The Case of the Most Ancient Bone

by John R. Erickson

  They would trowel for a while, then scoop up the dirt and toss it into a white plastic bucket. When a bucket got full, a tall fellow named Mike picked it up and carried it to a screen. He wore a cowboy straw hat and had a silver mustache, and he would dump the bucket of dirt into the screen and shake it back and forth until all the loose dirt had fallen through.

  Then he would bend over the screen and pick out certain objects that he called “cultural material”: pieces of bone, charcoal, pottery, and flint, which he dropped into a small paper sack with writing on it.

  At the same time, Dave Wilkens was walking around, looking down into all the holes. He would pull on his chin and say, “Hmmmm,” and write something on his clipboard. No kidding, that was it. I have no idea what he was writing down, but maybe it was just “hmmmm.”

  Well! After sitting quietly and observing it all for fifteen minutes, and listening to ten thousand wasps buzzing overhead, I began to realize that this was REALLY BORING. So, to liven things up a bit, I took in a big gulp of air and delivered a loud bark that said, “Hey fellas, great news. I’m here!”

  Yipes. It didn’t exactly liven things up. It stopped everything dead in its tracks. I mean, every head came up and every eye swung around to me, and, fellers, the silence that fell over the place was almost scary. Then Mr. Wilkens said, “Hey, Slim, some of your kinfolks just showed up.”

  Up till then, I hadn’t seen Slim or Alfred, but now their heads popped out of one of the holes. When Slim saw me, he chuckled. “Kinfolks. Wilkie, you have a sick mind.”

  Alfred’s eyes grew wide and he gasped, “Hankie! What are you doing here?”

  Well, I . . . I glanced around at all the frozen faces and all the narrowed eyes, and all at once I felt that we should discuss this in private. I mean, I didn’t know these people and they didn’t seem quite as thrilled about my presence as they should have been. So I trotted over to the hole where he . . .

  “Watch the string line!”

  Oops. Okay, they had yellow string lines all over the place, and maybe I tripped over one of them. What was the deal with all the string? I mean, it was like some kind of giant booby trap. If they didn’t want dogs tripping over their string lines, they should have . . . I don’t know, put them somewhere else.

  Anyway, I trotted over to the hole where Slim and the boy were . . . well, doing whatever they were doing.

  Alfred didn’t look happy. “Hankie, Mom said she was going to lock you up in the barn.”

  My eyes drifted up to the clouds. Yes, well, his mom and I discussed that and we decided that on a normal day, I’d rather not be locked in a barn . . . and she wasn’t fast enough to catch me.

  The boy shook his finger in my face. “Hankie, you’re a naughty dog.” He glared at me for a moment. I began sending up Looks of Remorse and it wasn’t long until he grinned. “But I’m kind of glad you came, ’cause now we can sleep together in the tent.”

  Hey, that sounded like good wholesome entertainment, a boy and his dog sharing the great outdoors.

  I dived into the hole and said hello to Slim. I figured he would be happy to see me. I mean, who wouldn’t be thrilled to see an old friend? (We weren’t actually kinfolks. I think that was some kind of joke.)

  But he didn’t act so thrilled. “Hank, get out of my unit!”

  What unit? I turned to see what he was yelling about and somehow my tail knocked over his bucket.

  “Dog, for all I know, you might be standing on top of King Tut. Scram!”

  Me? Standing on top of . . . gee, I couldn’t see anything but dirt. Maybe he was talking to someone else, but his face sure was turning red and I could see the blood vessels standing out on his forehead when he brought his angry face right up to mine and hissed, “Will you please get out of my unit?”

  Well, he’d said “please,” so we seemed to be making progress. I figured this might be a good time to extend the hand of friendship, so I offered him a paw to shake. Maybe that was a bad idea. He jacked himself up to a standing position (and did a lot of groaning in the process) and pitched—I mean, physically threw me—out of his hole . . . unit . . . whatever you call it.

