Discovery Channels by coondogk9

Discovery Channels
by
� coondogk9

She sat there on her haunches wearing khaki shorts and a blouse
tied at the waist sifting. A middle aged pipe smoking professor from
the university stood puffing behind her. One hand on the bowl of the
pipe and the other in his pants pocket he stood overlooking the girls
work. A wrinkled pair of tan pants and shirt, papers of drawings
sticking out of his back pocket he surveyed the dig. An exploring
couple had run across the cave and found several pieces of pottery
laying on the floor of the half hidden cave. It was in a rocky
mountainside not visible from the base and you almost had to stumble
in it even if you were in front of it. Word spread after the couple
returned to school that spring about their discovery which in turn
found its way to one Damon Marcus head of archaeology at the
University. Now he and a small group of students under his direction
were sifting through the cave and tunnels hoping for a "find". Little
was known about the previous inhabitants of this region and this
could be the key they were looking for. They really didn't expect to
find remains of fossils or 1st man but only the life style and
culture of some previous tribe or clan having lived here. Susan wiped
dirt and sweat from her forehead with the back of her gloved hand. It
was humid in the cave although this was an arid region but that was
in part from their presence and they fully expected to find anything
there in a well preserved state. Susan was a third year student and
her passion was to one day be involved in a great discovery. Maybe
not of mind blowing world wide proportions but still somewhat rare or
worthy of attention. she'd been on several already some deep in the
Mexican jungle and others after some building or road work uncovered
some remains. Most of those turned out to be just country grave
sites or animal bones just like those of today's time period but
further back in time and of no value to science or history. She
herself in her early preteens had lived on a farm in New Mexico and
walked often to her friends house across the fields and down a fence
row often picking up a shard of pottery or a bone fragment and once
even a bone needle in perfect preservation and intact just as it was
the last day it was used. This was her most prized possession. She
treasured it and kept it in her jewelry box wrapped in a piece of
linen. Her friend Jennifer's father had a dairy farm just like her
own uncle had she lived with off and on and spent summers with. She'd
gone a year of school here in the past and had to walk 3 miles to the
bus stop. She rather enjoyed it and late in the year got a pony she
rode and left it in an old friend of her uncles pasture right at the
bus stop. He was an elderly man and so friendly. He farmed a small
plot there south of Albuquerque. He worked for the railroad and lived
in the city but kept the 3 room adobe to stay in on weekends and
vacation time. He had a daughter her brother was head over heels
madly in love with though she was six years his senior. But then
again he was also madly in love with Jennifer also. Hehehe, he fell
in love with every girl he saw but was too bashful to say much to any
of them. He just dreamed of them all time. he shared some of the
dreams with me but I think he kept the juicy ones to himself. He was
a year younger than me and I feel sure if I wasn't his sister he'd be
in love with me to.

