Who: Caellum and Chetan What: Having Fun and a discussion (Part 2) Where: The Desert When: Backdated to early Feb before the switch Rating/Warning: Sex, language, mild drug references Status: Complete
If we had this night together If we had a moment to ourselves If we had this night together,
“How do you feel about roller coasters, snowboarding, rock climbing, driving just to drive and getting lost and not caring?” His fingers traced over Chay’s lip line. He could guess the answer to the question already, and just the thought was exciting. All this came from numbers, drawn on his hand, traded for a guitar that he drew on the other. He had said so many times that he didn’t do relationships, but rules were made to be broken, lines were drawn to be walked over, and chances were meant to be taken.
He pursed his lips and sucked lightly on the tip of the finger as it crossed his mouth.“The same way I feel about riding motocross bikes screaming across and up and over dried up river washes. I am into all of that and more, climbing the pyramids in Cairo, scuba diving in the shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, exploring the Carlsbad Caverns, dancing naked in the Stonehenge, kayaking the Colorado in the Grand Canyon.”
Chay grinned at his ally in spirit. “or just maybe, enjoying a picnic in a park, with a bottle of spiced rum. Sitting in an inner tube on a lake, while holding a kite string and letting the wind pick a direction in which to sail. Laying on Florida’s sugar white beach sand and listening to waves crash over our feet. Eating peanut butter and jelly on toast for breakfast, because we feel too lazy to get out of bed and actually cook an omelet. Watching the sunrise out of the Atlantic in North Carolina, then flying across the country, just to watch the same sunset in the Pacific.”
“Have you actually done all of that yet. I am about to be really jealous.” Those things were a dream to Cael. His family had never had money. He had lived in places that were affordable, which didn’t mean nice. He didn’t travel, except to land with the next step-daddy to be. His hand moved down from the man’s face to his chest, tracing the same lazy pattern on it. This was nice - really nice. Just hearing those things, they were the same type, wanderers, adventurers. Why settle in one place when there was a world to be seen and experienced. It was a dream he nearly given up on.
“Life was meant to be tasted and touched, not watched on TV.” He laughed, content to stay right here, even more content to see where it would go. He stretched, throwing one leg over his new lover, propping up on one elbow, “So, tell me about you. How did you get to like caves and rocks?” A conversation after sex, beyond some general statement of how good it was, was a first for him. He felt it would be the first of many.
“Some of it I have done, though the pyramids I climbed were in Peru and Mexico. The cave was The Wind in the Black Hills, which is easy enough to get lost in too. I haven’t been to Europe yet, so no naked druid dancing yet. My mom was a Biology Prof. and my Da traveled a lot as an architect and I went with him when I wasn’t working with my uncle on his ranch. I was always digging around Uncle Howahkan’s ranch looking for fossils. Still have my first set of mastodon molars in my RV. A Thursday’s child born on the wrong day of the week. I decided not to buy a house or rent an apartment, because I like traveling and the RV and my jobs give me the freedom to do that.”
He trailed a finger down Cael’s chest. “I wouldn’t mind having company in my travels, if you are up for playing music in places other than a casino.”
He leaned up and kissed the man lying next to him. “I can play anywhere.” The thought of traveling excited him. It was like a crazy dream. “We never had much. I was born in California, which kind of explains the crazy surfer, rock star effect. My parents got divorced, and we moved to Wisconsin, and then Chicago, and then to Oklahoma. Let me tell you, it’s desert, and not much else. Then we moved to Portland. I joined a band there, and then we came here.” He shrugged, not having much to say about any of that. They were just a typical, poor family, moving around and living from paycheck to paycheck in things they could afford.
“I worked in a music store in Oklahoma and I got my first guitar, and it was all I did. I played and my fingers were so calloused. I barely graduated high school in Portland, but I’ve loved music forever. I could have ran the streets or been far worse, but I spent a lot of time in garages, practicing.” He went to plenty of parties, craving whatever illegal substances he could find that didn’t involve needles. It still could have been worse.
“After graduation, I threw my stuff in my car, and here I am. I always wanted to travel though, just go and see whatever was out there. I didn’t want to read about it in school. I wanted to do it.” He was a bit of a dreamer, and until now, those were thoughts he kept completely to himself. Those were gates that he kept locked until now, and although he was serious, that smile was still there. “So when you say travel, I say fuck yeah.”
“We definitely come different backgrounds. I don’t think my Uncle Howahkan will ever leave his ranch on the reservation. Nor my parents leave their place in Papa Sapa, which is good for my younger brother. It gives us a place to call home and me a mailing address when I need one. I can’t say the RV is very big, but the interior was all redone for more storage, and I have a storage unit. Most items I find goes to the Bozeman museum..”
