Danger at the Dinosaur Stomping Grounds

by Judy Young

  Buck turned and swept his hand through the air to indicate the mesa. It now glowed so bright, it almost hurt his eyes to look at it. He faced the camera again before continuing.

  “Others before me have also stood in this same spot, watching the same sun hit the same mesa. In the late 1800s, cowboys came here, and for the past eight hundred years the Navajo, Ute, and Paiute lived here. Two thousand years ago the Fremont and Ancestral Puebloan people farmed in this area, and ten thousand years ago the first humans wandered here. The rock art of those nomadic hunter-gatherers still decorates canyon walls today.”

  Buck was supposed to wrap up the beginning scene by asking viewers to join him on an exploration of these different layers of time. But earlier, when he had left the others and returned to the Green Beast, he had not gone down there to pout. He had gone down to revise the script. Now, looking at the camera’s red light, Buck continued the introductory shot, using words his dad had not written.

  “The layers of time don’t start with humans, though. The layers go back millions of years, to a time when, not too far from what is now Canyonlands National Park, the area was alive with dinosaurs!”

  Buck stopped talking. Shoop continued filming as the mesa dimmed to a shadowy purple. Buck looked at his father. Dad’s arms were crossed and he was glaring at Buck, but he said nothing until Shoop finished filming.

  “You just cost us a whole day!” Dad growled as soon as the camera’s red light went off. “We can’t reshoot that with the real script until sunset tomorrow, and a voice overlay won’t work either. The script’s words won’t sync up with your lips.”

  “Hey, Dan, lighten up,” Shoop interjected. “I think Buck is on the right track. Dinosaurs will bring in another aspect to the episode and expand our audience.”

  Buck, Toni, Shoop, and even Nash looked expectantly at Dad. It seemed like dinosaurs could have lived and become extinct in the time it took for Dad to speak again. When he finally did, Buck broke out in a big smile.

  “I guess Nash is going to have to show us where those dinosaur sites are located,” Dad said.

  “Dino-mite!” Buck shouted, and gave Toni a big high five.

  TAKE 3:

  “BIG AL REACHED ADULTHOOD BY AGE FIFTEEN AND LIVED TO BE ABOUT TWENTY-EIGHT.”

  As Shoop took his camera off the tripod, Nash pulled out a phone, glanced at it, and returned it to his pocket.

  “If you can’t get a signal up here,” Dad said, “you can down at the Green Beast.”

  “I was just looking at the time,” Nash responded. “I’m in charge of the campfire talk at seven o’clock tonight. You guys ought to come. It’s at the amphitheater on the mesa side of the campground. You’ll see it. There’s a parking area in front of it, but most people just walk.”

  “That sounds fun,” Toni piped up.

  “Could we film it?” Shoop asked.

  “Sure,” Nash said. “Robert will be there too, and we can find out if I can guide you.”

  Nash helped Shoop, Dad, and Toni take the camera equipment down to the Green Beast. Excited about the addition to the show’s theme, Buck stayed up on the ridge, leaping across crevices and cracks from one big slab of rock to the next. He heard Nash tell the others good-bye and watched him walk out of the campsite.

  Surprised that Nash took the road instead of the shortcut, Buck followed along on top until the ridge ended in a nearly vertical drop-off. Below, the two campground roads met. Nash turned right to go up the other road. Buck yelled down at him and waved. Nash waved back. Buck turned, and as he walked slowly back across the ridge, he thought about the Allosaurus rock he had scaled.

  Maybe I’ll see an actual Allosaurus fossil, he thought.

  “Buck,” Toni’s voice called out, interrupting his thoughts. Buck looked ahead. She had climbed up and was standing at the edge of the ridge above their campsite. “Dinner’s ready.”

  “Okay,” Buck said, and picked up his pace. When he got down to the Green Beast, Shoop was putting a new battery pack on his camera. Dad was taking burgers off the grill and putting them on buns. Four flashlights were on the picnic table.

  “Grab a burger and a flashlight and let’s get going,” Dad said as he set the plate on the table. “We don’t have much time before the campfire talk starts. We’ll eat while we’re walking.”

