Ancient Hiss Story (7 page)

P
ain shot
through Kate’s right side as she landed in a jolting crunch on the damp earth. The wind whooshed out of her lungs. She gasped for breath, trying to sit up, holding her throbbing elbow close into her body.

“What happened?” Sal shook his head and pushed up onto all fours.

“We fell into a pit.” Carlotta was already standing, inspecting the side of the six foot square pit.

Kate caught her breath and managed to stand, shaking out her right arm and testing all her limbs. Fingers, toes, knees—everything seemed to be in good working order, if a bit bruised.

Looking up, she saw her mother was right. The pit was about nine feet deep. The roots that protruded from the rough-dug sides reminded Kate of snakes and she shuddered. Panic lapped at her gut as she looked around the inside of the pit to make sure they didn’t have company. She looked around for her walking stick and then remembered it had flown out of her hand when she fell. It must still be up top.

“Well, doesn’t that beat all. We fell into a trap,” Sal said.

“Yeah, but why is there a trap out in the middle of nowhere?” Carlotta asked.

“Not nowhere,” Kate pointed out. “We’re in the middle of some sort of Mayan ruin.”

“And obviously someone doesn’t want us exploring any further on that path,” Sal said.

“So, something good must be down there,” Kate added.

“Do you think it’s the same something we’re—“

Click!

The unmistakable sound of a shotgun being ratcheted came from above.

Kate looked up, shading her eyes against the sun that glared into the hole from behind two human silhouettes and the long barrel of the shotgun.

Kate’s thoughts flew to Onion Mole and Snake Ring. Could they have found her this soon? And how would they have had time to dig a pit? Not to mention that the shotgun was a big departure from their dart gun blunderbus.

“Poachers, just like we thought.” The voice wasn’t Onion Mole or Snake Ring. It was a woman.

“We’re not poachers.” Carlotta’s hands flew to her hips. “We’re here on official business. Just who are
you
?”

“I think we have the advantage, so if you aren’t poachers or thieves, you tell us who you are first,” the girl said.

“We’re with the
Ritzholdt Museum
,” Kate said in her most official voice. “Out here on a project.”

“And
you
are holding us hostage,” Carlotta added in an irate voice.

The woman’s shadow bent closer, her long, blonde hair streaming down over the edge of the pit. The other shadow, who Kate could now see was a man with ginger-colored hair and beard, looked over her shoulder.

“Well, I guess they don’t look like poachers.” The man looked at the woman uncertainly, then called down to them, “Do you have proof?”

Luckily, Kate did have proof. Gideon had packed her official museum ID badge in her safari vest. At the time, she’d laughed at him. Why would she need that in the middle of nowhere? But Gideon usually knew best so she’d kept it in there, and now she was glad she did. She retrieved the leather wallet from her vest and tossed it up toward the woman, who caught it easily.

The woman stared at it, then looked down at Kate and handed it to the man. “They look legit.”

The man grunted then lowered the shotgun, passed the wallet back to the woman and disappeared.

“Sorry about that. We’re digging out an area just west of here and we’ve had a big problem with poachers and thieves try to steal some of the artifacts we’ve been digging up. These pits are our way of discouraging them.” She shrugged. “Out here in the jungle, you have to use whatever you can.”

“You have an archaeologic dig going on near here?” Kate asked

“Yep.”

“Then you must be Jersey Swan. We have a friend in common.”

The man returned and tossed a rope ladder over the side, staking the top of it in the ground above. Sal gestured for Kate to go first, and Kate gestured for Carlotta.

“Who’s that?” Jersey held her hand out to help Carlotta scale the top of the hole.

“Gideon Crenshaw.” Kate started up the ladder.

“Well, why didn’t you say so? Any friend of Gid’s is a friend of mine.” Jersey helped Kate out and the two of them shook hands. “I remember now that he went to work for the
Ritzholdt
. How is he?”

“Just fine. Geeky as ever,” Kate said, eliciting a laugh from Jersey. The sound of her laugh was light, a tinkling that matched with her kind, blue eyes and sun-kissed hair and gave her a girl-next-door appeal.

“He always did like science.” Jersey put out a hand to help Sal, who waved her off.

