Buffalo Mesa Mummy

Chapter 18

As soon as they cleared the underground area Maria tried the radio phone. She had no better luck than she had early that morning. She fiddled with the phone a couple more minutes and then finally gave up and put the phone back in her pocket.

“So we stay here for the night, huh?” Charlie asked resignedly.

“It doesn’t look like we have much choice.” Maria answered.

“Let’s look around a little more and see if we can find another way out, just to be sure.” Peter suggested.

The first thing they determined was that there was no way of going up the cliff wall, since it curved out to make a roof for the ledge. Charlie and Maria decided to look for another cave entrance that might bypass the water and Peter began looking for a passageway down from the cliff.

After about thirty minutes of searching the twins had found a cave that went fifty feet into the wall on the far end of the dwellings, but nothing else.

They were talking as they returned to the area where they had left Peter. They noticed at the same time that their friend was not anywhere in site.

“Peter, where are you!” Charlie called.

“Maybe he went back to check the water level.” Maria said. 

She entered the tunnel and called Peter, but heard nothing. Maria heard the unmistaken call of an eagle and she returned to the open. When she came back out she saw Charlie walking along the edge of the ledge where a large eagle was perched. Charlie got within a few feet before the bird flew away, diving into the canyon.

Maria was half way across the ledge when Charlie looked down to watch the bird fly away and then dropped to his knees and called, “Peter! Are you ok?”

Maria reached her brother at a dead run and barely stopped before she took herself and Charlie over the side. She looked down and gasped when she saw Peter sprawled unmoving on a small ledge ten feet below them. There was blood forming a small puddle under the side of his head that lay on the dusty ground.

In one movement Charlie spun around, slid his body over the edge, and dropped to Peter’s side. As he reached down to turn his friend over Peter gave a groan and pushed himself to a sitting position.

“Well, that was fun.” Peter mumbled as Charlie bent over to look as his wound.

“He has a pretty good cut on his forehead, but it doesn’t look too bad except for a lot of blood.” Charlie called up to Maria.

“Head cuts do that. I’ll be right back.” Maria said and ran across the ledge to her pack. From the day pack Maria pulled a small medical emergency kit, then ran back to the edge of the ledge. She tossed the kit down to Charlie and told him to take a gauze pad out and temporarily tape it over the cut.

“What happened?” Charlie asked Peter as he followed Maria’s directions.

“I think part of the ledge gave way while I was looking over the edge at that trail down there.” Peter answered, motioning below where they were standing.

Charlie looked over the edge and saw the remains of a trail winding up from the ravine below. He also saw that if Peter had missed the ledge he was now standing on he would have had a hundred foot drop before he reached ground again.

“I don’t think anyone will be going down or coming up that trail anytime soon. Big sections are missing.” Charlie said as he finished taping up Peter’s head.

“It is a good thing your eagle let me know where you were. If you had tried to get up and taken a step backwards it would have been all over.” Charlie said somberly.