by David Kersey
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO – Assembly Line
Sleep did not come easily for Joshua. He lay in his cot in the loft, listening to the whirring of the cellos, recollecting the events of the last few days. The past three days were more eventful than the sum total of his three years living on this property. He knew the day would come when he would need help in order to keep up with increasing demand. That day had come with the grace of a sledgehammer, and had not been what he had expected in his wildest dreams. If the CDC determined that the NIL was acceptable, he would have to ramp up production by more than tenfold. By himself, in the past, the most he had produced in one day was 120 jars, which also was the approximate number he had on hand and ready to go. Most of them contained the peyote and there was no undoing that. Though he much appreciated the efforts of Patricia Reid and her involvement and concerns that mostly aligned with his, her efforts had caused a maelstrom, a frenzied pace that would require a significant expansion of raw materials and manpower. Yum Brands, University of Kentucky, Center for Disease Control; all three a result of her intervention.
His thoughts were interrupted by a creaking sound from below. He swung his legs off the cot to investigate, but then saw Namanda’s head rise just above the floorboards of the loft. She had climbed the vertical ladder just enough to gain a vantage point to see him.
“haHA.” She laughed and smiled.
“What are you doing up. It’s late. Come on up and sit by me. I want to show you something.”
Joshua opened the bottom drawer of a dilapidated dresser while Namanda camped on the cot. He turned on a small night light, then sat next to her. In his hand was an object that was bound in layers of clear wrapping material.
“I can’t unwrap this because the treasure I’m holding is encrusted with bat guano, which is unhealthy to handle or breathe. It’s from the cave, Namanda. At the cave floor, down by the pool of water, are dozens of Indian artifacts. This is one of them. It is a rain stick, exquisitely painted and hand carved.” He shook the package in the air. The sound of pellets, probably some type of seeds, rattled inside the cylindrical wooden item the size and shape of a relay runner’s baton. “Namanda, there are more of these down there, and there is pottery, some of it is still whole. There is Indian jewelry and what appears to be coins made out of polished rocks. It is my opinion that these items were hidden from either marauding tribes or the encroachment of the white man. I don’t believe the Park Service is aware that they are there, or else they would have been recovered and archived in some museum. Legally all the items would belong to the U.S. government, but in my mind, they belong to the surviving offspring of the ancestral tribe members.”
“What is a rain stick? What did they use if for?” Namanda shook it, then smiled. “It sounds like rain, doesn’t it?”
“They used it in times of drought. They thought it would summon the rain god by shaking it. This may be a Shawnee relic, and it probably is, but I haven’t shown it to anyone or told anyone about what I found in the cave. But I can tell you, the items are worth a small fortune. There is something else down there, too.”
“That sounds mysterious. What?”
“Jedidiah Fielding is still down there, at least I think it’s him. There is only a skeletal remain and the tattered shreds of the white man’s type of clothing. And this is very important, Namanda. I have been all the way to the cave floor, but getting back up is treacherous. I feel that Fielding lost his footing during the narrow climb and fell to his death. That could mean that someone else wrote Jedidiah’s name in the landing area. Since the name also bears a date, it may be a memorial, like a gravestone. So it’s important to scope out the best way to climb back out of the depths, and it is essential to have a lantern. The blackness in there is so disorienting that the brain plays tricks on you. You may think you are climbing, when in fact you are descending. I am telling you this, because if something should happen to me, someone needs to know about the riches below. I want you to be that someone.”
“Oh, Joshua. You honor me. You are the only person that truly understands me, and what it is like to be me. And I understand you. Why were we born so out of time for each other?”
“We are not born out of time for each other. We are sitting together, inches apart, and will always be able to remember what we’ve shared the last few days.”
“You know I love you, don’t you?” Namanda, whose supposed autism would suggest she would be looking away while asking such a personal question, looked him squarely in the eye.
“Yes, I know.” He reached out to her, and she fell into his arms. They embraced, quietly, for several moments. No words needed to be said.
Namanda asked while her head was tucked into Joshua’s shoulder, “Why were the people who lived here called Indians? I am an Indian, but not like them.”
Joshua smiled. “The person credited with first setting foot in this hemisphere, Christopher Columbus, assumed he had errantly sailed into India, because the people he found here were of the similar coloring and appearance as those in India. He therefore called them Indios. The name stuck.”
“What is going to happen Joshua?”
“That’s an excellent question. I know what I would like to happen. I’d like for you and your parents to stay right here for a while, and for the Mehra family to be freed from the controlling arms of your government and mine. I could use your help, and for now, I think you folks can use mine. But will that happen? I can’t answer that.”
“I want to stay. You know that.”
“You’re right. I do know that. Now it’s time to go back to bed. You and I need our sleep. Did you know that the NIL works best in our bodies while we’re sleeping?”
“Can I lay here on the floor and watch you go to sleep?”
“No, you may not. Off you go, young lady. Be careful getting down, hold on to the railing before you take a step. Hey, anyone ever call you Mandy?”
“No. Why?”
“Just checking. Go.”
“I came up here to see if you had a book to read. There’s nothing to read over there.”
“Here, take this one.” Joshua handed her ‘Gone with the Wind’, wondering if the book title offered a portent of the future.
“Thanks. See you in the morning.” Namanda trotted off into the night.
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