This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

On June 16, Deputy Sheriff Lita Echeveria pulled the Jeep Cherokee off Highway 30 onto a freshly paved lane. The old, hand-painted sign reading “Billington's Dairy and Meat Rabbits” was gone. Its replacement, a ten-by-ten gray stone slab with the name “CANYON CREST HOME SITES by STEELE DEVELOPMENT” and a laser-engraved map of a new subdivision, greeted her. Nothing stays the same, she thought, slowly rolling by chunks of concrete that had been the foundation of a farm house. Ahead lay a grid work of roadbeds dotted with survey ribbons. She took the road that led straight east and continued on for an eighth of a mile until she saw the backhoe the dispatcher said to look for. Just beyond it, the road ended in a cul-de-sac. She pulled up by a parked white Ford F150 Supercrew. Two men were in it. The one in the driver's seat stepped out.

“Hello, I'm Tory Steele,” he said.

“Lita Echeveria,” she returned with a firm handshake.

“I called the Sheriff's office, but it was my heavy equipment man, Joe Mendenhall, who made the discovery. He's the big guy there in the cab. I'll walk you over to the excavation. Joe doesn’t want to go near it.”

Following the handsome developer, Echeveria knew from dispatch pretty much what to expect, but sometimes expectations don't live up to reality. This was one of those times. Steele stopped at the excavation where the backhoe had bitten out fresh earth and stared into the hole.

“Native Americans roamed the river plain for thousands of years, and I've had to stop construction for an antiquities inspection twice before at another site. That's why I thought Joe stopped digging and called me. But this is different. I don't quite understand what I'm looking at. Ever seen anything like this?”