Upstate Uproar by Joan Rylen

up.
    The operator informed them that it could take
an hour for the sheriff to reach them and to please not go
anywhere. Wendy clicked off.
    Vivian groaned. “Why us? It’s always us! And
now we’re stuck here with it.” She cringed and looked down at the
u-shaped bone.
    “I’m sure they need us to stay here so they
know where to start looking for the rest of the body,” Kate
said.
    “Rest of the — ” Vivian’s stomach flipped and
she needed to put her head between her knees. “I’m gonna pass
out.”
    Lucy sat next to her and handed her the
CamelBak. “Have some water.”
    Wendy put her phone in the backpack and said,
“We ought to go look for the rest of the skeleton. I don’t like
this stuff, but it could speed up the process later when the
sheriff gets here. Get us back to civilization and our vacation
faster.”
    Kate sat next to Vivian and leaned against
the tree. “I’ll be right here. Someone needs to stay with the
jawbone. If y’all find something, don’t touch it. Leave that to the
experts.”
    “No way I’m going. Besides, buddy system,”
Vivian said, then looked at Lucy. “You’re it.”
    Lucy threw her head back. “This is a bad
idea. I’m only looking for blue dots. That’s it. My eyes are not
looking at the ground.”
    “Come on, chicken,” Wendy said, then looked
at Austin. “You, too, buddy.”
    He jumped up and ran in a circle.
    She rubbed his head, loving the feeling of
his soft fur. It reminded her of her flat-coated retriever,
Radar.
    Lucy caught up with Wendy as they walked
uphill. “This is definitely a really bad idea. What if there
are other scavengers, bears or something?” She looked around, eyes
off the ground. “I’m pretty sure they have mountain lions up here.
And bears. Big ones.”
    “Austin will fight them off for us,” Wendy
replied and watched Austin run ahead, nose to the ground. “He’s on
to something. Hurry!”
    Austin weaved between the trees and
definitely off trail. The girls lost him for a minute, then saw him
in the distance at a shallow ravine. He paced up and down the bank
but suddenly stopped and started digging at the base of a tree.
    “Austin, stop!” Wendy shouted as she and Lucy
raced to catch up with him.
    No use. Austin had dirt flying everywhere and
kicked it all over Wendy and Lucy as they tried to stop him. They
finally managed to pull him away from the turned up ground.
    Lucy led him a few feet away while Wendy took
in the scene. The ravine meandered through the trees and only had a
trickle of water. Leaves covered the banks and were bright red on
the tree Austin had dug under. Flooding had washed away the dirt
from the ravine side of the tree, revealing a tangle of roots and
leaving a cavity big enough to bury a large treasure chest, or
something much more sinister. If more soil were to wash away, the
tree would topple.
    Lucy released Austin and joined Wendy and
pointed to the base of the tree. “Is this where you think he got
it? How would someone wind up underneath there?”
    Wendy looked at a tree across the bank. A
pile of logs, leaves and mud partially surrounded the base. She
hopped across the stream and kicked at the closest log. It gave way
and rolled into the ravine with a splash. “Oops, I didn’t mean to
do that. The ground is really soft.”
    “You think someone got caught in a flash
flood and this is where he was deposited?” Lucy asked.
    Wendy hopped back across the ravine and bent
to get a closer look at where Austin had been digging. “I’m no
expert, but that sounds like a good theory. This tree could have
had a pile of logs and leaves like the one across from it, and that
could have packed in around the person and no one knew he was here
until another flood washed away the pile.”
    “Or maybe no one is buried here and someone
somehow died and his body was scattered to the wind, compliments of
animals and, like you said, flooding,” Lucy said. “Maybe, it wasn’t
a man who died. Maybe it was a