Buffalo Mesa Mummy

Chapter 9

Charlie drove carefully, making sure their stuff stayed safe and secure in the back. It took twice as long to cover the five miles to where they had discovered the mummified girl, but Peter said it was not a problem since it needed to be late afternoon for his plan to work anyway.

When Charlie had pulled to a stop at the top of the mesa Peter jumped down, pulled a pair of binoculars from under the tarp and began scanning the area slowly.

“See anything?” Maria asked.

“No, the entrance to where Samantha is will probably be hidden pretty well. I have been up here dozens of times and walked all over the area with my dad and I have never seen a cave entrance.” Peter answered.

“So we have to find a hidden entrance somewhere on this mesa where you and your dad have been a bunch of times and never noticed a cave entrance?” Charlie asked with more than a little disappointment in his voice.

“Yes and no,” Peter answered as he reached under the tarp and retrieved one of the flares he had bought at Mr. Kershaws, “Here is where the plan comes in. Maria, would you grab one of the sleeping bags please?”

Maria complied and pulled one of the bags from the bed of the Mule following Peter over to the hole they had dropped the Rover down into before.

All three of them stopped and looked up as they heard a distant rumble from the west. There they could see dark black thunderheads building in the mountains. While it didn’t rain a lot in New Mexico, when it did, the rain came down hard and fast. A slight breeze was blowing and the air was decidedly cooler than before.

“That doesn’t look good.” Charlie said.

“No it doesn’t, but remember how many times it has looked that way and then we get nothing but wind.” Maria reminded them.

“We better hurry just in case, but anyway this is a good thing right now.” Peter said.

“What do you mean a good thing?” Maria asked, still watching the building clouds.

“Remember how I found this the tunnel in the first place?” Peter asked.

“You felt air coming out of the hole.” Charlie answered.

“That’s right and if air was coming out of the hole, air had to be coming into the hole from somewhere. Remember from science class how hot air always rises and ….” Peter began.

“And that draws in the air that is cooler.” Maria finished the sentence.

“Right,” Peter agreed, “and out here in the desert a very interesting thing can happen. When the air cools real fast, like it does as soon as the sun starts to go down, the air flow sometimes reverses direction.”

“So the air that is coming out of the hole when it is hot starts going down when it starts to cool. That means if you drop that smoke flare down in the hole the smoke should come out the other end.” Charlie said, getting excited.

Peter leaned over and struck the end of the flare on the rock and as soon as the thick orange smoke started to flow out he dropped it down into the hole. He took the sleeping bag from Maria and set it over the opening, blocking most of the escaping smoke.

“Hey, why does that look like my sleeping bag?” Charlie asked, scowling at his sister.

“That flare will smoke for about ten minutes so we better start searching for smoke. Let’s split up and start down the mesa to the lowest points from here. This tunnel was probably created over thousands, maybe millions of years, when water ran down this same hole and slowly widened a narrow channel through the rock. It had to come out somewhere and I am hoping it isn’t too far from where we are standing.” Peter said and then started working his way down the ridge to lower ground.