Elisha's Bones - Don Hoesel [37]
My best weapon at this point is silence and I make use of it. I’m not sure I could come up with the words I would need to describe how I could hear Will underneath a ton of dirt and rock. How I could hear the faint banging of a shovel coming up through the ground. Most of the images and sounds from that day are still vivid, even after more than five years. But two stand out. One was a plea, the only clear thing I heard Will say while he waited for rescue. We’d removed at least two-thirds of the debris so his words were clear when he shouted, once, for God to save him. God may be real, as Espy claims, but He must have been busy that day, because my other most clear recollection is Will’s lifeless eyes when we pulled him from the hole.
“I’m hungry,” I say, and then I start down the steps.
CHAPTER 9
Careful now.”
I’ve got the crowbar wedged beneath the thick limestone slab, and Antonio and Ruben are in similar positions.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say someone glued this thing shut.”
I’m putting my back into it, which I will regret later. But after a few very long seconds, we’re rewarded with a satisfying pop and the slab lifts. Two others place metal shims in the gap in case we lose our grip. We wriggle the stone to the side with a combination of pulling and pushing until we’ve cleared a space large enough to slip past. When I feel the slab is in a good spot— that it won’t find some strange angle and topple into the hole—I release my hold and collapse onto the ground.
“You’re out of shape,” Esperanza says, then points to my fellow workers. While they’re all breathing heavy, they appear to have emerged from the strenuous activity in much better form.
“I’m a college professor, not an athlete,” I say, but her chiding gets me off my backside. I reach for my flashlight and direct its beam down into the hole. Cool, stale air wafts up, along with a smell I remember from the last time: mold. There’s a lot of it here, because the rocks that make up the pyramid structure were not mortared, nor do they fit together as snugly as they do at other Mayan sites, so water has seeped in over the centuries.
The two-by-three-foot hole goes down three meters and ends in a narrow passage. At the end of this corridor, which runs the length of the second tier of steps, is a staircase that cuts down toward the bottom center of the pyramid and the burial chamber. Or what would have been a burial chamber at Palenque and other similar sites. Here we find an empty room—save for three dead rats, possibly killed by the dark mold covering the walls and a good portion of the floor, and the skeletal remains of a bird.
“It stinks,” Esperanza says. She’s knelt down next to me to peer into the hole.
“It’s their ventilation system. They’re still using the original contractor grade.”
She hits me on the shoulder and I almost drop the flashlight.
“You would have been the one going back down the steps to get me another one,” I say.
I straighten and look around. Our five intrepid workers are standing farther away from the rectangular opening than is warranted. And I think I caught Antonio at the tail end of crossing himself. I chuckle. They imagine some mysterious chamber of horrors beneath our feet, one full of traps and skeletons lifted straight from the movies. I don’t correct them. Sometimes fear can be a good thing. It releases a whole set of interesting chemicals into the blood that heighten awareness and improve performance. I won’t take that away from them. Besides, they’ll only be disappointed when they discover what it’s really like down there. Just to test my theory, I give them the choice.
“Anyone who wants to stay up here can, but you’re all welcome to come down.”
They share looks that speak of genuine nervousness, but then, almost as a single unit, they step forward.
I fetch a coiled rope ladder from near the doorway and secure the