Danger at the Dinosaur Stomping Grounds

by Judy Young

  THE WILD WORLD of BUCK BRAY

  DANGER at the DINOSAUR STOMPING GROUNDS

  BOOK TWO

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2017 Judy Young

  Cover illustration by Celia Krampien

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews and articles.

  All inquiries should be addressed to:

  Sleeping Bear Press™

  2395 South Huron Parkway, Suite 200, Ann Arbor, MI 48104

  www.sleepingbearpress.com

  © Sleeping Bear Press

  Printed and bound in the United States.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Young, Judy, 1956- author.

  Title: Danger at the Dinosaur Stomping Grounds / written by Judy Young.

  Description: Ann Arbor, MI : Sleeping Bear Press, [2017] | Series: The Wild World of Buck Bray ; book 2 | Summary: “Buck and Toni and the Buck Bray TV crew head to Utah’s Canyonlands National Park to film an episode. There Buck and Toni find themselves in danger at the Dinosaur Stomping Grounds, as they try to discover who is behind the vandalization and theft of the area’s ancient artifacts”-- Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017002841

  ISBN 9781585363681 (hard cover)

  ISBN 9781585363698 (paper back)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Antiquities--Fiction. | Vandalism--Fiction. | Television programs--Fiction. | Canyonlands National Park (Utah)--Fiction. National parks and reserves--Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.Y8664 Dan 2017 | DDC [FIc]--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017002841

  To Vicki Webster, a great friend, a fantastic teacher. Enjoy this trip west!

  Judy Young

  With special thanks to the following:

  Jessica Uglesich for a personal tour of the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry

  Tim Riley, Curator of Archaeology, and Dave Alderks, Chief Preparator, Utah State University Eastern Prehistoric Museum for their professional consultation

  Barb McNally my editor, mentor, friend, and critic (sometimes as tough as an Allosaurus) for nineteen of my two dozen books. Thank you, and here’s to many more!

  J.Y.

  CONTENTS

  Take 1: Saturday, October 12

  Take 2

  Take 3

  Take 4

  Take 5: Sunday, October 13

  Take 6

  Take 7

  Take 8

  Take 9: Monday, October 14

  Take 10

  Take 11

  Take 12: Tuesday, October 15

  Take 13

  Take 14

  Take 15: Wednesday, October 16

  Take 16

  Take 17

  Take 18

  Take 19

  Take 20

  Take 21

  Take 22: Thursday, October 17

  Glossary

  About the Author

  TAKE 1:

  “IF YOU WALKED THE ENTIRE LENGTH OF AN ALLOSAURUS, YOU’D GO ABOUT TWENTY-SIX FEET, AND IF YOU STOOD ON TOP OF ITS BACK, YOU’D BE TEN FEET ABOVE THE GROUND!”

  SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12

  The last thing Buck saw as he started slipping was the silhouette of someone’s head looking over the curved edge of red slickrock twenty feet above him.

  “Buck!” the stranger shouted from above. “Get off your knees! Just use your toes and fingers!”

  Hearing someone call out his name grabbed Buck’s attention. He instinctively followed the stranger’s instructions, shifting so only his feet and fingers clung to the steep curved rock, his back arched above it. Instantly he stopped sliding, but he was still panicking. Above him, bright blue sky. Behind him, air. Thirty feet below him, the scruffy canyon floor. And in front of him, the steep rounded face of red rock he was clinging to, toes crammed into a crevice, fingers holding onto the edge of a crack. He had twenty more feet to go before he reached the top, and although he was no longer sliding backward, Buck was frozen. Frozen with fear.

  Twenty minutes earlier Buck and Toni had wandered from the campground in Utah’s Canyonlands National Park, following a sandy trail through twisted piñon pines, dwarfed junipers, and a variety of scruffy bushes, sagebrush, and cacti. The path ran beside an arroyo that wound through the middle of the narrow canyon. Just a trickle of water flowed over the creek’s sandy bed. Ripples in dry sandbars lining the arroyo showed that water sometimes raced through the canyon. There were several boot prints going in both directions. Buck’s and Toni’s boot prints had joined the others heading away from the campground.

