Troy said.
Jack looked at him in disbelief. Who’d have thought Troy would know that? “Not really,” Jack said stiffly, still talking loud. “The carbonate dissolves out from the calcium when it gets on the surface. What’s left—that’s the stuff that builds up these terraces—is called travertine.”
“Yeah, but it starts out from limestone and limestone’s white,” Troy said, “so how come some of the rocks look pink and green and orange?”
“What a great question, Troy,” Steven exclaimed, making Jack want to grind his teeth. “The colors come from different kinds of bacteria and algae that have adapted to survive in really hot water. I have some books about it at home—when we get back, we can look it up. But now we better drive back and get Olivia before we get into hot water. She’s probably waiting for us.”
At the wolf office building, Olivia was sitting on the front steps, her crossed arms leaning against her knees. When she saw them she cried, “Don’t get out. Don’t even stop the car—we have to leave right away and meet Mike.”
As she reached to open the jeep’s front door, Troy leaped out of the back.
“I’m not going,” he said.
Jack groaned. Why did Troy have to be so difficult?
“What’s wrong, Troy?” Ashley asked.
“What about my mom? I want to find out if the police have heard anything.
Steven cleared his throat. “That’s reasonable, Troy. I’ll run inside and use their phone, but maybe I’ll call Social Services instead of the police. They’ll know what’s happening.”
“Why can’t you use Olivia’s phone?”
“Because it won’t reach that far. I’ve tried to call Jackson Hole on the wireless cell phone, but all these mountains around here cause interference. The signal gets blocked. So I need to use a regular phone, with wires. Okay?”
Troy nodded, and watched as Steven climbed the few steps into the relocation office. Olivia started to explain to the kids that Mike had already gone ahead, and they were to meet him at Slough Creek.
“I’m tired of riding in the tailgate, Mom,” Ashley complained. “How far is it to Stew Creek?”
“Not Stew Creek,” Olivia corrected her. “Slough Creek. It’s spelled S-L-O-U-G-H, but it’s pronounced like ‘he slew the dragon.’ And we’ll be there in less than half an hour.”
His eyes trained on the building in front of him, Troy twisted an end of his T-shirt into a thin rope. When he let it go, it fell into a mass of wrinkles. Finally, the screen door swung open and Steven clattered down the steps, shaking his head. “No news,” he said. “I’m sorry, Troy.”
Quietly, they took their places back inside the jeep. During the half-hour drive to Slough Creek, they kept their voices low—that is, the Landons did. Troy didn’t talk at all. “I did get some more information about the dog’s death,” Olivia told them. “They know wolves were in the area where the dog was supposed to have been killed. But they lost contact with one of the wolves, a young male. His radio collar stopped transmitting. He could have wiggled out of it, or the batteries might have failed, or—”
“Maybe he got killed, too,” Jack said.
“Mmmm, that wouldn’t be why the collar stopped transmitting. When a wolf doesn’t move for four hours, the radio collar goes into what’s called ‘mortality mode’—it gives off a really rapid signal. This wolf’s collar just stopped working, period. The whole thing’s kind of mysterious.”
The Landons discussed the possibilities, but Troy didn’t speak or move. He just sat with his hand over his eyes. Jack wondered if maybe he was crying about his mother. But no, a tough kid like Troy would never cry.
CHAPTER THREE
After they turned off the highway, they drove a few more miles down a dirt road to a parking lot in the middle of nowhere. A very odd place for a parking lot, Jack thought. But several campers and vans stood there, so people must have left their vehicles behind while they hiked the trails.
“This time everybody can get out and stay out,” Olivia said. “Because there’s Mike, waiting for us.”
A man came toward them.
The first thing Jack noticed was the man’s cap, decorated with a logo of a wolf and the words Project Wolfstock, Yellowstone—definitely not part of the regulation Park Service uniform, but cool.
The second thing Jack noticed was Mike’s expression. He looked very surprised to see all of them. “What’s with the kids?” he asked.
It was Olivia’s turn to look surprised. “Didn’t you get my messages? I called and left several voice messages on your answering machine—that we were bringing our own two kids and an extra one.”
“Shoot, Olivia,” Mike exclaimed. He took off his cap and scratched his head. “You wouldn’t believe the kind of day this has been! I’ve been out of the office all day because of all the trouble—demonstrators picketing, and about a zillion news reporters—”
“We heard about it,” Steven told him.
“I never even had a chance to check my voice messages,” Mike apologized. “Anyway, I figured it was just the two of you coming, so I only brought three horses. I wish we could take the kids with us—kids have such sharp eyes, they might notice things we miss—but there’s no time now to go back for more horses. If we don’t get started, we’re gonna run out of daylight.”
The tall horses were already saddled and waiting, stamping, snorting, and touching each other neck-to-neck. Their reins were looped around hooks on a red trailer that was hitched to a Park Service truck.
“That’s OK,” Steven said. “I’ll just stay here with the kids while you and Olivia ride up to the site.”
“No, Steve, that won’t work. I need you to take pictures of the scene. And we need to get there as fast as possible.” Mike tugged the brim of his cap, pulling it down to his eyebrows. “Not just because of the light, but because of scavengers getting at that dead dog’s remains. Every minute we wait, another raven comes to feed on the carcass. If we don’t get there soon to examine the area and take some good pictures, the evidence will be gone.”
Jack interrupted, “It’s OK, Mom and Dad. Us kids’ll just hang out here till you get back.” Before he even finished, he saw Steven shake his head.
“Can’t do that,” Steven said.
“Why not?” Mike asked. “They’re big kids.”
“No. Definitely no,” Olivia declared.
Troy scowled. “Because of me, right? You think I’m gonna run. Where would I go, around here?” He gestured at the steep hills that rose into even steeper mountains, covered with pines and thick scrub.
No one answered, because all of them knew that the road they’d driven in on cut through those mountains, right back to the highway only a couple of miles away. Troy could easily hike back
