The Dig

by Michael Siemsen

  “How do you shoot a blue elephant?” he asked. Some of the men laughed at the question alone. “With a blue elephant gun. Now, how do you shoot a red elephant?”

  Tuni watched Pete and Rheese walk toward Matt as the laborers laughed and shouted “That’s stupid!” in Swahili.

  Enzi continued. “Hold his trunk shut until he turns blue, and then shoot him with the blue elephant gun. Now, how do you shoot a yellow elephant?”

  “A yellow elephant gun?” One of them guessed.

  Enzi replied with the punchline, “Don’t be so foolish! When have you ever seen a yellow elephant?”

  The men’s laughter seemed to irritate Rheese. He was shooting hard looks their way as he and Sharma approached Matt.

  “Matt,” said Peter, “I was wondering if you would mind a quick demonstration of your ability. Dr. Rheese has legitimate concerns that I would like us to dispel, if you’re willing.”

  Matt bristled. Was this a person that he wanted to convince? It seemed that Peter had decided so on his behalf. He chided himself for not shaking his head and making clear to Peter that he didn’t want Rheese brought it. “I guess… whatever it takes. What do you want me to do?”

  “I’d like you to do a read on his hat and tell him something you couldn’t possibly know.”

  Dr. Rheese choked. “Me? Ah-m…” Though he still didn’t believe in it, what if the boy’s alleged ability should prove real? He couldn’t afford to have anyone inside his head, not even for a second. It’s not real, he repeated in his head as he searched for an adequate alternative.

  “Well, yes,” Peter replied. “I mean, it wouldn’t do much to convince you if he did it with me or someone else, right? Seems that would be like someone else telling you that you just missed seeing a flyby of UFOs, no? Would you not have to see it with your own eyes?”

  Matt studied Rheese. What was he trying to hide?

  “Tell you what, Peter,” Rheese said. “Why not just have the lad tell us the color of my knickers?”

  “Nice idea, Doctor,” replied Matt. “But this isn’t a magic show, and it doesn’t work that way. Tell me—without any details, of course—what’s the most interesting thing to have occurred here in the past week?”

  “Well, it would be difficult to overlook the incident with the beastie decaying in the pit over there.”

  “All right, good,” Matt began. “So don’t tell me anything about it, but what were you holding or wearing when it all started to hit the fan?”

  Rheese began to stew again. “Well, in actual fact… I don’t precisely recall, but… ah, of course—Enzi had the Mossberg from the equipment trailer.” Good thinking, old boy.

  “What’s that?” Pete asked.

  “Enzi!” Rheese shouted to the food tent. “Could you fetch the shotgun?”

  Now it was Matt’s turn to feel uneasy. He had a major aversion to reading weapons, but if it would get him back in the motor home and holding the fragment, he was willing to forego comfort at this point. Enzi jogged past them to the trailer, lowered the tailgate, and ducked inside. He emerged a moment later with the shotgun, and after opening the breech to ensure that it wasn’t loaded, he put it in Matt’s gloved hands.

  Now this guy, too? Things were spiraling out of Matt’s control. He needed to pull Peter and Tuni aside and make clear his disapproval. And why wasn’t Tuni stepping in? She must be deferring to Peter, who evidently thinks my ability is a matter of public record.

  “Do you need a chair or anything, Matthew?” Peter asked.

  “What I need is to be in a private area, and for people to remember promises they agreed to years ago.”

  Peter nodded absently, looking toward the RV, then appeared to get it. He glanced at Rheese and Enzi, both with bemused expressions. He looked at Matt apologetically and pulled him aside, out of earshot.

  “I am so sorry, man! I wasn’t thinking at all. I just thought Rheese was already in and then he suggested his foreman’s and the shotgun and I just went with it. The damage is done, I know, but I promise, no more. You tell me where we go from here.”

  Matt sighed and looked past Peter’s shoulder where Rheese had his fists on his hips, staring intensely at Matt and Peter.

  “We just have to stop it with these two, Pete. I brought Tuni in on the plane thinking I wouldn’t have anyone on my side here. If I had known you were going to be here, it would have just been you and me in that RV. None the wiser for what’s going on.”

