Chapter 2

Chase was at a loss to provoke a greater reaction from the old paleontologist, so he left him digging under the cliff overhang and walked back out of the excavation. Kit followed, her face beginning to register more concern.
   They looked up at the moon floating in the slice of sky visible between the cliff and the gully wall, and a bolt of whitish-blue light radiated out from the lower horn of its crescent.
   “That’s what I’m talking about,” said Chase. The flash had lanced out toward the northwest and Bozeman. This particular beam was much brighter, and accompanied by a sound. A rumble like thunder emanated from high overhead just after the flash disappeared, rolling off the cliffs of Sandstone Mountain.
   “Do you think we’re in danger?” Kit asked.
   “I don’t know,” he replied. “I suppose there must be some rational explanation.”
   “Like what?”
   “Beats me, but that’s nothing compared to the aircraft—or spacecraft—that came through here. I think it may have crashed on the other side of the mountain.”
   Kit looked disturbed. “That’s where my father is, up with the herd.”
   “Well,” said Chase. “I’ll bet he knows what’s going on by now, even if the rest of us don’t.”
   She frowned. “I think I’ll go home, hopefully he’s back already.”
   “I’d be happy to tag along,” said Chase. “I’m curious about what’s over there.”
   “No,” she said. “My father’s not too partial to strangers. He wouldn’t be glad to see you.”
   Disappointed, he nodded his head toward Dr. Ogilvey, who clanked away with his shovel, oblivious to them. “If your father isn’t partial to people coming around, why does he tolerate that strange old bird?”
   “Probably because he knows it’s important to me. I found the first dinosaur fossils here when I was a kid. The museum sent Dr. Ogilvey to study them and—well, I’ve been interested in dinosaurs ever since. I lend a hand here whenever I can.”
   “Is that what you’re studying at the University? Paleontology?”
   “Yeah, as much as I can, but my father insists that I take classes in animal husbandry. He’s got his heart set on me running this ranch someday.”
   The air around them shook with the concussive “Whu-whump” of a distant sonic boom.
   “There.” Kit pointed to the source. A vapor trail streaked far up in the stratosphere. Whatever it was seemed to be moving incredibly fast but silently now that the boom had passed. There was time for only a brief glimpse before it disappeared behind the cliff.
   “The one I heard last night must have been closer,” said Kit. “It was a lot louder, like that noise a while ago.”
   The whinny of a horse echoed along the canyon.
   “Oh-oh,” she said. “I’ll bet that sound spooked Lucky. I’d better go check on her.” She called a hasty goodbye to Dr. Ogilvey, who seemed not to hear, then started hiking back up the creek bed.
   Chase followed. “Well, that’s about enough weirdness in one day for me. I’m heading back down to Red Lodge to find out what’s up. If you like, I’ll get on the CB radio and let you know. Or better yet, Kit—what’s your phone number?” It crossed his mind that even if no earth-shaking news was in the offing, this was as good a time as any to broach the subject.
   “Never mind,” she smiled. “Daddy and I can tune in the TV news on the satellite dish tonight. And if it’s anything really important, you can find us in the Red Lodge phone book.”
   “Sure. I guess you’re right.” Chase was inwardly embarrassed that she had detected his ploy—if that’s what it had been—and a little disappointed that she hadn’t played along.

A minute later, he paused at the hitching rail, watching Kit stroke her horse’s flank to calm her. She planned to ride the short way back to her house, down the game trail that followed the creek. He’d be taking the fence road.
   “Want help getting up?” He thought she looked a little short to make it into the saddle by herself.
   She looked at him critically, then grabbed the saddle horn, put a boot-toe in the stirrup and swung herself up easily into the saddle.
   “I can manage just fine,” she smiled. “See ya.”
   She touched the rim of her hat, then snapped the reins lightly across Lucky’s neck and cantered off down the little creek-side path.
   “Bye,” he called after her. He was puzzled by an odd feeling in his chest. He had only met Kit Daniels this morning but she was already getting under his skin like no female had in quite a while. He watched her move in unison with the canter of her horse, her small shoulders square under her wide cowboy hat, her blue-jeaned hips rising and falling smoothly to the rhythm of the gait. She sat a horse well . . .
   Darned if she wasn’t turning his head at a time when he ought to be keeping his mind on other things. He watched until she disappeared around a bend in the canyon, then he went to his pickup and began driving back down the fenceline road. On the way, he couldn’t help wishing she had wanted him to call. They had something in common, a mutual love of animals—though his were present-day creatures and hers were of the past.
   To be continued? he wondered as he reached the asphalt county highway. He turned right and headed for Red Lodge.

