Road to Ubar Pa - Nicholas Clapp [54]
For the rest of the day, Juri directed us and a dozen Airwork volunteers in surveying, clearing, and digging to the west of the well. He traced what appeared to be the outline of a small temple, perhaps a ritual entryway to the oracular well of the People of 'Ad. How were the oracles delivered, we wondered? By a halmat, a "seeress of dreams," or by istqsam, divination by the drawing of marked arrows? Or, Juri suggested, oracles could have been shouted up by a priest hidden out of sight in the well, possibly on the platform that Andy and Ran had cleared.
To find out anything more, we would have to devise a way to get down into the well. Ran turned to Kay and said ingratiatingly, "Tomorrow, Kay, I've been thinking. Maybe you could find us a crane? Say a construction crane? A big one? It would be ever so kind of you to do that."
Early the next morning, we were enjoying a cup of tea at the edge of the well when Kay cleared her throat with a distinctly self-satisfied "ahem." We looked over at her; she nodded out across the desert, where a great yellow crane was lumbering toward us. She had contacted British Petroleum, which had already promised us 8,000 gallons of fuel. So, she reasoned, it would be only a minor addition to their sponsorship if they lent us one of those big cranes they used to construct pipelines and oil wells and things like that.
The crane crept to the edge of the well, and Ran and I donned hardhats and clambered into its waist-high clamshell scoop. Out we swung, and down we went into the great hole in the ground until we could no longer see the crane's operator, or he us. The walls of the well closed in.
Ran called on a walkie-talkie: "Go left a touch, left a touch."
Ron Blom answered, controlled panic edging his voice, "Okay, we'll try. But I can't guarantee anything. He doesn't really speak English. The crane man doesn't speak English."
"Try gesturing," said Ran, then cautioned, "You see, if we touch the walls at all, we'll bring the whole lot down. So you've got to be very, very careful."
On down we went, past the platform Ran and Andy had cleared the day before. As Ran radioed instructions, I imagined Ron, out of sight far above, translating our instructions into signals, hoping he wasn't bashing us into oblivion. Did pointing this way and that mean the same in Arabic as it did in English?
"Uh, is this safe?" I wondered aloud, forty feet down the well.
Peering down, Ran didn't answer.
"Ran??"
"We'll see ... we'll see," he replied, distracted by what lay below. "Strange place, this ... Twelve feet to go ... six ... two ... stop!" We jumped clear of the bucket.
The well was dry and would be ideal for excavation. Buried beneath our feet could be ancient offerings, clues to the identity of the People of'Ad. Then we looked up. Overhead, tons of boulders were poised to break loose from the walls of the well. We whispered, as if the sound of our voices might bring them crashing down.
"These look really precarious, this lot... The bottom of that area there, if one goes, the whole lot will go." He shook his head, then looked to his feet. "And we're not alone, I see."
They had momentarily sought refuge in the well's debris when we jumped from the bucket. But now they were everywhere: scorpions darting in and out of tumbled brush, trash, and animal skulls and bones.
Ran and I agreed that our brief descent was treacherous enough; to try to excavate the well would verge on the suicidal. Climbing back into our bucket, we radioed Ron Blom to haul us back to the surface, where everyone was quite naturally disappointed by our report of conditions below. We had our crane, enthusiastic volunteers, and, as part of our gear, a ground-penetrating radar rig that could image the depths of the well and spot potential artifacts. We had even discussed running lights down so that we could dig around the clock in shifts. But now the only sensible thing was to pack up and move on.
Kay had set up a supply tent near the well, and now, as we broke camp, one of our volunteers hefted a last crate