  “It was a last minute decision, man. Again, I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

  Matt brushed it off and they walked back to the group.

  Enzi had put the men on the gruesome task of cutting up and hauling away the rotting elephant carcass, piece by revolting piece, to a hole that Kanu had dug with the backhoe. Enzi remained in the RV with Rheese and the visitors, curious why they wanted to look at the shotgun he had used. Was he going to be in trouble?

  Sitting at the table, Matt removed one glove, then grasped the shotgun with his other, still gloved hand. He had nothing really to cover the table with, so he had to improvise. Though, with everyone staring at him he felt on the verge of a panic attack, there was nothing for it but to suck in a deep breath, set the timer on his arm to five minutes, and lower his bare hand onto the black metal.

  The whoosh filled his ears, and he suddenly felt very wet. It was pouring rain. The ground just shook, and there’s a crazed elephant stomping toward the pit.

  I am male. I’m thirty-one. I was born in Mombasa, Kenya. I am Jeremiah Enzi, but I go by Enzi Wata. I see my two men skidding away in a Jeep as the professor runs and hides behind the RV. I just got the shotgun out of the equipment trailer. I think of my wife, and I think of little Jomo in his overalls.

  The elephant crashes down into the pit, and I am relieved but also saddened. The professor comes to edge of the pit. He asks if it is dying. This conversation should be enough proof for both of them. How much time left? I walk to elevator—hey, that’s something! There’s no elevator anymore, and the pit is like a giant rectangle instead of the sloped wedge of half that size that’s there now. And I see a bunch of jackhammers in there, too, all leaned up against the walls, sitting deep in—

  The timer buzzed his arm, and his bare hand lifted reflexively to push the stop button. Matt set the shotgun down on the table and replaced his right glove.

  “So tell us!” Peter exclaimed. It had been years since he saw Matt work.

  Matt took quick note of all their expressions, took a deep, steadying breath, and began. “Well, it was raining…”

  “Uncanny,” Rheese quipped as the rain again began to patter down onto the RV roof.

  “There were also two more men—I didn’t get to see their faces, but Enzi knew them as Chewy and Zuzuwe. They drove off in what I’m guessing was that Jeep parked outside, while Dr. Rheese ran and hid behind the RV back there.”

  Rheese frowned and shot a look at Enzi.

  “I not talk about any of it with them, Professor. I not know how he know.”

  “Also, the two of you spoke to each other after the elephant fell in and caved in the whole side over there. You said ‘Is it dying?’ Then Enzi said, ‘Not survive that drop, sir. See his neck.’ And then you said ‘It made a bloody mess,’ and asked where Enzi was going as he walked over to an elevator. And the hole was much bigger, and there were jackhammers all along the walls.”

  Rheese gulped. Peter frowned and looked at him with confusion.

  “Jackhammers, Doctor?”

  “Yes,” he replied dismissively. “We had them brought in just that day for some large stones we were having difficulty with.”

  Enzi was amazed. His parents had told him stories of wizards that they insisted were true, but he had stopped believing in anything miraculous years ago. Could it be trickery? Could someone else have been there? Chui and Zuzuwi would not have heard them talk.

  “What else?” Enzi asked with skepticism. “How can it be real?”

  “When you walke
d out of the equipment trailer with the shotgun in your hands, you thought of your wife and son. You saw an image of him in your head. He was wearing light blue overalls with a black T-shirt and holding himself up with one hand on a glass table.”

  Enzi felt his legs grow weak, and he sat down on the bench. Impossible! He thought over and over again as he stared at Matt.

  Matt started to feel uncomfortable again and wondered if he had told a bit too much. He knew how freaky it must feel to have one’s thoughts told by a complete stranger. And this guy was looking at him a little too intensely now. Did he need to make that big an impression? Had he lost sight of his need for secrecy in favor of shutting up Dr. Rheese?

  Tuni and Peter appeared pretty satisfied by the show, but Matt wanted to see Dr. Rheese’s reaction. He was gnawing at the inside of his cheek and tugging his earlobe, clearly conflicted. Peter broke the silence.

