“Adopted?” Jessie looked closer at the knife. “You mean stole?”
“What is the difference?” Jacques smiled. “They are pirates.”
“I remember my father telling me about the meaning behind it,” Jacques said. “I thought it was an old superstition meant to keep young men on the straight and narrow.”
“Was he a pirate too?” Jessie asked.
“Non!” Jacques sounded scandalized by the mere idea of it. “He was a privateer. There is a difference.” He grinned. “Plus he dabbled in smuggling. He was, after all, a nobleman.”
“Let me see that.” She lifted the phone and typed the words skull and cross bones into the search bar. Several articles appeared. “It says it’s an ancient symbol for poison, as well it can indicate black magic.” She looked up at him.
“There may be something to that,” Jacques said.
“Let’s try this one.” Jessie did another word search.
“Mayan smoke and mirrors,” Jacques read as she typed. The menu appeared on the screen, the first choice was Tezcatlipoca. She looked up at Jacques after reading a page. “It translates as Smoking Mirror.” She clicked on the images. “I guess there is more to it than a cheap parlor trick, look.” She held it out so that he could see the image of the god carved into obsidian with the same skull and crossbones as the dagger. “That’s him.”
“So Theodore was trying to tell me something,” Jacques said.
“I think so,” Jessie said. “The problem is that even understanding his clues the meaning still escapes me.”
“That is so much like Theodore,” Jacques said. “Let me try again. The widow’s tears fall on the chest.” He looked down at his chest, then back up with a gleam in his eye. “My chest!” he said excitedly, “my treasure chest!” He laughed.
“Where is it?” Jessie asked excitedly.
“Eh,” Jacques shrugged. “That is the problème.”
“So you did lose your treasure.” Jessie grinned. “I knew it!”
“It’s not like I misplaced it,” Jacques said. “By the time I was able to return it was gone. . . . Theo was already dead and buried for that matter.”
“Do you think he placed it in a nameless soldier’s grave?” Jessie asked. “Is there such a grave in the family cemetery?”
“Non.” Jacques shook his head. “And the only graves that are old enough for him to have dug are his wife’s and his own.”
Jessie thought about that for a minute. “Didn’t Mavis say that she died at sea?”
“Oui!” Jacques nodded as the realization of what she was saying dawned. “You are right!” He jumped up. “They would have buried her at sea.”
“Especially if she’d died of an illness,” Jessie said.
“Oui!” he said excitedly. “Let’s go find my treasure.”
“Now?” Jessie said, looking at the time. It was after midnight. “Can’t you just pop in and check?” Jessie asked. “For that matter, why haven’t you already checked there, rather than digging up the yard?”
“I cannot,” Jacques said. “It is protected.”
“Is it sanctified ground?” Jessie asked.
“That is not why,” Jacques said. “I have tried.”
“Then what is it?” Jessie asked.
“Some things I am attracted to and others I am repelled by,” Jacques said. “I do not know the why of it.”
“Like the shop, The Enchantress?”
“Exactly.” Jacques stood up motioning for her to get moving.
“You want to do dig up a grave now?” Jessie asked.
“It is the best time.” Jacques said. “And as you know I am very good at digging.”
Jessie wondered at her sanity as she slipped on her boots and a jacket, and followed him outside. “I don’t know about this, Jacques.”
“There is no time like the present, oui?” Jacques grinned.
“Ugh,” Jessie moaned. “I have created a monster.”
“Non,” Jacques said. “That was Tezcatlipoca. . . . Ah, don’t step there.”
Too late, she tripped in a hole. “Jacques!” She sighed. “It’s called fore warning for a reason.
“My apologies,” he whispered. “Perhaps you should follow in my footsteps.”
Jessie thought she heard something and turned around, catching sight of a man. She almost screamed. “Jacques,” she whispered as she tiptoed around a bush.
“Shhh.” She heard Jacques’s voice in her ear. “It is just Earl. We will wait.”
“Wait?” Jessie didn’t want to be outside in the first place, let alone hiding in the bushes.
