Hortons Bend

little interest in neither scholastic nor collegiate pastimes. Once he finished his chores at home, he headed for the river.

    When Ronnie graduated from high school he got a full time job working at Patterson’s Logging. At 18, Ronnie had become a tall man with a full beard and was often mistaken for someone much older. He never was a big talker or one to boast. Many at school thought him slow but that was where he fooled them and the teachers too. No reason to give your all since they would only expect more anyway. Besides, what would he do with trigonometry? He loved the outdoors and spent quiet evenings along the river banks staring at the ground in search of the history that he loved so much. Teachers didn’t spend much time on how Indians lived during the time the mounds were being built. He enjoyed books at the library much better than any of the school books. In particular, he loved the book Sun Circles and Human Hands which had wonderful pictures of burials dug up during the WPA days. He did take the time to learn how the Works Progress Administration had been created in the 1940’s and established new jobs building the large dam projects. This work resulted in some of the earliest organized archaeological excavations in the United States. At night he would red Sun Circles and gaze at the pictures of the excavated burials and all the exotic grave goods that had been buried with the interred over 500 years before. The well made pottery vessels had always been one of his favorite artifacts but he had never found a whole pot. Having spent time with different books loaned from the library, Ronnie knew the difference between pottery sherds dating to the earlier Woodland Period and those that dated to the later mound builders or what archaeologists called the Mississippian Period. He also enjoyed the ornaments and jewelry found in the burials. The designs in the shape of woodpeckers, rattlesnakes, and strange squatting men with eagle claws were carved into shell gorgets that were found around the necks of the nobles of the village. He realized that not all graves contained abundant artifacts as some simply were just a prone or flexed body that must have been a common person. Ronnie knew that there had to be some schools here in the south where you could learn to be a paid archaeologist but who had money to go to college? Besides, they might want him to give up what he found. What right did a museum have to something he had found? No, that didn’t seem right at all to him.
    Patterson’s Logging worked all over a tri-county area and allowed Ronnie access to private property that he could never get permission to walk over. There were a dozen men who worked for Patterson not including Patterson’s boy, Ricky, who had helped Ronnie get hired. Ricky and Ronnie used to do a little cat fishing on weekends. Kicked back with a six pack on a boat ramp, the boys used to fight off the bugs attracted to the lantern glowing bright in the middle of the night. They talked about girls they’d like to get a hold of and wishing they had money for a nice pickup. Ricky’s daddy made pretty good money but most of it was tied up in chainsaws and equipment for keeping the logs steadily flowing to the saw mill. Ronnie’s father had died when he was a freshman in high school. A sudden heart attack left the young man with few father figures. It was Ricky’s father who took the young King boy serious. He never talked down to him but rather gave kind advice when they spent any time together. Ronnie never told Ricky but he was damn grateful to be working on a crew at Patterson’s. He knew that he had other skills, such as carpentry, but jobs were scarce and this one had fringe benefits in allowing him to see more of the northwest Georgia countryside.
    A couple of the men who worked for the logging outfit were from Cedartown which was located south of Rome. They didn’t speak to anybody very often and pretty much kept to themselves. Ronnie didn’t know them but had heard them called Jarvis and Ladge. The crews had finished logging a section near Armuchee Creek where some county workers had been using bulldozers to prep the area for a bridge project. It was time for lunch so everybody got out their lunchboxes and sack lunches. Jarvis and Ladge ate quickly and headed out to the disturbed area to walk it over. Ronnie had already figured on going out there too but they had beat him to the punch. He just went ahead and watched them