Pedro lifted the conch shell to his mouth and blew into it, sending another foghorn blare into the air.
Quint winced again—not just due to the racket, but also because Angélica had told everyone to look, not touch, if they came across any artifacts.
The monkeys hollered back from the other side of the wall once more, even louder this time, throwing in some high-pitched shrieks. Clearly, he wasn’t the only primate unsettled by the sound.
Pedro lowered the shell. “This one is unmarked,” he explained. “But there are two others that have glyphs etched onto them. Angélica is going to be over the sun.”
And the moon, too.
“Actual glyphs?” At Pedro’s nod, Quint chuckled.
Of course Daisy had stumbled into another “find” in the rubble. When she’d requested to switch places with Bronko after they’d arrived onsite, joining him and Pedro instead of following Juan andFernel around, he’d wondered if good ol’ magic Daisy 8-Ball was back in the saddle with a premonition about where to sniff out more treasures.
“Conch-shell trumpets?” Quint took a couple of steps closer to the ruins. “You’re talking about those big seashells, right?” Not a gourd, as he’d first thought.
Daisy’s head appeared over the side of the crumbling structure next to Humpty Dumpty’s. “They’re Florida horse conch shells,” she clarified. “The Maya used them as trumpets in ceremonies, rituals, and pre-battle pep rallies. Plus, probably just for fun.”
Why were the shell trumpets here, though? Was it part of the prison alarm system?
“Should Pedro be blowing on that thing?” he asked her. Let alone touching it. Quint wasn’t one for always following the rules, but Angélica had made clear the importance of not messing with relics until copious notes and pictures had been taken. “Aren’t we supposed to leave artifacts in situ for recording purposes?”
“We left the other two shells be,” Daisy called down. “But this one had rolled away from the others. It was just sitting out there in the middle of the floor, exposed to the elements and sun bleached.”
“Centuries of exposure to the elements explains why there are no glyphs or carvings visible on it,” Pedro told Quint. “The other two were protected.”
That was just hunky-dory, but Quint had a feeling Angélica would still get those two deep lines at the bridge of her nose when she found out that they had not only moved the conch shell, but also blown through it—twice now.
“I sketched its location before Pedro showed his expertise at conch-shell trumpet blowing,” Daisy said, apparently reading Quint’s mind. “And I took measurements while Pedro tried to get Dr. García on the walkie-talkie.”
“Angél isn’t answering.” Pedro pointed toward the dense cluster of trees they’d had to squeeze and chop their way through to reach their lookout location. “With all these damned trees in the way, this site is one big dead zone.”
That was exactly what Quint feared, especially after the owl feather business. On top of that, he’d been visited by several more butterflies throughout his morning machete workout. Orange, black,yellow. He’d seen several different species up close as they performed flutter-bys, and one even landed on the blade of his machete for a few wing flexes.
“Do you think she heard that second conch trumpeting?” Daisy asked Pedro.
Quint scoffed. “How could she not have? I bet even Teodoro and María heard it back at camp.”
“Good!” Daisy waved for him to join them. “We need your fancy camera up here. The etchings on these other conch-shell trumpets need to be recorded, and you’ll make my job easier if I can use your pictures later to make more detailed drawings of each glyph in my field work notes.”
He squinted in the bright sun toward the trees, debating if he should wait for Angélica before joining the other two up where the three of them probably shouldn’t be for safety reasons. How long would it take her to hike here from the other end of the site? Had she found anything around the ruins abutting the southern wall with Esteban and KuTu?
Quint turned back to the structure, wondering if his sorry ass would be the straw that broke the building’s back.
A yellow butterfly fluttered across the scene, passing by on its way to the ceiba tree, where it landed on a branch and paused for a spell.
“What do you think?” he asked the butterfly. “Any advice from the ancestor busybodies?”
“Who are you talking to down there,hombre?”
Aw, screw it. The sooner he took pictures for Daisy, the quicker they could head back to join the others.
“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.
