Dr. Shaw was hesitant to begin excavating again without Dr. García’s approval. He split the group into three teams and took Miguel and Ramón with himself, Scott, and Eric to the edge of the cliff wall, and instructed Scott to continue to clear the area slowly. Scott took his hunting knife from his belt and set it beside his work space. Eric unrolled a leather bundle containing various sized brushes and small sharp blades. Miguel and Ramón sat off to the side of the two archaeologists and watched each movement they made with interest.
“So, what are you guys looking for? If there are more dead bodies would they be right here?” Miguel asked, moving closer to Scott to see what he was doing.
“No, kid, no bodies here. We’ll have to wait til Dr. García gives us the go-ahead to continue that part of the dig. Now we’re looking for small artifacts.”
“Are you a doctor, too?” continued Miguel.
“Almost. This research project should do it, then everyone can call me Dr. Harris.” He looked up from his work and smiled to himself. “I’m going to like that. ‘Dr. Harris.’ Sounds important.”
Miguel watched the slow, gradual process that Scott and Eric were involved in. Their dig site was only a few feet wide and they cautiously checked each clump of dirt with their knives and brushes, hoping to find a hidden treasure. They filled the slow early morning hours by talking about their past adventures.
“Remember the pottery we found last year?” asked Eric moving his long hair back away from his face. “If we had our doctorates then, we could have taken full credit for that find.”
“Yeah, I heard they’re going to be part of an international exhibition in New York,” answered Scott, picking up his knife to carve a deeper hole on his side of the site.
Eric stopped brushing the large clump in his hand and said to Ramón, “What brought you two here?”
“It was Miguel’s idea, we needed to stop for the night,” he answered looking with interest.
Eric looked into the blue morning sky, then back to Ramón.
“Something must have brought you here. There are no accidents in this world.” He grinned and began to brush the object in his hand delicately.
Ramón thought about Eric’s words.
Dr. Shaw walked over to their group. He took a long drink from his water bottle and told Scott, “Dr. García will be here in a few hours. Let’s hold off on this site until we know if we can continue with the one in the cave.”
Scott and Eric nodded and put away their tools. The boys stood up and walked over to the other group working nearby to observe their activities. Randy was using a large shovel to start a new dig site and Brain was opening his laptop. After looking up for a moment at the boys, Brain continued with his work. He connected a battery power pack to the side of the computer and began typing.
“Can we watch for a while?” Miguel asked.
Randy looked up at Miguel and told him to start moving the loose dirt onto the metal sieves. “Just move the bowls around back and forth. If you see something that’s not just dirt, tell us,” he ordered, more concerned with the digging of the hole than the scientific aspects of the project.
“Look, Ramón,” Miguel said, shaking the round metal bowl back and forth, “it’s like panning for gold. Remember that camping trip with Grandpa when I found a gold nugget?”
Ramón picked up another metal container and joined his cousin in the search for the precious gold.
From outside of the cave opening, Miguel saw Dr. Shaw waving at the two boys to stop what they were doing and come over to where he was. The boys put down their sifting bowls and went outside.
“Since Dr. García won’t be here for a while, Eric has agreed to take you through another cave site. Do you want to go?” asked Dr. Shaw.
“Yeah,” Ramón answered quickly.
“I’m sending Randy and Scott along too,” Dr. Shaw added, looking at Eric. “You’re in charge. Be careful out there.”
The newly assembled team of five walked out of the gorge site using the same path that they had taken earlier that morning. They continued back to the stream and cluster of trees and crossed over the shallow water to the other side of the canyon. There Scott pointed to the cave that had caught his curiosity the day before.
“That’s it,” Scott said, pointing to a small, dark opening that was blocked by a large boulder. “That’s our cave!”
“We have to move that boulder before we can get in. Any ideas, guys?” Eric asked, including Miguel and Ramón in the question.
“We need leverage, something to tilt it from the bottom, then we can push it over to the side,” said Scott.
They all agreed that Scott’s idea might work. They looked around for a strong piece of wood to use, something that wouldn’t break under the pressure of the large boulder. Ramón found it first.
“Hey, would this work?” he asked, holding up a sturdy wood branch.
“Let’s try it,” said Scott, taking the branch and lodging it underneath the rock.
The branch was slid under the rock as far as possible, then Scott and Eric tried to push the rock away from the cave opening. The rock didn’t budge.
“Randy, do you think you can try?” asked Scott.
Randy braced himself against the boulder and bent his knees. Miguel walked over and took the same position against the rock next to Randy. “Let’s push on three,” the boy said to Randy.
With the leverage of the branch and the strength of two men, the boulder was moved away from the opening. The cave was now open to exploration and the young men entered, not knowing what they would find.
Chapter 34
The bright beams of the flashlights lit the dark walls of the cave as they walked deeper into the mysterious tunnel. Scott led the way. He took out his knife and held it in his right hand, ready to use it. The cave was narrow and after walking for a few minutes, a large underground room appeared. The team entered the cavernous room filled with shadows and stood in surprise at what they saw. The walls of the room were painted with large colorful pictures of people, animals, and hunting scenes.