Kit picked up her small CD player from among the left-over breakfast dishes on the kitchen table and toyed with it. Normally she wore it attached to her belt and played CDs while doing chores around the ranch, but right now she realized its radio might be of some help. Radio reception was always an iffy thing this far up in the mountains, but now she turned it on and attempted to tune in first the Country station in Red Lodge, then a rock and roll oldies broadcaster down in Timberland. All she got over the headphones was static; not even a hint of talk or music behind the wall of scratchy noise.
   As she fidgeted with the radio dial, her mind wandered over the peculiarities of the morning. Ray beams shining down from the moon. Impossible. Dr. Ogilvey’s fossil civilization. That was impossible too. What she wanted to do most right now was to ride Lucky up to the prairie and find her Dad, to ask him what he thought about all this. But she knew it was possible he had already come down from the prairie before she got back and then driven into town. If so, she would wind up high on the plateau under that flickering moon with only Lucky and 600 head of cattle to answer her questions.
   No, she would have to wait on her father, at least for a while. As she took off the headphones and set the CD player aside, she wished she hadn’t been so perfunctory with Chase Armstrong. By now, he probably knew exactly what was going on up in the sky. He’d be telling her all about it if she had been more receptive to him calling or coming back with the news from Red Lodge.
   And why not be more open to a man as interesting as the wildlife biologist? Sure, her father had greeted him coolly this morning when he started asking about wolves on their land, and maybe a cattle rancher ought to be reluctant about someone bringing wolves back into the area. But she had no cause to be standoffish.
   Particularly since he was . . . well—awfully good looking. She ran over in her mind how he had appeared when she first saw him at the house, and then again at Dr. Ogilvey’s dig. He had exuded strength and smarts at the same time. And there was something in the way his dark hair hung down, a little long and unruly, from the back of his green cap, and the wolf-head patch on the front gave him a certain untamed—or untamable—essence. He was broad-shouldered and well built, tall and tanned; his Park Service clothes reminded her how her mother used to go on about her father’s sex appeal when he wore an Army uniform.
   The fact was, Chase Armstrong was a darn sight more interesting than most young men who came around Twin Creeks Ranch. Take the fellows her father kept sicking on her—local boys, ranchers’ sons who looked her over like she was some brood mare. Chase was nothing like them. The words stitched in the borders of the emblem on his hat, “Wolf Recovery Project,” symbolized a man who looked beyond his own time and place to see the world in a bigger, longer view. She liked that.
   The table was set back into the kitchen’s breakfast nook, with a cushioned bench beneath the windows. Kit kicked off her cowboy boots and pulled her feet up underneath her on the leather cushion of the bench, and let her mind ramble further.
   It would be nice, she thought, if Chase would drive up in his truck right now. She imagined him pulling in where the chickens were pecking in the loose hay below the loft doors of the barn. They would scatter, then he would get out and spot her sitting in the window. He’d wave and flash a smile and she would smile back, thinking to herself, “Here we go.”
   In her imagination, he closed the door of his truck and strode toward her like some jaunty knight-errant fresh off his steed, and she smiled regally from her seat in the palace window.
   Then suddenly her reverie was interrupted by the very sort of thing she had been imagining. The chickens flapped their wings and scattered in all directions, and a shadow, sharp-edged and dark, moved across the gravel in front of the barn to stop where the chickens had been. But when Kit saw the maker of the shadow she caught her breath in horror.
   This wasn’t the hero of the story—it was the dragon! Her eyes widened at the sight of a huge tan-colored animal, much larger than the largest grizzly bear she had ever seen, but nothing like a grizzly. It was a gigantic leather-skinned creature walking on two legs . . .