Rock On

You'd think that nobody in his right mind would be out at nine AM on a Sunday morning, hiking two miles up a steep grade. You might be right about that, but here we are.

"Field Four. We're here," I said. "Right in this way."

"How far?" asked Nate.

"I can practically see them from here," I said.

Nate is a local teacher, and a friend of mine. We'd been planning for months to walk on the trail above Farrandsville, and today was the day. We walked in on the path, and found the field. And in the field were cairns---Several large, very structured shapes of rock, spaced out and carefully shaped like a dome, a couple of cones, and some rings. And that's what it takes to get me active on a Sunday morning---Ancient secrets.

"There's the cairns," I said.

"Wow," said Nate. 

We walked through the field, looking at them. I got my camera out, leaving my pack on one end of the field, and took some photos. I said,"I've written about these things several times, and I always get somebody telling me that they were built in the thirties by the CCC, or maybe farmers. But I've never thought that makes any sense---Both the CCC and all farmers everywhere have better things to do than creatively stack rocks."

"Yeah, I agree," said Nate. "Farmers are too busy to do this."

"These were planned, carefully structured," I said. "It always made more sense to me that they were done by the Native Americans as a symbol, or memorial. The Suquehannock tribe. I mean....These things meant something."

We walked around the field a while, taking photos and looking over the cairns. I commented,"We chose the right time of year for this. Last time I was up here, it was the middle of summer, and the grass was about waist high. I was terrified of snakes."

"Yeah, I wondered about that," commented Nate.

I stopped and looked at the dome cairn.

"I never noticed this before," I said. "There's a hole going through this one." I leaned over and peered through it. "It goes all the way through."

Nate looked at it. "Hunh. Let me climb up there and get a photo."

I turned and sprinted for my backpack, getting out my mutli-survival device. I think everything should be a multi-tool. This one had a magnifying glass, signal mirror, firestarter, thermometer, and a compass. 

"The hole goes directly east to west," I said. "Sunrise and sunset."

"Did you ever think," Nate asked,"That these might be Celtic? I've seen photos of Celtic cairns that have holes like this."
"That never occurred to me, but I can't rule it out," I said. "If Celts ever came through here, say, pre-1700s, I'd have no real way to know it."

"Definitely not the CCC, though," said Nate.

"No," I agreed. "The cairns are elaborate enough. No way they'd be bothering to build a perfectly aligned hole clean through."

Let's get all of the whining out of the way right now. I hate May. My mother died in May, my cousin died in May, my grandmother died in May. The whole month depresses the hell out of me; by the end of the month if a Chupacabra devours me, I'm ready to go.

But, stuff to do. I got the library job in May, too, nine years ago. Sometimes I even manage to do the work I'm paid for. 

Ah, you know what they say. Heavy is the head that wears the Loch Ness Monster cap.

I started with general research. Pulled my copy of Mysterious Ancient America and found a whole chapter on very similar cairns all over the country, dating back centuries. To my mind, that pretty much ended the whole argument that the cairns were built by the CCC----There's not a lot of logic to the concept that all the other cairns in the country were centuries old, but the CCC built these particular cairns in the thirties.

I checked the 1862 map of the county. There was no mention of the cairns, which would have been in the woods and hard to get to at the time. They may have been there, but unknown. The Hazard Road wasn't listed on the map, either, not having been built yet, but there was a path down below, mostly along Lick Run, which made sense.

I checked the index just to be thorough. Not that I expected much there, but we had nothing related under "cairns," or "Farrandsville," or "Colebrook Township." Just another thing to cross off the list.

It was May fifth. My mother had died eighteen years ago today.

And if you could see me now, Mom, would you be proud? Would you like that I write for the newspapers?

No....You wouldn't, would you.

You'd ask me when I was going to quit messing around with dead people and monsters and find a real job. We sure as hell went through that enough when you were alive.

Never mind. I pulled one of the big scrapbooks that sat across from my desk. I remembered an article in there.....After paging around for a moment, I found it.

There was a long article on discoveries made by Thomas Brown Stewart. Stewart had been a very prominent local archaeologist and historian. We had a lot in common, he and I. I studied the article, and found that Stewart had documented quite a few burial mounds and similar cairns throughout Clinton County, most of which had been destroyed by now.

Sometimes you get lucky.

"Hey, pal," I said into my cell phone as I walked the third floor of the library. "I have a favor to ask, if you're up for it."

"Sure, buddy, whatever you need," said SaraLee. "What's up?"

I was on the phone with her as I looked out the highest windows in the library, which were also the highest windows in the immediate vicinity. I was wearing my UFO shirt that said "Believe." I'd been doing some UFO checks from the third floor lately, which actually made a pretty good lookout point.

"Can you handle the incoming inquiries for LHPS online?" I asked. "Keep this between us, but....I need a break from ghosts for a little. A year of COVID, and Gwen died in my arms....Right now, I can't handle any more death."

"Sure, I can do that," said SaraLee. "You want to talk? I'm always here."

"Might call just to talk at some point, thanks. You and me should probably call each other about once a week anyway, to be honest. Just to catch up."