“This is Ed, my assistant.” Jersey gestured toward the man who was pulling the ladder out of the pit. Kate introduced Carlotta and Sal and they all shook hands and made small talk.

Despite their inauspicious beginning, Kate found herself warming to Jersey, who was actually quite friendly. She even offered them water and a protein bar as they sat around on the steps which, as it turned out, really were from Mayan ruins.

“It’s a good thing we weren’t stuck in there for any length of time.” Carlotta pointed to the pit. “It could be dangerous.”

“Oh, we check them quite regularly,” Ed said. “I guess we can have Andy and Tony put the top of the pit back.”

“Andy and Tony are our helpers,” Jersey explained as she led them back to the area that had the steps. “They’re pretty good with certain ‘techniques’ to discourage theft.”

“I think we should note the coordinates of this thing on our GPS,” Sal said. “You got any more surprises like this around?”

“We do, but I’ll be happy to tell you where they are so you can avoid them.” Jersey slid her eyes over to Kate. “So, tell me, what exactly are you out here looking for?”

“We’re actually interested in something further north,” Kate lied. “I’m on a project that is exploring how the Mayans got fresh water and dealt with the whole issue of plumbing.”

“Oh, that’s interesting. So you’re not really interested in Mayan artifacts?”

“Oh, no, not at all. Our research is purely instructional. We don’t want to bring anything back to the museum except knowledge.”

“Then what are you doing out here?” Ed asked.

Kate smiled sweetly at him. “Just getting acclimated.”

Jersey twisted her lips and regarded Kate. Then, apparently coming to a decision, she said, “It sounds like our goals are complementary. Maybe we can help each other out?”

“That will be great. Unfortunately I don’t have much to share right now. We just got here,” Kate said

“That’s no problem.” Jersey stood up, holding her hand out to help Kate up. “I’ll be happy to show you what we’ve got going and as you find stuff, maybe you could relay that to us.”

“Sure, that would be great.” Kate glanced at Carlotta and Sal, who both shrugged as if to say ‘it’s your show, do what you want.’ She noticed Ed’s scowl, but Jersey seem unfazed as she stepped around the pit and motioned for them to follow her down the path.

They followed her, single file on the thin path, through the dense tropical forest.

“The site back there was just one section of what we think is a larger village,” Jersey said as she held back a palm frond so it didn’t whip Kate’s face. “I think you’ll be impressed with what we have at the main site.”

Kate focused on swishing her special walking stick, which she’d retrieved from the ground beside the pit, back and forth just in case Jersey’s footsteps didn’t scare the snakes away.

“I think the entire village encompasses several miles,” Jersey continued. “But it’s so overgrown here it’s almost impossible to see any signs, even if they're right next to you.”

“How’d you find the site?” Carlotta asked.

“Research,” Jersey said simply.

Carlotta and Kate exchanged a shrug. Apparently, Jersey didn’t want to elaborate and Kate couldn’t blame her. The archaeology business could be competitive, so one tended to keep one’s methods to oneself.

The path ended and they spilled out into a clearing, which was much more interesting than the area where they’d fallen into the pit. It was a larger space with areas where you could clearly see steps, edges of buildings and even the foundation of a rounded building. Off to the right, Kate could see the remnants of a ball court.

“Wow, this is cool.” Sal was over at a large stone rectangle carved with Mayan symbols.

“Yes, we think this was the center plaza,” Jersey said. “As you can see, though, there aren’t any buildings still standing. You can see where they once were, but the rocks are strewn about.” Jersey waved her hand around the area.

“It’s still a nice find,” Kate said.

“Yeah, this is great.” Sal pointed to what looked like a stone bench with two large chunks of rock supporting a wide slab on top. “This is a pretty big seat. Did those Mayans have wide butts?”

“Actually, we think it might be a sacrificial stone. You want to try it out?” Jersey joked.

Sal jumped back from the stone and eyed it suspiciously. “No, thanks.”

Kate pointed to several tents which were set up in the northwest corner. “Are you camping out right here?”

“Yes. We like to be right in the thick of things. That way, no one can come and steal our artifacts.” Jersey walked toward a large, white tent and motioned for them to follow. Inside the tent, long tables were set up. On top of the tables sat an array of objects.

