7:32am.
The air conditioning was already running full blast as we pulled onto the road allowance and shut the engine down. Smoke and dust shrouded the horizon in a yellow-tan haze, and the wind rocked the half-ton in its tracks. A Red-tailed Hawk looked over at us from his fence post as if to say “What the fuck are you doing here?” His magnificent plumage barely rustled in a wind that was making power lines hum.
We stepped out onto the hard-baked valley top and geared up for another day of what I love best – heat, wind, dust, and tantalizing bits of Cretaceous goodness. That was the plan, at least.
Being an exceedingly dry year, we couldn’t drive off-road. Hot mufflers have been known to ignite grass fires. And if grass fires are fed with hot, prairie wind? You and everyone for miles will know first-hand what Hell is like. (Ask your Oma about the girl who barely survived a prairie fire by diving into the slough and staying submerged while the world burnt away around her.)
We started our long, hot march across potato chip grass, past bleaching, cracking cow bones, and around tipi rings that have silently weathered the elements for hundreds of years. Each breath was filled with the scent of sage and cooking grass. I took a drink even though I wasn’t thirsty…it seemed like the right thing to do.
Across the gently rolling valley top and down into the badlands we went, the temperature increasing dramatically as the wind died with our descent. My boots crushed several cacti that had died of thirst, and I began the familiar task of scanning the strata and searching the ground for the fossilized remnants of a greener, wetter time.
Have I mentioned how damn hot it was?
Despite the soul-crushing heat, tiny little song birds popped out of their sandstone shady places and whistled at me as I walked by. I took it as a sign, and marched on.
I love being amongst the birds and coyotes and the locusts that sound like Harley Davidson helicopters. But c’mon – where were the bones? Where were the usually plentiful turtle shell fragments? My eyes were watering from the swirling dust and the Montana grass smoke and I squinted at the burning ground a little harder.
Nothing.
Not a scrap.
Just powdered clay dust poofing up from my hikers.
If you recall the last time this happened, I took this as a sign of good things to come. If nothing else, Paleo can teach you a good deal about endless patience and eternally burning hope.
On I marched and on I scanned.
When the sun had climbed to its zenith, I happened upon a bleak and crispy piece of earth that lay just under a thin layer of sand and coal. I have had decent luck finding things in this particular layer before, so I stopped for a lengthy drink and a hard search.
Well Hell, whaddya know?
The drought was over.
Shattered bits of bone were smattered all over the slope, and had bleached almost invisible against the clay. The marrow was quite dense, so I guessed it to be Ceratopsian, and I excitedly started following the trail of fossil crumbs up the slope, looking for the source of all this goodness.
Up to the sand and coal lens I climbed, and almost squealed when I saw a small rib poking out of the hillside. Hell YEAH!! Out came my blade and trowel…careful…careful…oh so careful now…
It tumbled out of the loose sand and rolled to my knees, a very small piece of rib missing its ends.
No matter, I’d dig in a little more and see where that piece came from.
And all I found was sand and coal.
I dug several feet around the place I had found the rib and there was nothing but old roots and dust. Just one, random piece emerging from the eons only to roll to my knees and break my heart.
That was it, that was all. The sun baked my neck and I think some brain bubbled out of my left ear.
It’s always disheartening to not find anything uber cool, and this year was a Dino drought for me in all aspects except one.
On the way back to the truck, I came across a draw that wasn’t sun baked and parched. The prairie grass was rich, green, and lush. Red-wing Blackbirds circled all about and there were fresh deer tracks in the mud.
You see, the coulee wall had slumped and opened a fresh water spring into the draw. In the midst of all the drought and dry, scorched earth, here was a teeny sliver of paradise.
It told me no matter how disappointing and lifelessly dry things may get…there’s always something good right around the corner. You just have to hang in there.
Maybe next year, eh?
The Hillside Circus 