  Long barren ridges of deep red rock, alternating with stripes of light grayish-tan rock, formed walls a hundred feet tall on either side of the canyon floor. On top, giant rock spires, needles, and pinnacles stabbed at the sky. Some looked like the slightest breeze would be all it would take to topple them to the ground. Others looked like armless human shapes, with rounded rock heads balancing on wide shoulders of rock bodies. They silently towered over the canyon like stone gods guarding ancient secrets.

  As Buck and Toni continued, the trail angled away from the arroyo and became steeper, winding through a maze of huge freestanding rock formations.

  “Look at that rock. It looks like a gigantic mushroom,” Toni had said. “And those two round ones balanced on top of each other look like double scoops of ice cream.”

  “That one looks like the curved back of a huge dinosaur. Maybe a Brachiosaurus that’s lying down, sleeping,” Buck had said. He took a camera from the pocket of his cargo pants and snapped a shot of the massive curved rock.

  “Over there are three enormous hamburger buns all stacked on top of one another,” Toni said, “but it’s really all one rock. It’s amazing how it eroded away like that.”

  “See that one with the pointy fins sticking up?” Buck said. “It looks like a Stegosaurus, and there’s a Triceratops head. Those three rock spires are its horns.”

  “They all look like some kind of dinosaur to you,” Toni said as Buck took pictures of the rocks.

  Buck shrugged. “Dinosaurs are cool,” he said. “And these rocks are so big, you can’t help but think they look like them. At least I don’t think they all look like food.”

  “I guess I’m hungry,” Toni said as they continued on.

  They hadn’t planned to go far, but Buck and Toni seemed to be mysteriously drawn deeper and deeper into the narrowing canyon as its walls closed in on either side of them. It was almost as if something compelled them to keep going.

  The canyon had narrowed to about thirty feet wide when Buck noticed a dark crevice ahead to their right. The trail seemed to lead straight to it, but as he got closer, the trail veered to the left, going behind a huge rock shaped like a beehive, three times as tall as Buck. However, a set of boot prints left the trail, turning right. Buck followed the prints until he reached the crevice. It was barely wider than his shoulders. Turning sideways, Buck slipped between the walls. It was dark in there, but looking up, he saw blue sky gleaming fifty feet above. Buck crept back out.

  “What’s in there?” Toni asked.

  “Nothing. It’s just a crack. You can only go in about ten feet. But it cuts through all the way to the top.”

  “I think we’ve gone far enough,” Toni said. “This trail could go on forever.”

  “It’s got to lead to something,” Buck said. “Let’s go just
a little farther. We might be almost there.”

  “Almost where?”

  “I don’t know. Almost to wherever the trail is taking us.”

  “Okay, five more minutes. Then we need to head back.”

  They returned to the trail and followed it around the beehive rock. It twisted like a snake around several more enormous rock structures but didn’t go far. Ahead of them the narrowing canyon dead-ended with a wall of rock that loomed fifty feet above them.

  “I guess this is the end,” Buck said. “I told you we didn’t have much farther.”

  They both stood looking up at the rock wall in front of them. The bottom part was made of layers of uneven ledges, but high above them, the rock became smooth, its sides curving toward the top.

  “Wow,” Buck said, “it looks like an Allosaurus! Everyone likes T. rex, but Big Al is my favorite dinosaur!”

  “I don’t see it,” Toni said, looking up.

  “Just the body of an Allosaurus, not its hind legs. Like it’s emerging out of the rock,” Buck explained. “See how the rock curves to the top? That’s like the sides of the Allosaurus curving to the top of its back, and the ridge that just stretches off to the right could be its tail.”

  “I can see that, but why an Allosaurus? It could be any dinosaur’s body,” Toni said.

