“It looked like a rolled-up piece of hide with a white stick poking out of the end.”
“White stick?”
“Sort of reminded me of a bone.”
“A bone? Did you see anything carved on it?” When he shook his head, she asked, “Why didn’t you tell me about this last night?”
“For one thing, it’s creepy and vaguely weapon-like, but not a gun or a knife. And for another, María made panuchos with her special orange sauce. I lost the ability to think coherently when I entered the mess tent and caught a whiff of what was for supper.” He licked his lips, tasting a hint of dirt, which probably came from kissing his dusty girlfriend.
“You could’ve told me when we were back in our tent.”
“Your dad was there.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Plus, I think I fell asleep pretty quickly. I ate too much after a long, hard day. I couldn’t keep my eyes open.”
“That’s true. You were out within a minute or two of settling onto your cot. You didn’t even notice when I kissed you good night.”
He aimed a mock squint her way. “I sure hope you didn’t take liberties with me while I was innocently sleeping.”
“I only touched you where you like it best, but you were too busy dilly-dallying with the Sandman to do more than snore at me.”
“It’s the Sandwoman for me. She’s dusty like you, but not ascurvy. More abrasive, too, but in a good way. You’d get along with her.”
She shook her head, that sparkly look in her gaze again. “Parker, what am I going to do with you?”
“Oh, I think you know, sweetheart.”
She took another step closer. “Do me a favor. Keep an eye on Dr. Fernel. If he found that bone here somewhere, he might go back to the location to dig some more, and he has to show me all artifacts found. It’s in his contract.”
“Can do. But what are you going to be doing?”
She looked toward the wall. “Running a dig site. Now, let’s go see if Daisy or Dad have found any more caches on the other side of the wall.”
Part Four: THE STRUCTURES
“The steps, the platform of the building, and the whole area in front were overgrown with trees, large and principally ramon, which, with their deep green foliage and the mysterious buildings around, presented an image of a grove sacred to Druidical worship.”
~John L. Stephens,Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, Vol. II(1843)
Chapter Eleven
“What are you drawing, Parker?” Angélica asked, returning to her bench seat next to Quint.
She’d stepped outside the mess tent for a few minutes after supper to check in with María and make sure their chief cook had everything she needed to keep the crew well fed. They all would require plenty of fuel for the next week to keep swinging machetes and combing through the jungle’s tangles until Pedro made the next supply run to Cancun.
Back inside the mess tent, the eating area glowed brightly thanks to multiple LED lanterns hanging from tent posts. It’d taken a beat or two for her eyes to adjust to the light after the stark contrast of the darkness outside of the canvas walls.
“A rough sketch of the weapons in that third cache KuTu found this afternoon,” he told her.
Another cache with more weapons. What the hell? This time, rather than long-range spears and arrows, the majority of the pieces were remnants from up-close fighting weapons. Although there were fewer artifacts in this third collection. Where the artifacts had numbered in the hundreds in the previous two caches, this time there were only 89 in total, and most were smaller throwing knives and daggers. No spears ormacuahuitlblades in the mix.
“Didn’t you already take pictures of it?”
His forehead tightened as he stared down at his sketch. “Yeah, but I keep thinking about the ‘why’ behind these caches.”
“Which ‘why’?” her father asked from across the table.