  The four walked out of the campsite and onto the road.

  “There’s a shortcut over the ridge that leads to the mesa side of the campground if we go that way,” Buck said, pointing the opposite direction.

  “It’s up past the bathrooms,” Toni added. “Nash took us over it.”

  “It’s getting too dark to go over the ridge,” Dad said, “even with flashlights. We’ll just take the road.”

  “Phew!” Shoop quietly let out a sigh of relief.

  “You lucked out this time, Shoop,” Toni said, laughing.

  Busy eating their hamburgers, they walked quietly side by side down the middle of the campground road. They had just passed the mushroom-shaped rock campsite when a young voice yelled out from behind them.

  “Hey! Are you the Buck Bray that has that weird green camper?”

  They all stopped and turned around. A boy was racing out of the campsite on a mountain bike.

  “Yeah, that’s me!” Buck yelled back.

  “Wait up!” the boy yelled.

  The boy caught up with them and skidded to a halt. “Are you guys going to the campfire talk?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Buck and Toni both answered at the same time.

  “Can I come with you?”

  Now Dad spoke up. “Fine, but you’d better ask your parents first.”

  “I’m not here with my parents. I’m here with my uncle Bob and my cousin Wyett. Neither of them wants to go to the campfire talk, but Uncle Bob told me I could. I saw you guys and thought it would be more fun to be with somebody.”

  “Oh okay,” Dad said. “Take your bike back and walk with us. We’ll wait for you.”

  “I’ll just leave it here,” the boy said. He quickly rolled it off the road and stashed it behind some sagebrush. Returning, he introduced himself. “I’m Nick. I saw your camper earlier today. It’s awesome!”

  “Thanks, we call it the Green Beast,” Buck said. “I guess that’s how you knew my name.”

  “Yeah,” Nick said, and turned to Toni. “What’s your name?”

  “Toni,” she said. “And that’s my dad, Shoop, and Buck’s dad, Dan.”

  Dad and Shoop said hello and walked briskly on ahead, but the kids lagged behind.

  “What grade are you in?” Buck asked.

  “Eighth,” Nick answered. “I’m thirteen. What about you guys?”

  “We’re both eleven and in sixth grade,” Toni answered.

  “I’m here on fall break,” Nick said. “Are you?”

  “No,” Toni said. “We’re filming a TV show here.”

  “Cool!” Nick said. “So that’s why it says BRAY TRAVELING FILM STUDIO on your camper.”

  It took about fifteen minutes to walk from the scrubby flat side to the mesa-view side of the campground. The three kept up an endless chatter as Buck and Toni explained about the TV show, telling Nick about the first episode filmed in Denali and how they had rescued grizzly bear cubs. They had gone past several campsites on the mesa-view side when Nick pointed ahead toward a small parking area on the left. Several cars and trucks were already lined up behind a split-rail fence. People were also crossing the road from their campsites, flashlights in their hands. All were headed toward a freestanding rock formation beyond the fence that looked like several mushrooms all crammed together.

  “That’s the place,” Nick announced.

  “Race you!” Buck said.

  The three took off running. Buck reached the parking area first and slowed down, but Nick hurried around him and ran up a short path. Buck and Toni caught up with him when he stopped at a grotto at the base of the mushroom-shaped rocks. An empty fire ring was near the back wall of th
e small cave. A few wooden benches, also empty, were scattered about.

  “Is this where the campfire talk is?” Buck asked, a puzzled look on his face.

  “No, a big amphitheater is up on top,” Nick said as some other people walked past.

  “This is a neat little cave,” Toni said, looking around.

  “Yeah, there’s one at our campsite too,” Nick said.

  “Really?” Toni said.

  “It’s in back. You can’t see it from the road,” Nick replied. “Come on. There’s a stairway back here.”

  Buck and Toni followed Nick as he headed on past the benches. Around a bend, a set of stone stairs ascended through a crack in the rock. Nick and Toni charged up them, but Shoop came up from behind and grabbed Buck’s arm.

  “Wait a second,” Shoop said. “I want a shot of you heading up those stairs. Just say you’re on your way to the campfire talk.”

