Lost & Found

摘要

It's a fantasy many desert hikers share that one day they'll look under a ledge and find an intact olla brimming with wild apricots. Peering into dark corners for day pots or, arrow heads just becomes automatic. Vicki Spear had acquired this habit from years of wandering in the Santa Rosa Mountains above Palm Springs, California. One day in 1991, she and a companion were bouldeV hop-ping up a little-used draw when she glanced up and saw stones stacked by hand, reinforcing a rock shelter. Naturally, Spear had to look. Most caves yield nothing, so she certainly wasn't expecting what she found. Years later she says of that moment: "You don't want it. It can't be happening." Want it or not, it was hers: a skull, an arm bone, and the rest of a skeleton tucked in a shredded sleeping bag. Rodents had scattered the cave's contents, but lying near the body was a hand-drawn map and a calendar from a Whittier bookstore, with dates marked off from December 17, 1959, to February 20, 1960. Judging from a box of Kotex also found in the cave, the bones were a woman's.