your cover work! We have a visitor here—a friend of
Kincaid's—who'd like to talk to you about the
illustration. Her name is Nancy Drew. Give us a call
when you get in, please. Thanks.”
She hung up and turned back to Nancy. “There you
go,” she said. “I'm sure he'll call as soon as he gets in.
I'll let you know. By the way, I talked to Matt about
setting up a call with Badger Brady so you could check
out his phone voice. Matt said just call him and he'll
take care of it.”
“Thanks a lot,” Nancy said.
“Let me know if there's anything more I can do,”
Mrs. Turner said. “I feel so frustrated. We've got to get
to the bottom of this, Nancy.”
“We will,” Nancy assured her. She gathered up the
press kit and headed back to the guest cabin,
determined to find out who was causing so much
trouble for the Turners.
Kincaid was waiting at the cabin when Nancy walked
in. “I called Sheriff Matt,” Kincaid said. “I told him
about the hubcaps. He's going to take the one we
found up to Beauforêt and question Antoinette
Francoeur himself.”
“Good,” Nancy said. “I talked to your mom, and she
thinks the brochure was illustrated by a local artist
named Jack Allbright. She left a message on his
answering machine to call us when he gets back. By the
way, she thinks the buffalo look like Lulu and Justice,
too.”
“What if it is, Nancy?” Kincaid asked. “Maybe that's
proof that Miss Francoeur took them.”
“Let's wait till we talk to Allbright,” Bess said.
“Don't get your hopes up.”
“Bess, we have two more calls to make,” Nancy said,
“and you have to make one of them. I'm afraid
Antoinette Francoeur would recognize my voice from
our confrontation in her auto barn.”
Nancy reached for the phone. “Kincaid, what's the
name of a good lunchroom or tearoom in town?” she
asked. Then she coached Bess on what to say to Ms.
Francoeur.
Bess dialed the number printed on the Justice for
Animals brochure. “Antoinette Francoeur, please,” she
said into the receiver at last. She listened for a
moment, then said, “This is Bess Marvin. I'm calling
about starting a young adult chapter of Justice for
Animals.”
She waited for another minute, then smiled at the
others. “Ah, Ms. Francoeur,” Bess said into the phone.
“I am so excited about your organization—and about
the opportunity to speak to you.
“In fact, a few friends and I are organizing a young
adult league for the liberation of animals. We plan to
visit schools and carry our message to students. We've
also been thinking of affiliating ourselves with Justice
for Animals. Perhaps we could meet tomorrow at
RuthAnn's Tea Room to talk.”
Bess paused to listen, then spoke again. “How about
lunch? One o'clock would be perfect. We'll meet you
then. And thank you.”
“She'll recognize us as soon as she walks in,” George
said. “She'll be furious.”
“Maybe,” Nancy said. “But I think she really believes
in her cause. If we can convince her we do, too, we
might win her confidence.”
“And then what?” Kincaid asked.
“I'm going to question her. Find out about that
hubcap. Maybe we can get some answers.”
“But think about what that shelter looked like,
Nancy,” George said. “Do you really believe she would
tear it apart like that? It was a mess. She had to have
help.”
“I agree,” Nancy said. “All we know is that one of
her vehicles may have been there. We don't know who
might have been driving, why they were there, or what
they did while they were there. That's what we need to
find out.”
“I believe that Miss Francoeur took Lulu and
Justice,” Kincaid said.
“As Nancy said, we don't have any real proof,” Bess
said.
“But don't you see,” Kincaid continued. “I have to
hope she took them because then at least I know
they're okay. She wouldn't hurt them.” Kincaid's voice
dropped as she spoke her next words. “If Badger took
them, I'll never see them again.”
Nancy felt sorry for the young woman. She knew
Kincaid was right. She also agreed with Clayton that
Brady was the more likely culprit. But if Badger Brady
is the rustler, she asked herself, what was Antoinette
Francoeur's hubcap doing near Lulu and Justice's pen?
“You said you had two more calls, Nancy,” George
said. “Bess made one. How about the other?”
“I want to call the sheriff,” Nancy said. “Mrs. Turner
said she'd have him rig up a phone call between
Badger Brady and me. I want to see if I recognize his
phone voice.” She checked her watch. “I think we still
have time to get it done before Clayton comes to take
us to Brady's ranch.”
“By the way,” Kincaid added, “I told my folks you're
driving out to see the Badlands. I don't think they'd be
too thrilled to know you were poking around Badger
Brady's. They'd be worried.”
“Good idea,” George said.
“Also,” Kincaid said in a soft voice, “I'm not going
with you.”
“What?” Bess said. “Why not, Kincaid?”
