Chapter Nine
A cache (pronounced “cash”) is a collection of goods found at a dig site.
Caches often include ritually significant items that help to further understand the ancient Maya culture.
The contents of a cache are considered different than “burial goods,” which are purposely left with the dead to help them succeed in the afterlife.
—The items found are as follows (quantities will be noted later):
—Axe heads made of stone and obsidian
—Arrowheads made of obsidian
—Small knives and daggers made with bone and obsidian blades
—Spearpoints made of obsidian and chert
—3” obsidian blades most likely left over from several macwa …
It took a few beats of silence coming from Quint’s direction for Angélica to realize that he’d stopped reading aloud from his field notes.
She glanced his way to see if he had indeed keeled over from the heat, as he’d joked about earlier after helping Fernando clear the area around a cache of weapons Daisy had located.
Quint sat frowning at his field notes in the shade of a gumbo-limbo tree on a big chunk of limestone.
From the shape of his impromptu seat, it appeared to have been part of the larger crumbling structure that they’d climbed down earlier upon entering Site 5.
What that structure had been was yet to be determined, but it looked similar in height, overall size, and shape to the collapsing structure on the outside of the wall.
Had the two been built to mirror each other first and then the wall was added and divided them?
Or had they been built purposely on each side of the wall, and if so, to what end?
Angélica needed to keep looking around for stelae, or even just stones with glyph carvings that might help explain what used to be where they now stood. Or maybe she should just assign Daisy, their resident Maya artifact bloodhound, to the task.
She looked back down at the sketch she’d asked Daisy to draw, which showed the current layout of the contents in the cache. The woman’s talents were many, including drawing in addition to sniffing out hidden treasures.
According to Quint, Daisy had pretty much walked around the side of the structure and then called for him to come help her clear some of the vegetation with his machete, claiming she had a feeling there was something behind all the greenery.
Sure as shit, there’d been something back there.
Tucked away behind the vines and palm fronds and thorny scrub brush, plus a tree or two, they’d found a small structure.
A bit more work with Quint’s machete had revealed what seemed to be some kind of low-ceilinged storage room, about ten feet wide by twelve feet long.
The jungle had been doing its best to hide the small building, slowly chewing it up in order to swallow it down into the earth—much like what was happening at the rest of Site 5.
All around her were a bunch of lumps hidden away beneath the vegetation.
Angélica hadn’t seen a site so raw and untouched before.
Her father had claimed the same while looking at the LIDAR map on Dr. Fernel’s tablet, groaning at just the idea of how much work needed to be done here before they could even start to piece together the history of the site.
She looked up from Daisy’s sketch at the small dilapidated structure.
How much longer the rock walls could hold the weight of the large strangler fig resting partially on top of the ancient building was anyone’s guess.
Her father had made everyone stand back while he inspected the structural integrity, finally giving the all-clear only after Fernando and Bronko had braced what was left of the ceiling with several chicle tree trunks.
Angélica still couldn’t believe Daisy’s luck at finding a cache full of weapons right out of the gate.
Well, make that what was left of the weapons, thanks to time and Mother Nature tag-teaming on the artifacts.
Unfortunately, the side of the stone-walled room that had been overtaken by the strangler fig tree had a caved-in ceiling.
Water had found its way inside through every available crack, as water tended to do, and done a fine job of rotting and disintegrating whatever it could.
As most Maya weapons were made of wood or natural fibers—spear shafts, axe handles, the bindings on knives and daggers, bows and arrow shafts, and the handle of macuahuitl—all that was left in the cache were the hard, stone parts.
Quint was still silent.
Angélica looked his way again, wondering what was up.
When he continued to sit unmoving, frowning down at the notes he was taking on her behalf, she started in his direction, stepping carefully through the exposed tree roots and rubble.
She didn’t need a sprained ankle this early in the game. Especially not at a site this untamed.
“You okay, Parker?”
Even his smile looked hot and tired, melting at the edges. He wiped his face with his shirt sleeve. “Well, I could use a cold beer.”
So could she. Today was a cooker.
Angélica dropped onto the rock next to him, fanning herself with her sunhat. “Put it on my tab.”
“That’s supposed to be my line, bartender.”
