After a couple of days of watching the house, Hidalgo couldn’t stand it anymore. He brought Arturo with them and when the right moment occurred he opened the door of the car and Arturo casually walked over to the wall that surrounded the house. Working his way along the wall, he circled the entire structure then returned to the car.
“There is an opening in the back of the wall facing the alley. That is where they keep their trash cans until the sanitation workers pick it up. There is a gate there but the latch is not locked. You can easily get into the compound through that gate. Another thing, while I was there I looked in their trash cans and found this.” He pulled a paper bag out of his jacket and poured the contents onto the floor mats. It was full of drug materials, marijuana plant stems, seeds and empty rolling packs. But even more importantly, there was aluminum foil with traces of white powder still attached to it.
Sedillo looked at it and said to Hidalgo, “There is our probable cause, and the police didn’t find it. A private citizen found the evidence and reported it. Those hombres are not as smart as they think they are, time for us to get a search warrant.”
Hidalgo said back to him, “Even the smartest crooks are creatures of habit they seem to always do dumb things that allow them to get caught.”
“That’s right,” countered Sedillo, “They are caught. They just don’t know it yet.”
At exactly 4:00 AM the following day several police squad cars along with a police truck that had cages in the back with drug sniffing dogs, slowing crept into the neighborhood from different directions and officers got out with weapons drawn. They were all handpicked by Sergeant Sedillo to avoid problems with the department mole. Every one of the officers present had a personal grudge against the cartel. Sedillo took the lead through the gate followed by Hidalgo and at least a dozen policemen. Coming to the rear door they discovered it was locked, which was what they expected. Two of the policeman then took out a battering ram used to break down doors and with a loud thud the door flew open.
Hidalgo followed the officers in as they cleared the rooms one by one. But as they passed the kitchen which was in a disheveled mess they could hear shuffling sounds coming from the bedrooms. Suddenly the rooster appeared in black pajama-like bottoms. Seeing Hidalgo he immediately assumed a karate position closing the distance on Hidalgo in an instant. When he got within kicking distance he stopped, turned, and went into a spinning rear kick, expecting to connect with Hidalgo’s head as he attempted to back away from the kick. But Hidalgo did the unexpected; instead of backing away to avoid the kick, Hidalgo stepped into the kick catching the leg with his forearm, lifting the rooster into the air. Down the rooster came on his back with a thud but Hidalgo was already dropping down on his right knee and with his right fist he hammered the rooster in the groin as hard as he could. Immediately Hidalgo moved up and on to the rooster hitting him as hard and fast as he could in the face.
Sergeant Sedillo ever so slowly walked over to them and caught Hidalgo’s arm as he was just about to deliver a death blow. “Let’s save a little bit for the judge to have,” Sedillo said with a look of satisfaction on his face. Two other men who were wearing nothing but handcuffs were unceremoniously dumped into a pile on top of the rooster who was still unconscious. Emilio Blanco appeared at the hallway door and waved them over. “You fellows need to see this.”
Leaving the room with a policeman holding a gun on the three men, they walked into one of the side bedrooms. There, they discovered eleven young girls, all naked except for a locked collar around their necks and a dog chain that chained them to a single large metal framed bed with nothing but a box spring on it. The mattress was on the floor so they could all have a place to lie down. Sharing nothing but a sheet to cover themselves they appeared to be in terror, not knowing what was going to happen to them. Sedillo quickly discovered that the girls, the youngest one a tender age of fourteen, were the prizes that the fight game contestants occasionally won. Several of the older girls had been promised jobs in America in the motel business, cleaning rooms. The remainder of them had simply been kidnapped in Mexico to supply the needs of the enforcers.
The drug dogs soon uncovered several unopened packages of marijuana and what was suspected to be cocaine. The party was over. The young girls would be extradited back to their homes in Mexico and the three cartel men would be spending many years in the New Mexico State Penitentiary where they would be treated to jail hospitality.
Hidalgo felt vindicated. Although he would have enjoyed punching the other two men he felt a personal satisfaction as to what had happened. Two days later they were able to raid a fight that was already scheduled to occur down on Fourth Street. Forty two people were arrested and as word got out the fight games ended, not only in Albuquerque but in many southwestern cities. The cartel would be required to find other ways to get their evil fangs into America.
The Newest Cave Discovered in New Mexico
Don and Leslie’s hacienda had become a war room; a place where plans would be generated to get them into the Estancia cave. Unfortunately there was no way that a pipe could be drilled into the overbearing rock large enough to allow a spelunker to slide down it without an extraordinary investment of money, resources and time. Hiring a construction crew and getting the equipment to the site would be cost prohibitive. They debated the size of the pipe. The only way of constructing a pipe would be to enlist the help of a company with the material shipped by trucks all the way from West Virginia where experimental work was being done on a rescue system that could bring people to the surface from deep in the earth. It could be considered as a rescue system for thirty or forty trapped coal miners but never for the rescue of people who had died untold millennia ago. It seemed an impractical move anyway, Ken and June had the money put away but wanted to use it for more practical pursuits. It was the family insurance against all unknown circumstances.
