Conard County Watch. Rachel Lee
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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.
Maybe the worst part for him was not knowing how much of this was PTSD. He’d been luckier with that than many of his fellows, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have any at all. This creeping suspicion of someone watching was too similar to experiences from his time at war. How could he be sure he wasn’t just dragging that out of his past, given that he was in the mountains and among the forest again?
But Renee had claimed to feel it as well. Maybe just jitters about a new and unfamiliar area. Even now the shadows under the tree were deepening, promising invisibility and hiding places for evil, if there was any out there.
Up top, he glanced at his watch and waited until it was safe for Denise and Renee to drink. They needed to plan this entire project better. No one should go without water up here the better part of the day. Tomorrow, those jugs and a couple more were going to be filled first thing. Excitement couldn’t be allowed to get in the way of health.
Yeah, he saw the so-called camel packs they were all wearing. He’d worn them himself countless times, but the taste of the water didn’t encourage drinking. That might make the supply last longer, but it wasn’t good for anyone to ride the edge of thirst.
The group from below drank as much water as they could, then emptied the bottle and collapsed it before bringing it up. Good thinking. Meanwhile he began to make a mental list. He was fairly certain that among this group he was the only one with the background to deal with extended periods in the mountains. If they decided they didn’t want to drive back to Conard City every night, they were going to need some help dealing with the conditions.
He knew one thing for certain: he was not going to leave this site unguarded unless he found out from Gray Cloud that his own men were watching it.
Because after this day, he had a strong feeling that someone else had an interest in this mountain, and it didn’t necessarily involve dinosaurs.
* * *
Just as they were about to begin the trek back down to their vehicles, Gray Cloud appeared, emerging seamlessly from the deepening shadows.
“Hi,” Renee said warmly, and shared a brief hug with him. “Are we doing okay?”
“It seems so.” The man smiled, then glanced at Cope. “Someone has some questions for me?”
“We’d like to camp, a little way down the mountain, so we don’t have to drive out every day,” Renee said before Cope could utter a sound. “Is there somewhere you could permit us to do so?”
“Of course. I’ll show you the place. Makes more sense than driving that distance. It’ll give you more time to work as well.” He paused, his dark eyes shifting to Cope. “Yes?”
Cope turned to Renee. “You head on down with the others. I won’t be far behind, okay?”
She hesitated a moment, then nodded, picking up her backpack. “Let’s go, gang.”
Gray Cloud waited, his arms folded, for Cope to speak.
“Since we got here this morning,” Cope said presently, “I’ve been feeling watched. Renee and Denise evidently saw shadows moving under the trees and tried to talk themselves into believing it was their imagination. I’m not certain Renee believes that. Anyway, I wanted to know if you have some people keeping an eye on us. Or people you know of who might not want us here.”
Gray Cloud lifted his gaze to the woods around. “No one is shadowing you. Not of my people. That doesn’t mean no one else is.” He turned his gaze to Cope, a piercing look. “And the mountain may be paying attention. Don’t laugh.”
“I’m not laughing,” Cope admitted. “I spent enough time in the mountains of Afghanistan to get the feeling that mountains aren’t dead heaps of rock. But Gray Cloud, would the mountain’s attention feel like human eyes?”
Gray