Chapter Three
“Ground truthing means to confirm the accuracy of data acquired via a remote collection process. Typically, this involves walking around at the actual location, taking measurements, and …”
“What was the last part you said, boss lady?” Quint asked.
Angélica looked his way. He stood near the base of a crumbling platform-like structure they’d stumbled upon a short time ago.
A large, lichen-coated stone acted as a table for his notebook.
The back of his shirt was soaked in sweat, same as hers, but he hadn’t made one sound of complaint all morning as they slashed and pushed deeper into the jungle.
Instead, he’d been all charm and jokes, winning laughs from Raul and her father. Hell, he’d even squeezed a chuckle out of Bronko, whose brow seemed to be stuck permanently in storm-cloud mode since she’d met the ex-hired killer.
Guilt panged in her chest. She was supposed to be on vacation with Quint. Alone together for once. And he was supposed to be charming her, and only her, day and night. Especially at night, with his mouth and hands and …
She sighed. Sleeping in the tented hammock next to his last night had made her question her sanity.
Why in the hell would she choose looking for ancient relics in a hot, buggy jungle over spending time with a guy who could make her laugh her ass off one moment and then kiss her clear to the moon the next?
“Angélica?” Quint was watching her with a worried brow. “Are you okay?”
No. Probably not. She needed to get her head screwed on straight.
For the time being, she answered, “Yeah, sorry. The last bit was about comparing the results with the data to check for errors.” She waited as he scribbled in his notes about their reason for hacking through the forest this morning.
“I can go through it all again this evening when we’re back at the fire, if you’d like. ”
That was the least she could do in return for making him cancel their vacation just so she could try to prove another of her mom’s theories about the ancient Maya.
“No, I have it,” he said without looking up from his writing.
“Don’t forget the part about establishing the trustworthiness of the data,” her father called from the other side of the one-story tall mound of lichen-coated rock rubble topped with a wig of thorny scrub brush and saw palmetto. “Add that to your notes, Junior Mint.”
She shook her head at her father. Instead of eavesdropping on her conversations with Quint and Raul, he was supposed to be helping Bronko by watching for snakes and other hazards while the guard cleared away the vegetation camouflaging what appeared to be ruins.
How old the ruins might be was yet to be determined.
Angélica glanced up at the top of the crumbling platform. This was the first evidence of the site that they’d come across while following the old Maya road. She’d suspected the raised sacbe would likely lead them to the ruins, and this structure confirmed they were heading in the right direction.
If this platform was like the others at nearby sites, it would have had one or more covered rooms at the top.
At the moment, half of what might have been the roof was caved in due to a large strangler fig whose roots had long ago taken up residence in the cracks between the stones and turned what once was solid into a collection of stone crumbs.
Judging by the amount of rubble covering the leaf-littered jungle floor all around them, Angélica would guess the structure might have been two stories high.
Her father had weighed in at three stories, counting the rooms at the top, and he was probably right after decades of specializing in Maya architecture.
His knowledge during a scouting mission like this was a boon for her, which was another reason he needed to be supervising instead of digging and slashing with the rest of them.
“Dad, you better be taking it easy on that leg over there.” Without Pedro and his helicopter waiting nearby, one wrong step by her father and all progress would have to stop while they hauled him back to the ranger station at Calakmul. Maybe even clear to Cancun, if the injury were bad enough.
“Quit coddling me, child.”
She frowned in the direction of her dad’s voice. “I’m turning thirty-five soon, Dad.”
“That doesn’t make you old enough to boss me around.”
Her mother had warned her years ago about how stubborn her old man could be to work with at digs.
In fact, Marianne often cursed aloud using several interesting adjectives about “Juan-the-mule,” a nickname that Angélica later realized was a play on the name “John”—what a male mule was officially called.
But had Angélica listened to those warnings when it came to the opportunity to work at her dad’s side day after day?
Of course not. She’d preferred to have him close, especially after her mom’s death when it felt like he was the only buoy to cling to during the hurricane of pain.
Over the years, Angélica and her father had found an easy work rhythm.
