Coming Soon: THE NEW ECOLOGY OF DEATH!

Here is the cover art for my next novel THE NEW ECOLOGY OF DEATH. "There are two sides to every story! Even if one of them is undead." This will be the final word on zombies from me.

COMING SOON FROM SEVERED PRESS: THE NEW ECOLOGY OF DEATH!

Rare? Nope.

Certain old comics--even some from the Golden Age--are rather common. I've never quite figured out why this is so. I know the main reason for it--some specific issues just solder better than others. But why this is so, I can't say. What made one issue sell particularly well and thus made the odds for its survival as a collectible more even?

When I was a comic book dealer, there were just weird issues of books that I would always run into. Why were they more common than the issues that came out that particular year? Who can say?

For instance, I used to run into copies of Superman #63 and Superman #98 a lot! By "a lot", what I mean to say is that I rarely didn't have those issues in stock. And if you try to find a Superman #62, or a Superman #99...lots o' luck! Those are much more difficult to find!

One of the books in my collection is WALT DISNEY COMICS & STORIES #140. It's considered a "key" issue. That is, it's important to collectors because it has the first appearance of a Carl Barks creation who was used quite a lot over the years: Donald Duck's super-lucky cousin, Gladstone Gander. I always got a kick out of the stories that had Gladstone in them. They were a lot of fun.

However, this issue of the book is just very damned common. Many, many of them obviously survived over the years because I rarely go into a comic book convention when I don't find several dealers with at least one copy of that book in their stock. They're just very, very easy to find.

But what made it so attractive to kids that so many were purchased (and survived)? Was it the cover art? It's clever, but no funnier or more imaginative than many another Carl Barks cover. It couldn't have been the appearance of Gladstone, because it was the first story in which Barks ever used him. No one knew who he was, so the kids could not have approached the book with any amount of affection for him.

One thing I've always wondered about was if the color stock had anything to do with it. The cover is dominated by a bright yellow the surrounds Donald. Maybe all of that glaring yellow cover stock grabbed the eyes and attentions of a hundred thousand extra kids that month. Was this issue part of a promotional giveaway? I've never heard that. It's a mystery.

But I do have a very nice copy in my collection. They supposedly are priced at a slight premium because of Gladstone Gander's first appearance. But I always see them end up going for a lot less than the Guide price. Supply and demand rules.

My copy of Walt Disney's Comics & Stories #140.

Why Visit the Forest?

I can't speak for anyone else. But, for me, life in a crowded place become tiresome after only a short while. I get sick of the constant push of the people. Their voices grate on my every nerve. Each time I try to move from Point A to Point B and I'm blocked by an ambulance or an accident or just an old-fashioned traffic jam I die a little.

Table Rock Mountain State Park, South Carolina.

So, whenever I can, I have to get the hell out of the city.

Sure, just traveling to the countryside helps a little bit. But I can still hear the engines and smell the stink of diesel fumes. The call of the birds is partially hidden even there. Winds blowing through the pines takes a back seat to the constant hum of the goddamned roads.

No. None of that. I have to get away. Really away. If not into outright wilderness, at least into the general vicinity of such.

Hospital Rock Trail, Jones Gap State Park, South Carolina.

Only then can I relax and feel comfortable.

Sanity needs a recharge.

Get Out of Charlotte.

Carole needed a new pair of work shoes and there is a specific store in upstate South Carolina that she likes to use to find those shoes. So we got up early and headed down Interstate 85 to our neighbor to the south. We knew the shopping wouldn't take long, so we had some side trips planned in to the itinerary that would allow me to walk into the woods and see some mountains and maybe a waterfall or two.

