Bloomers?
"SNAKE!!!" Karen shouted from a few feet behind Jon.
"WHERE?" Jon yelled back from mid air as he jumped at least six feet further down the path. "Where did you see it?" They were slowly walking along the bank, above the river looking for areas where the bank was freshly eroded.
"Right under that palmetto." She said, as she raised the plant's fans one at a time with her long willow staff. "You moved that Palmetto fan with your leg as you passed and I saw a flash of brown."
"Aw, it was probably just a tree root. Besides, if it was a snake he's probably long gone by now." Jon said as he cautious pushed the fan back. "There it is, but I think it's some kind of brown plastic sack of something."
"Well it looks more like a woman's purse." She added as she pulled another fan back. "Hold this fan back will you?"
"Probably an old purse somebody threw away after stealing it." John said as he reached for the palmetto fan as Karen bent over to pickup the bag.
"Hey, dumb butt." She complained when he let the palmetto fond slip just as she kneeled down. She pulled the fan back and reached under the bush to pull an old leather bag out into the open.
"Sorry hon," Jon said. "Hey that's real leather, but it sure looks old or well used. It looks like something a pony express rider would carry the mail in."
"Looks more like the bags those guys running around in tights carried. You know, back in the middle ages before they invented pockets." Karen said as she unbuckled the strap holding the flap down.
"What's in it?" Jon ask, after Karen finally got it open.
"Well let's see, there's a half a loaf of stale bread, some kind of cheese, a little leather pouch of old foreign coins and some kind of package wrapped in soft leather and all tied up with leather thongs." Karen answered. "Maybe you better try to open it, I can't get these knots started."
"Damn, I can get them loosened either. It seems that every time I get it started on one side it tightens again on the other side before I can get a better hold on it." Jon finally said, "We'll have to wait we get home and cut them," he added and hung the bag over his shoulder.
After walking a little ways and pulling the strap back up on his shoulder at least once or twice every minute, Jon finally stopped and hung the strap around his neck. "The damn thing keeps slipping down, it's almost like it was trying to get away."
Karen and Jon loved the outdoors. They particularly enjoyed exploring river and creek banks after a rain. Occasionally high water from upstream would wash a little of the stream bank's surface away and expose new soil. They knew that the Indians had usually tended to hunt and camp near streams. This fact not only made artifacts more abundant near streams, but also made them easier to see in the newly exposed raw dirt. Hunting Indian artifacts was their second most favorite, cost nothing, activity when money was short. Their first most favorite was one they only engaged in at the apartment where they had been living together for the past three months. The banks of the San Jacinto river north of Humble, from it's junction with Spring Creek on the west, to the east side of highway 59 where the river begins widening out into Lake Houston was one of their favorite relic hunting area. For one thing, the river was only a mile from home.
Karen and Jon had met at the North Harris County College where Karen worked as a clerk and took evening classes. Jon also attended evening classes and was in her English Lit. class. Their meeting may not have been love at first sight, but there was an instant attraction to each other. The lease was up on Karen's apartment two months after they met and the landlord was raising the rent so they decided to move in together.
Karen was 25 years old, 5 foot 4 and weighed 129 pounds. Her love of the outdoors, along with her long black, almost blue, hair tied in a pair of pony tails and her dark brown nipples, revealed the American Indian blood in her background. She was a country girl having grown up near Livingston, close to where her grandmother was born and raised on the Alabama Coushatta Indian reservation.
Jon was a typical, raised in the city, can't wait to move to the country, young man. He had moved to Humble to get away from the turmoil and exasperations of living in Houston. He had always hated living in a big city, even before he was old enough to know why he hated it Living in Humble was a compromise between his desire to live in a small town and his need to earn a living with the Exxon oil company in downtown Houston. He was 5 foot 9 inches tall, 180 pounds and also 25 years old, but a month older then Karen. His blonde hair was a sharp contrast to Karen's black hair, but somehow they seemed to fit together.
*********************
"We're almost to the camp," Jason said more to himself as he walked along the path, leading the donkey, "there's the old oak tree that was split by lightening last year."
"Thank the gods, I don't know if I could stand to ride this beast for even another five minutes." the old man growled, with a frown on his face, but you could hear the pleasure in his voice. A donkey's back isn't the most comfortable seat in the world, especially for an old man with the usual aches and pains.
"Do not fear master. we'll be there in less time then you would usually take to drink a mug of ale." Jason answered cheerfully.
"AHHH!" Jason hollered a few yards further down the path when two men jumped from behind the trees on each side of the trail.. Arrows were already notched and their bows drawn well back.
"Stand down and yield your purse old man or die with a shaft in your leaking heart." The tall man with the beard said.
The old man turned looked for a way out and saw the third man standing in the path behind them. He was waving a long cudgel, close enough to swing it at either Jason or himself. He noticed that each of the three men was dressed in forest green, with a feather in their cap. "I think not, friend," he said, holding the purse up, "this purse is for your leader, Robin Hood himself."
"The high and mighty Robin is no leader of mine old man. If he can take it from me he may have it, but for now it will be mine. Pass it over old man, before Robert there lays his cudgel on the back of your noggin."
Merlin lifted the bag high and begin chanting. "Chi hallen slokell ceddi. . ." The chanting ended as Robert struck the back of his head with the cudgel and the old leather bag vanished in a bright flash of electric blue light.
"Master Merlin. are you still alive?" Jason ask when the old man moaned lightly.
"Mayhaps I will be," Merlin said, "but for now I'm not positive."
"It's only a small knot." Jason said as he bathed Merlin's head with a cloth wet from the water flask, "at least they didn't get anything from us and when I told them you were Merlin, the mighty sorcerer, they scattered like a flight of birds."
