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Mining for Meteorites - Part 8 of 12

KRAJICK KEVIN (1999) Mining for Meteorites
(Smithsonian, March 1999, pp. 90 -100):

This was Saturday. Monday evening the news got out of town and onto CNN.
Within a few hours, Haag and Farmer were separately pulling out of
Tucson for what is normally a ten-hour drive to Portales.
Farmer got there first, around 7 A.M., thanks to a $200 speeding ticket
in Tularosa, New Mexico, and headed straight for Newberry’s. He offered
$1,000, then $1,500 for the 525-gram specimen. Newberry politely turned
him down. Haag had stopped for a few beers with UFO fans in Roswell
during the night and so did not arrive until 8:30 A.M. He rolled up to
Newberry's barn in a sand-colored Humvee and jumped out wearing shorts
and dark shades. "You the guy who found the meteorite?" asked Haag.
"Yessir," said Newberry. "All right! Gimme five!" Haag nearly wrestled
the startled Newberry to the ground with an affectionate bear hug and
offered $5,000 in cash, plus $1,000 in gold. Newberry said no. Farmer,
hoping to generate more product, suggested that Newberry's 20-year-old
son, Jerrod, look for more pieces. Jerrod took off on his bike and, to
the astonishment of the dealers, came back in 15 minutes with an even
bigger chunk from a roadside ditch. He snapped up Haag’s $5,000.
Soon as word of this got out, it became like a children's Easter-egg
hunt, gay at first, but threatening to turn ugly because of all the
bullies knocking down little kids. A couple of electric linemen, a
farmworker and others eagerly sold pieces they'd found to Haag, Farmer
or one of about ten other dealers who showed up. Marvin and Elijah
Killgore bought one that had dented a road in front of someone's house.
Then they asked the road supervisor if they could take the crater, too.
Sure, he said, help yourself. Just patch the asphalt. They rented a
special saw and encased the road section in plaster and concrete. Some
landowners let the dealers search their land in return for splitting
finds. But with temperatures hitting 115 degrees Fahrenheit, this soon
became a combat situation. In the heat, Michael Cottingham, a collector
from Silver City, New Mexico, saw a cow go to its knees, roll out its
tongue and fall over dead. Mike Farmer froze, then screamed, when a
four-foot rattlesnake began moving three feet away. Killgore pinned the
snake's head with his metal detector.

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