strength and Barbara’s experience, the first phase of digging went quickly. They paused once, to open up a few of the grid lines so the barrow could get through, and took turns doing the digging and running the barrow back and forth to the overburden tarp.
Barbara’s biggest worry was keeping the sides of the little excavation from caving in. Livingston was better at getting the hole deeper than he was at keeping the side shored up. Albeit with a great deal of fussing, she managed to keep sides square enough to satisfy her professors.
They found nothing more exciting than rocks in that first part of the dig, which made Barbara feel better. If the upper soil had been full of artifacts. the odds against the coffin nails being what had registered would have gone down. But with the dig a blank slate so far, there seemed no other possible explanation for the hits, except that something metal had been buried far deeper than people buried casual trash.
The sun was showing signs of lowering alarmingly by the time they were near the thirty-centimeter level. When they ran a metal-detector sweep at the 30 cm. horizon, none of the previous hits vanished, meaning that whatever had made them was still below and not thrown up on the overburden tarp. Indeed, all the readings had strengthened and two more faint ones registered. A few of the readings had shifted their apparent positions, and seemed to be clustering in a bit closer to each other. Barbara was pleased, but not surprised. A lot of things could throw a detector off: moisture in the overlying soil, a misreading of the peak on the gauss meter—or Livingston getting his big feet in their metal-toed work boots too close to the detector head.
As afternoon wore on into evening, Barbara had to use the flash on her camera to photograph the thirty-centimeter horizon with the restaked hits marked in.
By an act of sheer self-discipline, Barbara decided to knock off for the day. It was a hard call because they were close. Both of them could feel it. Just below their feet, secrets waited to whisper their truths after more than a hundred and thirty years of silence. It was tempting to dig out just one more trowelful, because whatever-it-was might be waiting below the surface, a handbreadth away. But that could be disaster in the tricky, failing light of sunset. The shadows of twilight were filling the excavation, and a vital bit of bone could be missed. A precious, irreplaceable bit of the past could easily be stepped on unknowingly, thrown away in the gloom of on-coming night. Barbara even considered scaring up whatever lanterns and flashlights were about the place, and working that way, but eyes dazzled by a flashlight could be worse than useless, and light was no help when it merely turned shadows into glare.
Reluctantly, they cleaned their tools, returned them carefully to their places in the garden shed and the garage, and took their sore muscles in to dinner and the last of the endless Big Games on TV. Barbara crept upstairs to a much-wanted shower and an early bed time—but she might as well have been eight years old on Christmas Eve, for all the sleep she got.
<>
The next morning, Saturday, she was in the excavation, shoring up the walls where they had slumped over in the night, before the last star had left the sky. Her muscles were sore from yesterday’s work, but that just felt good, a real sign that she had done something the day before.
Livingston stumbled out of the house soon afterwards, carrying two steaming cups of coffee. Barbara took hers gratefully.
The two of them started with the back-wrenching, tedious, careful work of peeling back the surface of the excavation. She drummed into his head just how fragile what they were digging for was. It would require exquisite care to remove whatever remains they might find.
Livingston listened carefully as Barbara told him how to dig gently, and he set to work alongside her.
It was long, slow work. They would dig down
Barbara’s biggest worry was keeping the sides of the little excavation from caving in. Livingston was better at getting the hole deeper than he was at keeping the side shored up. Albeit with a great deal of fussing, she managed to keep sides square enough to satisfy her professors.
They found nothing more exciting than rocks in that first part of the dig, which made Barbara feel better. If the upper soil had been full of artifacts. the odds against the coffin nails being what had registered would have gone down. But with the dig a blank slate so far, there seemed no other possible explanation for the hits, except that something metal had been buried far deeper than people buried casual trash.
The sun was showing signs of lowering alarmingly by the time they were near the thirty-centimeter level. When they ran a metal-detector sweep at the 30 cm. horizon, none of the previous hits vanished, meaning that whatever had made them was still below and not thrown up on the overburden tarp. Indeed, all the readings had strengthened and two more faint ones registered. A few of the readings had shifted their apparent positions, and seemed to be clustering in a bit closer to each other. Barbara was pleased, but not surprised. A lot of things could throw a detector off: moisture in the overlying soil, a misreading of the peak on the gauss meter—or Livingston getting his big feet in their metal-toed work boots too close to the detector head.
As afternoon wore on into evening, Barbara had to use the flash on her camera to photograph the thirty-centimeter horizon with the restaked hits marked in.
By an act of sheer self-discipline, Barbara decided to knock off for the day. It was a hard call because they were close. Both of them could feel it. Just below their feet, secrets waited to whisper their truths after more than a hundred and thirty years of silence. It was tempting to dig out just one more trowelful, because whatever-it-was might be waiting below the surface, a handbreadth away. But that could be disaster in the tricky, failing light of sunset. The shadows of twilight were filling the excavation, and a vital bit of bone could be missed. A precious, irreplaceable bit of the past could easily be stepped on unknowingly, thrown away in the gloom of on-coming night. Barbara even considered scaring up whatever lanterns and flashlights were about the place, and working that way, but eyes dazzled by a flashlight could be worse than useless, and light was no help when it merely turned shadows into glare.
Reluctantly, they cleaned their tools, returned them carefully to their places in the garden shed and the garage, and took their sore muscles in to dinner and the last of the endless Big Games on TV. Barbara crept upstairs to a much-wanted shower and an early bed time—but she might as well have been eight years old on Christmas Eve, for all the sleep she got.
<>
The next morning, Saturday, she was in the excavation, shoring up the walls where they had slumped over in the night, before the last star had left the sky. Her muscles were sore from yesterday’s work, but that just felt good, a real sign that she had done something the day before.
Livingston stumbled out of the house soon afterwards, carrying two steaming cups of coffee. Barbara took hers gratefully.
The two of them started with the back-wrenching, tedious, careful work of peeling back the surface of the excavation. She drummed into his head just how fragile what they were digging for was. It would require exquisite care to remove whatever remains they might find.
Livingston listened carefully as Barbara told him how to dig gently, and he set to work alongside her.
It was long, slow work. They would dig down
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