“These are the artifacts we've recovered so far,” Jersey said.

Kate walked down the row of tables, which held primitive tools, arrowheads, primitively carved jade beads, bone beads, stingray spines and shells. One of the nicer pieces sat at the very end—the oblong beads of a jade necklace which had been placed in a semicircle in the order where the beads would have been strung together.

“That’s a nice piece.” Kate pointed to the necklace. “It almost looks like it would be from royalty. Have you found a tomb here?”

“No. We found the pieces when we dug out the remnants of one of the buildings.” Jersey lifted the flap of the tent, indicating for them to exit.

“So you haven’t found any ruins or evidence of water reservoirs?” Ed had come up to join them.

“Not yet. Today is actually our first day out in the field,” Kate said. “We camped out last night to get a head start first thing this morning.”

“Where are you camped?” Jersey asked.

“We're a couple miles due east of here,” Sal said.

“Is it just the three of you?” Ed asked.

Carlotta narrowed her eyes at him, and Kate figured Carlotta was wondering if Ed was trying to size them up just in case they became adversaries. “No. We have four others in our party.”

“Sounds like quite the party,” Jersey said.

Sal chuckled, “It
is
like a party.”

“Maybe we should get together tonight for supper. We can fill each other in on what we discover today,” Jersey said. "We're digging out a promising area and between you and the others on your team, you may have something new."

“That sounds like a good idea.” Kate glanced at Carlotta and Sal, who both nodded. She felt a little pang of guilt squeeze her stomach. She had no intention of telling Jersey about anything they found and she certainly wasn’t going to reveal the real reason for the mission. But she wanted to keep track of what Jersey was turning up in case it gave her a clue to the tomb she was looking for.

Kate was no expert, but judging by the artifacts on the table this was strictly a Mayan site, so the odds of them uncovering something that would lead to Itizuma’s tomb were slim— which made her feel better since she didn’t think it was fair to use Jersey’s finds for her own gain. That would be almost like stealing and, even though Kate didn’t believe in the curse, it was safer to try to avoid doing anything that would invoke it.

Kate pulled out her GPS. “I’ll mark the location so we can find you again. Is six o'clock okay?”

“That sounds great,” Jersey said.

“Well, I guess we'd better get back to work,” Kate said, then extended her hand. “It was nice meeting you both.”

“You too,” Jersey said and gave Kate a firm handshake. Ed mumbled something indecipherable and also shook her hand, his eyes sliding off toward the right where the forest became dense and dark.

Kate couldn’t help but follow his glance. She could barely see ten feet into the forest, but it looked like there might be some sort of cave just inside.

“What’s that?” Kate asked.

Jersey whipped her head around to look in the direction. “Oh, that? That’s nothing. We thought we found something there, but it turns out it was empty.”

“Do you think it was a burial chamber?”

“That’s what we were hoping.” Jersey shook her head. “But we were disappointed.”

“I wonder if it had something to do with where they stored water?” Kate decided to embellish on her previous lie and make her quest sound more legitimate. “Did you find any evidence of containers or a hole lined with pottery shards?”

“No, nothing like that.” Ed turned them toward the path they had come in on. “I assume you want to get back to where we met. Tony is putting the top of the pit back on, so you’ll probably see him at the end of the path, but if he's already done be careful not to step in it.”

“Yeah, we’re not gonna fall for that again.” Sal started down the path.

“You’re not really going to tell her about any of our finds, are you?” Carlotta asked after they were out of hearing distance.

“Heck, no.”

“Well, that hardly seems fair. She showed you what she found,” Sal pointed out.

“Did she?” Kate looked back over her shoulder. “She was kind of secretive about that cave.”

“You don’t think she’s with Markovic, do you?” Carlotta asked.

“No, probably not, but she might not be telling us everything.”

“Well, you can hardly blame her on that. You weren’t exactly straight with her, either,” Sal said.

“Yeah, that’s par for the course in the business.” Kate poked at a fern with her walking stick.

“What’s that saying?” Sal twisted his lips, then snapped his fingers. “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”

Kate nodded. “All the more reason to join them for supper tonight.”