“To my knowledge, no one has ever gone down further than what my great grandfather did that day,” Robert continued. “Y’all will be the first ‘n’ I hope you find enough treasures that some museum comes calling with a check big enough for me to relocate someplace safer.”
Most of the audience laughed and smiled at Robert’s candor.
“Based on what I’ve seen, from the surface anyway,” Ken interrupted, “it appears that the cave goes down at least thirty feet deeper from the first shelf and guys… it’s about the biggest bone pile I’ve ever seen!”
“Good!” Robert exclaimed. “Hope y’all find some great stuff down there. But a word of warning…”
Ken and the others looked to one another in confusion then back to Robert for explanation.
“Not only has my family been on this ranch for five generations,” Robert explained, “but so too have the folks that have worked right along my family. More so, actually. Their families have been on the place far longer than mine and one thing they’ve always passed down through the ages was the stories of how that hole is haunted. How it leads to Hell. How it’s home to demons that take children. Monsters ‘n’ nightmares…”
Robert grinned from ear to ear and continued.
“I’ve never believed any of that Mexican voodoo ‘n’ ghost stories but thought I should warn y’all all the same.”
Some in the crowd laughed at Robert’s warning.
Others did not.
5.
“Your new clothes and supplies are being picked up as we speak,” Hunter explained as he ended the call on his satellite phone. He walked to the rear of the plane and pulled two Dos Equis beers from the cooler that sat next to the lavatory. He returned to his seat next to Taylor and handed him a beer. The two men clicked bottles and offered toasts and took a long pull on their drink.
“Damn good,” Taylor offered. “Thanks. And thanks for this.”
Hunter looked up and down the plane then back to Taylor.
“What? The gear? Plane? Lack of a stewardess…”
“Thanks for the chance to start over,” Taylor assured him.
Hunter smiled. “Glad to have you back in life my friend. Damn glad. Just wish you’d joined me two years ago.”
“Two and a half years ago,” Taylor corrected before shaking his head in disbelief. “Can’t believe it’s come to this though…”
“To what?”
“I appreciate your help,” Taylor assured his friend once more. “But I never thought I’d see the day I’d agree to work…”
“For me?” Hunter laughed, trying to lighten his friend’s souring mood. “You did so before, if you recall. Little thing called the United States Army.”
Taylor cracked a laugh and took another long pull on his beer.
“You know what I mean…”
“The Acuña Cartel?”
“Christ, man, any cartel! Has life really beat me down so low…”
“Taylor,” Hunter interrupted. “I told you. No. I promised you and promise you again. It’s no different than working for any other private security force. Hell, it’s damn near like working for the Army.”
“No different?” Taylor scoffed. “I doubt that.”
“You’re right,” Hunter countered. “It is different than working for the Army. We get paid an ass-load more, have less oversight…”
“Torture people. Dissolve enemies in acid…”
“I’ve never done anything like that,” Hunter argued. “No one on my team has ever done anything like that.”
Taylor gave Hunter a long stare of disbelief.
Hunter pulled on his beer and laughed.
“Those are Juan’s jobs.”
Taylor shook his head and tried not to laugh but did so anyway. He finished his beer then stood to collect another.
“Damn,” Hunter commented. “Ya killed that fast enough.”
“I’ve practiced a lot over the past year.”
“Well, keep practicing.” Hunter gestured to the cooler with his half-empty beer. “What the hell. Get me one too.”
Taylor retrieved the beers and sat. Hunter took one of the beers, popped the top off on his seat’s armrest, and began again.
“I lead a security detail for Miguel Alvarado who just so happens to be a high-ranking official in the Acuña Cartel. He’s a businessman first and foremost. On his orders, my team and I have engaged members of the… let’s say… the competition. We do not deal drugs, sell drugs, torture, go Scarface on anyone with a chainsaw…”
“Scarface anyone with a chainsaw!” Taylor laughed through a mouthful of beer.
“Nope,” Hunter cracked up. “No Scarfacing.”
“Really glad to hear that…”
“Trust me, Taylor,” Hunter’s eyes promised. “I never steered you wrong and never will.”
6.
Tom watched Megan fumble with the small battery-operated air pump. It was supposed to easily lock tight into the valve of their shared air mattress, but Megan found the process anything but easy. She turned the pump on her face, closed her eyes, and let the pump blow air over her.
“I can’t believe how hot it is in here,” she moaned from behind her newly discovered fan.
“I told you,” Tom reminded her, “that we should blow up the mattress up outside of the tent…”
“But then how do you get it in the tent,” Megan barked. “’Cause the mattress won’t fit through the door…”
“Front tent flap…”
“Whatever it’s called!” Megan barked even louder. “Who gives a shit what it’s called?! It’s just so freakin’ hot.”
“Well, it is Texas,” Tom said, laughing.
“Might as well be in Mexico,” Megan complained. “As close to it as we are. I could probably spit into the country from here.”
“Way to build international relations,” Tom joked.
“Shut up!” Megan laughed.
Tom reached into the tent from his vantage point just outside the open front flap and pulled the mattress out. He gestured for Megan to follow and she crawled out of the tent and into the shade of the tree that sheltered their nylon home away from university. Megan stood and reluctantly turned off the pump blowing in her face and through her wavy dirty-blonde hair and put it in Tom’s waiting open hand.
“Let me show you how it’s done.” Tom chuckled as he locked the pump into the mattress’ valve.
“Just what I hoped to find at college,” Megan chided. “A man working on a doctorate that will earn him almost nothing and who can blow up air mattresses.”
“Paleontologists have to know how to blow up air mattress ‘cause that’s all they can afford,” Tom played along. He turned on the pump and the queen-sized mattress slowly filled.
Megan sat in one of the two camp chairs outside their tent and fanned herself with her hands. She paused this action for a moment then wiped her brow with a lime green bandana she brought from her pocket then drank the remainder of the water bottle that sat in the chair’s cup holder.
“So ya think this is the big one?” she asked Tom. “The one that gets you on the map and into a museum or teaching at a college afterward?”
“I’m hoping so,” Tom admitted. He turned from Megan to test the fullness of the mattress. It was about halfway filled. “Ken said it looks like there’s a whole lot of bones down there. We already know the pit holds the remains of at least one mammoth. It’d be great to find a few more.”
“Whatcha think that rancher was talking about when he said the hole was haunted?”
“He didn’t say it was haunted,” Tom corrected. “He said the people on the ranch before his family said it was haunted. And that they passed that story down through the generations.”
“Uh huh,” Megan bemoaned. She hated how literal Tom could be sometimes.