“What have we found?” whispered Scott in complete shock.
“This must be one of the caves I’ve been reading about,” Eric started to explain. “The theory is that these caves were used in rituals for the young boys of the tribe.”
“What kinds of rituals?” asked Ramón, wondering if he was the right age.
“Rites of passage, actually,” said Eric. “The men of the tribe would lead the young boys, probably about your age, down into these caves to initiate them into their society. It was meant to teach them of their responsibilities of being a tribal member and to scare them a little, too.”
“Why would they want to scare them. Was it like punishment?” asked Miguel.
“Adulthood was a serious responsibility for these ancient tribal cultures. They had to be sure that the young boys would respect nature and put the needs of the tribe first, above their own,” answered Eric.
“These wall paintings must be over one thousand years old,” commented Randy. “How did they see to paint. There’s no light in here.”
Miguel and Ramón walked up to the painted walls and stared at the colorful and familiar forms. The figures of people were painted in geometric shapes and the animals were large and fierce looking. Many of the paintings were scenes of men hunting animals with arrows and spears. The cave felt magical, as if something very important had happened there a long time ago.
Scott walked around the room and saw another passage leading upward. “I’m going to check this out,” he said, starting to climb out of the cave.
“We should all go together. We don’t know where that passage leads,” advised Eric. “You two follow Scott and Randy,” he said, pointing to Miguel and Ramón.
The passage was dark but a small amount of light was filtering in and they didn’t need to use their flashlights. Scott was a quick climber and Miguel followed close behind. Suddenly Miguel heard a noise that sounded like a rat
tle, then a hiss.
Scott, hearing the noise too, stopped climbing and told Miguel to step back. Then it appeared on a crevice of the wall, a rattlesnake, coiled in a corner posing to strike Miguel.
“Don’t move,” Scott said in a quiet voice. “He’ll strike if you move suddenly. Stay back and keep your eyes on him.”
Miguel was terrified but did what Scott told him. He took a slow breath and waited. Scott slowly raised his knife and aimed at the head of the snake. With one fast throw, the knife lodged in the snake’s neck and it was dead.
Scott cut the snake’s head off and cleaned the bloody blade on his pants. “Well, looks like more snake meat tonight, guys!” he laughed.
Miguel looked at the headless long body and knew the terror that must have existed in that cave years ago.
“Look at this!” Scott yelled back. “It looks like this passage leads to the top of another formation.”
The team of five climbed out of the passageway one by one, out into the daylight. As they glanced around they saw that they were standing on top of the tallest cliff in the canyon. The view was spectacular. The desert floor expanded beyond the canyon walls into the horizon in all four directions. They were standing on top of the world. Miguel and Ramón stood on the cliff taking in the view, turning their bodies to see the desert that surrounded them.
“It looks like we’re at the center of the earth, that everything revolves around us,” Ramón observed.
Eric smiled and looked at Ramón thoughtfully. “There are many centers. I have stood on the tallest mountains all over the world and have felt just as you do now.”
The five young men stood together on the top of the cliff, each feeling that he was a part of something greater than himself.
Chapter 35
“Dr. García, what’s the word?” shouted Scott as he saw Dr. García ascending the pathway. The five explorers had returned to the first cave full of stories about what they had seen that morning.
“Well,” Dr. García started, a little out of breath from the climb, “looks like we can continue for now. The tribal council is making their final decision. They’ll be joining us tomorrow at the site. They gave us permission to keep digging, but we can’t remove anything today.”
Dr. García removed his khaki brimmed hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. As the leader of the expedition, he was responsible for the entire project. The meeting with the Native American tribal leaders had gone well but they needed time before they would consent to the removal of their ancestor’s bones from the ground that they considered sacred.
“Last night the canyon told me it understood why we were here,” interjected Eric, staring off into the distance.
Greg heard Eric’s words, then said, “Okay, you heard it. Let’s get moving to the cave.” Then he turned to Dr. García. “We’ve located another cave with primitive wall paintings. It’ll have to be investigated further.”
Dr. García’s eyes opened wide, “Another discovery in the same canyon?” He wiped his forehead again. “When the tribal leaders join us tomorrow, we’ll check it out. This is miraculous. Good work, Dr. Shaw.”
“It wasn’t me. Scott, Eric, Randy, and … ” Greg hesitated, “and our two boys were instrumental in getting access into the cave.”
“Well, well. Looks like we have two archaeologists in training. Very good!” Dr. García laughed.
The team took their flashlights from their packs as they approached the entrance to the cave. From the top of the cave rays of sunlight filtered through a hole in the ceiling and the team stopped for a moment to regroup.
“Okay, let’s begin where the body was found first, then we’ll spread out and see what we find,” Greg said, moving his flashlight around the room, directing the team.
