MONDAY MORNING STARTED out like any day in June, hot and dry. Rainfall for the first six months of the year totaled less than two inches, and the monsoon season held little promise of relief. Not happy to be outside in the god-awful heat, the BLM's Field Survey Crew cursed the air-conditioner that didn’t work in the District's only four-wheel-drive passenger van. Repairs had been put off due to budget cuts.
Alice Kabunsky, the District's archaeologist, had begged team leader Joe Halverson to start work an hour early to avoid the heat of the late morning sun. The rest of the team, composed of a realty specialist, a biologist, and a range manager, agreed to this early departure if they had lunch at the Ranchland Cafe in Tatum near the Texas border. Joe maneuvered the van out of the district's storage yard and onto Highway 380 heading east. At mile marker 48 they left the highway.
Getting around New Mexico is easy, until you leave the paved roads and cross into the great desert lands that appeared much the same mile after mile. Fanning’s oil Lease 9870 covered forty desolate acres about twenty miles south of Highway 380. To get there, the white van zigzagged around desert obstacles for over thirty rock-hard miles. Many of the team dozed off during the trip, but Alice stayed alert, not wanting to miss anything that might be of special note. They arrived on-site at 9:15, and everyone piled out of the van. There was little enthusiasm for the task ahead.
Not so for Alice. She kept detailed records of each field survey conducted so she could later transfer any useful findings into the District’s Archaeology Database. Today she felt like a squirrel about to find last winter’s cache of carefully hidden nuts. If she found nothing, that meant there were no signs of past human life or culture on that tract of land. If she discovered even a small shard of pottery or rock tool, it added another piece to the historical puzzle of the living past.
Joe instructed everyone to walk a thirty yard pattern starting from north to south, and then switch directions and walk the track again. Everyone carried a two-way radio, making communication between the team members possible.
The crew formed a line with the proper distance between each person, and began to march south. Forty acres driving a tractor is manageable, but forty acres on foot is like swimming a mile–it looks easy until you do it. At the end of the first tract, they reformed and started over, Alice called to the other members of the crew on her two-way radio. "Keep an eye open for bits of pottery or other things of a suspicious nature. Sing out if you see anything. I'll come to you and check it out."
Howard Duran, the range manager, couldn't resist a comment. "How about antelope droppings, if there're old?"
"Not funny," she answered.
By 11 o'clock they had covered half of the tract as the temperature inched up. Alice studied the ground with a trained eye. She seldom missed even the slightest clue to the past. As she approached an abrupt rise in the terrain she noticed the ground surface was different. Disturbed. The hardpan, a gray colored impervious layer of soil located inches under the surface was scattered over the surface. Two steps further she knelt down for a close inspection. Something's been digging here. Probably coyotes. She moved forward and flicked on her radio. "I'm not sure what this is, but it’s strange." Alice pulled her metal trowel out of her back pocket and began to probe the ground.
Halverson radioed back. "Did you find something, Alice? A big old chunk of pottery?" No answer. "What do you see that’s strange?" Still no answer.
Then, Alice's voice burst from everyone's pocket radios. "Damn. You better come over here. Right now. I mean everybody. Jesus Christ! I don't believe this!"