  Buck let Shoop take the shot while others coming to the campfire talk stood back and observed. When they’d shot the first episode in Alaska, the audience would have bothered Buck, but now he was used to the attention. When Shoop was done, they hurried on up.

  The open-air amphitheater had several rows of wooden benches in a semicircle around a blazing fire. They were filled with people. Nash sat on a short bench behind the fire, facing the audience. He was now wearing a light blue T-shirt with a picture of Earth on it taken from space. The shape of North America could be seen under white clouds that swirled over the big blue planet. Curved above the planet were the words TERRA CYAN and under it was STUDENT ADVENTURES, INC.

  Buck looked around. Toni was in the first row, Nick on one side of her, her backpack on the other side, saving the last spot. Buck picked up the backpack and sat down. He could hear people behind him quietly making inquisitive comments to one another as Shoop set up his tripod on the far side of the front row. As soon as the camera’s red light came on, Dad held the shotgun mic out toward Nash and nodded.

  TAKE 4:

  “BIG AL’S BITE WAS NOT AS STRONG AS A TIGER’S, A LION’S, OR EVEN A COUGAR’S BITE. SO HE USED HIS MASSIVE HEAD LIKE AN AX TO SLAM HIS UPPER TEETH INTO HIS PREY.”

  “Yá′át′ééh,” Nash said as he stood up and looked at the audience. “That’s Navajo for ‘hello.’”

  “Yá′át′ééh,” many in the audience said back, including Toni.

  “Thank you,” Nash said. “My name is Náshdóítsoh, which is what we call the cougar. It literally means ‘walking silently among rocks,’ which is very appropriate here in Canyonlands.”

  Several people chuckled, then Nash continued. “My name is hard to say, so you can just call me Nash. I’m here with Terra Cyan Student Adventures. For those who don’t know, terra is the Latin word for Earth, and cyan is the color blue. Well, tonight I’m going to share a Native American story with you. Afterward, you can stay as long as you’d like and enjoy the fire. It’s a perfect night for stargazing, too. The moon has already set, so it will be really dark. And for those who want to get up in the middle of the night, the International Space Station will pass overhead at three forty-two.”

  “Awesome!” Buck said. “What will it look like? An airplane?”

  “No, like a star moving steadily across the sky. It won’t blink like an airplane would,” Nash answered, but before he could continue, a ranger came up the set of rock stairs. The ranger approached Nash, said something to him, and then turned toward the audience.

  “Sorry to interrupt tonight’s program. I’m Ranger Ortiz, and I wanted to make an announcement while many of our campers are gathered here,” the man said. “We’ve been informed that there’s been some vandalism to archaeological artifacts in some of the other national parks in Utah. We’ve been lucky here at Canyonlands so far, but while you are out and about, exploring the park, we’d appreciate if you kept your eyes open. If you see anything suspicious, please let a ranger know immediately. Thank you, and sorry again for the interruption.”

  “No problem,” Nash said. “I hope they catch whoever is doing this.”

  As the ranger hurried back down the stairs, the audience stirred with quiet comments. Nash put another piece of wood on the fire, giving the audience time to settle down, then turned to them once again. “Please enjoy the fire and the stars while I tell you a little about the cougar and a Native American legend about how it got its name.”

  Nash sat down, firelight flickering on his face. He paused, looking at the fire as it crackled and sizzled. Sparks floated up and burned out in the inky sky, and the audience hushed. Nash raised his head and looked back up at the audience.

  “A cougar,” he began, “actually has more than seventeen different names. Some of the more well-known names are panther, mountain lion, painter, catamount, and puma, but they are all the same animal. In my culture, the cougar not only has the characteristic of moving quietly, it is also thought to be loyal and responsible. Being very aware of its surroundings, it senses danger and courageously, but patiently, takes action. So, I am very honored to be named for this incredible animal.”

  “Do you know what characteristics a buck has?” Buck blurted out.