  “Over to the left,” Buck said, pointing, “where there’s a ridge that’s a little higher, that’s its neck. And the big bulge, that’s—”

  “Oh, I see it!” Toni interrupted. “That’s its head! It does look like an Allosaurus! The way the rock has eroded, it looks like huge jaws. Like its mouth is open.”

  “Yeah, you can almost imagine razor-sharp teeth snapping at us! And do you see those two little trees growing almost upside down out of that crack up there?” Buck added. “They could be the claws on its little arms, reaching out to slice at us!”

  “Maybe that’s why the trail leads here. Maybe there’s another weird person like you who thought it looked like an Allosaurus,” Toni said jokingly. “That really is cool, though!”

  “Much cooler than hamburger buns and mushrooms,” Buck teased. He pulled out his camera and took a few steps back. “I can’t get the whole Allosaurus. It’s too big, but I can get the head, neck, arms, and a little of its back.”

  As Buck snapped the picture, Toni turned to leave.

  “Wait a second! There’s a cairn!” Buck exclaimed. Toni turned back around and looked to where Buck was pointing. Five small stones stacked one on top of another sat on a ledge high above their heads.

  “Are you sure?” Toni asked.

  “Stones wouldn’t just naturally stack themselves like that. It’s marking a path. Let’s see where it goes!”

  “Buck, we need to go back!”

  “In just a second. I think it goes up to the top of the Allosaurus’s back. It’ll be easy. You just follow the ledges back and forth as you go up.”

  Buck stepped up onto the first ledge. He walked along it, his right shoulder scraping against the rock wall, until he reached a point where he could easily step up onto the next ledge. He continued zigzagging his way up until he reached the ledge with the cairn. Toni stayed down below.

  “There’s another cairn you can’t see from down there, on a ledge just a little higher up!” Buck called back to her.

  “You shouldn’t climb up there. What if you fall?”

  “I’m not going to fall. The ledge is at least two feet wide. Aren’t you coming?”

  Toni stayed put as Buck found a toehold and climbed up to the other ledge.

  “There’s a bunch of cairns marking which ledges to take!” he called down. “Come on. They’re getting narrower, but there’s plenty of room to walk. And we’re supposed to stay together, remember?”

  “Yeah, but we weren’t supposed to go very far, either.”

  “Come on, it won’t take us long. Wouldn’t it be cool to stand on top of the Allosaurus?”

  “Okay, but only to the top, no farther.”

  Toni balanced her way across several levels of ledges, each getting increasingly higher and narrower until she caught up with Buck. They were approximately fifteen feet above the valley floor, and the ledge they were standing on was only about six inches wide. There were no more ledges above them, only the steep curving sides of the dinosaur-shaped rock.

  “This is the end,” Toni said.

  “No, there’s another cairn up there.” Buck pointed toward the top of the rock, thirty feet above them. “Just before it curves out of sight.”

  “We can’t go up there. There aren’t any more ledges.”

  “That’s got to be the way. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be cairns here. I think you’re supposed to use those cracks as finger- and toeholds and just climb up.”

  “I’m not going and you shouldn’t either. It’s too steep. Besides, we need to get back to the campground. Shoop and your dad are probably wondering where we are.”

  “You know what they’re like. They’re looking over maps and scripts for the new TV episode. Hours could go by before they get done. I’m climbing up there.”

  Buck put his fingers into a crack and, holding on, got his toe in another, taking his first step. From crack to crack, to slight dents and small holes, Buck pulled himself upward, moving over the curved slickrock on fingers and toes like a four-legged tarantula. About halfway up, however, he stopped.

  “What’s the matter?” Toni called out from below.

  “I can’t find any more handholds,” Buck answered, clinging to the side of the rock. “I’m coming back down.”

  Buck had easily climbed up to this point. Going down was a totally different story. He couldn’t see hand- or toeholds below him. He moved his foot, trying to feel for one, and suddenly felt like he was going to fall. Instinctively, he went from balancing on just fingers and toes to putting his knees against the steep curve of the slickrock for more stability.

