAKE 8:

  “BIG AL HAD SMALL HORNS ABOVE HIS EYES. THEY MAY HAVE BEEN USED AS WEAPONS, TO ATTRACT A MATE, OR POSSIBLY AS SUNSHADES.”

  Still angry, Buck raced ahead. He could hear Nick and Toni talking behind him, and he soon slowed down to listen.