What the hell were they doing? Had Fernel found something worth whispering about? Had Juan spotted an animal nearby? A snake? A big rat? A javelina—no, how would it get over the wall? A large cat could probably climb it, though. Or climb a nearby tree andleap onto the top of the wall. A jaguar on the hunt would explain why the birds had suddenly zipped their beaks.
Shit.Was he being hunted right now by a cat?
His heart banged against his ribcage, striving to shoulder its way out and back to camp.
Wait! Cats don’t whisper, bonehead.
He gulped and inched back a step anyway. “Juan?” he said in a quiet voice.
The whispering stopped.
So did the rustling sounds.
Quint reversed several more steps, holding his machete out in front of him in case something came lunging out of the brush at him.
A few racing heartbeats later, he’d made it back on the slashed trail. Sweat ran down his every thing and every part, clear down into his boots.
He glanced around, checking the shadows in the surrounding underbrush, his machete still at the ready.
“Juan,” he called out loud and clear. “Where are you?”
“Over here,” came a hearty response from his left, the opposite side from where he’d heard the whispering.
What the fuck? Had he gotten all turned around?
Quint swatted away a bee that seemed to have him confused for a flower. “Over where?”
“About twenty steps east of the path past a large ramon tree with one of my orange ribbons tied around it.”
Quint scoffed under his breath. Who could tell east from north here? There was simply the ground, the sky, and the jungle. Tomorrow, he was going to start carrying his own compass instead of relying on his map-carrying companions, who seemed to have trouble sticking behind the guy with the machete.
“I don’t have the compass, remember?” Quint said, but headed off trail in the direction of Juan’s voice, stepping carefully through the dead leaves, ferns, and moss.
Maybe Fernel had separated off from Juan to take a piss, and that was who he’d heard whispering back the other way. After all, Quint had caught Fernel talking to himself back at camp. Although, as thick as the vegetation was in this part of Site 5, Fernel had better be leaving some kind of marker on theground or trees so he wouldn’t end up lost. Angélica would be good and growly if she had to switch the crew from searching for clues about this place’s past to scouring the site for signs of Fernel’s whereabouts.
But what was Juan thinking by going off path on his own? His daughter would have his hide if she knew he was taking such chances with all of the snakes Raul and Bronko claimed to have seen yesterday in this part of the site.
Quint saw an orange ribbon wrapped around a tree trunk up ahead. He rounded the ramon tree as instructed. Of course Juan had played it smart and left a marker so they could find their way back to the path. He just hoped Fernel had been as savvy as …
He saw Juan up ahead.
Dr. Fernel stood next to him.
Quint stopped.Fernel?
The two archaeologists were standing in front of a chin-level high mound of ferns and yucca plants and small bushes. Both were staring down at Fernel’s tablet with the LIDAR map on it.
Quint looked behind him. If both men were here, who had he heard whispering over there in the bushes? Had Angélica sent someone else from the crew to check on them?
Last Quint had seen her, she’d been heading toward the stairwell next to Structure II with Esteban, carrying a pack full of charcoal and rice paper sheets. Since the forecast called for a dry, sunny day, she’d told Esteban at breakfast that they would both be collecting more charcoal rubbings of the stairwell.
Maybe Raul, Bronko, or KuTu were trying to find them. Jesus, he hoped there wasn’t an emergency with one of the other crew members.
But surely whoever he’d heard whispering would have heard him calling out and replied in turn instead of going silent.
Unless they had uninvited company at Site 5.
“Quint,” Juan called, waving him closer.
