“That was a lot of fun,” she said. “You just dive down and pick up things where they threw them.”
“It reminds me of an Easter egg hunt.”
“There’s a bit of a current down there, though. The jewelry and things had all been moved downstream.”
“If this place was abandoned at the end of the classic period, everything has been down there awhile. A bit of a current can make a difference in a thousand years.”
“I’ll bet some of the jewelry moved out of sight as it fell,” she said.
“That’s possible. When the people looked down and the gifts were gone, I’ll bet they thought the gods had accepted them and been pleased.”
They laid out all their finds on the limestone surface and photographed them, then sent the pictures to Selma. They secured the finds in a zippered bag, placing them in Sam’s pack.
“We haven’t found everything that’s down there,” Remi said. “Don’t you want to dive again this afternoon?”
“Whatever this place is — city, fort, ceremonial center — we’re not going to find everything or learn everything about it in one trip. The archaeologists will be at it for years. The best we can do is verify what we can and get out.”
“You’re right,” said Remi. “This is about the codex, not about the two of us finding all the treasures in Guatemala.”
“I think we should spend the rest of today and tomorrow mapping, measuring, and photographing the complex. The next day, we should get out of here before we run low on supplies.”
“There are tapirs in the jungle. I can make you a nice tapir sandwich.”
“I’m afraid that in another day tapir will start to sound good.”
After changing, they walked the length of each flat strip of land. It was nearly evening when they found a pair of stone pillars at the end of the third strip, placed like gateposts. They were about eight feet tall and carved, one of them a male figure, with the feathered headdress, shield, and war club of a king, and the other a female, in a dress, with a basket at her feet and a jug in her hands. There were Mayan glyphs in all the spaces around the two figures. Remi photographed the two from every angle, and sent the photographs to Selma.
She looked up from her phone. “We’re losing the sun. I’ll take a couple of flash pictures just to be sure the writing is clear.”
She took two flash photographs of each pillar, and then Sam grabbed her arm and pointed. “Remi, look!”
Up the hill, on the trail that Sam and Remi had followed to reach this site, they could see a line of men approaching. There seemed to be about fifteen of them, and they were still a quarter mile off but coming down the last gradual slope before the ruins. “Uh-oh,” she said. “I guess the flash was a bad idea.”
“I don’t know. Certainly not as bad as leaving the Jeep out in the open for anyone to see,” he said. “I can’t tell if they’ve seen us, and I don’t know if they’re friendly or not. Maybe we can get back to the cenote and out of sight before they get here. That way, we can avoid finding out.”
They began to trot, moving steadily toward the shelter of a stand of trees that had grown up in the center of the strip. As they did, Remi looked back. One of the men had stopped on the hill and was bringing a rifle up to his shoulder. “Sam! Run!”
There was the crack of a bullet as it passed over their heads, and, about a second later, the sound of the rifle shot reached their ears. The next sound was the explosion of the Jeep, a gasoline fireball lighting the evening sky. Sam and Remi were running hard now, weaving to keep the trees and brush between themselves and the men. They had the advantage of a level surface and a clear path, where they could sprint without fear of tripping, while the men on the slope had to move along the hillside at an angle to avoid building up too much speed and tumbling down.
Sam glanced over his shoulder as a second man stopped and shouldered his rifle. “Another one. Take cover!” They both went low and ducked behind a cluster of trees. There was another shot, and the bullet pounded into one of the trees, sending a shower of bark chips in all directions. Sam peered around the trunk and saw the man adjusting his telescopic sight. “Go!”
Sam and Remi ran, working their way up to a full sprint as they approached the high wall surrounding the cenote. They ran around it to the far side and between the two layers of overlapping wall into the entryway. Sam began to pile loose stones in the narrow way to block it while Remi went to their backpacks and retrieved their four pistols, spare magazines, and boxed ammunition. Each of them checked to be sure the guns were loaded.
“I can’t believe this,” Remi said. “Who could they be?”
“Nobody we want to know. They seem to have tracked us, following our trail, then opened fire as soon as they saw us.”
“Who can they think we are?”
“Future dead people.” He put his arm around her and gave her a hug. “Let’s see if we can use this wall to stay alive.”
“I’ll go up to the walkway and see what they’re up to.”
“Keep your head low,” he said.
She pulled her baseball cap lower on her head. “Unfortunately, we’ve been in these situations before.”
“If we live through this one—”
She put her finger on his lips. “Shh. I know, bubble baths and spa treatments. We’ve already made each other all the promises we need.” She took a pair of pistols and climbed to the walk along the top of the wall, found her way to a spot where the wall had crumbled a bit and left a small dip, then rose enough to survey the strip of land the men were approaching.
Sam watched her bring her arm up to rest in the chink in the wall and begin to think through aiming her pistol. He had seen her do that before at competitions. Sam had been a respectable shot since the days when a member of a highly secret force had spent a month at a covert base instructing him in close-range shooting and sniper techniques. But Remi was in a different league. She had been shooting competitively since she was twelve, a champion for whom the term “nail driving” was not a figure of speech.
Sam stood below her and spoke quietly. “Get down, and stay there until you hear shooting.”
Sam moved to the entryway, climbed over the barrier he’d built, sidestepped along the ten-foot overlap in the walls, and ran to the nearest stand of trees. He moved through the trees beside the level strip, getting closer to the space where the men would pass if they approached the walled pool. As he went, he studied the places he passed, aware that soon he would be running past them in the other direction. He took a position in the thick brush within an arm’s length of the strip but outside the causeway, where the plants had grown in fully.
The men came at a run, carrying their rifles across their chests. They ran like they were chasing game, not like men who were about to meet an armed adversary.
Sam crouched and waited. He had estimated fifteen men, but he could see only twelve. They wore khaki pants and short-sleeved civilian shirts and T-shirts. A few of them carried bolt-action hunting rifles with scopes — probably 4 power, because, in these thick jungles, long shots across open space had to be rare. There were two men carrying shotguns, a weapon that probably put food in their bellies. Two had pistols in holsters, and the others carried assault rifles that Sam identified as American AR-15s, probably weapons that had found their way here during the civil war.
The man closest to Sam carried a hunting rifle. He raised it and took aim at the top of the wall around the pool. Sam was sure the man couldn’t see Remi, but he was getting ready for her to stick her head up.
A man who carried only a pistol stood by a tree and shouted in English, “We know you’re in there. Come out now and we’ll make it easier for you.”