Buffalo Mesa Mummy

Chapter 10

next morning Peter awoke from a dream where someone was trying to twist his head off and he couldn’t get away because his leg was encased in a block of concrete. He realized that he had slept with his head resting on his left shoulder which explained the first part of the dream. He looked down and saw that during the night Maria had slid down and was using his right thigh for a pillow and knew why his leg felt like a slab of dead meat.

Peter wadded up part of his sleeping bag and made a pillow for Maria’s head, and carefully slid her head off his leg. She stirred but did not wake. As quietly as he could Peter drug himself backwards to the other side of the room, twice running into chairs because he couldn’t turn his head to see where he was going. 

When he got to one of the windows he used the sill to pull himself up to a standing position. Keeping himself up was not easy since one of his legs was not listening to the commands from his brain and his head was still stuck to his left shoulder. 

Standing on his one good leg he used both hands to try and straighten his neck and at the same time he started swinging his sleeping leg back and forth by jerking his body around. The thought suddenly struck him that he must look pretty stupid about right then, and it was at that moment he heard muffled laughter.

Peter looked up to see Charlie using his camera to video his antics. The laughter was coming from Maria who was trying to stuff her sleeping bag in her mouth to keep from laughing out loud and turning red with the effort.

“Wait until I get this posted on YouTube.” Charlie said with a big grin.

Finally Maria lost it and burst out with a huge laugh and rolled on the floor clutching her stomach. Then she jumped up and ran from the room, heading for the Port-a-Pot that sat behind the building.

When she came back inside Charlie was on one of the tables and Peter was trying to jump up and get the camera.

“Now boys,” Maria said using her Mother’s no-nonsense voice, “play time is over.”

Peter scowled at Charlie trying to look mad and then he burst out laughing.

“Now that would make a great internet posting; ‘The Monster Returns’.” Charlie said, as he turned the camera on Maria. Her hair was all over the place and her sweat suit was twisted around.

Maria stood looking at her brother with her hands on her hips. Then she combed her hair with her hands and straightened her clothes.

“Remember last summer when you lost your swimsuit going down the Slide-of-Death at the water park. Well, guess who was filming that little event? Susan Wilbanks, and she gave me the video just in case I ever needed to blackmail you.” Maria said with a wicked grin.

“Enough of this horsing around, guys, we have important work to do here.” Charlie said with a serious tone as he climbed off the table and slid the camera into his pocket.

As Maria was fixing them a breakfast of scrambled eggs with hot peppers and onions she turned to Peter and asked, “Would you mind teaching me that dance you were doing, because I thought I might incorporate it into my Kinaalda.”

Peter just rolled his eyes and took one of the smoke flares from a box and stuck it in his back pocket. They sat on the porch and watched the sky begin to lighten as they ate their breakfast.

“Here is the plan,” Peter said as he finished eating, “Maria, goes up to the mining office with a pair of binoculars and Charlie, you stay on top of the mesa. I light the flare and stick it into the hole we put the camera through yesterday. I will cover the area between you two with the Mule. We all have walky-talkies and the first one to see smoke calls the others.”