“No, your line is: ‘I’m searching for treasure, can I check out your chest?’ At least, that was your pickup line when you joined me on the beach last time.”
He chuckled, his gaze dipping south. “You can’t blame a guy for trying to plunder some hot booty.”
“Speaking of hot booty, you look almost as steamy as I feel.” The poor guy’s shirt was half-drenched with sweat, same as hers.
“Yeah, but it’s just a wet and sticky heat. If I close my eyes, I can pretend I’m locked in a sauna, wearing a snowmobile suit. It’s paradisiacal.”
She groaned. “Stop with long, multi-syllabic words, Mr. Big-time Photojournalist. It’s too damned hot for that shit and Dad’s not around to give you any more points in his stupid game.”
“You’re just mad because I’m winning.”
“You’re not winning, Parker, and I’m too sweaty to kick your ass right now.”
The afternoon heat had everyone wilting, even Dr. Fernel, who’d told her that he’d bought special “breathable” clothing on the trip to help mitigate the jungle heat.
She had debated on breaking the news to him that the salesperson had been full of shit, but bit her tongue.
After spending much of her life in the Mexican jungle, she had yet to find a fabric that made the heat and humidity more tolerable.
Some days, melting slowly while periodically spewing swear words was the only option.
“So, why did you stop reading aloud?” she asked.
Quint tapped his pencil on his notes. “I got stuck here and calling out to you seemed like too much work.”
“Stuck on what?”
“How to spell the ‘mac-wa’ whatever weapon.”
“It’s macuahuitl.”
He stared at her, his brow pinching. “Nope, I didn’t get it that time either.”
“MAK-wa-hweet.” She pronounced the Mayan word slowly. “There is no ‘w’ after the ‘c’ when you spell it out.”
He grabbed his canteen from his backpack, unscrewing the cap. “Sure sounds to me like one snuck in there.”
“The ‘kw’ sound is actually spelled with a ‘c’ and ‘u’ pairing, and the ‘hu’ in the word is what makes the ‘w’ sound.” She swiped away the sweat rolling down her cheek with the back of her leather glove.
“While some prefer to pronounce the ending ‘l’ in words like this one, the ‘tl’ counts as single consonant.”
He glowered at her. “Christ, woman. Is that supposed to help? I can’t think that hard when I’m dripping this much.”
“I’m trying to teach you a little language. Macuahuitl means ‘hand-wood’ in Nahuatl.”
He took a drink of water, then offered his canteen to her. “How about you just spell the word for me and save the teaching for a beach sunset session back in Cancun?”
“Deal.” She spelled out the word for him and then took a drink of the warm water, handing back his canteen. A cold beer would’ve been downright heaven.
“What is this oddly spelled weapon, anyway?” he asked after stowing the canteen in his pack.
“It’s a long, broad wooden sword-like weapon with razor-sharp obsidian blades embedded along both sides.”
“How long and broad?”
“Dad can give you a better idea. He enjoys reading up on ancient Mesoamerican weapons.”
She glanced over at where her father sat on a fallen log under a ceiba tree.
He was still checking out Dr. Fernel’s tablet.
Next to him, the geoarchaeologist sat with his head drooping, his shoulders bending inward as if the heat had liquefied his core, causing him to slowly sink in on himself.
His posture reminded her of the structures they’d found inside and outside of the wall.
She had to give it to Dr. Fernel, though.
He was determined to make the most of his LIDAR software, even if the weather was hard on him.
While Angélica, her father, and the rest of the crew had been excited about uncovering the cache of weapons, focusing their collective energy on clearing the area around it and examining the find, Dr. Fernel had insisted that he get busy on his own geoarchaeological work immediately.
He’d pulled out surveying equipment from the pack that KuTu had kindly carried to the site for him.
Apparently, a cache of weapons was not high on Dr. Fernel’s list of important discoveries.
At Angélica’s suggestion, he had taken Bronko with him to clear a pathway and watch for snakes while Fernel set measured data points with his survey equipment.
According to the geoarchaeologist, he needed to set at least three data points, which he’d use to pin his map on the surface of the earth in his software.
After the data points were set, he would be able to look through his tablet and have the LIDAR map show in real-time, overlapping the existing actual topography.