“Oui, we will wait for him to go inside.”
Jessie watched as Earl walked by with a shovel in his hand. “Biggest damn gopher hole I’ve ever seen,” he was muttering. She looked over at Jacques, who shrugged apologetically.
“This is fun, oui?” Jacques grinned.
“No,” Jessie said. “I want my bed.”
“This will only take a minute,” he whispered
They waited a few minutes more. “That’s good, oui? Let’s go,” Jacques whispered and vanished.
Jessie looked around, trying to see him through the dimly lit night. The moon was half full, but the clouds drifting overhead caused dark shadows. She was already halfway to the graveyard. She looked back at the house longingly before turning back to the big oaks covered with Spanish moss that hung to the ground. “Jacques,” she whispered, and about jumped out of her shoes when he answered behind her.
“I have found the graves,” he said “What is keeping you so long?”
“Are you kidding me?” Jessie said. “You left me here.”
“You say this like you are afraid,” Jacques said mystified. “Are you afraid?”
“Yes!” Jessie said.
“Of what? Ghosts?” Jacques grinned. “Perhaps if you ignore them . . . .”
Jessie turned on her heel and started back. He was in front of her as soon as she took her next step.
“I was kidding, oui?” Jacques chuckled. “Besides it’s done, and all ready for you.”
“You dug it out already?” Jessie asked in surprise.
He nodded. “I told you I was fast.” He looked at his nails like he was inspecting them and rubbed his fingers clean of the dirt.
She’d seen him do it before, but now had the backstory to go with the little habit of his. “Well, in that case.” Jessie smiled, but when she was confronted with the sight of a coffin, she balked, turning toward the house again.
“Jessie,” Jacques whispered. “Where are you going? The only ghost here is me, and we are well acquainted, oui?” He appeared in front of her once more. “I cannot open it without you.”
“Are you sure she isn’t in there?” Jessie asked worriedly.
“Ah. . . .” He wasn’t, but he couldn’t very well tell her that. “Oui!”
“You don’t know do you?” Jessie said, chewing her lip as she looked down at the coffin.
“We are not growing any younger, n'est ce pas?” Jacques said as he waited impatiently.
“Speak for yourself,” Jessie grumbled as she slowly went to her knees, bent over the hole as far as she could, and reached in. The dirt hill gave way under her knees, and she fell forward, crashing in through the pine box. “Ahh!” she gasped as wood chips flew out of the box as the lid collapsed.
Jessie spit wood shavings from her mouth and wanted to gag. So help her God if she’d just tasted a dead person. “Ptu-pt,” she spit, wiping her tongue on her shirt. “Pt-u-pt!”
“What are you doing? Jacques asked.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Jessie asked. “I just tasted a dead person.”
“There is no dead person there.”
Jessie looked around at her new surroundings, clearly relieved. “There is no gold in here either,” Jessie said as she moved to her knees and started sifting through the cedar wood chips. She found a rock that looked like it had been dipped in pitch. It had feathers tied to
it along with a small pouch.
“That’s it,” Jacques said, stepping back.
Jessie tossed it.
“Hey!” Earl yelled. “What are you kids doing?”
“Oh, no!” Jessie said. She could see the outline of Earl headed their way. “Oh, this isn’t good.” Jessie looked down at the desecrated grave and wondered if this could cost her some jail time, make her lose her license even.
“I found my journal.” Jacques appeared next to her in the hole, triumphantly holding it up.
“Jacques,” Jessie said, “Earl—”
BOOM!
A shot gun rang out. “You blasted kids!” Earl yelled.
“Hey,” Jacques said as he, his journal ,and the dirt hill were peppered with buckshot. “I’ll distract him,” Jacques said, handing his journal to Jessie, “while you run for the woods.
Jessie swallowed, looking over at the dense copse. “Okay.” She nodded as Jacques disappeared.
“You’d better get o—wt,” Earl shouted as he tripped. “Damn gophers!”
Jessie leapt out of the grave and ran for the other side of the property like her life depended on it.
