Them Bones

Bessie VIII

The platform mound looked like a pie graph. The test trench led in from each side, widened out in wedges where the headless skeletons had been uncovered on each side.

Jameson, Kincaid, and Bessie were opening the conical mound atop the other.

‘We’d better work in from this side.’

‘We’re going to have to take this whole mound system down to ground level, starting with the top.’

‘Is that what I think it is? Give me that whisk broom.’

‘Look at that.’

‘There’s another one under it.’

‘Over here, too.’

‘I’ll bet these just fit some of the necks downstairs.’

‘You know they do.’

‘Still more. Was that thunder again?’

‘Hell yes! Washington! Tear down my tent and bring it down here. Put all my stuff in the sorting room.’

‘How’s the dam?’

‘I can’t see anything from here.’

‘Oh boy.’

‘What?’

‘See those mold marks?’

‘Everybody out! Get the photographer in here. You getting this profile, Bessie?’

‘More skulls down here. God knows how many. That means lots of skeletons down below, probably. These skulls must be piled up from the level of the top of the platform mound.’

‘And this mound has different soil …’

‘Look, look.’

‘Part of a long tomb?’

‘Has to be, has to be.’

‘Get more light in here.’

‘It’s darker outside.’

‘Must be storming again. This tent’s going to take off.’

‘I hope they got the other tarps back down. Who’s shellacking?’

‘Leroy!’

‘Good.’

‘Find me something about a quarter inch thick and ten inches long.’

‘Get the photographer in here! Bring the shellac!’

‘Is that rain again?’

‘God! This guy must have been the Rockefeller of his time.’

‘Ignore all that stuff right now. Look at the arm.’

‘Broken and regrown.’

‘But look at that nick on the bone!’

‘Get the photographer in here!’

‘Easy, easy. Try to brush – there. Let me have the ice pick. No. The curved one. There. Wait. Wait.’

‘What are those?’

‘Try to keep the head attached.’

‘I can’t do very much of anything with that damn breastplate in the way.’

‘Can you keep them in one piece?’

‘Maybe.’

‘That’s steel.’

‘Maybe.’

‘I’ve got it. Them. And the head’s still on.’

‘Get them back to the sorting tent. Is that rain again?’

Bessie walked with the object cupped in her hands. It was a necklace made of tiny metal beads. Attached to it through holes drilled in their edges were many dozen thin rusted oblongs of metal, one inch wide, two inches long.

On at least one was writing in English.

Dawn was breaking, wet and sodden. They had been at work on the mound for twenty hours.