The Secret of the Stones by Ernest Dempsey (reading fiction .TXT) 📕

the computer and was pulling up the images they had viewed earlier.

“So, now what?” Allyson asked.

“I’m going to pull up all of these images on the screen and see if they make any sense together. If they don’t…” he was already busy lining up the pictures from left to right, “…then we move them around until they do make sense.”

“Like a jigsaw puzzle.”

Joe stood behind them, looking between their heads as Sean continued to arrange the photos. Once he had finished, the entire layout was even more confusing than when they had been looking at the actual boulders, if that was possible.

“I gotta say,” Joe started, “I don’t see how you are going to make any sense of this.”

No reply was offered. Wyatt had to admit he held little hope that once the pictures were on the computer it would all come together. Unfortunately, it still seemed like a bunch of jumbled, meaningless drawings of animal tracks, lines, and circles.

After staring for a minute or two, he began rearranging the images on the screen. Another problem that presented itself was that looking at the boulders as entire units did not work. Essentially, Sean was now breaking up the large rocks into chunks in order to separate the symbols themselves. He spent a few more minutes sliding the pictures around and then stood still, befuddled.

“I just don’t know what to do,” he said finally. “Everything is so random.” He began again, moving the digital photo squares around on the screen, looking for something, anything, that might help.

Allyson leaned closer, trying her best to assist, but she was way out of her depth.

Joe appeared equally perplexed. “Sorry, bud. It is a several thousand-year-old mystery, you know.”

Sean ignored the comment and kept working. After ten more minutes of trying, though, he stepped away from the computer, frustrated. “I can see why no one has been able to understand these drawings. Makes me wonder if whoever drew this was just some ancient graffiti artist leaving a bunch of meaningless art on some rocks.”

He sighed deeply and ran his hands through his hair, holding them on the back of his sandy-colored head for a few seconds before dropping them down to his side.

Allyson stood aimlessly at the computer, wishing there was something else she could do.

Joe’s eyes were wandering now, looking around the old library as if the answer might come from the old brick walls. His head stopped as he focused on a large painting attached to a column rising all the way to the ceiling. In the picture, a Native American warrior stood on a hilltop, overlooking a valley. His eyes were staring with a stern look into a scene of majestic, green mountains in the distance with a fiery sunrise in the backdrop.

Across the Indian’s back was a bow accompanied by a quiver of arrows. His arms were muscular and even more defined by the colorful bands of cloth that were snugly wrapped around his biceps.

What caught Joe’s eye, though, wasn’t necessarily the beauty of the picture or the Indian’s impressive physique. It was something smaller, fairly obscure. On the young brave’s arm was a kind of tattoo. To the casual observer, the mark would probably go unnoticed. But at that moment, the little tattoo in the picture made everything much clearer to the middle aged park ranger.

“Sean,” he said, interrupting his friend’s discouraged thoughts. “I think you should come take a look at this.”

He pointed up at the painting as Wyatt walked over to see what it was that had got the man’s attention.

“See the Indian?”

Nodding, Sean continued looking at the picture, not fully understanding what Joe had thought to be so important. Allyson joined the two of them looking at the scene on the column.

“Look at his arm,” he said finally after giving his friend a minute, “at the tattoo.”

Sean’s face indicated that he was still not connecting the dots.

“Do you not see it?” Mac seemed to think the answer was obvious.

“I see the tattoo. Looks like a bird claw. But what does that have to do with anything?”

“There are some bird claws just like that on the rocks in the pictures,” Joe was talking frantically now. His demeanor had even got the stoic librarian’s attention as she looked up from her computer monitor, apparently annoyed with the volume of the discussion.

Then Sean and Allyson realized the connection he was trying to point out.

“What does it mean though?” Allyson asked confoundedly.

Joe explained, “In ancient Native American society, there were many different classes, or castes, similar to what exists in several present-day cultures. Here in the United States, we have upper, middle, and lower classes, but they are divided by socioeconomic status. We don’t really have divisions of people into groups like artists, doctors, military, clergy, etc. But in the Native societies, they did divide things up that way.” Again, he pointed up at the arm of the Indian in the picture. “This young man in the picture was obviously a warrior or a hunter because of the bow strapped to his back.”

The other two nodded, following along so far.

“But the bird claw tattoo is the real clue as to who this guy was. Those types of tattoos were used as markings of the warrior class. Interestingly enough, the United States still uses a touch of that symbol on many government emblems.”

Joe reached into his back pocket, removing his wallet. He produced a dollar bill and pointed at the image of the eagle for the small audience. “You see there? The claws are holding an olive branch and the arrows. Eagle claws were a symbol of strength. And only the strong can wage war or create peace. That’s how it has always been.”

Now Sean understood what his friend was getting at.