As expected, Carole zipped in and out of the store in quick order. Then we stopped at a roadside stand to buy fresh peaches. After that, we were on our way to Jones Gap State Park. One place that has been on my to-see list for years is the Poinsett Bridge. This was a stone bridge commissioned by the then powers-that-be as part of a road to connect Greenville to Asheville. That road has long since vanished, but the bridge remains. It's a gorgeous thing to behold, and reminds me that humans can build things of beauty and not just of terror and destruction. Using a modified arch design, there's no telling how long this bridge can last if left unmolested by roaming flocks of ignorant assholes. (You can see where some graffiti has had to be removed.)

After visiting the bridge we took Old Highway 11 to Jones Gap State Park, stopping briefly at a roadside barbecue joint to pick up lunch to eat in the park. (The food at this place was excellent, so we highly recommend Burly Bill's BBQ on Highway 11!)

In the park we found a place to picnic and then went to explore the park. Jones Gap State Park is unusual in that it's a park mainly for people who like to explore such places on foot. There is only limited parking, and the camping there is walk-in only (or walk UP only, since the campsites are situated high on the slopes of the Blue Ridge escarpment).

I decided to hike up to see an overlook and a waterfall along the Hospital Rock Trail. When my back has recovered, I'd like to go hike the whole of this trail. The ranger had told me that there was "a waterfall" just before the overlook. I was expecting a small six or eight-foot tall cascade and was not prepared to see a genuinely impressive and very large waterfall to the left of the trail. Most of the view of it is hidden by leaves and limbs, so I ended up having to climb up the mountain via bushwhacking to get a better view. Then I had to carefully pick my way back down to the trail--not easy with an injured back.

After that, I headed back down to the main part of the park and to the parking lot where Carole was waiting patiently for me. Then we headed a little farther down the road to take a look at Table Rock State Park where Carole wants us to take the travel trailer to spend a few days.

Poinsett Bridge. A construction of pure beauty.

What little that remains of the old Greenville to Asheville "road".

You can see the problem with the locals. They even vandalize memorial markers.

Middle Saluda River in the Jones Gap State Park.

The Park office.

A pair of swifts had built this nest above a bulletin board beside the bathhouse. One was sitting in the nest, but she flew away before I could get a photo of her in it.

The basis of the park was once a fish hatchery. They saved this single pool when the hatchery was decommissioned (in 1963).

The Hospital Rock trail goes UP.

 

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.

Part of the big waterfall along the trail. This small cascade was below the trail. Most of the waterfall is above the trail.

The "overlook" was caused by a Duke Power transmission line that slices through the edge of the Mountain Bridge Wilderness.

I had to climb up to get this shot of one of the bigger drops on the waterfall.

When the big wildlife doesn't show, I look for the little critters. (I did see a large brown snake, but he was so scared of me that he slithered off so quickly that I didn't have time to take even one photo.)

Good old Table Rock Mountain. Yes, the South does have some impressive walls of solid rock.

Day Trip to Poinsett Bridge and Beyond

We took a day trip to upstate South Carolina so that Carole could hit a shop she likes. Then we visited a state park and an historic bridge in the SC high country. Details tomorrow.

This, the Poinsett Bridge was built in 1802. The fact that it still exists in the USA--which is notorious for destroying its historical architecture--amazes me.

The workmanship is phenomenal. No telling how long this arch will last if it remains undisturbed and protected from vandalism.

How'd I Miss That?

Damn. June 1st was National Trails Day! And I let it pass unnoticed. My fault, I guess for being too busy writing.

Well, in honor of a day I ignored but should not have, some photos of trails I have hiked.

Appalachian Trail (Don't go. Overcrowded, camping areas filthy.)

Yes, that's a trail. I swear it. Black Mountain Crest Trail.

Appalachian Trail at Carver's Gap, Tennessee.

Dolly Sods Wilderness, WV.

Panthertown, North Carolina.

A coyote was just in front of me along the Boogerman Trail, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Stone Mountain, NC.

Engineering help on Stone Mountain Trail.

Volcano, WV.

One of the rim trails in the Linville Gorge Wilderness.

Blue Lakes Trail, Colorado.

Trail in the Weminuche Wilderness, San Juan Mountains, Colorado.

