CHAPTER 24
Havre, Montana
Tom lined up with his tent mates and they quietly filed through the cage door. Grabbing a stale roll and cup of water, they ate on their way to the enclosure. Once there, they dropped their cups in a bucket, picked up shovels, and made their way to their dig spot.
Tom noticed that during the night a number of large objects, about six feet by four, had been unearthed. Each was still covered in a thick layer of dirt. He and Seeley were given smaller shovels and a brush. They were told to carefully remove the dirt from the side of one of the objects. Other two-man teams were set up with the other objects.
Two hours later, Tom’s back and neck were screaming at him. But he knew better than to complain. One of the guys who’d been here a while warned him, that if he got hurt, not to let them see it. There was no med tent. If he couldn’t work, his usefulness would be at an end, as well as his life. So he continued working, ignoring the pain, unveiling the side of the monolith in front of him.
Almost put in a trance by the mind-numbing task, he was surprised when he saw rock peaking through. He’d reached the edge. And there seemed to be something carved into it.
Intrigued, in spite of his pain, Tom worked faster and shortly uncovered a full carving about twelve inches long. It was some sort of figure – a man-eagle hybrid.
Tom sat back, dumbfounded. It looked like some sort of Egyptian hieroglyph. He’d seen them once in a book he’d borrowed from the prison library.
Confused, Tom looked around the enclosure at all the other dig sites. He could make out a bunch of other rock towers sticking out of them as well. There were dozens of the things.
Although Tom hadn’t traveled much in his life, he knew that this sure as hell wasn’t Egypt. He supposed they could be in Canada. But he didn’t think so. For some reason, he thought they were still in the States. All the guards were American, all the cars.
Tom took a quick glance at a monolith directly behind him. It depicted humans farming and some flying in some sort of hot air balloon.
These things had been buried here for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. A chill ran through him. But what were they doing here and who had buried them? And why the hell were a bunch of ex-cons digging them out?