Using gravity to assist the horses seemed like the obvious decision. Putting the horses downhill from the rock would make their job easier. If Mathews's assessment of the stone was correct, it wouldn't take much for the animals to pull it over. He hadn't thought through the part about putting the rock back where it was. Mathews had no intention of telling Charley that yet. They could figure it out later. Right now, he wanted to know what — if anything — was under the stone.
"Ready, Charley?" Mathews said to his friend.
Charley was standing fifteen feet away, tending the horses. "Ready, Bob!"
"Okay, go ahead!"
Charley clicked his tongue, and the animals started clomping forward. The second they did, the ropes slid over the top of the rock and fell to the ground. Charley saw the ropes dragging through the grass and stopped the horses with a gentle, "Whoa."
Mathews sighed. "Well, that didn't work."
"Maybe it's my ancestors telling you to leave their rock alone."
"Or maybe I just need to pin the rope in place. Back the horses up, and let's try it again."
Charley's head turned back and forth, but he did as requested, moving the animals backward until Mathews had enough slack to loop the rope around the rock once more. He lifted his foot and pressed the boot heel hard into the rope, pinning against the stone.
"Okay, try it again. We'll see if this helps it stay in place."
Charley raised an eyebrow at the idea but said nothing. The idea of his friend somehow ending up on the ground was humorous enough to let him try.
"Ready?" Charley asked.
"Yep. Go ahead."
Charley clicked his tongue again, and the horses started moving just as they had before. This time the rope held, and within seconds the big rock toppled over onto its side with relative ease.
"Whoa!" Mathews shouted. He almost sounded ecstatic, though Charley wasn't sure why.
The stone's fall had kicked up a small cloud of dust, and Mathews waved both hands around to dissipate it. "Well done, mate," he said to Charley who'd left the horses and rushed over.
Mathews joked with him. "For someone so concerned about this being sacred, you sure seem interested to see what's under it."
"Might be a curse waiting for you, Bob. I'm hoping it's a funny one. Nothing too hurtful. Maybe you get kangaroo ears or something."
Mathews snorted a laugh and kept waving his hands around. It didn't take long for the breeze to pick up and blow away the dust, leaving a clear view of the impression the big rock had left in the ground.
"Doesn't look like there's anything there, mate," Charley said. He didn't try to hide the disappointment in his voice.
Mathews let out a long sigh. He put his hands on his hips. "No, it sure doesn't. Well, it was worth a look. I guess now we need to figure out how to get this thing back in place."
Charley's eyebrows lowered. "You're not gonna dig or anything like that? How do you know there's nothing buried in the ground right there? It might be a marker or something."
Now Mathews was certain Charley didn't care if the site was sacred or not. Maybe he'd changed his tune at the thought of a potential treasure.
"We could go a little deeper," Mathews said. "I'll be real careful. Just let me get a few things."
He turned to walk back to the cart when something caught his eye and froze him in place. He stared down at the exposed bottom of the rock, mesmerized. "Charley?"
"Yeah?" Charley stepped over to where his friend was standing and followed his gaze until he saw it too. "What's that?" he asked in a hushed tone.
At first, Mathews didn't answer. He took a cautious step toward the rock and then bent down on one knee. "I'm not sure, Charley. Looks like some sort of Aboriginal drawings."
He took out his brush and started to wipe away some of the excess dirt, but Charley stopped him. "Wait, Bob." He put his hand on his friend's shoulder. "What if you rub it off?"
"I won't. It's carved into the rock. So even if the paint comes off, we can still get a rubbing."
The explanation seemed to convince Charley, and he removed his hand from Mathews's shoulder.
Mathews held the brush delicately in one hand. His fingers fought off nerves that would have caused them to tremble. He'd never discovered anything like this before, and there was no way he wanted to mess it up.
The bristles flicked back and forth against the rock's surface. With each pass they pulled away more and more dirt until the entire image was in view. When he finished, Mathews took a long breath and then let it out slowly.
He stood up and stared at his handiwork.
"You ever seen anything like this?"
Rows of circles, arranged in columns, were etched into the stone. Each circle contained two smaller circles. Next to the grid was a line pointing in two directions. Beside that was an image of a boomerang under the center of three upside down Vs.
Charley lifted the hat off his head and scratched his temple for a moment. "I seen circles like that before but never that many of them on one rock. Not sure what the line means, but there are heaps of boomerang drawings around here. It was part of our ancient culture. This close to the Baiame Cave must mean it's god's boomerang."
Mathews heard everything his friend said but didn't respond. Instead, he kept his thoughts moving forward. "Each circle represents a day." He squatted down again and looked closely at the engraving. "There are forty-five circles here, which means forty-five days."
He was telling Charley something he already knew. Ancient Aborigines had used circles as representations of the sun to keep track of the passage of time.
"Yeah, but forty-five days for what?"
Mathews was already ahead of the question. He tapped the handle of his brush against the line in the rock. "From what I understand, a line like this can often mean a direction. If someone left it here, it could mean that whoever drew it wanted to remind someone which way they should go."
He stood up and stepped over to the impression the rock had left in the dirt. Mathews tilted his head sideways. He glanced at the rock and then again in the dirt, putting the puzzle pieces together in his mind.
"If I'm guessing correctly, when we pulled the rock out of its place, the arrow would have been pointing in that direction."
Charley stared where his friend was pointing. "Northwest?"
"Good. Glad to see we were thinking the same thing. It can get a little disorienting out here at times."
"Not much out that way," Charley said as he peered in that direction. "Just hills and trees."
"No," Mathews agreed. "Not much at all. But think bigger. If someone were to walk for forty-five days in that direction, what would they find?"
"Those things probably indicate mountains or hills of some kind," Charley said, pointing at the inverted Vs.
"Ripper, Charley. You're right. Those would have to be some kind of mountains or something."
Mathews stood up and walked past the horses to the cart parked in a little clearing of dirt. He flipped open a leather pouch sitting in the front and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Charley joined him as Mathews spread out the map on the back of the cart.
The old surveyor had a keen eye for reading a map. It came with the territory from his previous career. He ran his finger along the map, retracing it twice to make sure he figured the direction correctly.
"If someone were to walk at an average of a little over three miles per hour for forty-five days, they would travel around sixteen hundred miles. Give or take."
"How'd you come up with that?" Charley asked with wide eyes.
"I figure walking a day, so about twelve hours. Then you get something like thirty-six or so miles a day. Times forty-five, not hard."