On the Trail of Trouble
yards to where the prints seemed to turn, then back up,
then stop once and for all.
“It's as though they disappeared,” Bess said in a
hushed voice.
“Or were hauled away,” Kincaid said. “They'd have
to use a special livestock trailer.”
She continued brushing the dirt, and little by little, a
set of tire tracks appeared—first two, then two farther
ahead, then three fairly close together.
“We don't have all the tracks, but it looks like a large
trailer, pulled by a sport utility vehicle or a four-by-
four,” Kincaid said. “The tracks seem to go off to the
west. I'm going to ride out that way and see if I can
find anything.”
“I'll go with you,” Bess said, climbing into her
saddle. She seemed eager to start the chase.
“George and I will stay here,” Nancy said. “I want to
nose around a little more.”
As she watched Bess and Kincaid ride off to follow
the tire tracks, Nancy had an idea. “Come on, George,
we have work to do,” she said.
She walked to the shattered shelter and dug through
the debris until she found a pitchfork. “I thought I saw
this sticking through the boards,” she said.
“So what are we doing?” George asked.
“Well, Kincaid said the dirt in this area is almost like
clay, right?”
“Right.”
“Grab some shorter pieces of broken boards,” Nancy
said. “I want to try something.”
While George picked out some boards, Nancy found
a bucket and filled it from Lulu and Justice's water
trough. Then she led George back to the tire tracks.
Carefully, Nancy cleaned the tire tracks of as much
extra dirt as she could with Kincaid's grass brush
without wiping away the tracks themselves.
Then she and George took turns with the pitchfork
digging up clumps of dirt from the ground a few yards
away from the tracks. They piled the dirt into a mound;
then Nancy pushed out a well in the center of the pile.
“What are we doing?” George asked.
“Making modeling clay,” Nancy said. Slowly, she
dribbled a little water from the bucket into the well in
the center of the mound of dirt. Little by little, she
pulled dirt from the edge of the pile into the well of
water in the center. As the dirt absorbed the water, it
became gooey.
“Looks like we're making mud to me,” George said,
shaking her head.
“Exactly,” Nancy agreed. “Mud pies.”
Carefully, she added more water, then more dirt,
then repeated both steps until she had the consistency
she wanted. It was no longer gooey; it held together
like clay. When she pressed the palm of her hand into
it, it made a perfect print. “Hand me a board,” she said.
George handed Nancy one of the short pieces of
board from the shelter. Nancy smeared some of the
clay she had made onto the board, then placed it, clay
side down, on one of the tire tracks. “We have to push
very gently,” she said, pressing carefully with just a few
fingers. “We want to get the print, but we don't want to
smear it, and we don't want the clay to fall off.”
It took a few attempts, but she finally got the
technique right—just the right amount of mud-clay on
the board, just the right amount of pressure against the
tire track. By that time, the track she had been working
on was too smeared to be of any use, but she and
George imprinted the other tracks.
When they were finished, they had four boards
imprinted with tire tracks and laid out, clay side up, in
the sun to dry. George gazed into the distance,
shielding her eyes from the light. “I think I see Bess
and Kincaid returning,” she said.
“Let's look around a little more until they get here,”
Nancy said, leading George back into the corral.
When Kincaid and Bess arrived, they were tired and
discouraged. “We found nothing,” Bess said, slipping
down off Miss Penny. “The trail just petered out.”
“It looks like they went over the grass at one point,”
Kincaid said, “and we couldn't pick up the trail after
that.”
Nancy and George showed them the models they
had made of the tire tracks, and Bess's and Kincaid's
spirits seemed to lift a little.
“We were just looking around to see if we could find
any more clues,” George said.
“We'll help,” Bess said as she and Kincaid joined the
search. Occasionally, one of them would find
something, but none of the items seemed significant.
Bess found a hammer, but Kincaid recognized it as one
of her dad's. They came across some rusty barbed wire,
shotgun shells, and a coil of rope, but Kincaid had
explanations for all of them.
“Hey, what's this?” George called out. She held up a
curved gray-white object, about eleven inches long.
The other three rushed over. “Oh, that's a tooth,”
Kincaid said casually. “Probably from a saber-toothed
tiger. Keep it.” She turned and walked back to where
she had been searching.
“A saber-toothed tiger!” George said, turning the
object over in her hand. “Cool.”
“Sure,” Kincaid called back. “We find stuff like that
all the time. This whole area is crawling with
prehistoric remnants. People come from all over the
world to set up digs around here. Here's some petrified
wood.”
She reached down and picked up two pieces of what
looked like rectangles of red-brown stone. The surfaces
looked as if someone had run a comb over them,
etching tiny lines in the rock.