He glanced down to where his shirt had been tossed and the leather pouch that he wore around his neck was tangled up in it. “Except for a piece or two. Though I hope you don’t mind hanging around the desert while I am unearthing my mastodon..speaking of which can I show you something?” He had yet to show someone the gold amulet. “you can’t tell anyone about it though.”
He didn’t even wait to see if Cael agreed or not, he was already reaching for his shirt and the pouch wound up in it. “it’s part of why I love what I do.” Dragging the pouch up to where they were laying he tugged open the leather cords and dumped out the amulet. “It’s Peruvian. At least, Quetzalcoatl is one of their ‘gods’.”
Cael took the amulet, turning it over, inspecting it. “Are you supposed to have this?” he asked, wondering what the secret was. This may get very interesting. “I could help dig up the Mastodon. I won’t just be sitting around. We could scale cliffs in search of this stuff, go repelling, and get away on hang gliders.” He laughed, brushing back blonde strands that strayed back in his eyes. He was excited about all that adventure, if that was what it was. He had also seen Indiana Jones more than once.
“So what does this do?” he asked, holding the amulet up. He could be a quick study, but he might never have the same knowledge as Chay had. He would gladly take the role of assistant, as long as one of the guitars came with him. “I actually did like stories of legends and stuff. I just didn’t do well in classes. I was the kid in the back who talked all the time and threw stuff, or was so stoned that I crashed.”
He studied the man beside him for a few minutes. His teeth skirted over his bottom lip. There were so many questions racing through his mind, attacking him now. He, who had ran at the idea of a second date, was agreeing to more than that. He was lucky. He knew it. This man already knew more about him than most people, not that there was a lot to tell, but it was a start. “You did promise me a drink and a pipe.”
Chay sat up and snagged his pack, grabbed out a couple of bottles of beer and set them and the pack on the ground next to them. "I did promise you a pipe and smoke didn't I. I blend the tobacco with a bit of Peyote, not enough to give you hallucinations or cause nausea, but enough to calm the nerves and brighten the colors you see." Standing up he reached down to Cael and pulled him up too. "but I have to give thanks first." He took the pipe to the eastern entrance before lighting it for the ritual. "East is where the sun rises. The eastern spirit of sun or fire brings warmth and light. It is the place of beginnings. Its light brings wisdom. It is the power of knowledge.South is the sun at its highest point. It is the direction from where warm winds blow. South is the spirit of earth, the power of life. It represents peace and renewal."
He turned in each of the directions as he spoke, his smile meets Cael's as he faces him for a moment. How appropriate that it was in the west that their eyes meet.
"West is the spirit of water. It is the direction from which darkness comes. It is the power of change, the place of dreams, introspection and the unknown. The west signifies purity and strength. North is the spirit of wind. The cold wind blows from the north. It is the power of wisdom. Here we take time to reflect on what we began in the east, in the morning, in our youth" Chay lit the pipe and inhaled some of the smoke, before he handed the pipe to Cael. As the other man took a draw he dumped out the rest of his pouch. The obsidian hawk, one of the small bones from his mastodon, and a small guitar pick left behind on a casino floor. He smiled as he settled the gold amulet in with the other pieces where it belonged.
He sat down on the floor next to their 'table' and popped open the bottles of Guinness taking out his sketch pad to draw the gold piece. "The snake seems to be found in several of the meso-american cultures, and in a lot of they petroglyphs. Sometimes you will see them drawn like this. He draws a series of zigzags making sure that he gets the right number of bends. "Most of the snakes I have seen have usually 12 to 13 of the bends, always made me wonder if they were marking off a year. If I remember right the petroglyphs here in the Valley have the zigzag snake, I wanted to see if ran north to south too." He tapped lightly on his sketchpad in thought. He glanced up at Cael and wondered if he would figure out his interest in the amulet.
"I found it. A beautiful piece isn't it. Different from most of Quetzalcoatl’s images that I have seen and it doesn't have the feathered ruff around it's neck but there is no mistaking the Peruvian snake's image. I found it wrapped in the tusk of my mastodon."
Cael took the pipe, hitting off of it easily. He wasn’t knew to smoking a few interesting substances. He had smoked pot more times than he could count, although white powder was still his drug of choice. That was something he wanted to quit, although his attempts had been half-hearted, just becoming more resolute now. In spite of the pipe, he was paying attention. “The West seems to be our direction,” he said, exhaling slowly.
