Elisha's Bones - Don Hoesel [39]
This gets nervous laughter from the others. I turn and start down the stairs—which are even narrower than the corridor— with the light aimed near my feet so I don’t miss a step. The others will have to keep their hands on the walls and feel their way down. In six steps we’re moving to the left and descending at a steeper angle. At the bottom, I see the entrance into the burial chamber and I’m thrilled that we didn’t reseal it after leaving last time.
As we enter the large room, there’s a bit of ambient lighting that comes through small gaps between the stones. It’s not enough to see by but it supplements the illumination from the flashlight. The mold is worse than it was when we first broke through all those years ago. Then, we were meticulous in clearing it away, mindful of what might exist beneath it. And we’d been rewarded with strange carvings in the limestone as well as etchings in the lintel above the entrance.
I pull a pair of gloves from the pack hanging at my waist and I start to wipe the mold away. It takes a few minutes before I’ve cleared off a small center portion of a carving—the image of an antlered animal. There are three circles above its hindquarters, with two straight lines beneath its primitive hooves. There’s no resemblance to what would become the Mayan written language. Neither is there anything that marks it as a precursor to the Epi-Olmec script that might have taken root in this region.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Esperanza says.
That’s not what I want to hear. She’s my subject-matter expert. If anyone can help me make sense of these things, it will be her.
“We’ll have to clear away the rest of the mold before we do anything else.” With one last look around, I start back up toward the open air, trying to keep my mood from souring.
We’ve been working for two days, and the guys need a break.
When we pull into town, it’s seven-thirty at night and Rubio is winding down from work and settling into the serious business of relaxation. I debate a few places in my head but choose to stay with a known quantity. That way, if the crew wanders off, they stand a better chance of finding their way back to the trucks. I pull up to The Sleeping Bear, the other SUV following suit, and all but Esperanza and I are out of the trucks and dispersing before I can say anything to them about when to meet back here.
It’s busier inside than it was when we first arrived in town, and I get a nicer greeting from the bartender. His lip curls into something resembling a smile, rather than fixing me with that blank look that leaves you wondering if he’s going to serve you or eat you.
Espy and I select a table, and a young woman in a white ruffled skirt takes our order. There’s music playing from a jukebox in the corner, and several people are already dancing even though the night is young. I watch Esperanza as her eyes move over the crowd and I can see that she’s enjoying herself. While she pays homage to books and academic research, she would never look askance on the dynamic social qualities of her people. She can dance with the best of them.
By the time our food arrives, I’m feeling more relaxed, the stress leached away. I even nod to Henry, whom I see up at the bar. It’s not until I am several bites into my meal that my dinner date says a word, and it’s not at all what I’m expecting. She utters a curse as she looks over my shoulder.
I hear scuffling near the door and I turn just in time to see three men in green uniforms push their way into the busy tavern. One of them delivers a shove to an inebriated patron and it sends the man sprawling over a chair. After a quick canvass of the room, all three sets of eyes train on me.
Two of them are armed with AK-47s, which they raise as the men approach our table. I take exception to the fact that both are pointed at me and that Esperanza is presumed innocent.
“You are conducting an illegal operation in the government-protected ruins,” a man with the stripes of a colonel says.
There is an army base to the west