“This is why I call it one of my secret places. This is
almost at the center of our ranch. There's no road here.
Part of the area is concealed by the hill. I have several
places like this scattered around where I've done some
archaeological digs. It should have been a very safe
place for Lulu and Justice.”
She gave the pieces of petrified wood to Nancy, then
said, I know that looking for clues is important, but I've
got to tell my parents what happened. I'm going back.”
Nancy could hear the distress in Kincaid's voice. She
was sure the initial shock was wearing off. The full
impact of what had happened was beginning to register
with her new friend.
As she turned to leave the area, Nancy noticed
something shining in the grass. “Look,” she said. “This
may be something.” She leaned over to look closer. As
the others gathered around her, Nancy untied the
bandanna from around her neck and used it as a glove
to pick up a big, rusty metal disc.
“Looks like a hubcap,” George said.
“Yeah, but a weird one,” Bess said, squinting in the
sunlight. “What's that mark in the middle?”
They all looked closer. It was an old hubcap, dented
and poc
kmarked with rust. “It looks like some kind of
design,” Nancy said, looking at the rusty scratches
across the center. “Could it be the brand of one of the
ranches?”
Kincaid leaned in to look closer. “I don't recognize
it,” she said. “But it's so messed up, I can't really see
what it is exactly.”
“But it's not familiar to you, right?” Nancy asked. “It
wouldn't be from one of the vehicles on your ranch?”
“No,” Kincaid said, shaking her head.
“Maybe it's from the vehicle that took Lulu and
Justice away,” Bess said. “Nancy, that's a real clue.
Kincaid, I'm sure we're going to find Lulu and her
calf.”
“Oh, Bess, I hope you're right,” Kincaid said. “I'm
going back. Do you still want to look around? I can
send someone to lead you home.”
“No, I'm ready to go,” Nancy said. Carefully, she
picked up the hubcap with her bandanna and gently
slipped it into her saddlebag.
The others mounted their horses, and Nancy
handed each of them a board with the tire track
impression. Kincaid, George, and Bess carefully held
the short boards in front of them. Nancy placed the
board she would carry on a pile of rubble from the
destroyed shelter. Then she climbed on Paha Sapa and
walked him over to the pile so she could pick up her
board.
She started to reach for the board to hold it over her
horse's back for the journey home. As she leaned over,
Paha Sapa became a little jittery. He backed up,
turned, then moved forward again. A whinny of protest
rippled his lips.
“Easy, boy,” Nancy cooed to the Appaloosa. “Just let
me get this board and we'll start on home.” Paha Sapa
would go only so far forward, and when Nancy urged
him on, he resisted.
“What's happening?” George called.
“My horse won't get near that pile of rubble,” Nancy
said. “I'm trying to grab the last board.”
“Here,” Kincaid said, riding over. “I'll get it and
hand it to you.”
They both heard the sound at the same time. It
started soft and slow, then grew loud and very fast.
Nancy saw the snake first, almost camouflaged in the
wreckage. It was a thick, mottled coil with a tapering
head in the center. At the end of its tail, a small brown
rattle shook with menace.
“Kincaid! Do you see it?” Nancy whispered.
“No, but I sure can hear it,” Kincaid said. She reined
in her horse. “There it is. I see it.”
Nancy could feel Paha Sapa's heart beating as she
tried to calm him. Her own heart was pounding just as
fast.
Suddenly—as if it were on a spring—the snake shot
forward.
3. A Chilling Call
Paha Sapa reared up, and Nancy slipped down on the
saddle. She threw her arms around the horse's huge
neck and clung there.
“Nancy!” Kincaid said. “Hold on. I'll take care of the
snake.” She reached for the pitchfork and rode to
where Nancy was desperately trying to stay on her
horse.
Paha Sapa was still reared up, dancing on his rear
hooves, trying to dodge the poisonous fangs of the
rattler. The snake sidled this way and that, aiming for
the legs of Nancy's horse.
Nancy's arms were still wrapped tightly around Paha
Sapa's thick neck, her fingers holding the reins so
tightly they were numb. She was hanging almost
vertically, her legs dangling out of the stirrups.
At last Kincaid and her horse, Misty, reached Nancy.
With one experienced swoop, Kincaid thunked the
pitchfork into the rattlesnake, directly behind its head.
Its tail thrashed for a moment. Then it was still.
“Easy, boy, easy,” Kincaid cooed to Paha Sapa. At
last the great horse lowered its front legs back to earth.
Nancy, her hands still grasping the reins and the
horse's neck, plopped back onto the saddle.
“Thank you,” Nancy said, smiling at Kincaid. “I sure
understand the term horsepower now.”