Jennifer's father finally had to quit the dairy business as a man
found a loophole in the intrastate laws and bought surplus milk from
back east and then shipped it to New Mexico driving prices below what
it costs to produce it and many farms went under. My uncle always
lived on a shoestring and had older equipment and did all the work on
it himself. He spent more time repairing and piecing together than he
actually got to use it. He saw the opportunity to buy some good stock
cheap to add to his own and over the next year increased his heard
from 40 or so to over 900 head with 1/3 milking, 1/3 dry ready for
calving and the rest on pasture as yearlings. Well Jennifer's dad got
an idea. He sold off all his dairy and farming equipment and bought a
few pieces of earth moving machinery. He had the idea to lay out a
subdivision of property and sell plots after he worked the farmland
into building sites. I'm not familiar with all the terms but there
were new divisions sprouting up all over the country with people
wanting to move out of the larger towns and cities having raised
taxes, curbing and zoning certain areas and the rise in crime and so
forth. Mr Crosbey (Jennifer's father) began working the land.
Leveling and packing and surveying and more stirring up dust than
anything it looked like to me. The land was sandy and he'd stripped
it of any vegetation so it was dirty and I could only see him when
the wind blew. I'd see a large cloud of dirt moving back and forth
across the field and I knew in its mist was Mr Crosbey sitting in the
closed cab working away a whatever he was attempting to do. I often
wondered if he knew where he was or if he might feel a bump, open the
door on the machine and find himself in the living room or kitchen of
his own house. Hehehe. Jennifer and I played with dolls and played
house and at times I helped her and her mother in the kitchen. My
little brother was probably off with Lionnel (Jen's younger brother)
which was a good thing anyway. They spent hours down by the drainage
ditches or off playing cowboys and indians somewhere.
On morning I was walking to Jen's and noticed one of Mr Crosbey's
yellow tractors with its nose in the ground. it was strange looking
because it was stuck with its butt up in the air and the front was
out of sight. I walked across the loose ground and the closer I got I
could see it was in a large hole. As I got closer I could see it was
a big square hole and some broken posts sticking up. After I got
there I peered in and my heart stopped. There in the bottom on the
floor was part of a skeleton. I was so scared I couldn't even scream.
I thought something had happened to Mr Crosbey. I ran as fast as I
could back home. Breathless I gasp for air. My aunt rushed to me and
tried to find out what happened. I was so scared and shaking and out
of breath I couldn't talk. She got a wet rag from the pump on the
sink and began wiping my face. I slowly retold what I'd seen and
about Mr Crosbey laying under the blade of the bulldozer. My uncle
came in about that time and died laughing. I told him it wasn't
funny. He soon saw I was serious and walked outside and came back in
a rush. He told my aunt he was going over and see what happened as he
could see part of the tractor in the ground from here. He ran to the
old pickup truck and ground on it until it finally started. My aunt
had drug me along and opened the door and shoved me in then got in
beside me still wiping my face. I'd began crying by now because
everybody was so hysterical and unknowingly upset. Little did we even
notice my little brother had heard the truck start and was running
after us. He had followed until we were too far ahead to catch us
then saw we stopped way ahead and saw us getting out of the truck and
he ran toward us then. My uncle and aunt were over looking down and
then my uncle jumped down in the hole. I saw him climbing up the
tracks on the tractor about the time my little brother showed up. He
was panting and bent over with his hands on his knees trying to catch
his breath. I was still in the truck not wanting to see anymore. I
had vivid pictures in my mind of what I'd seen already. They came
back hurriedly and my little brother jumped in the back after my
uncle said we were going to Crosbey's and find out what happened. We
pulled up in the yard and everyone piled out. when we got inside I
saw Mr Crosbey on the telephone and nearly jumped out of my skin. Jen
and her mom started explaining what they knew so far and Mr Crosbey
was telephoning some people to see what they could or should do.
Everyone was full of questions and I sat back quietly listening but
yet not listening either. I still thought of the skeleton laying
there so bare and exposed. Who was it? Who had it been and what
happened? Soon the place was swarming with police, medical examiners,
doctors and others I have no idea what or who they were. The room got
so crowded I left and Jen came up and asked me what was wrong. I
began telling her I was the 1st one to see it then she held and
hugged me, then her arm around my shoulder she took me too her room
and I started crying again.

The next day I heard my aunt and uncle talking and said some
people came from all over the country and they took a lot of stuff
out of the hole and had it in Albuquerque at the University going
over it. For weeks I never left the house. Oh I did some, but not to
go over to Jen's or anything. Some men came several days afterwards
and my uncle said they wanted to see my collection of things I'd
found over the years. I drug the large box out from under the bed and
showed them. One of them wearing a mask and rubber gloves came in and
took it away. I was taken to a hospital and examined in my eyes, my
ears, and they scraped my hands and fingernails then took some blood
and ask me how I'd been feeling lately and if I felt any different
now than before I started picking up the things I'd found. I told
them I hadn't felt any different and when could I have my things
back. They said they weren't sure yet that they would have to run
more tests. Back home then I decided to go see Jen and tell her what
they'd done. As I neared the "place" I saw orange and yellow ribbons
on stakes driven in the ground warning people to stay away. I walked
under one of the ribbons and cautiously peered over the side of the
hole. It was clearer now after the broken posts and tractor was gone
and was cleaner. There was nothing there now but bare walls and hard
packed floor other than the big scratch in the floor made by the
blade of the tractor. The walls were lined with posts like a fence
but places where they were missing you could see adobe blocks like
our house was made of. There was a door made of rough boards and one
window boarded from the outside and an open door leading into a black
darkened room. I rose and started toward Jen's house. Jen and I went
into her room after greeting Mrs Crosbey and she hugged my neck then
kissed me on the cheek wiping it off next then assuring me everything
would be all right. Jen told me her and everybody had to undergo the
same tests I did earlier.

We never heard anymore from the university and when my uncle
inquired as to where my things were and when I'd get them back they
told him they had been taken to other places for study. I went back
home to Texas and went back to school with my little brother. My
family was back now after working in the oil fields in southern New
Mexico and mom had been working for a bank. Now dad was a mechanic
for a local garage and mom went to work for the bank there.
Later I discovered the inhabitants of the village the sunken house
was a part of had contracted a disease that almost or did wipe out
the whole village. It was abandoned and shunned I heard and finally
totally covered eventually by blow dirt and the ever shifting sand. I
sat and ran my fingers through the loose dirt. I found a small piece
of pottery with dull faded colors and placed it in the basket after
tagging it. I pulled the dirty gloves off and took a drink from my
canteen laying behind me. I sat back against the wall and reached up
and fingered my necklace. The small bone needle on a gold chain.

Vision Quest
� 2002 T Lovett

Home