Buffalo Mesa Mummy

Chapter 4

Twenty minutes later they were sitting on a large rock at the top of the hill where they had met earlier that morning. They looked over the photos they had taken one more time to make sure they had all they needed. 

Peter stood and a gust of wind whipped his hat from his head and it landed in the bushes behind another large rock. He clambered over the rock to grab the hat before it blew away, checking the area carefully for rattlesnakes. It was still a little early in the year for them to be out of hibernation but it was wise to be careful.

The summer before a very large rattlesnake had struck Maria’s bike tire. His fangs stuck in the rubber and the unfortunate reptile had ended up wrapped in the wheel. Charlie quickly killed it with the hunting knife he always carried on their dessert treks. 

That night they had all eaten rattlesnake chili and Peter had thought it was delicious. Maria was glad she had been riding and not hiking, although she did end up having to replace three spokes.

As he grabbed his hat he noticed that the bush it had landed in grew next to a hole that was about a foot across. When he leaned over to try to see down the hole he felt a fresh breeze blowing in his face.

“What’s going on over there?” Maria asked.

“Come take a look.” Peter motioned for Charlie and Maria to come over to where he was.

When they reached him Peter was lying on the ground shining a pen light down into the hole. He could just see the bottom but little else.

“Looks like just a regular hole to me.” Charlie said as he squatted and looked over Peter’s shoulder.

“There is a breeze blowing out of there. That must mean there is another entrance somewhere, right?” Maria asked, as she joined her brother and Peter and shoved them aside to look down the hole.

“I would say so. Let’s see what is down there.” Peter said.

“Even I can’t fit down that hole.” Maria observed.

“No one has to go down for us to see.” Peter answered and then sat down and started unlacing his shoes. 

He looked at Charlie and Maria, saying. “I need yours too.”

Charlie sat down next to Peter and was joined by Maria, who started unlacing her shoes too.

“Oh cool,” Charlie said, “We are going to make a shoe lace rope for a very tiny person to climb down into the hole.”

“I can’t wait to see what we are going to do next.” Maria said.

“Don’t worry, I have a plan.” Peter said as he pulled the camera from his pocket. It had a neck strap and Peter tied one end of his extended shoe lace to the center of the strap. Charlie and Maria tied their laces together and handed them to Peter, who added them to his.

“That should do it,” Peter announced and began to lower the camera into the hole after starting the video mode. Maria shined the light down the hole as Peter lowered the camera until it hung just above the bottom of the hole, about ten feet below them. Carefully he began to rotate the camera by twirling the string slowly.

After a few minutes he pulled the camera up and they crowded around to watch the video. It was evident that there was too little light down in the hole to see much of anything.

“I have an idea.” Maria said. Her hair was long and thick and she often kept it pulled back into a pony tail with a large rubber band. She pulled the rubber band from her hair and taking the flashlight from Charlie, fastened it to the top of the camera using the makeshift hair band.