The river was low, but the current still moved with purpose—carving
smooth patterns into the limestone ledges as if time itself had worn out its
boots and taken up carving rocks.
Kate and I stood just off River Road, at the edge of the old townsite.
Hindostan had once been a bustling pioneer town, a stop for traders and a
waypoint for settlers headed west. Then, in the fall of 1820, it was gone.
Yellow fever, some said. Others blamed contaminated water. A few whispered of
something older—a silence that moved in before the sickness did.
Now, all that remained were stone foundations tangled in underbrush,
half-buried bricks, and the wide hush of the White River rolling past like a
tired secret.
Kate flipped open Ray’s journal.
“He wrote: ‘Where the water once cleansed, the mark lies beneath the
broken wheel.’ Does that mean anything to you?”
“Could be a mill,” I said. “Or a wagon wreck.”
We started walking downstream, skirting along the edge of the limestone
ledges. I scanned the stone, Kate the vegetation. About a hundred yards from
the modern parking area, she stopped short and crouched.
“Here.”
Tangled in roots and half-submerged in dirt and moss was the rusted
outline of an iron wagon wheel. Just the outer ring and a few spokes.
“Looks like it washed in decades ago,” she said.
I knelt beside it, brushing back the soil.
There it was again—the triangle.
But this time, the dots were inside the triangle, and below it, a
short series of etched letters:
SV – 1864
Silas Vickery.
Kate snapped a photo and then read aloud from his journal, which she'd
brought along.
Journal of Silas Vickery – November 1,
1864
The third mark I made on the stone below the old river crossing. If the
cause is lost, let this stone endure. If they pursue, may the cipher mislead.
The fourth lies at the Hill. Only those who listen shall hear it.
I stood and scanned the opposite bank.
“What do you think he meant by ‘If they pursue, may the cipher mislead’?”
Kate answered without looking up. “It means we’re not the only ones
who’ve ever come looking. Silas was trying to protect whatever this is from
someone even back then.”
I turned to speak—but froze.
A glint from across the river.
Just beyond the sycamores.
Someone stood there. Watching.
I couldn’t see their face, just the silhouette. Hat. Binoculars. Then
gone.
Kate followed my gaze.
“He’s still tracking us,” I said.
“Maybe. But I don’t think he’s working alone.”
We both looked back at the stone.
Kate wiped off more dirt and discovered something else etched at the
base—almost invisible in the shadows.
A narrow arrow, pointing upstream.
And beside it, three words:
“Not buried. Bound.”
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