Buffalo Mesa Mummy

Chapter 23

A lot had happened in the three weeks since the three friends had found Samantha McMillan’s body. Samantha’s mother had flown down to identify and claim her daughter’s remains. Mr. 

Shantos and Dr. Ramsey had met with her and she had told them she would like to thank the “young archaeologists” herself someday soon.

There had been their sixteenth birthday party, as usual Peter’s was celebrated right along with the twins, after which they went down to the DMV and all of them got their drivers license. 

The extra Spring Break had been great, but now they had an extra week of school work to catch up on. Besides the makeup work for the missed week they would all be going to the reservation for Maria’s Kinaalda in a couple days. The ceremony would last four days so they would miss two more days of school. Peter was traveling with the Shantos family and Dr. Ramsey was catching a ride with Old Snake Eater and his grandson to come up for the final day. The Shantos and Ramsey families would all ride back together in the Park Service Suburban, which was big enough for three or four families. 

The school had been abuzz with their adventures, since the story had appeared in dozens of newspapers and there had even been several television interviews.

Archaeology Today magazine had sent a team down to do a story on the newly discovered cliff dwellings and interviews with Charlie, Maria, and Peter were to be in the article.

The Archaeological Institute of America had at first referred to the new discovery as the Ramsey/Shantos Site. Maria said that since they would have never found the Lost City without Samantha’s help she should receive recognition too. The somewhat unusual request had been accepted and the newly discovered cliff dwellings officially became the McMillan/Ramsey/Shantos Site. The MRSS, as everyone had taken to calling it, was being called one of the most important discoveries of the century.

To add to their work load, the three of them had been assigned the task of creating an interactive website for the work that would be done on the cliff dwellings. Everyone had been impressed with their work on the website for The Town so it was natural for them to do the same thing again for the Lost City, as the three friends referred to the discovery.

Charlie had already laid out a plan that would include real time web cams spread around the work area. They would be hooked up to a satellite dish and archaeologist and researchers around the world could keep abreast of the progress. Maria was working on setting up a blog and twitter interaction. 

They also learned that they could get a number of college credits for their work on the project. Mrs. Applegate, the guidance councilor at their school, had talked to several colleges that offered archaeology degrees and the schools had expressed great interest in them. She had already sent in the paperwork required for them to get the advanced credit.

Mr. Kershaw was still sitting in the county jail waiting for the powers-to-be to decide who had jurisdiction in the case. The kidnapping had taken place in one part of the state and Samantha had died in another. If it was determined that her death was directly a result of her abduction it would get even more complicated.

Maria had been over to visit him as often as she could since he had been officially arrested, and had even sat with him while he gave an interview to the newspaper. To his credit he did not blame Dark Wolf for making him take part in the kidnapping, but instead just said he had made a terrible decision and would always carry the burden of Samantha McMillan’s death on his heart.

Betty Agerton and several other of Mr. Kershaw’s employees had agreed to keep his store open as much as possible so the bills could be paid. He was deeply touched that they were willing to help him even after what he had done had come to light, and relieved that they would not be losing their jobs. What would happen in the future with the store no one knew.