Glacial moraine on the Chasm Lake Trail, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.

THE REZ (Chapter from a work in progress)

I'm blazing away on the new novel. I want to get this one in a finished state and to my agent. It's really flowing along at a good rate.

THE REZ

Trademark and copyright 2013

By James Robert Smith

Chapter Three

The boss was angry.

That was always interesting, but it was also generally scary.

Boyd Withers often just kept his head low when the Chief was blowing through the building like a hurricane in the Gulf. If you were on the edges of that storm you could generally watch in either horror or with some humor, glad that you weren’t in the worst of it. But if you were close to that low pressure point, hiding was probably the worst thing to do. If Hauser noticed you cowering, there would be Hell to pay.

“What in the Night of the Goddamned Living Dead do you mean?” That was a new one. Boyd hadn’t ever heard that one before. That meant that the Chief was particularly angry, so there would probably be some things worth writing down for later. To tell your grandkids. If you survived. “You can’t find him? We’re the goddamned Bureau! We can find anyone! We could find Jimmy-fucking-Hoffa if I told you to do it!”

Boyd heard someone trying to make an excuse. The voice was muffled behind the Chief’s partially opened door and the thick panels of at least two cubicles. Boyd didn’t know who that was on the receiving end, but he obviously didn’t know the top cop very well, because the man purely hated excuses. All he wanted were the facts, and if you tried to equivocate then you were toast.  Young Withers reached for his hat—he was just about the only agent in the office who bothered to wear a hat—and he was actually thinking of pulling it down over his ears to try to blunt the wind that he just knew was about to blow.

And, yes, it came roaring up out of those cigar-stained lungs like the release of a dinosaur’s rumble.

“I don’t give the first molecular speck of a rat’s shitty GOTT-damned ass about that lame crap.” Boyd didn’t know what that lame crap referred to, and would make it a point to never find out. “But I’m telling you to discover that motherfucker and nail down his location so that I will know exactly where he is.” There was a very brief pause while the object of the Chief’s wrath probably thought he was safe. He was not.

“I am giving you just half of a fucking hour to find his location and bring it back to me. Right here. Don’t phone it in. Don’t send a proxy to tell me. And whatever you do, don’t you fucking GOTT-damned email it to me. You come and stand right here!” Boyd rose from his seat to try to see who had made the boss so terribly angry. But all he spotted was Hauser’s gigantic shoulders and the back of his baggy, rumpled trousers and those huge size fourteen brown shoes he always wore. The man had the biggest feet Boyd had ever seen on a man who did not play pro basketball.

Hauser was pointing at the floor at an area that Boyd figured was between the feet of the man cowering before him. “You see that spot? Huh? That’s not a hole in the ground! It’s a fucking spot on my office floor! Do you know your ass from that spot? Yeah, that’s right! That fucking spot! In thirty minutes you will be standing on that spot telling where the FUCK that bastard is hiding out! NOW GET THE HOLY ROMAN FUCK OUT OF MY FUCKING OFFICE!”

The guy must have fled, because when Boyd looked again, Hauser was slamming the door shut. But not before the boss caught a glimpse of Agent Boyd Withers trying to get a peek at what was going on. He knew that because Hauser’s voice suddenly boomed over the PA system—like the voice of God, or of Lucifer—and he heard his name.

“Withers! Now!”

Sighing, he marched through the little maze of cubicles until he was at the door of the office of Chief Grady Hauser. Realizing he still had his hat in his hands, Boyd put it on his head. For some reason, Hauser liked for men to wear hats, even inside the office. He was pretty sure that fact had saved him from a couple of Hauser’s rages and maybe had something to do with the fact that Hauser liked him. Of course there wasn’t a lot of difference in how he treated people he liked from people whose guts he would like to spill.

Withers went in and closed the door behind him. In contrast to what had just occurred, the room was very damned quiet. Hauser wasn’t even breathing hard. The man probably had the constitution of a bull gorilla, which frankly speaking wasn’t too far off the mark of how you would describe him.

