New Hope Nefarious, So. Dakota

                            Town of Nefarious, Wyoming or Idaho: pop. 4957...953...236...

"Come Sick, Leave Healthy"

At the turn of the 1900s, Nefarious ** had been a boom town.  Seltzer Springs brought in wagons full of health seekers to use the springs, eat peculiar food, and spend money.

Alas, the Springs started to dry up along with the tourists.  Around 1993, the population itself dwindled.  Then one day, few boys were playing in the empty waterbed when they screamed in delight, ran back to the mayor, Doc Kincaid, who confirmed their big find.  He took to kids to his house and locked them in a closet.  "I'll let you out when the city council men get here."

The council men came quickly as there had been little to do lately.

The boys told them and led them to the creek bed.  "Look, Mr. Jenkins! Look!"  And there it was: the bones of an immense prehistoric boa, 50 feet long with the circumference of 8 feet.  Silence fell.  There was more to be found as they walked along the dried stream, lined with dinosaur bones.

In the quiet dining room of the widower Jasper Fillings way out of town, all men along with the boys sat around the dining table and a plan was hatched.  "In two weeks time, we must re-construct our miserable little town to make it look like it did back in 1890s.   Stores must occupy the empty old stores....and anyone known to be a gossip and who has relatives who are gossips must be confined." He paused and shook his head.  "How, I don't know."  

He continued. "Phones ripped out, Facebook and such shut down...secrecy is the key. Boys?  You wanta help or be locked up in the old boarded up classroom out in the dusty school?"

The town without the gossipy group threw muscle into renewal.  Quilts were ordered from China, tags removed, with new tags added "Hand-sewn by Louisa May Smith".  Rusty tools and blacksmith shop were restored.  Jars and jars of jams, preserves, and candles were ordered.  The labels were stripped off, and new ones put on: Mrs. Tucker's Homemade.... My...Oh, the work. Nefarious appeared to be frozen in the late 1800s.

The gossipy type had been sent on a 21 day cruise to Hawaii on the Holland American vee Dam.  They apparently had a wonderful time, and the cruise had been extended.

Finally, the paleontologists were summoned.  Two wise men, then four, then more:  all agreed that this was the biggest titanoba ever found, and joy overflowed as they walked down the creek bed.

A lackadaisical bearded old man was paid to sit in an old chair with his feet propped up on the sidewalk railing.  Curious tourists with full shopping bags asked him how long had he been there.

There had been no luck finding a old man.  Sam Elliot stepped

up to be the stand in for the weathered old cowboy.

Why? No one ever understood that.

"Heck if I know,"  he answered and then aimed some tobacco spit at the nearby spittoon.  Sometime he hit the mark, sometimes he did not.  All went well in Nefarious here on out.

Sue the T-Rex is front and center at Chicago's Field Museum and was found S. Dakota. Other than that, we will stay with the rugged states where dinosaur bones have been found.

This is a repost of Wednesday Words given as a challenge for bloggers to shake up their writing, to take a break from WIPs, try different genre.  A dear Blogger, Delores, started this challenge a few years back, passing the baton onto other talented bloggers.