Ernest Dempsey
The Uluru Code
Prologue
It couldn't be coincidence.
At least that's what Robert Mathews told himself.
He peered over the top of his theodolite with suspicion, rechecked his position, and then looked through the instrument again.
"That doesn't belong there," Robert said under his breath.
A tall, lanky black man stood nearby with arms crossed, watching curiously. His name was Charley, and he'd been assisting Mathews with his research. At present, he was trying to understand what had the anthropologist so befuddled.
Mathews craned his neck to make sure his angle was right and then stood up straight. He turned to Charley, who'd taken off his wide-brimmed hat and was wiping sweat from his forehead. Even though Charley was an Aborigine and had lived in the area his whole life, the blazing summer heat was clearly taking its toll.
"What you make of that rock over there, Charley?" Mathews asked in his sharp Aussie accent.
Charley shrugged. "Looks like a rock, Bob."
Very few people called Mathews Bob. Most called him Robert or R.H. Oddly, Mathews liked the fact that his friend used the shortened version. He felt it sort of symbolized their unique friendship.
Mathews had been studying the Aboriginal tribes as an outsider when the two met. Charley was a half-caste and a native of Broke, not far from Milbrodale. Thanks to Charley, Robert's learning of their culture, customs, and history was greatly accelerated. The man Mathews paid to be his assistant had become a trusted friend.
A gust of wind rolled across the grassy hillside leading up to the rock formation. Specks of dust kicked into the air, forcing the two men to shield their faces with their forearms. A moment later, the wind was gone.
The rock he'd noticed was about fifty feet down the hill, tucked away in a stretch of tall grass. He'd probably walked right by it a few times and not even realized it. From his current vantage point, it stood out against the backdrop.
Mathews stepped out in front of his theodolite and raised a hand to his forehead, shielding it from the bright sunlight. That rock was put there by someone. But why?
The thought pulled at his mind. He'd not really noticed the stone before because all his focus was on the cave drawings of the ancient Aboriginal creator god called Baiame.
Since Mathews had been a surveyor in his previous career, he'd thought it might be interesting to do a little work on the surrounding area to see if there was anything worth noting. "How did I not notice that before?" he said to himself, a habit of his when deep in thought.
He turned to Charley again. "Let's give it a look, Charley."
The other man gave a curt nod and joined his friend. The two walked across a patch of dirt and back onto the path leading down the hill. When they were almost perpendicular to the rock, the two veered off the trail and waded through the long grass until they reached the anomaly. The rock was much darker than the surrounding sandstone, and it jutted out of the ground to a height just shy of four feet. It barely stood out over the tips of the grass. Still, its displacement had caught Mathews's eye.
"Just a rock, Bob. What you thinking?" Charley asked. He put both hands on his hips and glanced over at Mathews with probing dark eyes.
Mathews squatted next to the rock and ran a hand over it. "It's a different kind of rock than that over there." He flicked his head back toward the cave. "It didn't come from around here."
"What you mean, it didn't come from here? What's it doing here then?"
Mathews's head shook from one side to the other. "Not sure, mate. But it didn't come from here. See how the color of this sandstone is different than that?" He pointed at the rock formation above.
Charley looked up at the cave entrance and then back at the little rock near Mathews's feet. "Sure. I suppose maybe a little more red to it."
"Precisely. That subtle difference is probably why no one has noticed it before."
"We didn't notice it when we walked by it before."
"Indeed. To the untrained eye it looks like it's just another random rock."
Charley peered at his friend. "You sayin' my eye isn't trained?"
Mathews chuckled. "I said we both missed it, mate."
Charley's lips parted in a friendly smile. "I know. I was just messin' with you."
"You're a dag one, aren't you?"
Charley shrugged. "I try." He motioned to the rock. "So what you figure, Bob? If that rock isn't from here, who put it here and why?"
Mathews leaned closer to where the ground and rock merged. He turned around and took a brush from his tool belt and started scraping away some of the dirt. He worked for a few minutes while Charley looked on with intense curiosity.
The native had seen his friend do that sort of thing a hundred times or more. Over the course of their friendship, Charley had performed the same kind of work in several locations. At the moment, he wasn't sure what Mathews expected to find under a stone that was easily half a ton.
About five minutes passed when Mathews, sweaty from his work, stopped and sat up straight. "That's what I figured," he said.
"What?" Charley didn't see anything unsual.
Mathews took a rag from his back pocket and wiped the sweat from his brow. He shoved the kerchief in its place and pointed at the rock. "That rock only goes down a few inches into the ground."
"So?" Charley asked with a shrug.
"So that means it's much more likely it was put here than indigenous."
"You know, mate, I think the heat might be getting to your head. Let's go back to the cart and get something to drink. Your fascination with this rock is starting to worry me."
"No, I'm fine." Mathews shook his head. "Someone put this here for a reason. Maybe it was ceremonial. There are lots of stones like this all over the world that were put in places just for sacred meaning or for some kind of ritual."
"That would make sense. This is a very sacred place to the native people."
"Right. But what if it's something else?"
"Like what?"
"I dunno," Mathews said. He put his hands out to the side. "What if the people who put it here buried something underneath it?"
Charley's dubious expression said it all. "Seems like an awful lot of work to drag a rock like that from somewhere else just to hide something."
Mathews nodded. "It does. You're right about that."
He glanced around the area. No one else was around. He looked farther down the hill at the two horses. "You know, I don't think it will hurt anything if we just take a look underneath."
Charley held up a hand. "Now wait a minute, Bob. You're talkin' about destroying something that might be sacred to my people."
Mathews tilted his head to the side and shot his friend a sarcastic glare. "Five minutes ago you didn't know this rock was here. Now you're saying it's sacred?"
"You make a good point," Charley said. "But still."
"Come on, Charley. Where's your sense of curiosity? Don't you want to know if there's something underneath there? It might be a relic from your people's past."
"Or it might be something we shouldn't bother."
Mathews put his hands on his hips. "If I'd dug that rock out of the ground two days ago when you went for supplies, you would have never know the difference."
He made a convincing point. Good enough that Charley finally caved.
"Okay, fine. But we have to put it back. If that is a sacred rock, I don't want my ancestors getting angry at me about it."
Mathews grinned. "We'll put it back exactly where it was. Now, let's get the horses."
It took almost forty minutes for the two men to harness two ropes around both the jagged rock and the horses. The latter proved to be the more troublesome chore. Both horses weren't keen on standing on the slope and had to be settled down three times before the men could finally get the ropes the way they wanted.