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| The setting for Artifact of Deception is the canyonlands of northeastern Utah. With high hopes of solving the puzzle of a lost civilization, archaeologist Edwin Moncrief leads a group of students into the remote wilderness of Yellow Knife Canyon. Joining the project is a small group of Wataska Indians led by spiritual practitioner Joseph Two Horse. The project quickly begins to sour as the field camp is beset with discord and personal agendas. Moncrief and three loyal followers try to keep the camp together, but professional looters and the disappearance of two students bring things to a head in a full moon showdown between Moncrief and Two Horse. In this excerpt, Marilyn discovers an archaeological site that has been vandalized. She contacts Eddie and he rushes to the scene. |
| Author's Note: Looting the archaeological sites of the United States is big business, and the trafficking in illegal artifacts is a world-wide market, ranking third in monetary value to the tune of about $5 billion annually. Collecting artifacts from public lands or Indian lands, or diggiing up sites is a federal crime. Aside from the damage done to sites, this kind of activity is depriving us and future generations of our national heritage. You can help protect sites by contacting federal and state agencies and asking about site stewardship programs. And remember, when you visit archaeological sites, keep this in mind: "If you see, let it be." Enjoy, imagine, photograph and draw, but don't collect. Every artifact taken removes a piece of the past. |
| It was about a three-mile walk to Drovers Canyon. Eddie made it in about an hour. Coming up the north side he saw Marilyn waving from a rock shelter partially hidden by some cedar. Scaling the terrace he leveled out and walked to where she was standing. Then he looked to where she was silently pointing. Eddie could not believe his eyes. Toward the back of the rock shelter there were bones scattered, in no apparent order, over an area of about forty feet. They were human. Some were bashed and broken. There were skull parts strewn amidst them. Within and around the bone scatter there were deep holes and piles of dirt. The place had been thoroughly and horribly looted.
�Oh no!� Eddie exclaimed as he walked in for a closer look. He did not enter the scattered area. �Eddie this is horrible!� Marilyn said as she walked up beside him. �I mean look at this. They just didn�t pot the site, they ransacked it.� Eddie shook his head. �This is beyond looting. This is evil. We better get to work so we can catch the bastards who did this!� He looked at his watch. It was 9:30AM. They began by taking photographs of the damage, making sure to log the shot angle, the subject, the date and time of day. Next, with pin flags and string they gridded out the damaged area and began to map the locations of the strewn bones, the back dirt piles, and the holes. There were far too many bones and fragments to map in each one individually, so they mapped in areas where the bones were concentrated. Eddie was not a forensic anthropologist, but it looked to him that there were about eight individuals, maybe more, represented in the bone scatter. He had counted eight left thigh bones. They did not collect any of this or any of the scattered potsherds strewn about. Once they were done mapping, they photographed the grid and broke for lunch. After lunch, they began to look for evidence of recent activity. Now they were switching from archaeological site to crime scene. The first thing was to screen the back dirt, hoping to find evidence of the looters presence. Marilyn walked over to Dancer, who was drinking water from a large pan that Marilyn had brought along. She unhooked a screen and a shovel that Dancer had packed in, and Eddie and she began on the dirt pile nearest the back wall. Marilyn shoveled while Eddie did the screening. They had almost finished the pile when Marilyn tossed what appeared to be another meaningless heap of dirt into the screen. It was hot by now. Eddie�s hands were sweating as he began swirling his hands around in the dirt and pushing it through the screen. He was just about to toss the dirt out when his eye caught something in the corner of the screen. �Hold it.� He raised his hand and stopped Marilyn from tossing in another shovel full of dirt. Eddie carefully swept some dirt away from the object he had found. It was a small and narrow whitish object that was stuck to a small tear in the screen. �What is it?� Marilyn asked as she put down the shovel and peered into the screen. �Don�t know.� Eddie got out his pocketknife and poked the object. It was soft. �Marilyn, do you have any tweezers?� She nodded, went to her backpack, got the tweezers and handed them to Eddie. He picked up the object looked and looked at it. Then he smiled. �It�s a cigarette butt.� He instructed Marilyn to get a plastic baggie. When she returned, he dropped the butt into it and zip-locked it shut. Then he labeled the bag with an artifact number, took out his notebook and recorded it. The butt would be the first of six they would find in the back dirt piles. They all had a tan filter. On the longest one, there was a tiny camel stamped on the paper. After they finished with the back dirt, they bagged up several small samples of soil. Maybe soil like this was stuck to someone�s boot or shoe. It was a long shot, but they were instructed to collect any possible evidence. Next they began to survey the area, starting at the rock shelter and making their way down to the canyon floor. On their way they discovered a small lane where the brush and grass had been beaten down into a path. They followed it. It led across the creek bed, and into a small grove of cedar on the other side, where it disappeared. �Sure looks like a freeway to me,� Marilyn said. Eddie nodded. �Somebody was using this alright, and more than just once that�s for sure. Let�s look around.� Marilyn had gone about ten paces when she caught something gleaming a few yards away. She went over to inspect. Kneeling, she immediately recognized it. �Eddie, over here,� she waved. He came over at a brisk pace. �Look,� she pointed. �Flashlight batteries, two of them.� "Yeah, and partially rusted. Probably left here before that toad strangler of a storm we got last week. Eddie got up and looked around. He didn�t see anything other than a few downed cedar branches that had probably been ripped off by the wind. . |