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Un-believable & Un-expected
>Discovery<
By now, we realized that we had something we wouldn’t be able to dig up with our hunting knives, so we went back to my cabin for a quick sandwich, a pick and a couple of shovels.
It was about a half hour later when we got back to the site of our mysterious angle. R. was a certified Indian Archaeologist, so we agreed it would be best if he took the pick while I waited for him to loosen up enough soil for me to gently scoop out with the shovel. He started in gently, breaking up only the first couple of inches. When he had gone the full length of the signal area, I started taking out the loosened materials. This wasn’t as easy as I’m making it sound as we were digging in good old red clay. Fortunately, it was at that time of year that it had enough moisture in it, that it wasn’t quite like picking through road bricks. (lol)
We were down almost 7 inches, when I heard my shovel scrape against something metal. At this point, R. took over and after a few minutes had uncovered the long blade of a “cross-cut” saw. We thought it was odd, for the saw blade was standing upright. Just the position it would have been in for cutting through a fallen tree trunk.
My Brother decided it would be better if we widened the trench so that we would have a little more room. Well, lo and behold, about 18 inches from and parallel to the first blade, we uncovered another one. And, like the first, it was standing upright too.
Now, I was beginning to get a little interested. (lol)
We continued removing materials and found this “trough” was lined on both sides with cross-cut saw blades, stacked on top of each other. 3 on the left and 3 on the right. (We later reasoned that the blades were to keep the sides from falling while the other items were placed in the trough.
And items there were!!
We never were sure why the troughs were dug at an angle as these were. Who knows what goes through a persons mind when they’re trying to hide something of value?? Perhaps they reasoned that if Indians came by, they might see signs of something having been buried there. And if they tried to dig it up, after uncovering one trough, they’d think that was all and leave the other trough intact.
In any case, the first trough had several picks, three or four shovels, a couple of sledge hammers, and I don’t remember all of what was there. Needless to say, it was full up to about 14 inches of the top, with neatly stacked tools. One of the oddities was; there was not the first tool that showed any sign of wood. It was like the handles were all removed before they were buried.
The trough that was dug heading down-hill was a little different. Though it was also lined with cross-cut saw blades, and had a few mining tools in it, we also found 2 bullet molds (balls.) A set of balance beam scales, an iron, long handled ladle of the kind used for pouring molten metal. I could see in the ladle, there were minute traces of gold. I know there were many more items in these troughs, but these are the only ones that stand out in my mind.
R. started stacking the tools preparatory to refilling the troughs, while I made the walk back to my cabin to get R.’s pick-up truck. By the time I got back, the troughs were filled and we loaded everything up to take to his home.
When we arrived at his place, the first thing we did was, spread a large tarp on the ground. Then we laid the picks, shovels and sledge hammers side by side on it. R. took the water hose and start knocking the clay off of the tools.
I was just standing there watching, when my eyes saw something stamped in one of sledge hammers.
I told R. to shut off the water for a minute while I took a look. On closer inspection, it turned out that all of the sledge hammers and picks were stamped with the icon that most artifact hunters hope for; CSA
By this time, it was starting to get dark, so R. while preparing to give me a ride back home, said he would like to keep the bullet molds there, along with some of the other tools so that he could soak them in kerosene and oil and get them to working again. I told him to keep all of it as I wasn’t really interested in artifacts and they would just give me something else to lose or give away. And frankly, I would have donated my share to the Mariposa Museum as I had no use for them.
R. gave me a ride home, and I never mentioned our find to him again. A couple of years later, his mother called early one morning to let me know that R.s body had been found just off Colorado Rd. He had been shot the night before. It was found later that he had stumbled upon a meth lab and had been shot 7 times with a .22 cal. rifle. This was one of those rare times that the perpetrator was apprehended in a matter of days, and is now doing life in a California state prison.
Unfortunately, I have no idea what happened to our finds, but I do intend to go back by this next summer and if it’s still as open as it was, I’ll pound it like a 10 penny nail.
For some reason, for years, I’ve had the gut feeling that there’s some gold buried around there somewhere.
Eagle
Darn commercials!
