I got a call last week from friend and colleague Dr. Sanders Patterson. He informed me of a job opportunity in Pleasantville Iowa just outside of Des Moines. It was a Chippewa Indian excavation, but the tone of his voice lead me to believe it to be more than that. Otherwise he would not have called on my services for such a basic job. I asked how much it paid, and he said one hundred thousand, which was more than I got paid in 2 years. With my suspicions rising, I asked who was paying, and the answer being 'did I want the job?' Yes, I wanted the job. My final question was, "Sanders, what does a native-american dig want with a Byzantine specialist?"
"Dr. Murkaugh, you'll find out when you get here!" was the reply.
And here it is one week since the phone call. I am at the Des Moines International airport awaiting a ride. I approach a man with a sign that had my name on it.
"I am Dennis Murkaugh."
I was driven through the city heading southeast. The tree shadows were creating a strobe effect with the sun, that left me feeling dazed. In the blue glow of twilight we turned down a dirt road. And for half an hour I saw nothing but the dirt road illuminated by the car's headlights. Then the scene appeared. Behind a barbed wired fence whose entrance was guarded by what looked like some government security agency, they let us pass through without stopping. Inside the "complex" was less elaborate than what the fence told. Five tents and a fifty yard wide hole. The sound of generators were deafening, and the whole place was lit by several worklights whereupon thousands of moths and other insects fervently bounced off back and forth in the warm summer night.
(to be continued, maybe, yawn.)