Eric unloaded his pack and said a quiet prayer over the hole in the cave floor which until the day before had held the body of one of his ancestors. Scott took off his cowboy hat and lowered his head in silence until Eric had finished his reverent words.
Eric was sensitive to the desert. He was born into the Hopi tribe that lived nearby. Leaving his family to pursue his education had been difficult, and although it was hard to be far from his beloved land, he knew that his achievements in science had made the tribal elders very proud. He never forgot to thank his ancestors for his good fortune and for the wisdom that he had acquired in his life.
Dr. García paced around the room, glancing at the team of his students and at Dr. Shaw. Dr. García’s accomplishments in science were impressive but his valued reputation among his peers was for the astonishing research and anthropological theories that he had produced in his thirty years of experience. He walked around the newly lit cave and reviewed the ground floor.
“What do you boys think of all this? I hear you’ve had quite an adventure this morning,” Dr. García asked, looking at Miguel first then Ramón.
They were unaware of Dr. García’s impressive credentials but knew by his voice and posture that he was an important man.
“This is really cool. I didn’t think that this kind of stuff really happened. It’s like being in a movie,” Miguel gushed, looking at his cousin for something more to say.
“I like not knowing what you could find. It’s kinda exciting, like anything could happen!” responded Ramón.
“Well, we research the history of the area before we start a dig, so we do know what it is we should be looking for. But sometimes we do find something surprising,” answered Dr. García.
“Like the mummy?” blurted Miguel.
Dr. García smiled and thought of his own boyhood adventures. “Maybe you’ll help us find another?”
Miguel and Ramón felt the rush of exploration run through their veins. Miguel recalled the books that he had at home about the history of the ancient civilizations and thought he would look through them again when he got back home.
Ramón was thinking of the people that must have lived in the canyon, in the stone buildings, and in the caves they were now exploring. “What if we could talk to one of them now? What would they say about us if they saw our cars, TVs, movies?” he thought to himself.
The boys leaned against the cave wall and watched the scientists at work. There was so much to discover about the world, lands to travel, and cultures to discover about. They realized that their lives had just begun, that the first fourteen years had been filled with the actions and thoughts of children, and that a new life with exciting possibilities was opening up to them. They were no longer just kids.
They continued to observe the men work in silence and thought about all the amazing things they would do when they grew up.
Chapter 36
The day ended in triumph. Another ancient grave had been discovered in the cave and Dr. García shared that he thought they had made a significant scientific discovery. They all walked back to the campsite with their heads held high and boasting of who would win their first international award.
A huge fire was lit and dinner was soon ready. Dr. García had arranged for the delivery of a special dinner in celebration of their amazing discovery. Large aluminum trays were uncovered to reveal stacks of barbequed spareribs and corn on the cob. Everyone cheered at the bountiful feast. Miguel ate more than anyone else, piling his plate three times before most of the others had finished their first plate.
“Hey, man, you got your barbeque!” Ramón said, in a teasing voice, proud that his cousin could eat more than the older guys.
Miguel nodded his head and wiped the spicy sauce from his chin. “This is really good,” he managed to say before taking another big bite.
“Hey, Eric, tell us one of your stories,” bolted Scott. He had noticed Miguel eating more than anyone else and loaded his plate higher in competition with the young boy.
Eric wiped his sauce-stained fingers on a towel and placed his pack over to his side. He reached into it and pulled out an object which he purposely kept out of view. He then got up from his chair and began to speak.
&n
bsp; “Usually you guys hear me tell a story that originated with my people and sometimes I tell a story that I have heard from faraway lands, but tonight I have a story that happened last night.”
The small group stopped talking among themselves and listened to Eric as soon as he began to speak. He was considered to be a great storyteller and his stories were always filled with fascinating detail and magical surprises. Miguel and Ramón turned their eyes to the raven-haired man and felt the awe of mystery begin to surround the campfire.
“I had finished my evening stretches and had sat upon the great rock of the red-stained cliff. My mind was at peace and I felt the moon as she ascended into the heavens.”
Eric extended his arms and gazed into the night sky as he spoke. The others watched every move he made and loved the dramatic interpretation that he added to his story. Scott sat back on his chair and kicked his feet up on a log sticking out of the fire. He grinned in enjoyment as Eric continued.
“The ground breathed beneath me, the walls of the canyon sounded their call to the desert, and I was one with the universe.”
Eric then held his arms out along his sides and continued. “It was then that the Great Spirit revealed himself to me.”
The listeners were stunned. Miguel stopped eating and Ramón felt the hair on his neck rise.
“He flew over the mountains and through the canyon, his wings spanned the width of the canyon walls, and when he landed on the cliff, his eyes met with mine.”
Eric lowered one arm and bent his body slightly over to one side, then spun in a circle around the campfire. “The Great Spirit then allowed himself to be heard. He spoke of brotherhood and of the love a father has for a son.”
Desert Passage Page 10