Don and Leslie were devastated. Exploring the cave had been their personal dream for some time years now. “What about a side cut into the caves, from further down,” asked Don?
Corey answered the question, “Yes, it is possible, but it would still take a long time and a lot of money. Just talking someone into doing it would be problematic. It would require a lot of blasting to get through the limestone down there. People will not do that much work unless there is a huge payoff at the end. We would have to provide that payoff at the end in the form of cash money. Lots of cash money. In all fairness I just can’t see it.”
Hidalgo, who had been quiet for some time and who was examining a topographic map of the area said, “There has to be another way into the cave. I cannot believe that people would be in the cave without a practical way out. We have to find it.”
Don answered him, “But we have walked up and down that old arroyo for miles and have not seen anything larger than a rabbit hole.”
“That’s true, I have hiked the arroyo myself,” replied Hidalgo, “But we are missing something.”
I looked at him and said, “What if we took a front end loader there and dug some of the rock falls away from the cliff faces?”
Don and Leslie, who by this time were grasping at straws, jumped at the idea. “What if there are skeletons down there because someone wanted them to be hid for all times? What if someone killed those people on purpose?”
“That could still be rather expensive,” Hidalgo said, “but I may have an idea. Sanchez said something about a friend who had a bull dozer who would clear his fields. Perhaps the cost of a tank or two of diesel fuel will solve our problem. If not, we will have to leave it to someone else to solve.”
Three days later, everyone met at the well site with shovels, pry bars and a chain saw as well as camping gear with enough provisions to last them for several days. After setting up tents and building a fire to keep them company, they waited for Enrique and Sanchez to show up with a bulldozer. But they didn’t just wait; they hiked up and down the small canyon looking for likely spots for a cave to be. Unfortunately, it
could easily be hidden behind dozens of rock falls.
During the last Ice Age, New Mexico was a colder and much wetter place. The streams that run through this area carried a tremendous amount of water. The only thing they had to go on is that the entrance would have to be above the high water while people lived in it. This was problematic because at one time or another, the stream had to actually flow down into the cave, otherwise there would not be a cave there.
Early the next morning everyone was awakened to the grinding of a large truck carrying a trailer with a small bulldozer on the back of it. While Hidalgo, Corey and Ken helped Enrique Archeletta unload the dozer, June and I cooked a wonderful breakfast of bacon, eggs, and biscuits baked in an iron skillet. We even prepared sausage gravy. After the breakfast it took them over an hour to get the dozer with its dead battery going.
Driving the ancient bulldozer to the first rock slide in a bend in the ancient streambed Enrique began pushing rocks away from the cliff face. Actually it was a harder job than they thought it would be, the highest rocks needed to be pried away from the cliff by hand and then pushed away by the bulldozer. All that they found was an occasional rattlesnake that had made a home between the rocks. Each rock fall would take several hours to clear. One down, they had many more sites to explore. It could take several days of this just to work their way up the streambed. They decided to explore up stream first, since logically the water drained downstream to form the cave.
On the second rock fall, located in a sharp turn of the ancient arroyo, they were luckier, as soon as they began clearing away rocks they discovered a crude rock wall that appeared to have been constructed by human hands. Instantly they knew that they were on to something.
As Hidalgo, Corey and Ken removed one of the large rocks that made up the wall a stream of cold air instantly poured out of the hole. They had found the original cave entrance. Early the next morning they would put on the caving gear that Don and Leslie had brought along and begin exploration of the newest cave to be discovered in New Mexico.
Siege Warfare
Siege warfare was an old art form even thirteen thousand years ago. Clan Protector and his small band of hunters had fled back to the cave where they felt they would be safe. From inside the cave, the elders would be safe from attack no matter how large a force was sent against them. In order to get into the entrance of the cave, an enemy warrior would need to stoop over and walk for several yards that way before he would enter a large room where he could stand erect and throw a spear or weld a club. More importantly, the enemy would have to come in single file, making a mass attack impractical. Several of the enemy warriors would die before they discovered how impregnable the cave was.
The problem for Clan Protector was that despite the fact that the enemy couldn’t get in, the Clan members hiding in the cave couldn’t get out. This would not be a problem for a couple of weeks. Being early summer, the clan had already begun the labor of stashing the lower chambers of the cave with foodstuffs in order to get them through the long winter ahead. Unfortunately they had just begun collecting food for the upcoming winter and they were still dependent upon stores of mastodon fat in order to preserve the meat they had collected, however a small amount of fresh meat was available. They even dragged the bodies of the enemy warriors that had attempted to get into the cave where they were. These enemy warriors were cut up and eaten. Every morsel of the bodies was consumed. Even the bones were cracked open and the morrow was eaten. It must have been a gruesome enterprise since cooking them would not have been an option. Nothing was wasted.
The clan was trapped and every attempt of escape was met with spears and war clubs and time was on the side of the newcomers. All they had to do was wait the clan out, but this was a time consuming and dangerous job. Besides, they needed to be hunting meat themselves, not getting rid of dangerous competition. But the enemy warriors tried. On one occasion they managed to gain access to all but the lowest levels of the cave cutting off body parts of the clan warriors in the process.
