Elisha's Bones - Don Hoesel [5]
While still reeling from the possibility of having to abandon KV65, I’m grateful for the redirection. Placing this other issue aside, I’m about to tell Jim what we’ve found when the RV makes a minor shift beneath my feet.
When the moment has ended, a silence fills the vacuum, and it seems almost as threatening as whatever set the vehicle to shaking. Jim and I lock eyes and then he is out of his chair and we are both heading toward the door. Our time in this country has given us ample experience with incidents of seismic activity; neither of us need to verbalize that what we just felt was something else.
My only thought is for the team I left down below, and the run across the hot sand is a blur. I’m two decades younger than Jim and so I leave him behind. By the time I reach the tomb entrance, the first of my team are exiting from the earth’s darkened maw. The clinical part of me notes that the doorway is intact; there are no new fissures along the limestone and shale layers to indicate an earthquake. The plebes are coughing; they’re covered in dust. One of the National Geographic guys is cradling a broken camera.
I see Brown come out. He’s coughing but he gives me a small wave. “We’re fine,” he manages.
Despite his assurances, I do a head count. With everyone moving around, I have to do it twice before I’m reasonably sure that everyone’s accounted for. And it is this relative assurance which makes me feel better about what I ask next.
“Is the sarcophagus okay?”
Brown, who is still hacking up dust, gives an emphatic nod. “It’s fine. The structure held; everything’s fine.”
The fact that the team is all right, coupled with our good fortune of the tomb still being intact, elates me, and it takes a bit of the edge off of the urgency I’m feeling. When Jim reaches us, his breathing labored, he takes his own turn ascertaining the health of his charges and then runs a clinical eye over the dig site. The sun is directly overhead and there are no shadows in the valley, yet his eyes are hooded. Sweat beads on his forehead. He looks like a big-game hunter out on the savannah, surveying the vast terrain. Images like this are what I juxtapose against the more common mien of the academic that is his normal skin.
“What was it?” Jim asks.
The question gives me pause. I know it wasn’t an earthquake, and Brown insists the tomb is intact, which precludes a cave-in. And what kind of cave-in would have been felt across the hundred yards separating the tomb from the RV anyway? Could it have been a whole subterranean cavern collapsing in upon itself?
“I don’t know,” I finally say.
I half acknowledge that one of the National Geographic cameras is snapping again, and I feel a bit like the emperor sans clothes. I’m hoping that this part will wind up on the cutting-room floor, but that’s wishful thinking. More than likely, there will be an inset with a picture of my face, complete with poignant caption.
Jim doesn’t say anything but I see him doing the same thing I am: ascertaining how an event we can’t qualify has affected us. There’s a very real hope that it hasn’t. Our team and our site appear to be unhurt. This last thought hangs there, teasing me with something I can’t quite put my finger on. I stand there, hands on hips, still catching my breath and squinting against the sun. I’m looking at the faces of these people I’ve come to know over the last few months, and it seems like a long time passes before it hits me that the face that should be most familiar is missing.
“Where’s Will?”
The question falls on deaf ears. Most of them are milling about, content to let others determine what happens next. Jim is busy talking with Brown about the contents of the opened sarcophagus. The National Geographic guys are snapping away. It then occurs to me that neither of the two excavators assisting my brother is here, either. I smile and shake my head; it’s just like Will to ignore the unanticipated movement of the very