  Nash chuckled. “Well, impulsiveness for one.” The audience laughed, but Nash continued on. “A deer is also known for its gracefulness and its ability to make decisions and to trust its instincts to get out of tricky situations. But now let me tell you a story based on a legend from another Puebloan tribe, the Zuni. I like this story because it features the animal I was named after, and I hope you will enjoy my retelling of it.”

  Nash looked at the audience and began.

  “One day Náshdóítsoh, the cougar, was walking high on a rimrock ridge. He looked down and saw a herd of deer grazing in the grasses at the bottom of a canyon and thought a deer would make a tasty meal. Náshdóítsoh knew the deer would be startled away if they saw him coming after them. So, hiding behind a boulder, the cougar rolled a small stone down toward the deer. Now, you’ve seen how the ridges around here in Canyonlands are all made of rock. So when the stone rolled down, it made a racket. Startled, the deer all looked up, then scattered, hiding among the rocks and boulders below. When nothing more happened, the deer came out of their hiding places and went back to grazing. Staying out of sight, Náshdóítsoh rolled another stone off the ridge. Again, the deer scattered and hid, but this time, they did not stay hidden as long. The cougar started a third stone rolling. This time, the deer jumped a little at the noise and looked around, but did not hide. When the cougar rolled another stone, the deer didn’t even look up. They just kept grazing. Náshdóítsoh smiled, knowing it was time. He curled himself up into a ball and started rolling. With his fur softening the way, he was almost silent. The deer never even looked up as he rolled onto the canyon floor where they were grazing. Quickly, Náshdóítsoh uncurled himself and sprang at the tastiest-looking of the deer, easily catching his dinner. And that is how the cougar became known as the one who walks silently among rocks.”

  Nash stopped talking and stood up as the audience applauded.

  “Thanks,” he said. “That ends tonight’s campfire talk. As I said, feel free to stay as long as you’d like. You’ve got a great view of the Big Dipper.” Nash pointed up to the sky. “If you make a line between the last two stars on the dipper part and continue straight out from there, the first star you’ll come to is the North Star, the sky’s forty-eighth brightest. At night you’ll always know which direction you’re going if you find the North Star.”

  Buck pulled his compass out of his pocket and lined up the arrow. “Sure enough,” he said.

  “Can I see that?” Nick asked. Buck handed the compass to Nick and rushed off. Shoop, Dad, and Nash had all gathered around another man who was wearing khaki slacks and an official-looking light blue shirt. The same words that were on Nash’s T-shirt were written above the pocket, with a smaller version of the same picture of Earth printed on it. Buck assumed the man was Robert.

  “Nash can show you around Canyonlands, but
I’m afraid I can’t let him leave the park without his parents’ permission,” Robert was saying, “so showing you the dinosaur sites is out.”

  “But I know somebody who—” Nash started to say, but Buck cut him off.

  “We’re still going to get to go, aren’t we, Dad?”

  “Don’t interrupt,” Dad said sternly to Buck.

  “Sorry,” Buck said.

  “That’s okay,” Nash said to Buck. “I wouldn’t want to miss out on seeing dinosaur tracks either. Anyway,” he continued, turning back to Dad, “I know somebody who may be able to help you. A woman named Jessica was my counselor in the Terra Cyan program last year, and we’ve kept in contact. She’s studying paleontology under a professor named Dr. Owen, who is working on a dig for the Prehistoric Museum in Price. I texted Jessica and she said to get in touch with her. She’d be glad to help you. Here’s her e-mail address.”

  “Thanks, Nash,” Dad said, taking a slip of paper from him.

  “If you get a chance, you might want to visit the museum, too,” Nash said. “One half is about dinosaurs and the other half about the Ancestral Puebloans. It would be perfect for your show.”

  “Super,” Buck said. “For a second I thought dinos were facing an extinction from this episode.”

  Both Nash and Robert laughed as Dad ruffled Buck’s hair. “According to Nash, I guess I named you right. Just work a little better at listening and stop jumping to conclusions, okay, son?”

  “Okay,” Buck said. “So, when are we going to the dinosaur sites?”

  “Patience, Buck. We’ll go when we’re done filming here in Canyonlands,” Dad said, shaking his head. Then he turned to Nash. “Can you be at our campsite first thing in the morning?”