“You’re right,” she said. She took a sip of her beer, then rubbed the bottle across her forehead. Dane watched the cool beads of condensation trickle down her tanned skin. Illumined in the setting sun, they put him in the mind of gold. “Marcos did find Cibola, and he concocted his story to protect the truth.” She took another drink, waiting for his reply.
“Come on, now. Don’t leave me hanging,” he said. “You’ve got to fill in the blanks.”
She reached into her small black bag and withdrew a plastic folder, opened the catch, and produced a small stack of paper-clipped sheets. “I’ll hit the high points, so I don’t bore you,” she said, smiling mischievously. “Fray Marcos’s journal turned up in a collection in Spain. I’ve scanned the pertinent pages. Translations are on the back.” She held them out to him.
Dane felt strangely detached as he took them. His fingers were numb and his mind was muddled, and not because of the beer. “Another journal,” he muttered. Jade cocked her head and frowned, but said nothing. “Unbelievable.” He didn’t feel like elaborating.
“Uh huh,” Jade said. “He provides precious few details, but he makes it plain that he found something fantastic. He is also very clear that the story he told Mendoza was not only a fabrication, but a tale carefully crafted to lead them astray.” She took a deep breath and held it, regarding him as if taking his measure. “I don’t know why, but I feel I can trust you.” Dane nodded and waited for her to continue.
“The journal indicates that Marcos wanted to hide Cibola from Mendoza, Coronado and the rest, but he didn’t want to hide it from the world forever. I believe he left a clue in the bottom of a well.” She paused, either for effect or to see if he had any response. “I found that well just before you rescued me. The top caved in long ago. No one even knew it was there. The bottom portion is intact.” She leaned back, picked up her drink, and peered at him with an intense stare as she sipped her beer.
Dane made a show of examining the papers, all the while turning things over in his mind. He could tell himself that he didn’t want to get involved in another caper like he had before, but truth was his heart was racing from sheer excitement. He had chosen his particular field not only because he loved the sea, but because he loved the mystery, the search and discovery. This was right up his alley. And then, of course, there was Jade. He glanced up, his eyes meeting with hers long enough to register the crinkled brow and tiny smile. She knew she had him.
“So, what exactly do you want me to do?”
Chapter 3
The water was colder than he remembered, and the tunnel darker. He supposed adrenaline had drawn his thoughts away from such things when he was coming after Jade. Now he had time to examine his surroundings, all of which reminded him how much he hated cave diving. Too many skilled divers had met their ends in caves just like this one. Dark, twisting, precarious arteries of peril, all of them. He couldn’t wait to get out of here and make up for the sleep he missed the night before.
The two of them had stayed up late, planning the dive. By the time they were finished, Matt and Corey had long returned to the ship and called it a night. He had suggested that Jade stay the night, but she laughed and gave him a chaste hug before heading back to shore. Thoughts of her blended with images of gold and treasure until he couldn’t say which was the most responsible for keeping him awake.
He snapped out of his reverie when the narrow channel opened into a wide chamber. They were in the well. He looked up, allowing the beam of his headlamp to play across the ceiling. A thick snarl of ancient roots held up massive chunks of stone, bound together by mud and clay that had seeped down into the collapsed well shaft. The whole thing had a precarious feel to it. He couldn’t wait to finish up and get out of there. Jade drifted up alongside him, and motioned toward the floor as if to say “get on with it.” He needed no convincing.
Reaching into the small dive bag strapped to his waist, he fished out his metal detector. About three times the size of a cell phone, the rectangular instrument with its fat red buttons and large digital display reminded him of the hand-held football game he had gotten for his fourteenth birthday. The ‘players’ were little red dashes, and it emitted an annoying tweet whenever you scored. His parents had regretted buying it for him by the end of the first day. He grinned at the memory as he punched the buttons and waited for the instrument to boot up. It was still hard to think about Mom and Dad, but it didn’t hurt the way it once had.
The screen was black, with green indicator bars up each side. He drifted to the downstream side of the well, chose what passed for a corner, and began his search. The little detector could penetrate about three feet in ideal conditions, and he was banking on the bottom of the well being silt and mud. He hoped that whatever they were looking for was made of metal. If it wasn’t…. well, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if they had to excavate the entire floor, but it was worth giving the unit a shot. Besides, it was an expensive toy, and he wanted to play with it. Better than a power tool any day.
Jade shone a high-powered dive light on the floor in front of him, leading the way as he crisscrossed the well bottom. Thankfully there were few obstructions, the gentle current having kept the floor swept clean over the centuries. He held the detector a half-meter off the bottom, sweeping it slowly back-and-forth, feeling like a hotel maid cleaning the floor.
The first hit came almost immediately, small and faint. He stopped and swept the area again. He felt certain that it wouldn’t amount to anything, but he indicated the location to Jade, who swam over to meet him. She produced a long, thin digging tool and probed the area, careful not to stir up more dirt than necessary. The steady flow of the underground stream should keep the silt down, but it did not hurt to take care. In short order, she dug free a small, dark object about the breadth of his thumbnail. Perhaps a button or a coin, but they wouldn’t know until they took it up top and cleaned it. Jade shrugged and deposited the item in her own dive bag.
The search continued with few results. They turned up a couple more unremarkable chunks of some metal or other, but nothing more. Dane found himself growing impatient when suddenly his screen went supernova. The indicators on either side shot up, the bars hovering near the top. The display was a solid green square. He moved it back and forth over the spot, which was almost in the very center, trying to get a feel for the size of the object. He quickly determined that it was no larger than a meter square, and no smaller than half that size. He switched the detector off and put it away. He would finish his sweep after they had exhumed whatever this was, but he had a good feeling that this was what they were looking for.
He withdrew his digging tool, a ten-inch titanium rod with a blunted, triangular tip and a six inch rubber grip on the other end, and drew an imaginary circle around the target area. Jade nodded and began working on one side while he took the other. Firmly, but with great care, he probed the perimeter of the target area. Given the intensity of the signal, he hoped it was not buried too deep. The well bottom, mostly silt and clay, gave way easily as he pushed the rod in up to the handle again and again until finally he met with resistance. A glance told him that it was about seven inches down. He withdrew the tool and tried a spot six inches closer to the area where Jade was working. Again he struck something solid at a depth of seven inches. He tapped Jade on the shoulder, and indicated the area, giving her a thumbs-up, which she returned with enthusiasm. Together, they began removing a half-millennium of dirt, clay and rock. A cloud of fine particles enveloped them, but the lazy current carried it away, though not quite fast enough to keep pace with their digging.