  “So, Doctor, convinced?”

  “I’m bashing it about it my head. How anyone could ever do that… ?”

  “Well, Doctor,” Tuni said, “perhaps you could continue to think it over and have an opportunity to judge it some more after Matthew spends some more time with the artifact. Surely, this feat buys him a ticket to another ten minutes,” she added with a pleasant smile.

  Her cheerful tone infuriated him, but if he didn’t agree to it, Sharma would simply overrule him. He would no longer appear to have control over the site, and no one would bother consulting him on any of the important decisions to come. It would set the precedent to go over his head to Peter from this moment on. He had no choice.

  “I like it, folks,” he said with a grin. “Very interesting stuff. Let’s give it a ten-minute roll, but the same rule applies, Mr. Turner. If I fear for the artifact’s well-being, I pull the plug.”

  “Right,” Matt replied, as if he himself had feared for the thing’s well-being all along. It was a good thing, though, last time. He would have been stuck! Best not to advertise that Rheese’s boorish behavior had pretty much saved him in the absence of his timer’s shock.

  “May I stay?” Enzi asked Rheese.

  “Of course,” he replied affably. “You certainly are a part of this now, aren’t you?” Rheese pulled out the most sincere laugh he could muster, while the scheming gears in the other side of his brain were whirring at full tilt. He was also still genuinely curious about the artifact—he merely doubted its ability to make him rich anytime soon, if at all.

  “Hey,” Peter said to Matt. “Before we get started I’d like to hear what you saw so far. Did you take notes?”

  “I haven’t had a chance, actually, but it’s all still very fresh in my head, and I can always go back to it in a session if I forgot anything. It was all very bizarre.”

  Rheese handed out cold bottled water to everyone; then, as everyone else listened, Matt relayed the experience to Peter. Peter scratched down notes and asked him to pause a few times so he could catch up. Everyone was enthralled, even Rheese.

  13

  FAST FORWARD.

  Yes, that was definitely the Little Dipper. Light around the bend. Still worried, though; still counting the steps.

  Fast forward.

  Here we are… I must meet in the Center House with Inni’s friends and family. We stop walking single file, and Irin stops counting steps. Pwig comes up beside me and grabs my hand to walk with me. Pwig has the same mother and father as I. He is my brother. I had another brother. We’re walking, holding hands, toward the Center House.

  I see the Center House now at the end of the path. The ground looks and feels like walking on a stone garden, with chunky rocks that are a little too big to feel comfortable walking on. On either side of us are smaller houses, interconnected. Most are dark, but some have the pale blue light coming from them. Are those windows? I wish Irin would actually look at something close-up. I want to see where the light actually comes from.

  My timer’s set for ten minutes… if this imprint lasts that long.

  As we approach the Center House, the path splits off in two directions: one to the left that appears to wrap around to the other side of the round structure, and the other curves to the right and then straight to a rounded entryway. The buildings all look like smooth-walled igloos, but this one is huge compared to the rest. I walk inside and see other people. I pull the k’yot top off my head and lay it on a flat surface near the door, where several others are already piled. No one inside this room wears the k’yot, the shielding clothes, except the men who were with me on the path. Both men and women are bare-chested but for what look like two wide suspenders, perhaps three inches across, going over each shoulder and then connecting to a wraparound skirt piece that starts at the waist and ends a few inches above the knees. The skirts are fairly plain, only dressed up by the overlap of the suspender straps, which, looking around this room, appear to come in many different colors. The skirts, too, are varied in color. I see tan straps with blue skirt, matching purple straps with purple skirt, and dark brown with pure white. Their foot coverings all seem the same: tan material nailed or stapled into large foot-shaped pieces that stick out quite a bit from the actual foot, making everyone’s feet look pretty big. Also, judging by the odd feeling when Irin walks, they aren’t very comfortable.

  That is Oinni sitting on what appears to be a short tree stump with no bark. It’s called a footrest, but others are sitting on them, too, so I’m guessing these are their chairs. I walk to Oinni and put my hand on her head. Her hair hangs to her ears. It is straight, black, and clumpy, like very thin dreadlocks. It looks as if everyone’s hair is like this. Irin speaks to her.