  Gee whiz, he didn’t need to yell and screech, and what was the big deal anyway? As far as I could tell, he was raving about DIRT. How much dirt did he need? If he didn’t want to share that patch of dirt, why couldn’t he go somewhere else? I mean, there’s a whole lot of dirt in this world, and it’s a sad day when a grown man gets so fussy that he can’t share a little piece of it with a loyal dog.

  Oh well. I had already begun to suspect that people who spend entire days scratching around in the dirt are . . . how can I say this? They’re just a little bit strange, and for his information, I had no wish to spend another second in his so-called “unit” (it was nothing but dirt, honest).

  Mr. Wilkens drifted over and gave Slim a looking-over. “You look kind of stiff.”

  “Yeah, my body wasn’t meant to be folded up in a hole. My knees hurt, my back hurts, everything hurts.”

  There was no sympathy in Wilkens’ face. “I guess you’ve been living a pampered life. You’ll get used to the pain.” Wilkens knelt down, looked into Slim’s unit, and pointed toward some kind of lump in the middle. “What is that?”

  “Well, it looks like the top of a rock to me.”

  “What’s your elevation?” When Slim didn’t answer, Wilkie looked up at him. “What’s your elevation?”

  “Well, I was six foot tall till that horse throwed me through the west wall of the saddle shed, and I s’pect I’m some shorter now.”

  Wilkie’s eyes grew distant. “Slim, what is the elevation in your unit? How deep are you?”

  “Oh.” Slim frowned and looked into the hole. “Well, that’s hard to say. You want me to guess?”

  “Slim, this is science. We don’t guess. We measure.” Wilkie pitched him a measuring tape. “Use the string level, and measure down from there.”

  Slim pulled out the tape and squinted at it. “Good honk, did you notice all these weird little lines?”

  “Yes. They’re centimeters. We use metric units.”

  “You know, I got stung by a centimeter one time and it hurt for three days.”

  Wilkie laughed and shook his head. “Slim, step down into the unit and measure your elevation.”

  “Do I have to use all them little marks on the tape measure?”

  “Yes.”

  Slim heaved a sigh. “This is worse than brain surgery.” He got down in the hole and told Alfred to pull the string level—a string with a level hanging from it—tight. When the bubble meddled in the lid of the settle . . . settled in the middle of the level, Slim pulled out a strip of tape, set the end of it on the floor of the unit, and squinted at the marks on the tape.

  “Well, it says . . . it says either fifty or fifty thousand or five hundred million, I can’t tell which.”

  Wilkie rubbed his chin. “Fifty centimeters. You ought to be pretty close to the floor of the house, but the north wall is over there.” He pointed to another unit. “That’s where you’d expect to find a big rock. What’s it doing in the middle of the house?”

  Little Alfred said, “Maybe it’s a dinosaur bone.”

  Wilkens smiled. “Believe me, it’s not a dinosaur bone. Not in these parts.” He turned back to Slim. “Well, take your unit on down and leave the rock in place. When you get down to sixty centimeters, we’ll take another look at it.”

  “Can I use a shovel?”

  “A shovel? Ha ha.”

  “Will I have to measure again?”

  “Yes.”

  “When’s quitting time?”

  Wilkens strolled away. “Midnight.”

  “Wilkens, you’re even crueler and more heartless than High Loper, and that’s nothing to be proud of.” To no one in particular, Slim muttered, “This archeology reminds me of a
cold. Just when you think it can’t get worse, it gets worse.”

  Nobody was listening to his complaints, so he went down on his knees again, folded up his legs, and started scraping dirt with a trowel. Little Alfred did the same, but with less grumbling.

  Scrape, scrape. Pick, pick. Brush, brush. Ho hum. Time sure did crawl. I sat for a while, laid down for a while, yawned three times, scratched two fleas, and took another yawn. Ho hum. But at last, some excitement appeared on the scenery.

  A grasshopper landed right in front of me. You know, on an ordinary day, I don’t get excited about grasshoppers. Drover does but I don’t. But this was turning out to be a pretty slow day, so I flipped the switch for Slow Hydraulic Lift, rose to my feet, and began inching my nose toward the hateful grasshopper. When he flew . . . well, maybe I tried to, fly too, only . . .

