“How wide is it?” her dad asked.
“How wide is what?” Quint called down.
“The wall.”
“About a yardstick in width. Easy enough to walk along.”
Angélica watched as Quint shielded his eyes and looked toward whatever was hidden from them on the other side of the wall.
She waited.
And waited.
Anxiety weighed heavy in her chest in spite of the anticipation tingling through the rest of her body.
“Well?” she prompted when he simply kept staring into the distance for what felt like an eternity. “What can you see?”
He took off his backpack. “Trees.”
“What else?”
He turned away from her for a few seconds, then looked back with a grin. “Additional trees,” he said, lifting out his camera bag.
Her father chuckled.
She cursed Humpty Dumpty and threatened to crack him a good one when he came back down.
“And it’s a long way down to the ground on this other side. Easily twice as far.” Quint slipped his camera strap over his head. “Your dad was right when he said the jungle is a master of camouflage.”
Her father held up his hands in surrender when she rounded on him. “I don’t remember saying any such thing.”
Back to Quint, she called, “Can you see any bumps in the terrain?”
“Define bumps.”
“Long, bus-sized lumps under the ground.”
“It’s hard to tell from here.” He focused eastward, taking pictures in silence for a moment before lowering the camera. “I should have brought your map up here with me.”
She thought about trying to throw it up at him like a baton, but if he didn’t catch it, they’d lose it on the other side.
He lifted the camera, spinning one way and then the other.
“What are you taking pictures of?” she asked.
“A bunch of trees,” he called back down.
“I’m going to wring his neck,” she told the vultures overhead.
“Give him a moment,gatita. You are even more impatient than your mother.”
She made a face at her father. Back to Quint, she called, “Does it look like a religious site?”
He lowered his camera and frowned down at her. “How in the world would I tell a Maya religious site from a non-religious one, especially from high up on a wall?”
She planted her hands on her hips.
“Don’t give me that look, boss lady. I’m serious, how would I tell?”