Mostly easy. Nowadays, they could work closely without disagreeing too much, even sharing a tent when necessary in spite of how much he wrinkled his upper lip at her messiness.
Although her adopting a pet javelina earlier this year had caused plenty of bristling and more than a few arguments.
Anyway, ever since he’d broken his leg, her dad refused to listen to reason when it came to slowing down.
Now that she thought about it, Quint had shown up about that time. Did Juan-the-mule’s return to the scene have something to do with a younger man coming into their lives? Was there a little machismo match going on now?
No, that couldn’t be it. Her dad had taken to Quint right out of the gate. Hell, he was the one who’d invited Mr. Big-time Photojournalist to her dig site without running it by her first, which had been a bone of contention until Quint had wormed his way into her heart.
She took a couple of steps to the side, easing over the rubble and freshly chopped vegetation so as to not twist her ankle or step on a snake. She tried to catch a glimpse of her father’s bright orange safety vest through the wall of hoja santa and chaya shrubs.
Raul had handed out matching fluorescent vests to everyone during their breakfast of protein bars and toe-curling black coffee—her tongue was still recoiling from the bitterness.
With visibility limited by so much undergrowth and all of the machetes slashing away, the ranger wanted them to be extra careful about watching out for each other.
Raul had also lined the dull side of their machetes with yellow fluorescent tape after telling a gruesome tale about a chiclero farmer he knew who’d accidentally walked into a machete blade mid-slice.
The farmer had been lucky, according to Raul.
If the chiclero’s stride had been a few inches longer, he might not be around to tell the tale of how he lost the tip of his nose and half of his ear.
Through the palm fronds and shrubs, she could hear Bronko’s grunts along with the low rumble of her father’s voice.
Hefting her machete, she rolled her shoulders, stretched her neck, and started carefully clearing the thick vegetation between them.
With any luck, she might also find a stela stone monument somewhere hidden along the way that would give a hint of what this particular building had been used for back before it lost the battle with Mother Nature.
Most stelae left behind by the ancient Maya were somewhat tall and easy to distinguish by their sculpted markings and telltale glyphs.
They were typically found next to a low altar stone, which helped clarify the relic’s purpose.
Her mother had long ago told Angélica to think of a stela as a billboard planted in front of a structure to advertise not only its function, but also who should be honored for the building’s very existence.
Periodically, a stela would be destroyed for one reason or another, whether it be by enemy warriors demonstrating their strength during a battle, or Mother Nature simply performing her work on the telltale carvings.
Either of those two possibilities were far better than when stelae were stolen by treasure hunters looking for some quick money via the black market.
With the first two, at least evidence of the stela was left behind for archaeologists to try to decipher.
Looting bastards, on the other hand, completely removed any way of learning more about the ancient Maya and their ways of life at a site.
“Mr. Quint,” Raul said. “Why does Dr. Juan call you ‘Junior Mint’? Is there a Father Mint back home?”
Angélica looked back at the ranger, who’d replaced his machete with his canteen. That was a good question. Her dad had recently glommed onto that moniker, and Quint had gone along with the name without even batting an eye.
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Quint glanced up from his notebook with half a grin. “But I figure it’s probably because I’m younger than Dr. Juan.”
“That explains the ‘Junior’ part,” Angélica said. “But what about the ‘Mint’?”
He shrugged. “I smell good. Minty fresh, even after a morning of battling the jungle. You want to come closer and sniff for yourself, boss lady?”
“Wrong, Junior Mint,” Juan called. “On both counts.”
Angélica pulled out her handkerchief and patted her forehead dry. “Good try, Parker, but I think it’s because you’re like the candy with the same name. You know, coated in semi-sweetness.”
“There’s no semi-sweet here.” He touched his chest over his heart. “I’m 100 percent nectariferous.”
“What’s that word mean?” Raul asked.
She chuckled. “That he’s full of crapola.”
“It means I’m extra sweet inside and out,” Quint told the ranger. “And crapola is not a Spanish word, boss lady.”