Free Slave Graves (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 1) by Thomas Hollyday Page A

sometimes.”
    “Like rotten soil in your garden,” said Maggie. “Strange how so many beautiful flowers grow in stink.”
    The sun heated the site quickly as they worked. Its glare was everywhere and glinted off the bits of silica in the soil and the white oyster shells that appeared everywhere as they dug. The pump hammered away, keeping barely ahead of the constantly seeping water.
    “It’s like the earth itself is alive,” said Frank.
    “Oyster shells are from the ancient Native American feasts around here, remains of their eating,” explained Maggie.
    Down about a foot into Frank’s pit, he reached a conglomerate, a stone hard chunk of rusted and chemically fused material, mostly soil but with some rusty items showing in the soil. It was a large oblong object that stretched out from the shipwreck, a few feet from what might have been the side of the ship, extending also beyond the white twine lines that Maggie had designed. The conglomerate was heavy. Frank could not move it.
    “Come look at this,” he called.
    Maggie and the Pastor squatted beside him.
    “I want to get this out of the ground. Let’s get some photographs first.”
    Maggie went up to her car behind the farmhouse and got her camera and tripod. She also returned with a black and white scale and a small arrow for referencing the direction north in the photographs. She photographed the object from directly above. Then, for a few minutes they worked along the sides of the artifact, digging out the space around it, expanding the excavation. Knowing time was short they used shovels instead of trowels to hollow out beneath it so they could judge its circumference and length. They were able to determine that it ran out from the line of the marker twine about another ten feet and that it was about thirty inches in circumference. Frank moved his hand over the artifact.
    “Unfortunately, conglomerates take forever to study,” he said. “You can’t just hack them open. You have to chip at them carefully.”
    “Sometimes all you end up uncovering is a pocket of air with all the original artifact disintegrated but the shape still impressed in the conglomerate,” said Maggie.
    “We can make plaster molds to see what the original object was. It’s very tedious. Usually on these projects we have remote sensing electronics to look into the ground before we dig to see if anything is there and how it is oriented.”
    “Yes, that’s when we have the equipment,” said Maggie not smiling. “How do we get it out?”
    “There’s that truck up in the shed.”
    “You’re right. She’s got a hoist,” said the Pastor. He smiled. “I’ve driven those M37 trucks. Plenty of power.”
    “We got truck driving in common, Pastor,” grinned Frank. “I’ll get the truck.”
    There was a smell of oil and canvas as he opened the door of the truck. He put the windows down in the hot air and pushed the old canvas top back. The engine started fast and ran well as Jake had said it would. Engine heat soon panted in hot gusts at Frank’s bare feet, seething up at him through the steel floor with its ragged holes from some forgotten battle.
    In a few minutes Frank had the truck backing towards the site. The grass at the edge of the site parted in front of the back end of the old military vehicle. The engine rumbled as the large rubber cleated tires tortured the earth, inching back toward the test pit. Maggie stood beside the artifact, her arms signaling to Frank. Finally, Frank positioned the large arm of the bomb hoist directly over the object.
    “Well done, soldier,” smiled the Pastor.
    Frank grinned and signaled the Pastor the thumbs up sign. He reached into the bed of the truck and pulled out a yellow lifting strap.
    “Let’s see if we can get this strap under the object.”
    “Put it under the center,” said Maggie. The Pastor placed several two by four timbers along the conglomerate to spread the tension of the strap. Frank passed the strap under the