Buffalo Mesa Mummy

Chapter 1

Peter Ramsey leaned forward, resting his forearms on the handlebars of his mountain bike, and looked across Buffalo Mesa at The Town. The buildings, sitting less than a half mile away, shimmered in the April morning. It was a very quiet little town as one would expect, since there was no one living there, unless you counted the ghosts. Peter smiled to himself as he gazed at the buildings. He wondered if every abandoned town was considered a ghost town, because in New Mexico there would need to be quite a lot of ghosts. 

There were dozens of abandoned towns in the desert and mountain areas, most of them built during the silver rush. Some of them were just a building or two and others were whole towns, like this one. The Town was special because it was like a time capsule. For some yet unknown reason the town had just been abandoned, like everyone just decided to walk away one day. The entire mesa was deeded to the Navajo shortly thereafter and so it had remained untouched for more than a hundred years. Now the Navajo had traded the mesa area to the National Park Service for a piece of land that had access to plenty of water.

According to his father, Dr. Daniel Ramsey, The Town had never been given a proper name. In the late 1800’s a group of silver speculators opened a mine and soon other buildings began to crop up. There was no other town for so many miles that the place just became known as The Town and the name was finally put on the map so it became official. 

Peter looked down the bike trail that joined into the one he had ridden up. It went down the mesa at a steep angle and in the distance he could see two small figures headed up the trail toward him. He knew they would be his best friends, the Shantos. Maria and Charlie were twins, fifteen years old just like Peter. 

Peter was nearly six feet tall and Charlie towered over him with Maria just a couple inches shorter than Peter. Charlie was broad shouldered and narrow waisted like his father, while Maria was slender like their mother. Their father was Apache; their mother, the daughter of a Navajo medicine man and an Irish nurse from New York. The twins had a smooth dark completion, straight hair, and typical Indian features. Charlie wore his hair shoulder length. Maria’s hair went halfway to her waist and she often wore it in a pony tail or a French Braid. Peter’s hair was sandy blond and he had dark brown eyes. The desert sun had tanned his skin almost as dark as his two friends.

Jack Shantos, the twin’s father, was the Ranger in charge of the Many Mesa National Park. He was the one that had requested Peter’s father for the task of getting The Town ready for public access after reading a feature article about him in the Park Service magazine. In order for the area to be opened to the public everything had to be scrutinized by an archaeologist to make sure nothing historical would be endangered by thousands of people a year tramping through the area. 

Peter had been helping by doing initial mapping and scouting of the town, as well as the surrounding mesa area. His mother used to do the same thing Peter was doing, but since she had died he had taken over the job. Margaret Ramsey had contracted a staph infection after emergency surgery, was admitted to the hospital and two days later had lapsed into a coma. In less than a week she had died. 

One of the reasons his father had accepted the temporary transfer to New Mexico was because he felt it might help Peter and himself recover from the grief. Peter still missed his mom every day, but starting a new school, making new friends, and working with his dad on projects like this one helped dull the pain.

Maria and Charlie spotted him on top of the mesa and they both waved, picking up speed to climb the hill with their bikes. The entire area was restricted to feet, horses, and bikes to minimize the human impact to the environment. Occasionally Peter or his dad would bring the Mule out to the area, if they had a load to carry. The Mule wasn’t an animal, but a four wheel drive mini-jeep. It would sit four in a pinch, with a cargo area in the back. For the most part though, the three friends preferred riding their mountain bikes as they explored the area.