“Nancy, I'm sure you know what you're doing,”
Kincaid said. “Looking for clues is really important.”
She sighed. “But I want to find Lulu and Justice first,”
she continued. “Then I can worry about who took
them. I want to ride along the perimeter of the ranch
today. I know Lulu, and in my heart I know there's no
chance that she just wandered off. But I have to check,
just in case.”
“Do you mind if I stay with Kincaid?” Bess asked. “I
can keep her company and help her look.”
“Not at all,” Nancy said. “It's a good idea.”
Nancy dialed the sheriff's number, then asked for
Matt Switzer. She felt a ripple across her shoulders as
the deputy spoke. Slowly she hung up the phone and
turned to the others.
“Sheriff Switzer is in the hospital,” she reported.
“He was shot by Badger Brady when Brady escaped
from jail!”
10. Bad Times at the Badlands
“Matt's been shot?” Kincaid said, her face pale. “How
is he?”
“He's in surgery right now,” Nancy said.
“When did it happen?” George asked. “And how?”
“About an hour ago,” Nancy said. “Brady's brother
helped him escape. He's the one who actually shot
Sheriff Switzer.”
“I told you about his family,” Kincaid reminded
them. “They're nothing but trouble. I have to tell my
folks,” she added, racing to the door.
“I'm still going to Brady's ranch today,” Nancy said.
She felt a flush of determination surge through h
er.
“Actually, it should be pretty safe. It's probably the last
place he'd go.”
“Are you sure?” Bess asked, worried. “I don't know,
Nancy. If he's escaped, he doesn't have much to lose.”
“I know, but I still want to look around out there,”
Nancy said.
Nancy and George gathered up their backpacks and
headed for the ranch house.
Clayton arrived a few minutes later. The others
brought him up to date. He seemed glad that Nancy
and George still wanted to go to Badger Brady's.
“Now, you be careful in the Badlands,” Melissa
Turner said.
“Oh, we will,” George said sheepishly. Mr. and Mrs.
Turner left and Kincaid and Bess helped Nancy,
George, and Clayton load Clayton's car.
It took them twenty minutes to pack up all the
provisions Kincaid and Clayton thought they needed.
They took sandwiches, fruit, sodas, chips, gloves, boots,
binoculars, flashlights, cameras, a cell phone, rope,
knives, a first aid kit with snakebite medicine, extra gas,
and lots of water.
“By the way,” Clayton said, rearranging the boots.
“My dad tells me that some young women were
spotted on the mountain near Lincoln's head last night.
He asked me if I knew anything about it or them. I told
him I didn't—and it was the truth. But it sure sounded
like someone I took up there once,” he added with a
grin.
“Shhh,” Kincaid warned him. “It was us, okay?
Nancy and George will tell you about it on the drive
out to Badger's. We managed to get back, in last night
without my parents' finding out about it. Let's keep it
that way.”
Bess peeked in the window of Clayton's car. “I don't
know where you expect anyone to sit,” she said. “This
car's a mess.”
Clayton leaned into the backseat and swept papers,
rocks, and books into a bag. More stuff covered the
floor and the front seat.
“Clayton is even more into fossils and prehistoric
digs than I am,” Kincaid said, “as you can see.”
“Wow,” George said, picking up a small skull.
“What's this?”
“That's a prehistoric miniature camel skull,” Clayton
answered. “I found it out near where we're going
today, actually.”
“In the Badlands?” George asked, turning the skull
around in her hand.
“No,” Clayton said. “If I had I couldn't have kept it.
It's against federal law to take fossils or plants or
anything out of the Badlands.” He shoved more stuff
into the corner of the backseat.
“Old-timers talk of seeing wagonloads of prehistoric
fossils carted out of there,” he continued. “But it's been
illegal since it became a national park in 1939. That
doesn't stop some people, of course. Poachers are
always being caught in there. It's such a wild area, and
it's hard to keep track of everyone.”
He lifted a cooler of sodas into the car. “I dug that
skull up near the Badlands, though,” he said, “on a
friend's property.”
“Hey, what's this? This looks like a whole bag of
bones,” George added, picking up a large lumpy plastic
bag from the floor of the backseat. She and Bess
looked inside the bag.
“Not camel bones, though,” Bess added with a
laugh.
“Nope. These are more from the prehistoric
rawhide-chew-osaur,” George said. She pulled a dog's
chew toy from the bag. It was made of rawhide and
shaped like a thick bone.
“For Brutus, right?” Kincaid said. “Clayton's got this
monster Great Dane named Brutus,” she added as
Clayton nodded. “This huge bag will probably be gone
in a week.” She threw the bag of chew toys onto the
floor of the backseat.
