Chapter Twelve #2
“The Maya gods. I’m checking if they want me to sacrifice you when I get up there.”
Pedro laughed as Quint climbed over the rubble remains of what was probably the upper stories of the square tower.
He ducked inside the short rectangular doorway that led into the bottom floor. The place smelled musty. A shaft of sunlight coming through a hole in the upper wall lit the dust particles as they danced throughout the hot, cramped, low-ceilinged room.
Quint extended his arms, measuring the space. Hmm. Maybe ten feet square.
Three stacked-block columns were spaced throughout the room, holding up large slabs of stone overhead.
Upon closer inspection, Quint saw cracks on several of the column blocks.
He scanned the ceiling. They probably shouldn’t be up there.
God, he wished Juan with his architectural expertise was at hand, doling out assurances that this ancient structure was stable enough to hold more weight.
Quint searched the room for any other signs of potential structural failure. Two corners contained piles of twigs and leaves and other jungle flotsam. The rodents must not have a problem with hanging out at this site, unlike the monkeys and other larger fauna.
When was the last time a human had stood in this room before today?
There were no signs of looting that Quint could see, so had it been one of the last actual site inhabitants centuries ago?
If this had been a prison, did they move the prisoners to another location before abandoning this place?
Or sacrificed them all for rain and a good harvest?
“Parker,” Pedro called out from above. “You want me to come down there and give you some geese?”
Some geese? Oh, he meant “a goose.”
Quint grinned in spite of his pounding pulse. “Maybe, smartass.”
He eased over to the opposite wall where toe holds had been carved into the stone, acting as a ladder, and started upward.
The second floor mirrored the first, although the rodents hadn’t bothered with the corners up here, settling for building their mounds in the middle of the room next to the columns.
He headed up the wall ladder to the third floor where Daisy and Pedro waited, but his steel-toed boots were too wide to fit into the carved-out holes near the top.
“Shit,” he muttered, unable to find enough of a ledge to hold his weight.
Pedro reached down through the hole. “Need a hand, Big Blue Bunyan?”
He didn’t bother correcting his rescuer. “Yep.”
A few seconds later he was topside, brushing off his pants.
The sea of treetops made it impossible to see much detail below, shielding the wall in both directions beyond thirty feet or so from the ruins.
Somewhere out there, Angélica was possibly slashing her way toward them, but he couldn’t see any signs of movement in the canopies.
“Are we sure this structure is stable?” he asked, even though he knew they had no idea.
“Not without Juan here to make that call,” Daisy said, joining him. “But the fall from here wouldn’t be so bad.”
“Unless a rock lands on my leg.” Or twenty of them.
Daisy waved him off. “You sound like Pedro when I dragged him up here. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“I left it back home in my sock drawer.”
Pedro blew out a breath. “I could sure use an ice-cold cerveza to appreciate this view better.”
“Make that two.” Quint peered down at the rubble remains below.
They shouldn’t be up here. Something felt wrong about this place.
The structure seemed secure, but he still didn’t make any quick moves as he extracted the camera from his pack and turned to Daisy.
“Now, where are these trumpets you want photos of?”
She led him over to one of the partially collapsed walls. Stepping carefully through a scattering of white shell fragments in front of precariously stacked rocks, she pointed at the triangular cavity created by two larger chunks leaning against each other.
Following her lead, Quint squatted in front of the cavity. “Can you light it up inside there with your flashlight?” he asked as he made some adjustments to his camera settings to deal with the low light inside the shelter.
A clicking sound followed, and then the cavity was filled with light.
“Damn,” he whispered, staring at the two intact conch-shell trumpets sitting on top of a litter of white shell fragments and what looked like the thin, torn remains of some kind of animal hide.
Daisy had blown off some of the layers of dust on the shells to expose a bunch of small glyphs etched into the side with a red pigment, which was probably made from hematite or ground cochineal insects.
At least that was what he’d recently read about where red dye came from in Maya times.
It was most likely hematite, based on the dark orange-red shade that was typical of iron ore rust.
He raised his camera. “Angélica is going to be happy as hell to see those glyphs.”