His attention shifted to the makeshift table and collection of items. He fingered the guitar pick for a moment and smiled, arching a brow before turning attention to the amulet. “The zigzag snake found here might be a migration of people from the south?” He wasn’t sure but if they drew images along the way, it could be. This was foreign territory for him, as was depth of thought. Very few had ever bothered to ask him such questions, preferring the focus be on whatever was in the pipe. It was already the start of something new, and he needed to step up his game, grow and change. It was possible.
“The image,” he considered, lips twisting a little, “might not be him, or it might be a younger version. There are things missing, like the ruff. It could be someone migrating here, using his own image of himself as a new leader?” He wasn’t sure if he was even close, but he was interested in learning something, figuring out a puzzle. “Why was it wrapped with the Mastodon tusk?”
“That my dear Cael! Is the question! The time frame is altogether wrong. The mastodon’s were stone age animals. Paleolithic and living around 10,000 bc, easy. The artifacts we find with them are rough cut out of stone, bronze sometimes, depending on the area of the world we are digging. The amulets are usually shaped roughly and you can not get this finely detailed unless it is either melted, cast, and used engraving tools. None of that was available back then. Even the bronze was cast in large pieces, during the meso era, which was the more agrarian society. And it is gold, nearly pure, I have the equipment to test for that. Of course if it was entirely pure, then it wouldn’t have held it’s shape.
Makes sense though that the snake could follow the migration of meso-americans southward. I think the origins are from the land bridge in Russia to Alaska and then the Peoples ventured south from there. So the continuation and evolution of Quetzalcoatl would follow suit until we get the ruffed and most recent version of the god. Maybe that explains the absence of the ruff, but still the workmanship of the gold, doesn’t fit in with timeframe of the mastodons.”
A smile crossed his face that was a little bit different from his usual cheeky grin. He was asking the right questions, and feeling more intelligent. Brain function hadn’t been the highest priority for the young man, and he tended to use very little in his lifestyle of late, but this was a change, and one he liked. “Right,” he agreed easily. “So maybe the person who had the amulet, also found the tusk and wrapped them together like a claim. Or depending on how old the wrapping is, they were found by the same person, maybe in the same area?”
His brow furrowed for a moment and he reclaimed the pipe, taking another hit. Now that was good stuff. He held it in for a moment before exhaling. “Maybe the person who found them found the amulet first, and then went deeper in the dig and found the tusk. Isn’t there layers of soil which help date things?” He wished he could remember more about Geology at the moment. He had never thought he might be using this stuff again past high school. Either the classes had bored him, or he was too stoned to remember anything about them. He didn’t really want to confess to that now.
He handed the pipe back, cocking his head. “So, Mr. Archaeologist, where did you find them, and are there more puzzle pieces?”
Chay took the pipe and traced a finger around the bowl collecting some of the soot and studied the color of it for a moment, before using it to shade in some of the areas in the sketchbook snake.
“Carbon dating, yes. It’s not an exact dating for carbon based fossils over 15000 years but the mastodon is the correct time frame of around 10,000 years. The leather cord practically fell apart even as I pulled the amulet up, the residue from it dated to only around 300 years. You can’t carbon date gold. Off and on I have been working on digging out the mastodon for nearly four months now, and found the amulet about a month and a half ago. Took me a long time to get the tusks cleared from the dirt before I found it, so unless an ancient paleontologist came up from Peru, started digging on it, and then abandoned it to be covered up again.” he shook his head, that scenario didn’t fit.
“So far this is the only gold piece I have found, and prolly should have given it to the LV museum, but I am considering buying the land where my mastodon resides instead. That will give me the unlimited time I need to study the site. And since summers around Vegas are pretty brutal, we prolly won’t be spending a lot of time out there digging.”
“We,” he repeated, taking the word in. “Do you know I have never been part of a we, unless I refer to my band. I just... “ He wasn’t really sure why he didn’t. There were more fish in the very open sea, he didn’t want to be tied down, he didn’t want that type of commitment. He had a million reasons really. Now they didn’t make as much sense. He liked this. Perhaps he had never found someone who captured his attention, or wanted to sit naked in a cave, talking about digging up a mastodon. This was a first. “I like we. It’s a good word.”
He covered Chay’s hand with his own, leaning up to give him a kiss. “How else do you explain the puzzle then?” He had a lot to learn, but he was interested. He could actually see himself digging in the dirt, a little camp set in the background, gear and tools all around him. They could also explore ancient caves. Of course, he might have seen a few too many movies.
“So what are we going to do during the summer when it is too hot to dig up a mastodon?” He had a million questions. They didn’t know each other well, but there was something there. Would it work? For how long? This was crazy, but oh how Cael liked crazy.
Wow. He could never get tired of Cael’s surprise touches, whether they be on his hands or on his lips.
“You and I.. We... are going to go looking for a snake.”