(Terrible Turpin created by Jack Kirby, copyright by DC Comics.)

 Hauser seemed to be wearing the same old rumpled suit that he always wore. People in the Department used to wonder if it was the same one, but it couldn’t be. He obviously had ten or twelve of the things and just liked the look. Because, bull ape aside, what Hauser really looked like to Boyd was one of those pugnacious cops that Jack Kirby would draw in those old Silver Age comic books that Withers collected. Hauser looked just like that—down to the loose, rumpled suits, trench coat, and chomping a big cigar. Withers had always kept that analog to himself, because none of the other agents seemed to read old comic books and there probably wasn’t anyone within a mile of him who even knew who Jack Kirby was.

“Chief?” His voice was low, and Boyd tried not to let it crack.

Actually, Grady Hauser’s proper title was Director. But he couldn’t stand being called Director. He’d been a police chief in two large cities (Atlanta and Chicago) before he’d been appointed two years before as acting Director of the nation’s new domestic espionage division. That had all arisen from the various storms of shit that had hit the fan in the years since the Rez had been constructed and all the world’s horrors tossed within its unbreakable borders.

Or almost unbreakable.

Someone had been sneaking in and then sneaking back out, with former inmates in tow.

This pissed off the folk in charge of the country, which meant that it was a problem for the Director to solve, which meant that it made Grady Hauser pretty goddamned cranky.

“Boyd,” he liked using an agent’s first name, especially if he liked that agent, or especially if he hated that agent and wanted to crush him like a fat bug on his office floor.

“Yes, Chief?”

The concrete block of a man turned to face Withers. He reached up with crowbar fingers and extricated the smoldering cigar from his James Cagney lips. He looked at the half-smoked cigar for a second, stuck it back in his mouth, and took a deep drag. Then he blew out the wonderful smoke and considered the world around him for a couple of more seconds.

“What do you think of us using the Rez as a prison?” Cigar now clenched firmly in his jowly mug, he glared at his young, blonde-headed, otherwise average-looking agent.

“That’s not for me to say, Chief.” Silence and cigar smoke descended around Boyd.

“It’s not?”

“No, sir.” He cleared his throat. “I’m an investigator for the Department of Internal Espionage and it’s my job to follow orders, to discover if laws are being broken, and to occasionally enforce those laws.”

“You don’t think we’re Fascist bastards, Boyd? You don’t think we’re all part of a burgeoning police state bound and determined to put our jack-booted heels on the throats of America?” To emphasize, he planted one of those enormous size-fourteen shoes firmly on the pale tiled floor of his office. If ever there had been a man born to jam his jack-booted heel in the collective throat of America, it was Grady Hauser. “According to the liberal fucking press we’re a bunch of dirty Fascist bastards intent on destroying our precious fucking freedom.” He blew another stream of smoke. “Do you agree with that?”

“No, sir, I do not.” Actually, though, Boyd figured the liberal press might have a point.

“You know what I think?”

“No, sir. Would you like to tell me?”

“Yes, I think I would.” He grinned, and seeing that was kind of scary. The guy was a great Director and a great police Chief, but damned if he wouldn’t have made a better actor. Monster movies. He wouldn’t have needed any makeup, either.

“What I think is that it doesn’t fucking matter if we’re Fascist bastards or not. Because we’re here, we’re in charge, and we have a fucking job to do. And, hell.” He stared at the floor, trying to recall the precise spot where he had told the agent to report within thirty minutes with that information. Because he wanted that guy to stand exactly where he had told him to stand. “I don’t really know what a Fascist is. Do you, Agent Withers?”

“I know the official definition, Chief, but I don’t really think that anyone knows exactly what they mean when they say the word.”

“Precisely, Withers. You’re a smart fucking kid, and that’s why I fucking like you.” That and the hat. The Chief walked over to his desk, located an ink marker and tossed it to Boyd.