“Right? Finally, we have something besides caches full of weapons to show her.” Daisy’s excitement was evident in her higher tone. “I probably should’ve waited to come up here, but I just knew there was something waiting for us. Something special.”
Quint looked up from his camera, staring at her for a few beats. Had Marianne’s ghost had anything to do with showing Daisy the way to these two pieces? Or was this part of Daisy’s natural sleuthing abilities?
She smiled back. “When I saw these shells with all of the glyphs decorating them, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I haven’t come across anything so beautifully delicate that was still in one piece before. Those two pieces look like they’re straight out of a museum.”
He returned to his camera, easing sideways to get shots from another angle while doing his best not to bother the shell fragments in and out of the small alcove.
He could have used his macro lens here, but he’d left it back in the tent, figuring his day would be full of machetes and sweat, not close-up photos.
“I wanted to make sure you got pictures in case some weird storm comes up and blows this structure down,” she explained when he sat back on his heels.
Quint paused in the midst of lowering his camera. That seemed like an odd reason. “You really think that could happen?”
She shrugged. “My brain says no, but my gut says to act fast before this place crashes down around us.”
“You mean this building?”
“I mean this site.” Her frown added to the doom and gloom of her statement.
Okay, that was definitely Daisy 8-Ball kooky. Had she experienced some kind of premonition? Or was she channeling Marianne and delivering a prophetic warning from the spectral world?
He tried to read if anyone else was hiding behind her blue eyes, but he was no seer of ghosts—well, except for Angélica’s mom when she wanted to be seen, of course.
Daisy blinked and smiled, her usual sunshiny-ness back on the surface. “Are you done taking pictures?”
“Almost. Can you switch places with me and try to shine the light on the top of the shells?”
They carefully traded sides and he returned to snapping pictures. After about twenty shots, he lowered his camera and said, “It almost looks like someone placed those two shells in there purposely to protect them from the weather.”
“I thought the same thing.”
“Why would they have shell trumpets here?” he asked.
He was curious to hear if she shared his theory of them being like bugles, here to blow if prisoners were trying to escape. A way to alert the guards throughout the site.
“I’m not sure. This seemed to be like the caches—a collection of one particular set of objects rather than a variety of pieces all placed together for a reason, like ceramic vessels and carved jade idols in a burial site.
” She picked up a fragment of white shell, turning it over before returning it to its original spot.
“The shells were probably sitting on a shelf made of wood that disintegrated over time. I’m just amazed these two survived with the glyphs intact.
Dr. García will probably have us collect these other fragments so volunteer grad students can try to put the other conch shells back together at the lab.
Unfortunately, the weather has really wreaked havoc on the pieces. ”
Quint looked around at the bits and pieces. “Do you want me to take pictures of the shell fragments, too?”
“It probably wouldn’t hurt.”
“Here she comes,” Pedro called from his stance at the wall. He leaned over the edge again. “Up here, mi angelita.”
“What in the hell are you doing up there?” Angélica shouted. “That place could collapse any minute.”
Pedro raised the conch-shell trumpet. “I had to get up high for you to hear me blow this.”
What sounded like a scoff came from below. “You think you’re some kind of medieval herald?”
He laughed. “If by ‘herald,’ you mean a handsome knight, then yes.”
“Where did you find that conch-shell trumpet?”
Quint grinned as he started snapping pictures of what remained of the other shells. Of course Angélica would know what that shell was upon sight, even from a distance. She probably knew what it was by sound alone.
“Come up here and I’ll show you,” Pedro shot back.
“Is Parker up there, too?”
“Yes,” Quint called out while continuing to take pictures.
“So am I,” Daisy hollered.
A string of curses came from the boss, followed by, “I can’t believe you blew in the shell, Pedro. That piece should be in a museum, and you put your grubby lips on it.”
Pedro made kissing sounds. “My lips are not grubby, just a little dusty. Come here, Blue Bunyan,” he called to Quint. “Let me kiss you so you can tell her how sweet my lips are.”
“No can do, flyboy.” Quint picked up a fragment and took a picture of the front side and the back, even though he couldn’t see any markings on either side. “You’re not touching me with those lips after blowing on that shell.”
“You know you’re supposed to leave any finds in situ so we can analyze the surrounding situation,” Angélica said.