  “Inni twyn gin, ylt pwino i pwin opget.” Your mate now rests and is forever safe. He feels deeply sad for her and thinks how his own mate, Orin, would feel if he were lost.

  I get it now—the names. My name is Irin; my wife is Orin. The first sound is in place of Mr. or Mrs. So is my name actually Rin? I wonder what a woman is called before she is married.

  Irin looks up and across the round table to some others he knows in the house. In the middle of the table, there! I can finally see one of the light sources! It’s a wide tube of liquid that leads all the way up to the domed roof; at the base, inside the tube, something that looks like a lit candle is submerged in the liquid. This tube is clearly made of glass or some sort of transparent plastic. Witno just bumped the table, and now the liquid went into motion inside the cylinder, and the light has begun to dance around the room as if we were under water. Irin steps back and turns toward a man who is talking to him. It’s Norrit; he’s taking off his middle and tells me I should, too.

  Rewind.

  That tube of light—how do they get the lit candle thing in there? Someone must stick it in through a hole in the table, up into the tube, and then something closes on the bottom. The flame in there is huge. It doesn’t look as though there’s a wick; it’s just the whole stick of whatever’s on fire in there. Doesn’t it need air? Irin steps back…

  Fast-forward.

  He takes off the jacket part of the k’yot and lays it on the table by the door. Okay, well, I guess I don’t have to wait for the timer. This imprint should fade out quick now that he’s not in contact with it anymore.

  Back to structure. How am I going to tell what era this is? These people are clearly humanlike, but the giant eyes and three fingers thing makes them… what? Some kind of unique tribe that started with a couple of three-fingered, odd-faced freaks, and everyone else is an offshoot of them? Irin is stepping outside for air. If this is all those millions of years ago, how can I tell? This guy’s concept of the date is full of batches and gross batches, and now I’m aware of some “all batch” that works out to four thousand something. Maybe Pete can help with that. Let’s hear it, Irin—what’s the date again? And I’ll try to remember this to write down immediately.

  Single plus batch plus batch plus batch plus full batch plus gross batch plus single plus single past.

  Past what? Past the moon. What about the moon
? An eclipse or something? No, some big moon event. Oh, a big moon event, wow, that’s great. Some raging party on the moon. Anything else? Oh, a t’gyt will help! That’s their calendar. I’ll have to hope Irin takes a look at one at some point.

  Right now, Irin is looking at the stars and thinking about Inni. That is what he’s supposed to be doing right now. This is Inni’s evening. Hopefully the imprint ends, or ten minutes are up soon, or I’m going to forget these numbers. Irin has an image of Inni and another man (who looks just like him), and they’re stirring some shiny liquid, like metal, in a huge vat. They’re talking about the excitement of the coming gathering—meaning harvesting, I’m guessing by the other images popping up in Irin’s head. He gets sad again and closes his eyes.

  His eyes are still closed. This is going to get boring. How could the imprint still be going? It’s just a wash of emotions now. This keeps going on, let me say the date over and over to remember it: single plus batch plus batch… Someone’s rubbing his head now and talking to him. He knows the voice. It’s Orin. She says it’s time to return to house, i tyg rol—that means “make safe,” referring to a time. It’s make-safe time. And be with her inside the house. Finally! This should be good. I want to see inside his house. That Center House seems to be just a town hall sort of building.

  Irin steps back into the Center House and grabs his k’yot parts. That explains why this imprint went on so long: it’s an overlap. We walk around the path from the Center House and then cut left onto a branching trail. I know the way. Three more houses on the left, four on the right, and mine is at the end—it’s the only one with the light still visible through the little window opening there. We come upon my house, which is just like all the rest: a small, perfect dome of unknown material. Irin glances through the window as he passes. It’s not a glass window, just an opening in the shape of the letter “D” turned so the flat side is on the bottom. The doorways are the same shape, but elongated tall enough for Irin and Orin to enter without ducking.