“Yeah!” Earl yelled. “If it weren’t for these old knees, I’d light you up with this buckshot.”
Branches whipped out at her, snagging her hair and clothes. Jessie had no idea where she was headed, but she knew there was a bayou out here somewhere. Maybe she should just keep going until she reached the Mississippi and then on to the Gulf. She felt like a wanted criminal escaping a chain gang.
Thunk. She tripped over a root and landed face first in the dirt. Sitting up she spit out soil. “Ptu-puckt.”
“Such language.” Jacques laughed. “Are you all right, ma chérie?”
“This type of entertainment is not for the living,” Jessie said, pulling out a leaf.
“Jacques crouched next to her, grinning from ear to ear as he looked at her.” He took a leaf from her hair. “You have never looked more beautiful.”
She looked at him as if he’d just lost his mind. “You’re a jungle cat,” she said. “Of course you’re going to like the wild look.” She snorted.
He chuckled. “Did you get it?”
“What?” she teased. He deserved something in return for her troubles.
“My journal?” Jacques groaned. “Don’t tell me that you didn’t. I already filled the grave back in.”
“You did?” Jessie asked, instantly happier. Perhaps the police won’t be searching for me after all. She pulled it out from under her jacket and handed it to him.
“Jacques?”
“Oui?”
“Can we go home now? I really want a bath.”
~*~
Jessie came out of the bathroom, toweling off her hair. “I’m dead tired,” she said. “Pardon the pun.” Jacques was on the bed, reading through his journal. She crawled in her side of the bed and clicked off the light.
“Hey,” Jacques said.
“Oh, I’m sorry. For some reason I thought you could read in the dark. My bad.” She turned it back on, glancing down at the time. It was after three in the morning. “What are you hoping to find in there?”
“Me,” Jacques said. “I had my notes to the fabled city in here. I was hoping that something would spark my memory.”
“Are you sure you want to remember?” Jessie asked as she fluffed her pillow and pulled the covers up higher.
“What do you mean?” Jacques asked. “You don’t think I want to know?”
“What if it was so traumatic that it is a suppressed memory?”
“You are a ghost shrink now?”
“Why are you so testy?” Jessie asked, looking at him. Normally he had an easy smile and jovial manner. “Does this book make you mean?”
“No, but letters from the past do.”
“You received a letter?”
He nodded, flipping the pages back to the beginning of the book. A letter slid out. Jessie could see his name written across the yellowed paper.
“That’s odd, to write a dead man, don’t you think?” Jessie said. “Only a letter from Theodore could make you this upset.” She watched as he let out a long suffering sigh and stuffed it back inside the book.
“You’re not going to read it?”
“I’m considering burning it,” Jacques said angrily.
“Jacques, how can you say that?” Now it was Jessie’s turn to sigh. “After all that we’ve been through tonight to get it, now you aren’t goin to read it?”
Jacques flipped the book to the last pages and pointed. “He tore out my pages.”
“You’re mad because he took out the pages that lead to El Dorado?”
“And. . . !” He lifted up a ragged piece of old parchment. “He tore my map in half?”
“Jacques,” Jessie said. “You have to get over this treasure thing.”
“What treasure thing?”
“Are you serious?” Jessie asked. “Every time you think someone is going to come between you and the treasure, you go crazy. You have an unreasonable desire to protect it. Have you noticed? Because I have.” She was just tired enough to be as unreasonable as him. “You can’t take it with you, Jacques.” She rolled over and gave him her back.
“Yes, but you can stay with it,” he said. “I’m living proof, oui?”
Jessie resisted the urge to tell him he wasn’t living period as in, no proof!
“You are right,” Jacques said. “I am sorry.” When she stayed with her back to him, he nuzzled her ear. “Please forgive me.”
She could feel a tingling and felt his breath on her neck. Feelings that shouldn’t be going on went off like fire bells as he whispered in her ear. She wanted to cover her ear with the pillow. The absolute last thing I need is a passionate love affair with hot air. Energy surged through her body. She groaned. “Er—okay,” Jessie added to cover it up and rolled back over. “What does it say?”
