Excavation

Miguel moaned beside him.

Gil scowled at the enormous wealth around him. Knowing death lurked behind its beauty, the luster faded from the gold. “We’re trapped.”

Nestled in his sleeping bag atop a camp cot, Sam awoke to the noise of some animal snuffling by his tent door. At night, opossums and other curious nocturnal creatures were always wandering from the rain forest’s edge to investigate the camp. But whatever was out there now was large. Its shadow, cast by the camp’s spotlights, blotted out a good section of the tent flap. Sam tried to remember if he had snapped the fasteners after zipping up the door against mosquitoes. His first thought was jaguar. A few of the large cats had been spotted along the UrabambaRiver, which ran through the jungle below the ruins.

As silently as possible, Sam reached for his Winchester rifle, a legacy from his grandfather, passed from father to son through the Conklin family, dating back to 1884. Sam didn’t go anywhere without it. The rifle had not been fired for years, more a keepsake and good-luck charm than a weapon. But right now, unloaded, it might serve as a good club.

His fingers slipped over the wooden butt of the rifle.

Whatever was outside rattled the flap near his toes. Damn, he had forgotten to fasten the door! Sam sprang up in his sleeping bag and snatched the rifle up in his fist.

As he swung the rifle back, the flap was torn open.

“Sam, are you awake?” Maggie peeked her head under the flap and made a halfhearted effort to knock on the canvas side of the tent.

Sam lowered the rifle to his lap, his heart still pounding in his ears. He swallowed hard to clear his throat and forced his voice into a nonchalant tone. “Yeah, I’m up, Maggie. What’s the matter?”

“I couldn’t sleep and got to thinking about those etchings. I needed to run something by you.”

Sam had some fantasies of Maggie sneaking to his tent in the dead of night, but none of them involved discussing ancient Latin etchings. Still, any nighttime visit from Maggie was welcome. “Okay. Give me a sec’.”

Rolling out of his sleeping bag, he slipped his Wranglers over his boxers. With a night this muggy, he wouldn’t normally bother with a shirt, but with Maggie out there, modesty more than comfort mattered. Sam pulled a leather vest over his shoulders.

Grabbing his Stetson, he pulled down the zipper to the tent and pushed through into the night. Silver glow from a full moon washed over the camp, paling the four spotlights at the camp’s periphery. He swiped his disheveled hair back from his forehead and trapped it under his hat.

Maggie stepped back. She still wore the same khaki pants with a matching vest over a blood-red shirt. The only indication that Maggie had made any effort at relaxing this night was that she had untied her hair from its usual ponytail. Cascades of auburn curls, frosted silver by the night, flowed over her shoulders.

Transfixed by the play of moonlight across Maggie’s cheeks and lips, Sam had to search for his voice. “So… what’s up?”

As usual, her eyes didn’t seem to see Sam. “It’s that writing on the last band. The bottom one. Those missing words an’ lines. Latin’s a weird language. A single word can change the entire meaning of the message.”

“Yeah?”

“What if we’re not reading it right? What if one of those missing words or lines negates our translation?”

“Maybe it might… but tomorrow we’ll know the truth anyway. When we crack the tomb in the morning, it’ll be intact or it won’t.”

A hint of irritation entered her voice. “Sam, I want to know before we open the tomb. Don’t you want to know what the conquistadors really meant to communicate on those bands?”

“Sure, but the words are illegible.”

“I know, Sam… but that was with just alcohol cleaning.” She looked at him meaningfully.

Suddenly Sam knew why Maggie had roused him. He kept his lips clamped tight. Two years ago, he had presented a paper on the use of a phosphorescent dye to detect and bring out the faint written images worn by time on rock and metal. He had been uniformly scoffed at for his idea.

“You packed your stuff, didn’t you?” Maggie said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sam mumbled. He had told no one, not even his uncle, that he had refused to abandon his theory, spending years researching the various viscosities of different dyes and ranges of UV light. He had kept his studies under close wrap, not wanting to humiliate himself until he could test it in the field, try it when no one else was around to ridicule him. Suddenly he realized he was not unlike his uncle in keeping secrets.

Maggie’s eyes glowed in the dark. “I read your paper. You found a way to make it work, didn’t you, Sam?”

He just stood, unblinking. How had she known? Finally, the shock faded enough for him to speak. “I think I solved it. But I haven’t had a chance to put it through a field trial.”

Maggie pointed toward the ruins. “Then it’s about time. The others are already waiting for us by the entrance to the excavation.” She turned to leave.

“Others?”

Glancing back over her shoulders, Maggie frowned. “Ah sure, Sam… Norman and Ralph. They should be in on this.”

“I suppose.” Sam rolled his eyes, preparing himself to be humiliated if he should fail. At least, Philip had not been invited. Sam could not have tolerated failing in front of Mr. Harvard. “Let me grab my bottles and UV light.”

As Sam reached for his tent flap, the jungle suddenly erupted in a cacophony of screeches and calls. A thousand birds burst from the canopies around the camp and took to the air.

Maggie took a step closer to Sam. “What the hell…?”

Sam glanced around, but the rain forest quickly settled back down. “Something must have spooked them.” He listened a bit longer, but only the humming of the generator reached his ears. The jungle lay silent, like a dark stranger staring toward them. Sam studied the forest a moment more, then turned back to his tent. “I’ll get my stuff.”

He pushed through the flap and collected the satchel that held his dyes and special ultraviolet handlamp. As he was leaving, his eyes settled on the old Winchester. Instinctively, he grabbed it and slung it over his shoulder, but not before quickly loading a few 44/40 cartridges into the rifle’s magazine and pocketing a cardboard box of spare shells. After years of overnight camps in the Texas wilderness, Sam had learned to be prepared.

Crawling out of the tent, he found Maggie’s back to him. She searched the edges of the jungle. “It’s still so bloody quiet,” she said. “It’s like the forest’s holding its breath.”