“See that spot on the floor, Agent Withers?” He pointed one of those enormous sausage fingers at the tiles.

In fact, Withers knew exactly the spot, because he’d seen where the Chief had been pointing when he’d been covering the invisible agent with his breath and spit. “Yes, sir, I do, sir.”

“Take this pen and draw an ‘X’ there. Not too big. Someone’s gonna have to scrub it off later. But draw an ‘X’ on the floor and then get the high holy hell out of my office.” That was a new one, too. Boyd would have to make a note of that one.

“Yes, sir, I will sir.” And Boyd crouched, put the mark on the floor, returned the pen to Hauser’s desk and exited the office.

Outside, safe, he felt his anus unclench.

Overwhelming.

Well, that didn't take long.

The modern fantasy novel has overpowered the Iron Age fantasy.

One of my long-simmering projects has been a novel I call THE REZ. The concept is solid and the professionals I've asked to take a look have all had positive things to say about it. But I never could find the right way to tell the story. Initially the chapters I'd written seemed kind of dull, in a way. There was nothing bright about the prose at all and I couldn't figure out what was missing. But I knew that something was indeed lacking in the text.

And then, it hit me. It hit me like a beam of white light. I had to drop what I was doing at the time and run to the word processor and get it down. A couple of hours later I had it! Some of the best writing I have ever done, and certainly the finest hook I've ever put into a novel. Even better than the hook I planted in the reader with THE FLOCK.

I showed it to my agent (Bob Fleck) and he was impressed. THE REZ has now glommed all of the energy that I had apportioned to ONE CURSE, ONE BLESSING.

One thing I'd like to do is show the first chapter to everyone who reads this blog. But I'm going to hold off for a bit. It really is the finest fiction I've ever written. I want to make sure the train keeps rolling and I don't want to do anything to derail this beauty.

Ads

I kept getting recommendations to include advertisements on my blog. I do get a fair number of hits per day, so it seemed logical that I try to generate some money from all of the essays and photos that I post here. I figured the ads wouldn't be that intrusive, and some of my favorite blogs have them.

So I added them.

Then I saw a couple of ads for items that not only wouldn't I buy, but things that are offensive to me.

So I killed off the ads.

Don't worry. They won't be coming back.

So what if I don't make any money from my essays? I don't care. Every now and again I will get inquiries about rights to use some of my photos and I have earned some money from the blog that way. And I often use this place as a writing exercise for works that I later sell. That's payment enough for me. I can do without ads for obnoxious things--some of them downright vile.

From here on out...just the essays and the photos and occasional jots of works-in-progress.

Brilliant color in Kumbrabow State Forest in West Virginia in October of 2011.

Two Projects

In the past, I have worked on more than one project at the same time. Quite often, in fact. I have

been invited to contribute of anthologies when I was working on a novel. Or I have been toiling away on a short story when the opportunity to write comic book scripts has come up.

One thing that I've never done (with any success) is trying to write two novels at the same time.

James Dickey often worked on many projects at once. In the days before word processors, he would keep typewriters in several rooms in his house, each with a different poem on the roller.


A couple of times over the years I have tried to work on two novels at once, but what has generally happened is that one overwhelmed the other and I just ended up putting the weaker of the two aside until I could give it the attention it needed. In some cases, I saw this as a true and fatal weakness in the lesser work and killed it off.

The upshot is that I think I'm going to take a stab at working on two novels simultaneously. Both of them are fantasies, but one will be set in my mythical Iron Age world of Mangrove, and the other will be set in modern times. I'll see how it goes. It may work, this time.

Still Recovering

For the first time in...well, since forever (not counting when I'm on the road or on vacation), I haven't written any fiction in three days. Part of it is that I was so exhausted from my last project. And part of it is that I've been brainstorming new novels.

I've even been too tired to write an essay for the ol' blog.

Hell with it. Here are some photos to look at.