  The cloth of his pants did not grip like the soles of his hiking boots. Buck started sliding backward. He panicked, but his fingernails scratching at the rock didn’t stop his downward slide. Suddenly a commanding voice came from above.

  “Buck! Get off your knees! Just use your toes and fingers!”

  Without thinking, Buck did what the voice had instructed. He pushed on his toes and lifted his butt so his knees pulled away from the rockface. His backward slide stopped. Now, once again, he clung with fingers and toes onto the side of the steep curved rock, like a lizard sunning itself.

  “Listen to me, Buck,” the voice called down again. “You can’t crawl back down. You have to go up.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. You have to. There’s a fingerhold just above you, and a toehold a little to the right. They aren’t very big, but they will work. Do you see them?”

  “Yeah, I see them.”

  “Good. Use them to get started up, but don’t stop! Scramble up as quickly as you can. There’s enough of a curve on the rock that you won’t fall if you keep on moving. Just on your fingers and toes. Don’t drop onto your knees again.”

  Buck didn’t move. He looked at the fingerhold above him. It seemed way too far and way too small to grab ahold of.

  “Buck!” the voice from above yelled. “Move! Now!”

  The demand was so harsh, Buck was startled into action, and he rapidly scrambled upward toward the voice.

  “That’s the way; don’t slow down. Keep going. You’re almost here,” the voice encouraged him. A few seconds later a hand reached down and grabbed Buck’s wrist, pulling him up the last few feet and onto the top of the rock.

  “Thanks” was all Buck was able to squeak out. His heart was racing, he couldn’t catch his breath, and his legs and arms were shaking uncontrollably. Buck sat down, put his head between his knees, and tried breathing slowly.

  “Here. Eat this. It will help.”

  Buck looked up and for the first time took a real look at the person who’d helped him up the steep slickrock slope. A
teenager in blue jeans, a T-shirt, a jean jacket, and hiking boots was holding out a granola bar to Buck. Hanging from his shoulders was a small backpack with a tube coming out of it that twisted around to the front. The older boy’s long shiny black hair had been pulled to the back of his head and neatly folded several times. Many strands of white yarn were wrapped around and around the folded hair, leaving only the smooth ends of the folds showing above and below about three inches of yarn wrappings.

  “Thanks,” Buck said as he took the offered granola bar. He tore off the wrapper and took a big bite.

  “Have a drink, too.” The older boy held out the tube coming from his backpack. “Just squeeze the end, and water will squirt out.”

  Buck stood up, squirted some water into his mouth, and swallowed. “I feel a lot better now,” he said. “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”

  “You should have been,” the older boy scolded. “You were in way over your head, trying to scale that rockface. If I hadn’t been here, you would have been seriously injured, maybe even killed.”

  Buck looked down at the ground. “I didn’t realize it was that steep.”

  “What are you doing out here by yourself, anyway?”

  Before Buck could say he wasn’t by himself, Toni yelled up from below.

  “Buck, where are you? Are you okay?”

  The older boy crawled over to the edge where the rock started curving sharply and, lying down on his belly, looked over the side.

  “He’s fine,” he said. “Stay put. We’ll be down in a few minutes, but we’ll come a different way.”

  As the boy talked to Toni, Buck looked around. The top of the rock didn’t look at all like the back of a dinosaur. It was almost flat, with potholes dotting the surface, and there were several big boulders that couldn’t be seen from below. Like a long bridge, the ridge he was standing on connected to taller ridges of red and gray rock that towered on either end. Toward his right, what had looked like the neck and head of an Allosaurus now seemed to be a giant rock locomotive heading straight toward him. Gazing out toward where he’d climbed up, he could see the tops of the mushroom- and dinosaur-shaped rocks he and Toni had passed coming up the canyon. Looking the opposite way, he was high above another canyon, and beyond it, canyon after canyon stretched out into the distance, seemingly forever.