“Maybe it’s some kind of bunker,” Fernel offered.
“To hide more weapons or people?”
And if it was the latter, Quint thought, to hide people from what?
Juan huffed. “We’re not going to know unless we move thestone.”
“Maybe we can jam a more solid branch in that crack near the top and wiggle it away,” Fernel suggested.
Wiggle it? A thick slab of limestone? Quint stood, glancing again toward the main path. “Something feels off about this.”
“It’s just a stone slab,” Juan said.
Yeah, it was, but why was Juan pushing so hard to do this right now? Angélica had made it clear last night at supper that they needed to work as a team, and this didn’t feel very team-like. It was more like two men on a mission, and a poor third sucker stuck doing the hard labor.
More important, though, if Fernel hadn’t been the one calling for Quint to help them earlier, who was it? And how had they mimicked Fernel’s voice so well?
Something definitely wasn’t jiving here. Not Juan’s impatience. Not Fernel’s willingness to get his hands dirty. And definitely not the whispers he’d heard earlier.
“Junior Mint, we won’t go inside,” Juan said, misreading Quint’s hesitation. “We’re just going to move the stone and shine our flashlights in there. You can take pictures of the inside and show those to Angélica tonight, and then she can come here tomorrow with a small crew to dig deeper.”
“Dig deeper?” Hmm. “I’ve heard that before.” And look at the trouble that had led to. Digging deeper seemed to be an archaeologist’s disease.
“Plus,” Juan continued right over Quint’s sarcasm. “I need to be able to check the structural integrity inside so we can bring whatever stabilizing materials we need tomorrow when we return.”
When Quint continued to frown at him, Juan added, “Just think, you’ll save us much-needed time by opening this slab right now.”
The saving-time factor was true. Angélica had talked again this morning about the pressure to find something soon at this site to send back to INAH. Maybe there were glyphs on the other side of that rock slab that would help her nail down the site’s purpose. Someone could have moved several artifacts carved withstelaein there for protection from the elements. Or maybe there were artifacts even more valuable than the conch-shell trumpets and the dagger KuTu found. Finds that Angélica could use to secure moretime and help to figure out what happened here long ago.
But did they really want to know?
What if the purpose of this site was sinister in nature?
What if something was waiting inside that mound for more skulls to collect and post outside the wall?
Stop it!Quint growled, pushing away the worrywart prattling on in his head.
“Okay, we’ll try to move the stone, but you two have to promise me that if we wrestle it out of the way, you will not go poking around inside until everything is stabilized and Angélica is here to share in any finds.”
“Deal,” Juan said, poking his cane at the soil and leaf debris around the base of the slab. “We’re going to have to clear this out and see how deep the slab is buried.”
Secretly, Quint sort of hoped it was too deep to dig without a shovel, or that the stone would be too big and heavy to move after all.
He grabbed a flat rock from nearby and started to clear away the layers of debris and dirt in front of the slab.
“I’m going to do a walk-around of the mound,” Fernel said. “See if there are any entrances on the other side.”
“I’ll come with you,” Juan said. “One of us needs to keep an eye out for snakes.”
They took off, leaving Quint to keep digging on his own.
“Nobody’s watching for snakes on my behalf,” he grumbled, wiping a drop of sweat from his brow with his shoulder.
He glanced toward the sky. Then again, if KuTu was right, the vultures still circling overhead would make sure he was protected.
Bemoaning the jungle he’d landed himself in all because of a woman, he continued clearing away the dirt in front of the stone slab. After he’d dug down about a foot, he paused to wipe his face with his shirt hem and take a drink. As he sipped on the warm, slightly stale water, he stared at the pile of dirt he’d excavated.
He’d read an article years ago about how archaeology could be considered a destructive science. Even when archaeologists were careful like Angélica tried to be, once a site was finished being excavated, it could not be put back to what it originally was ever again. This was especially true when it came to the soil, including notonly the layers and what might be found within them, but also the overall soil horizon. At least he thought the word “horizon” was used in the article.