Kincaid picked up the last board with the clay tire
tracks and handed it to Nancy. Nancy placed it gently
over Paha Sapa's back. She held the board tightly with
one hand and gave her horse several grateful pats with
the other.
At last, carefully holding the boards across their
horses' shoulders, the four friends headed toward the
open pasture. They followed Kincaid along the trail
back to the ranch compound. After they put their
horses into their stalls, they carried the tire impressions
up to the ranch house. Nancy also carried the hubcap,
which she had dropped in a burlap bag she had found
in the stable.
Melissa stepped off the back porch to greet them.
“What on earth are those?” she asked as the girls
arranged the tire track models on the grass.
“This is terrible,” Melissa Turner said when her
daughter told her what she and the others had
discovered. “Lulu and Justice. Kincaid, honey, I'm so
sorry. I know you feel awful, but don't worry. We'll get
them back, I'm sure. Your dad's in town picking up
some feed. I'll call him.”
Nancy saw the sadness in Mrs. Turner's eyes. She's
not that sure, Nancy thought. She's trying to cheer up
Kincaid, but she's worried that they'll never see Lulu
and Justice again.
Nancy and the others followed Mrs. Turner into the
kitchen to call Kincaid's father. Then she called the
sheriff. “They'll both be here as soon as they can,” she
said when she finally hung up the phone. “Your dad's
real upset,” she reported to Kincaid, putting an arm
around her daughter's shoulders.
Mrs. Turner sighed, peered out the kitchen window
and then back at her daughter. Nancy could see that
Kincaid's mother was also very upset. The broad
welcoming smile she had greeted them with had
changed—her lips were now set in a tight straight line.
Nancy was sure she was fighting back tears, too.
“You go get cleaned up,” Mrs. Turner finally said.
“I'm going to start dinner. By the time we get through
talking to the sheriff, it'll be time to eat.” She took a
deep breath.
George followed Kincaid and Mrs. Turner into the
huge kitchen to help with dinner before freshening up.
Nancy and Bess headed toward their cabin, Nancy
carrying the burlap bag with the hubcap in it. When
they arrived, she slipped the hubcap out of the bag and
onto a small table by the window.
“What are you doing?” Bess asked, looking at the
odd scratches in the middle of the hubcap.
“I'm going to make a pencil rubbing,” Nancy said.
“Maybe then we can see the design better.”
“Nancy, what did you mean when you said that Lulu
and Justice might have been taken by a different
criminal?” Bess asked. “Are you saying thi
s might not
have been just a rustling? That maybe by tearing their
shelter up, someone was trying to give the Turners
some kind of warning?”
“It could be,” Nancy said. She took a blank piece of
paper and placed it over the center of the hubcap,
where the rusty scratches were.
“Or do you mean that maybe it wasn't a regular
rustling?” Bess suggested. “Maybe someone was
specifically after Lulu and Justice?”
“That's possible, too,” Nancy said. She took a soft
pencil and lightly rubbed across the paper.
Slowly, a picture began to form on the paper. It was
like a photographic negative—dark with faint white
markings in the middle.
“It sort of looks like a flower,” Bess said. “But not
exactly. What is it, Nancy?”
“I'm not sure,” Nancy said, standing up. “Well, let's
get washed up and back to the house. The sheriff will
be here shortly and I want to make sure he gets the
hubcap and this rubbing.”
Nancy and Bess returned to the ranch house just as
Bill Turner strode in. He was tall and handsome, with
brown wavy hair. He looked very angry, but when he
gave Kincaid a lopsided grin, his whole expression
changed. “Don't you worry, honey,” he said. “We'll get
that buzzard once and for all, and Lulu and Justice will
be back before you know it.”
Kincaid hugged her father, burying her tear-
streaked face into his shoulder. Nancy watched as
Kincaid's parents flashed worried glances at each other
over Kincaid's head.
Then Mr. Turner focused on Nancy. His dark blue
eyes squinted as he stared at her intently. “Missy tells
me you're quite a detective,” he said, nodding toward
Melissa Turner. “Let's see what you brought back.”
As the girls showed Kincaid's father the tire track
impressions, Nancy heard the sheriff's truck pull to a
stop outside the ranch house.
“Hi, Bill . . . Melissa,” the sheriff said, tipping his
wide-brimmed hat. “What's been happening here?
More bison gone, hmmm?” He reminded Nancy of a
football player with his thick, muscular body and close-
cropped blond hair. Nancy figured he was probably
about the same age as Kincaid's parents.
“Matt, this has got to be stopped,” Mr. Turner
yelled. “This time it was two of my daughter's—the one
from the fair and her calf. They were isolated from the