"Wouldn't mind getting together when I'm in town, every other Friday," said SaraLee. "Talk and hang out."

"That sounds great, actually," I said. "Let me know when."

"Left or right arm?" the pharmacist asked me as we sat down.

I took off my jacket. I was wearing my "Bigfoot: Social Distancing Champion" shirt. "Is there any practical difference?"

"Well, after getting the COVID shot, some people experience some soreness in the arm. If you're right-handed, you may want to try the left arm."

"I am. Left, then."

He picked up the needle. "Might feel a little pinch....."

"If a medical professional were coming at me with a machete, they'd tell me it was a little pinch."

He jabbed the needle into my arm. "I know when I got it, I immediately felt better....More free. Like things are getting back to normal."

"As normal as it can, anyway. I'm not too used to normal."

He put away the needle. "Done."

"That wasn't too bad, actually."

"CDC guidelines have people waiting fifteen minutes before leaving. You can self-time, and have one of the chairs over there."

"I brought a comic book."

"Your arm might feel a little sore. Don't baby it, just use it normally. We'll see you in three weeks for your second shot."
"So I can still go doing archaeology in the woods."

He gave me a funny look. "If that's what you had planned."

I was doing lobby duty, and I was almost relieved when the woman came in and asked to talk to the historian. I mean, how many rounds of Solitaire can you really play?

"That'd be me," I said.

She looked surprised. "I expected someone older," she said.

"You'd be amazed how often I hear that."

"My name is Susan. My neighbor Jayne works here. She recommended I talk to you."

"Oh, yeah, she mentioned you'd be stopping by. What can I do for you?"

"I'm interested in the pottery cave near Queen's Run. I found a mention of it in a book."

"Not familiar with that one offhand. It sounds like a Shoemaker legend, though."

"No," she said. "I found it in the Maynard book."

"Really?"

Ten minutes later, I was in the Pennsylvania Room, pulling the Maynard book from its shelf.

I flipped the pages. Okay, Queen's Run, that's in....Not Colebrook Township, it's one over in Woodward. Woodward Township. 

It turned out to be on the last page of the book. A paragraph about two men in Woodward, finding a Native American cave filled with pottery on the mountain, about five miles north of Queen's Run. It had happened around 1854, so I walked to the 1862 map on the wall and checked it out.

North of Queen's Run would be up in the mountains. I roughly estimated the spot. Then I compared it.

Driving on the roads today, it would be half an hour. But back then, walking overland in a straight line---Like the Susquehannocks would have done it---They were less than a mile from the cairns.

At seven AM, I got up just before the alarm. I prefer that; I can turn the obnoxious-sounding thing off, and I don't have to listen to it. I took a shower and put on my black T-shirt with the crop circles on it. I poured a cup of coffee, and then went to Paul's room.

Rosie had gotten out of bed and was curled up on a pile of laundry. She wagged her tail when she saw me. I gently shook Paul's shoulder.

"Hey, kiddo," I said. "Time to wake up."

It took a solid two minutes of prodding, but I finally got him to open his eyes. "What time is it?" he asked blearily.

"Seven-thirty, buddy," I said. "Time to get up and get ready. We have some exploring to do."

It was cloudy and overcast when we drove into Farrandsville. We parked the Prius and got out, and Paul ran over to the footbridge and began dropping sticks in the water, fascinated. I spent the time staring at my watch, and then a few minutes later, Nate pulled up in his SUV.

"Right on time," I said, and we climbed in.

Driving to the top was way easier than hiking it. We were up at the field in ten minutes, and we climbed out of the vehicle.

"There's the trail," said Nate.

"Just a minute," I said. "Before we go in, I want to check out that tree."

It was one of those Sherlock Holmes moments, one of the times I knew nobody could figure out what I was talking about, and I didn't care. I walked over and examined the tree, which was bent to the ground at a right angle, essentially making it resemble almost a Z-shape, growing toward the sky.

Nate came up behind me as I was taking photos. "What do you see?"

"This tree....The Native Americans used to bend them in this way as trail markers, border lines. I mean, it can happen by accident if a branch falls on a sapling, but they did it deliberately a lot. I wanted to check it out."

We cut through the forest and caught up with Michelle and Paul on the path. 

"You can see them from here, little man," I said. "Right up there."

"Cool," said Paul, and ran ahead to the cairns.

I walked in behind him. "Look, Pipper," I said. "There's the hole through the cairn we found last time. Check it out. You can see clean through."

Paul smiled and crept closer to the cairn. "I can see the other side!"

Nate and I walked around the field, hitting the outskirts. I said,"There's another one of those trees...."

"Another one over there," Nate observed.

"There's a bunch....And look, this one....It's a double. One on each side. I've seen photos of trees just like this used as boundary markers from the Native Americans."

Nate glanced around. "They're pretty much surrounding the cairn field."

"And look....They're only surrounding the field. About a hundred feet out, you can't see any bent trees like this anymore. The CCC definitely didn't create these trees. This is a sign that these cairns were built by the Native Americans."

We walked around in a loop, and rejoined Paul and Michelle. I took some photos of the trees and the cairns. I asked,"You having a good day, little man?"

"Yeah!" Paul said. "Cool!"