Finally the newcomers decided that the easiest way to destroy the enemy warriors was to seal them in the cave, so they dropped large stones off the bluff that towered above the cave entrance. With those stones they built a wall across the entrance of the cave, they then caved off even more rock from the bluff above the entrance. Once large enough rocks were dropped into place, the newcomers simply left. Clan Protector and his tribe simply starved to death in the depths of the cave.
The Crime Scene
After making sure everyone had three light sources with extra batteries, kneepads, and a clear game plan, the men carefully pried away and removed the last of the blocks of rock that made up the crude rock wall that blocked the entrance of the cave. Immediately they discovered two very large skeletons where bodies had decomposed on the floor of the cave. Only the lower bones around the jaw and the huge teeth remained. The rest of the skeletal remains had turned to a disintegrated powder making up a light grey deposit on the floor. But the outlines of the bones were clearly there. It appeared that the two strongest victims had attempted to remove the fallen rocks. Unfortunately for them there was no way to achieve leverage. They had starved to death in the futile attempt. Now all that was left of them were crumbly traces.
Moving carefully so as not to disturb the traces of skeletal remains, we all crawled into the cave, turned on our headlights and looked around. A narrow corridor was before us that we had to bend over to walk and then suddenly the cave opened up into a room some thirty foot wide and sixty feet long. Everywhere they looked they could see bones. These bones were in a better state of preservation. Hidalgo thought to himself that they were walking into a crime scene. Many of the bones showed the evidence of scratches where obsidian knife blades had removed the flesh. In this one large room eight human like individuals could be accounted for; five small skeletons that had nothing but the lower and upper jaws remaining and three larger skeletons.
Two of the larger skeletons were also cut up and disarticulated as if having been eaten and one eleven foot long skeleton seemed to have simply died in place. They hypothesized that these people had starved to death and the one well preserved skeleton was the last survivor. With nothing else to eat, he simply starved to death, the last member of his clan, probably the strongest and most able to defend himself, perhaps the protector of the clan.
The saddest sight in this large room was the remains of a small child that I discovered under a pile of disintegrated leather robes. It appeared to have hidden under the robes until he too had succumbed to starvation. It would have been a miserable way to die, in the cold darkness with no chance of escape.
After examining the large room for a couple of hours we decided to explore on into the cave. Following a well-worn trail dropping down another long corridor we found ourselves in a very large room. The ceiling was a full forty feet above us and around us we found ourselves looking at curious fifteen foot tube worm fossils that were imbedded in the walls. Ammonite and crinoids were everywhere. Fossil shells of many interesting animals packed so tightly in the rock that the rock seemed to be entirely made of fossils. In one corner of the room a small crack in the wall allowed a trickle of water to pour down into a small rock bowl. From there the water overflowed down a small channel and then disappeared into another opening in the floor. They wondered if this small spring was there, thousands of years ago, providing sustenance for the cave dwellers?
Don and Leslie spent the next three days exploring deep into the cave, photographing everything they could. Their progress was stopped when they reached ground water. Further exploration would now be impossible without using air tanks, something for another time with different explorers. This cave would obviously be a focal point for paleontologist as well as anthropologist for years to come. Pieces of mastodon bones were everywhere. Obviously they had been carried into this part of the cave where they were broken apart for the valuable bone marrow. Only the ends of the bones were still intact. Pieces of human bones
were scattered among them. Ken spotted the well pipe sticking out of the ceiling and within moments they spotted the hand on the cave floor under it. Just another hand among many that were found in the cave where a primitive people thought that fellow humans were just another food source, or did they?
The group of explorers was in a quandary as to what they were looking at. Did these people eat each other as a natural way of life or were they reacting to an extreme situation. Even modern humans will commit cannibalism under extreme circumstances. Perhaps they actually hunted the newcomers as a source of food. Perhaps this was the reason the newcomers wanted to exterminate them. Regardless of the circumstances, they were obviously engaged in the ultimate and cruelest fight game.
Part 6
Pride, Deprivation and Providence in New Mexico
Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.
—Edmund Burke
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.
—Martin Luther King
The Black Tie Affair
My life had changed dramatically. Little Penny Anderson was simply not the same little girl as I had been in Tennessee. I was now a professional historian and not someone who just studied history; we as a team were making history. This year the entire crew from the Serpiente ranch attended the affair being held at the University of New Mexico Student Union. Despite the fact that only the elite were attending, it was a relatively large group of people there, more than two hundred, the building was packed with people obsessed with history. During the last meeting less than fifty had attended. It was obviously a growing affair. Being a black tie affair and semi-formal, Hidalgo and Corey were particularly uncomfortable. They were used to wearing working men’s clothes, the kind that has many small tears, faded, and usually stained with sweat. Even Ken squirmed uneasily in his seat as the committee from the Southwestern Historical Society made announcements of awards and recognitions of this year’s accomplishments.
The Family at Serpiente Page 49