My hiking kryptonite: red spruce forests. I always get a little scared when I have to hike through red spruce groves. The sameness of the terrain puts me at risk of losing my way. I've gotten lost in red spruce forests on four different occasions.

Green Knob, in the Middle Prong Wilderness.

My campsite in Middle Prong Wilderness from a few years back. I have a three-day weekend coming up. I may go camping in this part of NC to relax and get back to nature.

Underwater

Since I finished THE NEW ECOLOGY OF DEATH I have been suffering from complete exhaustion. Frankly...I don't think I've ever been this tired in my life. When you work a regular job (as a laborer), writing is doubly difficult. I have, in essence, two jobs. It sucks the life out of me, sometimes.

Yesterday I slept for twelve hours straight. Today I fell asleep after coming home from work--conked out for three hours after my shower. My wife woke me up so that I could eat dinner. I'll go back to sleep soon.

That's okay. Another day or so of this and I'll be ready to tackle more writing.

Coming out of this exhaustion reminds me of being underwater. Thus, here are some underwater photos from our trip to snorkel and kayak some of the giant freshwater springs of Florida:

I took this one while swimming through the underwater tunnel at Seven Sisters Spring.

Lots of fish share the spring.

Some fish hang out at the outflow from the head spring.

Plenty of company!

The slope plummets down to the main spring outlet.

Lost Manuscript

Many, many years ago I was told about a publisher who was in the market for children's books. Adventure stuff, mainly, with a little mystery thrown in, and aimed at kids aged eight to twelve. What they wanted to see was a couple of chapters written in something like a serial style with a plot synopsis. So, in quick order I put together a couple of chapters and tossed in a plot and got ready to send it out. It only took me a day or so to get everything together.

And then I read that they had already filled their quota and weren't looking for anything else.

Ugh. News traveled slow in the days before the Internet and email. Well, the promising news traveled slow; but the disappointing stuff was blazing fast. I was still doing everything by the US Post and getting my information from newsletters in those ancient times.

Anyway, I found this old thing stored away on my portable hard drive. I did manage to salvage the setting, which I used in my adult horror novel, WITHERING.

A Dinosaur in the Neighborhood

by

James Robert Smith

                              

 

Chapter One

      "Are you sure a dinosaur walked past here?" Ernie asked his Grandfather Partridge.

     The sun was blazing hot on this summer day in Woodvine, but twelve year old Ernie was out hiking in the woods with his grandfather and his younger brother, Billy.

     "You'll see soon enough. There are lots of dinosaur tracks out here." Grandfather led the way. He may have retired his position as paleontologist years ago, but he still liked hunting for fossils.

     "I've never seen a dinosaur track," said Billy, who had just turned ten and was kind of a pest. "I'll bet if we found a real dinosaur, it would make a great pet."

     They were following a path through the woods, and it suddenly came to an end at a big outcropping of hard rock that baked in the sun. "You wouldn't make much of a pet out of the dinosaur that made these footprints," said Mr. Partridge.

     And there they were. A line of gigantic dinosaur footprints leading off across the rocks from where they were standing all the way to the forest on the other side of the outcrop. Billy put his foot next to the first one: like some giant bird track. His foot was tiny compared to the big fossilized imprint.

     "Gosh," he said. "What kind of dinosaur made this?"

     Mr. Partridge took a blue handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his forehead. "I'm not sure, Billy. But I think it was probably a Ceratosaurus, or maybe an Antrodemus--I mean an Allosaurus. They keep changing the names on a retired old professor," he added with an embarrassed chuckle.

     "Wow," Ernie said. "Those were both pretty mean dinosaurs. They used to eat big old Apatosaurus." He brushed back his brown hair, feeling the sun beat down on him.

     "You're right about that," Mr. Partridge agreed. He stepped out onto the rock and began to wander off downhill. He was gazing at the ground. Billy and Ernie knew how much their grandfather liked hunting for fossils. When he was concentrating on searching the ground, he sometimes forgot they were even there with him, visiting for the summer.

