“She stood up for me. You heard her. I’ve never run away from anything, I’ll look like a coward—”
“You had to marry her. Remember? As I recall, you weren’t too keen on the idea.”
Garza didn’t reply. He just shook his head.
“Look,” Gideon said, his voice softening. “I get it. I can understand why you feel guilty. Maybe you’re even a bit fond of her. But all we’re doing is moving up our plans a little—plans that we’d already agreed on. You don’t really want to stay here—you just don’t want to look like a coward. And face it: you don’t know the first thing about leading this tribe. These people have centuries of experience in this harsh environment. For better or worse, Blackbeard shares that experience—the beliefs, the rituals, that collective memory. The hard truth is that these people will be better off without us. And you know it. We don’t belong here. If we stay, all we’ll do is start a civil war. Your wife will die—and so will a lot of innocent people. If you go, they’ll settle their differences and all will be well.”
“Until they find the tomb’s been looted, you mean.”
“For God’s sake, Manuel! Will you put your pride aside and listen to me? They’re going to blame us for that—and by the time they find out, we’ll be far away. This is all happening too fast and you’re not thinking clearly. Remember: this whole thing was your idea. ‘If it has value, we’re gonna steal it’—your words to me, back at that bar on Thirteenth Street. We’ve come halfway around the world to realize your ambition. Now you can resurrect that Duesenberg factory, live that dream. You’ve got years—I have weeks. If I thought you were going to wimp out at the last minute, do you think I would have spent my last months on earth digging ditches and dying of thirst?”
He stopped, breathing hard. Garza’s face was twisted in an agony of indecision. They had both raised their voices, and now silence fell. Gideon made an effort to calm himself, to gather his thoughts. Then he said, quietly: “Manuel, loyalty is both your greatest strength and your greatest weakness. You were loyal to Eli—and he screwed you. Now you feel loyalty to your wife of four days. To a dead chief whose language you barely speak. How about being loyal to yourself for a change? Your future is out there, just a few canyons away.” He laid a hand on Garza’s shoulder. “We’ve been through so much. Don’t throw it all away now, partner—please.”
In the silence that followed, Gideon saw Garza’s face lose its indecisive look and become an expressionless mask. He drew a long, shuddering breath. And then he shook his head.
“You’re right,” he said. “Me and my misguided sense of morality. I don’t belong here—even when I’m with Jelena, especially when I’m with Jelena. I understand that. Eli owes me a debt, and I intend to collect…or die trying.” He took Gideon’s hand from his shoulder and grasped it firmly just as Imogen arrived with the camels out of the gathering dark.
“Bonding time, boys?” she asked as she expertly couched the four animals in the dirt before the tent.
“Just agreeing how much we’re going to miss this paradise.” Gideon hefted a saddle pad, threw it on the back of one of the camels. “Let’s load up and get out of here.”
39
THEY LEFT THE encampment via a route they hoped would make it look as if they’d escaped through the fog oasis. Then, at the eastern head of the valley, they turned and climbed a ridge until they were out of sight, at last circling back toward the westward trails leading to the Demon Valley and, ultimately, the treasure chamber. They trotted the camels as fast as they dared over the rugged terrain, the animals’ long strides eating up the ground. The stars were out in all their glory, the moon not yet having risen. Imogen led the way, trailing the camel with the empty packsaddle on it, ready to be filled with treasure. Gideon brought up the rear. There were no hunting parties out. The ravines and ridges were sunken in darkness, the only light the feeblest glow of Jupiter, hanging in the west. But Gideon knew the moon, so recently full, would rise over the mountains in a few hours. For the time being it was a black night, making good cover; the three of them knew the way, while the camels, with their excellent night vision, knew where to put their feet.
They proceeded cautiously and in two hours had reached their objective. Nobody had spoken, and a silence like death reigned in the sunken valley. As they approached the vault door, Gideon saw it lying split on the ground, just as they had left it: two great slabs of stone. There was no sign of anyone else’s presence. The torches they’d used were still propped up against it.
They dismounted, staking the camels in the sand. Gideon led the pack camel to the entrance of the vault and couched it there. He removed the leather bags hung on either side of the packsaddle, as well as the top pack, and opened them, ready to receive the treasure.
Using his fire drill, Garza lit three torches, placing one outside. They proceeded down the long passageway to the treasure chamber, where Garza affixed a second torch to light the corridor, placing the third inside the chamber itself. The feeble firelight glinted off the gold and jewels arrayed in rich splendor around the golden cabinet atop its plinth of stone.
“You take the left side,” Gideon said to Garza, “I’ll take the other. Imogen—”
“I’m not helping you loot,” she interrupted. “I’m going to transcribe the text I found on that tablet.”
“Fair enough.”
“Don’t break anything,” she said. “Be respectful, please. Just take the gold and gems—not the fragile artifacts. And remember: nothing with writing.”
Many of the offerings were heaped in alabaster bowls or contained in desiccated leather sacks and withered baskets. Gideon seized the closest bowl and carried it out into the night, emptying it into one of the panniers. Garza did the same. Back in the chamber, he realized they were only going to be able to take a small fraction of what was there, and that it would be smart to be selective. He picked up a leather sack, untied the brittle strings, which came off in his hands, and looked inside. In the dim light he could see that the sack was bulging with jewels. As he carried it out, however, the sack burst and the stones went skittering and bouncing over the stone floor—gorgeous golden diamonds of that same unique color, flashing with internal flecks of fire. Gideon dropped to his knees, gathering them up and stuffing them into his pocket.
“Forget that shit,” said Garza.
“But these diamonds are—”
“A waste of time! There’s tons more back there.”
Gideon reluctantly abandoned his effort to retrieve the stones. He headed back to the chamber and grabbed another sackful of gems, this time cradling it on the way out before slipping it into one of the panniers.
As they went to and fro, lugging out the loot, Gideon was relieved to see that Garza was working quickly, even eagerly. Just the sight of the stupendous riches in the chamber had chased off his doubts. The heavy gold objects, the gems and semiprecious stones, the jewelry and necklaces and finely inlaid objects, were enough to incite a kind of delirium in them both.
“Don’t take that!” Imogen said sharply, as Garza went to pick up a pair of gold jackals inlaid with lapis.
“Or that!”
Gideon sheepishly put down the golden scarab he was about to stuff into a sack. Imogen, crouching before the open cabinet, was staring at the inscribed stone within and scribbling notes in a notebook fashioned out of old cloth, occasionally barking at one or the other of them not to touch something that—obviously or not—she deemed particularly valuable or unusual. But Gideon didn’t mind: there was so much stuff, such a superabundance of gold, silver, cut and uncut gemstones, that it hardly made a difference. Even after filling the panniers with millions of dollars’ worth of plunder, they were hardly going to scratch the surface of the room’s vast trove. He remembered her incredulous look when she’d first read what was on the tablet, and her allusion to the biblical commandments. But he was too busy now to ask questions—there’d be plenty of time for that later.