“Okay, pile in,” Clayton said.
Nancy climbed into the back, and George rode next
to Clayton in the front as they left for Badger Brady's.
On the drive Nancy and George caught Clayton up
on what they'd seen the night before at Beauforêt.
They told him about finding the truck with the
matching hubcaps and that the sheriff was going to
question Antoinette Francoeur.
George filled him in on the most treacherous part of
the evening's activities—the ride over Mount
Rushmore.
“Kincaid is fearless,” Clayton said, shaking his head.
“And her mom and dad are really great. We have to
help them find out who's doing this.”
“With Nancy in charge, we will,” George said.
“Well, I hate to say this,” Clayton said, “but I just
can't figure Antoinette Francoeur for a rustler. Now
Badger Brady, on the other hand, fits the bill
perfectly.”
Nancy studied the map she had taken out of her
backpack. “Kincaid marked an old road here that she
thinks leads to Brady's,” she said.
“This is all the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands,”
Clayton said, sweeping his arm around. “The Pine
Ridge Reservation is over there.” He pointed to a spot
in the distance.
“I'm going to take the scenic route to Badger
Brady's and drive through the Badlands,” he said.
“Good,” George said. “That way we can truthfully
tell the Turners we were there.”
“Okay,” Nancy said. “As long as it doesn't take too
much extra time. I really want to get to Brady's as soon
as possible.”
“Actually, it's just as quick to go through the
Badlands as it is to go around,” Clayton said. “The trick
is not getting too sidetracked by the beauty and
weirdness of the place.”
When they first reached the Badlands, Nancy could
hardly believe her eyes. Clayton drove onto Sage Creek
Rim Road and pulled into a vast natural fantasyland—a
wild, unexpected part of South Dakota.
“There's no place on earth like this,” Clayton said,
gesturing with abroad sweep of his arm. Some parts
looked like the Southwest, with deep, rough-cut
canyons and gorges. Other areas resembled the surface
of the moon, with softly rounded craters and pits. Still
other areas looked like nothing Nancy or George had
ever seen.
In the distance, on the upper grasslands, a herd of
antelope and some prong-horned sheep grazed.
Overhead, a golden eagle soared from a huge canyon
up to mountainlike spires and narrow pyramids of rock
that all ended in rounded-off points.
“It's almost as if we're seeing the ruins of some
ancient walled city,” Nancy said. “Only everything is
made of rock.”
“And look at the colors,” George added. The rock
walls were layered in hues of blue, purple, gold, and
reddish orange.
As they drove, they passed a huge community of
prairie dogs that had built a town of their own.
Hundreds of mounds and humps rose from the
ground. The little animals popped in and out of their
homes in frantic bursts of activity.
The landscape was so unreal, Nancy felt as if she
were in a dream. As she watched out the window, a
herd of bison came into view. They were grazing in a
great basin surrounded by domes and pyramids of rock.
Clayton drove around until they reached an
unearthly sight—thousands of pointed spires of rock
that reached sixty feet into the sky.
“This is so wild,” George said. “Let's stop—just for a
minute.”
“This area is called the Pinnacles,” Clayton said as
the three stepped out of the car at a lookout spot.
There was only one other vehicle parked there—a
dusty black pickup truck.
“Come on,” George said. “Just a short hike. I have to
see what it feels like to be standing down at the
bottom.”
Before anyone could stop her, she had started down
a rough path that led to the floor of the dense
formation of huge pointed rocks. Within minutes she
was out of sight, hidden among the tall spires. Skidding
and sliding, Nancy and Clayton followed her trail,
weaving in and out of the tall pointed columns.
The Pinnacles were so dense, Nancy caught sight of
George for only a few seconds at a time. Then as soon
as she appeared, she rounded another column and was
hidden again. It was almost like being in a huge
prehistoric maze.
Nancy felt a little disoriented as they wound around
and through the Pinnacles. For a second, she
wondered how they would ever find their way back to
the car. She tried to find a landmark to help her
pinpoint a position. But when she looked up, all she
saw were hundreds of pointed rock spires and small
patches of blue sky. Ahead and all around was nothing
but the Pinnacles.
After twenty minutes of winding and weaving,
Nancy did spot George. She was sitting on a small
ledge a few yards up the side of one of the Pinnacles. A
pair of binoculars hung around her neck. When George
saw Nancy and Clayton, she put a finger to her lips to
motion them to be quiet. Then she gestured for Nancy
to climb up and join her.
The ledge was small so only Nancy joined George.
George handed Nancy the binoculars and pointed
through the Pinnacles.
From the ledge, Nancy had a better perspective
than she had at ground level. As soon as she had
adjusted the binoculars, she ignored George's pointing