  “Hank, for crying out loud!”

  Okay, maybe I’d gotten absorbed in the grasshopper and had forgotten about . . . well, Slim and the hole and so forth, and I flew right on top of his back. Anyway, I got his attention. “Alfred, call your dog and get ’im out of here.”

  Alfred climbed out of the hole and called me. I leaped out of the hole and followed him away from Slim’s crummy little playpen. By George, if he didn’t want my help, that was fine. I had better things to do, and he could just . . . I don’t know, suffer through life without me.

  What a grouch.

  Chapter Seventeen: Sardina’s Weird Sister

  As the boy and I marched away from Slim’s hole in the ground, he wagged a finger at me. “Hankie, you’ve got to stay away from the estivation.”

  Estivation? Oh, excavation. Got it.

  “You know what we’re digging up?”

  Well, uh, not exactly. It looked pretty muchly like dirt to me.

  “It’s a house.”

  A house? No kidding? I strained my eyes to see the things you normally expect to see in a house, such as walls, a roof, a front porch, furniture, potted plants . . . but I couldn’t see much of anything.

  “It’s old, old, old, Hankie, and it’s been buried under dirt for a long time. All that’s left is some wocks. See that?” He pointed toward an area where several men were digging, a line of caliche rocks that had been exposed during the dig. “That was a wall, see? It’s part of the house. Pwetty neat, huh?”

  Rocks. Well, to be honest, I had never thought of rocks as being very exciting, but if a guy had to choose between playing with rocks and playing with dirt, maybe he could get worked up about a couple of dozen rocks.

  It wasn’t my place to judge or offer opinions, but in the privacy of my own mind, I heard a voice say, “It sure doesn’t take much to entertain a bunch of archeologists.”

  Alfred moved on down to the south end of the estivation . . . excavation . . . and pointed to a man who was working in one of the units. He was curled up in a ball with all his weight resting on his knees, so that his hind end was up in the air and his nose was down close to the level of the ground.

  What was he doing down there? In one hand he held a little stick of wood and in the other a small brush. He picked dirt with the stick and brushed it away with . . . well, with the brush, of course.

  Mr. Wilkens drifted over to us. “That’s Doug McGrubber, and he’s trying to expose a large piece of bison bone. We think it might be a tibia digging stick.”

  Bone? My ears shot up and my tongue swept across my lips. Hey, this was getting more interesting.

  “It was a digging tool. Prehistoric people used a bone that came from the leg of a buffalo. They lashed it to a stick and used it for cultivating their corn. Doug wants to take it out in one piece and that’s why he’s being so careful.”

  Oh. Well, old Doug was being plenty careful, all right, not to mention slower than grandma. I found myself staring into the trench and, uh, admiring his bone.

  Slurp.

  Huh? All of a sudden, Doug McGrubber straightened up and turned a pair of dark eyes on me, and in a spooky tone of voice, he muttered, “Don’t you even think about it, Shep.”

  Me? What had I . . . had I said anything about bothering his bone? Was there some law against a dog having a private thought now and then? I mean, this was still America and we dogs had rights, too.

  And my name wasn’t Shep.

  I found it convenient to, uh, move my freight a few steps to the south and take up a new position behind Mr. Wilkens’ legs, out of the spotlight of Doug McGrubber’s glare.

  Were my thoughts so transparent? If so, I would have to make some changes. I mean, when you’re in Security Work, you need a face that says nothing, a face that can keep dark secrets, such as . . . well, that was a very interesting bone.

  I would keep my distance from Doug McGrubber. The guy gave me the creeps.

  As I said, I had taken up a position behind Mr. Wilkens’ legs, but maybe he didn’t know it, and when he turned to walk away, he . . . well, he stumbled. Tripped over me, you might say, and came within a hair of plunging to the ground.

  He looked down at me with a forced smile. “Hank, I’ve got a great idea. How would you like to go sit in the shade of the pickups?”

  You know, I was pretty content where I was, right in the middle of . . .

  “Hank, leave!”