     "We're going to follow the tracks," Ernie told him. "While you hunt for fossils." Their grandfather nodded absently as he wandered away from them. "Let's go," Ernie said to his brother.

     The boys began to follow the tracks. They led far across the big expanse of rock, across the flats and uphill, toward the woods. "Look," Billy pointed. "He must have been following the smaller dinosaur." Sure enough. Where Billy pointed, you could see where a smaller dinosaur had been running ahead of the big one.

     "That must have been some chase, huh Billy?"

     "Heck, yeah! I wish I could have seen it."

     And then they seemed to be at the end of the trail. The tracks in the rock disappeared beneath the leaves and brush that formed the edge of the forest. Pine trees, tall and green, stood all around. "Ha. It looks like they both just walked off into the woods, doesn't it?" Billy was pointing at the greenery in front of them.

     "Sure does," said Ernie. "Let's go take a look in there, and see if the rocks poke up through the dirt. Maybe we can find some more tracks. Maybe we can find where the big one caught up with the little one."

     "Wow! That would be neat," Billy said.

     And they pushed through the bushes and went into the woods.

     "Gosh. It sure is dark in here," Ernie said.

     "Yeah. Maybe we should turn around. Maybe there really is a dinosaur still around here." Billy was craning his neck, looking all over the woods.

     "I doubt that," Ernie told him. "Dinosaurs have all been dead for about sixty-five million years."

     No sooner had those words left Ernie's mouth than the two boys suddenly heard something crashing through the underbrush. Something was coming through the woods. It was running fast, right at them! Something was headed their way!

     The brothers grabbed hold of one another and froze.

 

Chapter Two

     Suddenly, from out of the dark woods, Billy and Ernie could make out a movement. A blot of shadow was moving their way. And soon they were relieved to see that it was human. Two humans, in fact: a boy and girl.

     Both kids, carrying metal pails, saw Billy and Ernie and stopped running. The brothers could see that the pails were full of blackberries.

     "Hello." It was Ernie who spoke up first. "You two scared the heck out of us!"

     "We thought you were a dinosaur," Billy said before Ernie could stop him.

     "A dinosaur?" The girl, who, like Ernie, looked to be about twelve years old, started to laugh, throwing back her head so that her long black hair shook. "You two certainly look scared enough to have seen a dinosaur." Her little brother, Billy's age, was now laughing, too.

     "Come on," Ernie said. "Give us a break. We're staying way out here in the country with our grandparents this summer and we don't know our way around." He stuck out his tanned hand. "I'm Ernie Partridge," he told them as the girl shook his hand. "And this is my little brother Billy."

     The girl stopped laughing as she turned to Billy to greet him, too. "I'm Sally," she told them. "And this is my brother, Ted. We're staying with our grandmother, and she lives way off in the woods, near Shadowtown Swamp."

     "Shadowtown Swamp? My grandfather told us to stay away from the swamp. He says it's full of quicksand and alligators." Billy stared wide eyed at the two kids who could live in such a place.

     "Aw, it's not so bad," Ted told them. "Not if you know your way around. And we know our way around. Our grandmother taught us all the paths."

     "Anyway," asked Sally, "what are you two doing out here in the woods?"

     "We came out to look at the old dinosaur footprints with our granddad. He used to be paleontologist at the big museum in Atlanta, and now he lives out here, too." Ernie wiped at his face. It was hot and he was getting sweaty.

     "Oh. Those old footprints?" Ted was pointing toward the rocks which lay just beyond the trees they were standing in. "I've seen other footprints like those," he said. "But the ones I saw weren't in rock."

     "What do you mean?" asked Ernie.

     Sally was nudging her brother in the ribs, to get him to be quiet. But it was too late. He had a big mouth and once it got going, no one could stop it.

     "The tracks I've seen are in the swamp. And they weren't in any old rocks. They were in the mud!"