Ha! Quint had been right on the in-situ part.
Now to see if she continued down the level-headed path and made them come down and wait for her dad to ensure this building was safe before any field work continued.
That reminded him … He took several shots of the crumbling walls, what remained of them, anyway, along with some photos of the floor.
Juan might want to see them for structural analysis purposes.
“We found two more conch-shell trumpets up here,” Daisy said, joining Pedro at the wall. “They have glyphs etched on them and are in pristine condition. You need to come up here and read what’s on them.”
Silence came from below.
A few seconds later, Angélica’s head popped up through the hole in the floor, followed quickly by her shoulders.
She had a new scratch on her cheek streaked with dried blood. Had Esteban sent her on another tumble? Or was that a battle scar from going to war against the jungle? KuTu had been part of her crew this morning, too. Were he and Esteban on their way here?
“You three shouldn’t be up here,” she said, clearing the hole. “Those columns on the first floor have cracks in them. Dad will be lecturing us for the next three weeks about how stupid it was to risk our lives by climbing up here without stabilizing the ceiling first with more supports.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Pedro said, offering her a hand up. “I don’t see you waiting for him before joining us up here, bossy woman.”
“That’s ‘boss lady’ to you and Parker.” She wrinkled her nose at Pedro and then turned to Daisy. “Where are they?”
“Right there.” She handed her flashlight over to Angélica, leading the way through the fragments again. “I asked Quint to take a bunch of pictures of them in situ so that we can work on documenting more later at camp.”
“Good.” Angélica glanced at Quint, her brow slightly furrowed. “Have you taken pictures of these fragments on the floor?”
He nodded. “And a few of the structural remains on this level.”
“Good. When we head back down, will you take pictures in the lower two levels?”
“Sure.”
She kneeled, aiming the flashlight beam into the alcove. “Thanks. That would save us time here so that we can move on to what KuTu found.”
“What did KuTu find?” Pedro asked, standing at the edge of the litter of shell pieces.
Angélica sucked air between her teeth at the sight of the conch-shell trumpets. “Would you look at that? How the hell did these two beautiful babies not end up broken? It’s like someone placed them in there for safekeeping.”
Daisy giggled. “Isn’t it amazing?”
“Can you read the glyphs on them?” Quint asked while taking a few closeup photos of the deteriorating joints between wall blocks to ask Juan about later. The builders appeared to have used some sort of mud or cement as grout to hold the blocks together.
He thought about taking back a small chunk of this ancient grout for show-and-tell but resisted.
Much of it had already deteriorated, eaten away by rain and wind.
With Quint’s luck, he’d collect a small sample and end up bringing the rest of the building down with the four of them still standing on it.
“Maybe,” Angélica answered him. “But I’m not as good as Mom was. Some of these glyphs are completely unfamiliar. I need to check my notes.” She rubbed her hands together. “Daisy, did you bring any bags with you today?”
“Yes, along with some soft leather cloths for wrapping. I always carry a mini collection kit in case I stumble onto a find.”
“Great.” Angélica pushed to her feet, backstepping carefully through the shell shards. “You and Pedro finish with the recording process here and then bag those for taking back to the field camp today.”
“Will do, Dr. García,” Daisy said, unzipping her backpack.
“Nice job on finding these,” Angélica told her, reaching down to squeeze her shoulder. Then she looked at Pedro. “No jumping for joy up here. I really am worried about those cracks in the columns. Work quickly and then get down on the ground.”
Pedro saluted her. “Will do.”
Turning to Quint, she pointed at his camera. “Let’s get some pics of the two floors below and then you need to come with me.”
He nodded, taking a couple of shots of the landscape view from the wall, before joining her at the hole in the floor. “Pedro, can you give me a hand down since my boots won’t fit in the toe holds?” He didn’t want to hop down onto the floor and bring the structure down around them.
Pedro joined them at the hole, helping Angélica down while Quint secured his camera for the descent. “What did KuTu find?” he asked.
Angélica paused midway through the hole and frowned up at Pedro. “Just an obsidian sacrificial dagger with the Maya god of maize carved into the jade handle that KuTu is dead certain was used for reincarnation rituals.”