  Well, sure. Hey, I had no problem moving over to the shade of the pickups. No, I take that back. Actually, the change of location did present me with one problem. If I was sitting in the shade of the pickups, far from the center of the action, how could I do a proper job of supervising the work?

  Maybe Wilkie thought he could handle things without me. That kind of hurt my feelings, but as you will soon see, I found other things to hold my interest. Wow!

  Mr. Wilkens and Little Alfred escorted me over to the line of vehicles that were parked just south of the estivation site . . . excavation site, let us say, and I must be honest and say that I had a feeling that I got the escort service because . . . well, because they didn’t trust me. I heard them talking, see.

  Alfred: “He really tries to be a good dog.”

  Mr. Wilkens: “I’m sure he does, but he’ll be happier over here, out of everyone’s way. And the crew will be a lot happier.”

  “Can he stay the night?”

  “We’ll wait and see. Maybe . . . if he minds his manners.”

  There, you see? The guy hardly knew me and yet he was already lumping me in with all the other mutts in the world who have no manners and can’t be trusted to control their behavior. It kind of wounded my pride, to tell you the truth, but . . . oh well, I would just have to prove that I was a different kind of dog.

  I followed them to the line of vehicles, where Mr. Wilkens pointed to a shady spot near the back of his white Chevy pickup. “Stay here, Hank.”

  Yes sir. I went straight into the requisite Three-Turns-and-Flop Maneuver and settled into my spot in the shade. Little Alfred waved good-bye, and they returned to the dig.

  Ho hum. Heat waves danced on the horizon and wasps droned in the air. Five minutes later, I was dying of boredom. This wasn’t going to be fun. But then . . . I heard a sound coming from the pickup above me. I rose to my feet and glanced around.

  “Hello? Is someone there?” I cocked my ear and listened.

  And I heard a lady’s voice say, “Oh. It’s you.”

  “I beg your pardon? Who are you and where are you?” She stepped into my viewpoint and I saw her face, looking down at me from the pickup bed, and what a glorious face it was! It was the kind of face that sends a dog’s heart crashing down to his feet, then roaring up to his head like . . . I don’t know what. Like an elevator gone wild, like a skyrocket out of control.

  My eyes popped wide open. “Holy smokes, Sardina Bandana!”

  “My name is Saffron, and we’ve already had this conversation. What’s wrong with you?”

  I leaped to my feet and gazed up
at her. “There must be some mistake. I met a lady dog this morning but her name was Sardina Bandana, and I can assure you, madame, she wasn’t even half as beautiful as you. You’re gorgeous!”

  She rolled her eyes. “Her name was Saffron and she was ME.”

  I had to chuckle. “Ha ha. Okay, you’re playing some little game here and you want me to play along. Very well, let me guess.” I paced a few steps away, then whirled around. “You and Sardina are best friends, am I right?” She didn’t answer. “Okay, let’s try again. You and Sardina are sisters and you’re playing a joke.”

  She stared at me for what seemed a whole minute before a little smile curled at the corners of her mouth. “You’re pretty observant, aren’t you?”

  “Hey, that’s my business. Did I mention that I’m Head of Ranch Security?”

  “Really! Head of Ranch Security. Is that as important as it sounds?”

  “Oh yes ma’am. I’m not one to brag but, well, you’re talking to the guy who barks up the sun every day.”

  She was stunned. “No, honestly? You’re the one?”

  “Yes ma’am, the very one. And when I’m not barking up the sun and providing sunshine for all the little children, I’m busting monsters and solving mysteries.”

  She let out a giggle. “Oh my, and I thought I could fool you.”

  “Heh heh. Well, a lot of ’em try, ma’am, but I’m always one step ahead. See, I knew right away that you and Sardina were sisters.”

  She gave her head a shake. “Well, this is just amazing. Would you like to speak to Sardina?”

  “Well . . . sure, why not? I mean, if one gal is good, two are double good, right?”

  She gave me a wink. “She’s right over here. Don’t go away.”

  She stepped out of my view and I heard myself say, “Me, go away? Lady, you don’t know me as well as I know me. Heh heh. I wouldn’t miss this for all the bones in Texas.”