Jacques took it from the book and held it for a moment. Then slowly broke the seal on the back and pulled the yellowed vellum papers from within.
“Read it to me,” Jessie yawned.
“My dearest friend, Jacques,” he read. “Humpf!
“Keep going.”
“I hope that one day you can read this. Nevaeh said you would be able to. I know that if you are, you have found the dagger as well.” Jacques read on. “She says to keep it close.”
“Like I have a choice.” Jacques made the little side comment. “When she returned from the jungle alone and scared with the unbelievable tale, I didn’t know what to do. I lead a search party but found only the grizzly remains of sacrificed offerings. She said it was the ancient jaguar warrior entrusted to guard the temple of the God of Smoking Mirrors that had done it.”
“It took months before she believed we were far enough away for her to tell me what had happened to you.” Jacques’s reading intensified. “She believes that the god chose you to fulfill the prophecy, something that was put in motion when your great grandpa took possession of the ceremonial knife.”
“I didn’t believe her until she showed me the dagger in the chest. She said you would be drawn to it, and that one day you would be able to return to read this. But in order to protect your family, I would have to purge the land of your name.”
“What prophecy?” Jacques asked. “And why does he not tell me what happened to me?” He sighed in disgust.
“Maybe he thought you knew better than him,” Jessie said. “Do you know anything about this prophecy?” Jessie asked. Jacques shook his head before continuing.
“Knowing your love of this place, and your name being your mark on the world, I know that you are not pleased that I did what she asked. Wiping your name from the face of the Earth was hard for me.”
“I just bet it was!” Jacques almost growled.
“Please know that I did it to protect your son,” Jacques read, then re-read the line. “What?” He looked at Jessie in surprise and then back down to the page to continue.
>
“Neveah gave birth to a healthy lad that I named after myself and my own father. Theodore Jackson Bancroft. Of course, he shares one close to yours, so I call him Jackie at times.”
Jacques looked stunned. “Jackie.” He smiled.
“Does this mean that the admiral was your son?” Jessie asked. “Jacques, that makes Bam-Bam-uh-Jonathan your great-great-great-great-grandson.”
“I believe Thor is a much better association,” Jacques said as he leaned back on the pillow in shock, a stupid grin on his face. “Ha-ha! I had a son!”
Jessie knew if he’d had a cigar he’d have lit it for the momentous occasion. She laughed. “Congratulations.”
“Merci,” He kissed her cheek before returning to the letter. “I hope you don’t mind,” Jacques read, “that I gave them both my name to protect them from the curse.”
“Not at all! You are indeed the best first mate ever!” Jacques smiled, looking over at Jessie. “Now I feel a little bad about cursing him for centuries.”
“As you should.” Jessie smiled happily for him.
Chapter 12
Quwa-a-a-a . . . b-r-r-r-r . . . quwa-a-a-a . . . b-r-r-r-r.
Jessie’s eyes flew open. “What is that ungodly noise?” she asked.
Quwa-a-a-a . . . b-r-r-r-r.
It was right in her ear. She turned her head to see Jacques lying next to her sound asleep. Glancing down, she could see his hand protruding from her chest. “Augh!” she gasped in surprise. “Jacques! Wake up.”
Quwa-a-a-a . . . b-r-r-r-r.
“Jacques.” She rolled over and blew in his face.
“Uhm-m-m-m . . .” He smacked his lips together and swallowed. “Quwa-a-a-a . . . b-r-r-r-r!”
“Honestly,” Jessie sighed. “This is like waking the dead!” She blew again.
“Quwa-a-a-a . . . b-r-r-r-r!”
“Jacques,” she said in a whisper, getting closer until she was the barest inch away from his face. Maybe he is like Sleeping Beauty, she wondered as she leaned forward and placed her lips close to his. She could almost feel it.
His eyes flew open.
Treasure of the Jaguar Warrior - Mystery of the Mayan Calendar Page 12
