Robbed of Soul: Legends of Treasure Book 1

by Lois D. Brown

  The three of them must have disturbed a pocket of CO2 that had settled in this part of the cave. The symptoms had come on fast. If she didn’t do something quickly, they’d all be in trouble.

  “Rod,” Maria called loudly.

  He opened his eyes, confused. Sherrie was unsteady on her feet, keeping herself upright by holding onto the cave wall.

  “The lantern!” The light that Sherrie had been controlling hung precariously from her hand, only a foot from Rod’s face. At first, he didn’t seem to register Maria’s words. Sherrie didn’t seem to either. But then Maria mimicked lifting up her hand and hitting the lantern away.

  Sherrie understood. But her reaction was too slow. Rod beat her to the punch. As Sherrie wailed, “Noooo,” Rod smacked the lantern out of her hand. It crashed to the floor and everything grew black.

  They were in the heart of hell itself.

  There was no difference between when Maria opened her eyes or kept them closed. In fact, keeping them closed seemed better because bright flashes of sickness burst before her when her eyelids were down. She had to get Rod out of here.

  Maria floundered to where he’d been sitting on the ground. Her leg found him first, accidentally kicking him in the side. Without saying a word, Maria grabbed underneath Rod’s armpit and pulled. He got the message and stood up slowly.

  Maria tugged at his arm, trying to force him to follow her. One step then another. The CO2 poison felt like it was paralyzing them. They both moved in slow motion. Still, they were making progress away from Sherrie.

  “Noo,” said Sherrie, her voice faltering.

  If Maria thought it had been hard to make her way inside the cave before, now it was impossible. Her feet, unable to find purchase, twisted and tripped. But she kept herself standing. They had to get out of there before Sherrie came to her senses.

  The darkness was thick around them. It clung to everything. The harder Maria tried to see in front of her, the more difficult it became. She blindly edged her way out of the tunnel, lurching about like a drunken man.

  An invisible cave wall connected with her face, scraping her cheek. Rod hit the wall as well and wheezed in pain. With his arms still tied behind his back, he had no hands to break the collision.

  “What’s wrong with me?” he mumbled.

  “Shh.”

  They couldn’t give their position away. Not when they had made some strides distancing themselves from Sherrie.

  Correcting their direction, Maria kept a tight grip on Rod’s arm. The poison seemed to have affected him more—probably because he’d sat on the ground where it was most concentrated. Using the wall as a guide, she scrambled forward. At least she hoped it was forward. Up, down, front, back—all seemed to lose meaning in the palatable blackness.

  The wall ended. They had reached the end of the tunnel and must be entering the large chamber.

  “How are we going to find our way out?” whispered Rod. “It’s so dark.”

  Maria’s head still swam from the CO2, but she was steadier on her feet. She leaned right next to Rod and spoke softly into his ear. She didn’t want Sherrie to hear. She didn’t even know if Sherrie had been able to get out of the tunnel in her state of confusion. “Look for my digital watch on the ground. It’s right in front of the passageway we need to take to get out of here.”

  A gun fired, answering Maria’s question as to whether Sherrie was out of the tunnel. The noise exploded in Maria’s eardrums as the echo of the shot ricocheted around the cavern. Dirt and chunks of small rock fell from above, dislodged by either the noise or a bullet hitting it.

  Finding Maria’s wrist watch was not a problem. The LCD screen of the watch shone like the North Star on a clear night. What was hard to determine was just how far away it really was. The eternal darkness distorted perspective. Distances seemed fluid. So did direction. North, south, east, west were no longer set in stone. It was as if they were playing musical chairs.

  There was a rumble in the cave and then more gunfire. Behind her, Rod sucked in air and fell to the ground.

  Had he been hit? Or had he just tripped?

  “I’m going to kill you,” Sherrie screamed. “Both of you.”

  “Rod? Rod?” Maria tried to whisper, but she needed to know if he was okay.

  He groaned.

  “Are you hit?” Maria voice was getting higher in pitch. The situation wasn’t good. Maria was strong, but was she strong enough to carry a grown man out of the cave?

  A third shot rang out. Maria’s ears ached. Sherrie was unzipping her pack. What was she getting out?

  “Rod, are you okay?”

  “I’m hit.” His words were soft. Was it from the wound or the CO2?

  Maria’s plan for escape wasn’t working.

  Sherrie fumbled with something. Maria dropped back and to the side. Away from Rod. She had to have the element of surprise.

  Like a bolt of lightning, a beam of light burst from a flashlight in Sherrie’s hand. It landed directly on Rod. Starting from the top of his shoulder downward, the left sleeve of his shirt was covered in blood. His glazed eyes wandered about, as if he wasn’t sure what he was doing there.

  Maria had backed up enough that she was still shrouded in the darkness. Even better, she wasn’t more than seven feet behind Sherrie. Taking orders from that woman was over. Maria leaped onto Sherrie, who was taken by surprise.

  The blow knocked Sherrie off her feet, and she smacked into the ground with Maria on top. Both the gun and flashlight flew from her hands, each landing with a thud in different directions. The flashlight landed in an upright position, its beam shooting straight into the air.

  Maria reared back and struck Sherrie directly in the face. Sherrie hollered and bucked Maria off her. Surprised at the woman’s strength, Maria rolled over and jumped onto her feet, her hands in fighting position.

  Sherrie too was up, her arms positioned in front of her, ready for action.

  It was just Maria’s luck. The journalist knew how to manage a gun and fist fight.

  Sherrie spun. Her leg jutted out and sank deep into Maria’s gut. She gasped, the air knocked out of her.

  “Maaaria …” Rod gargled the word.

  Hearing Rod’s pitiful attempt to say her name filled Maria with anger. She was not messing around anymore. Sherrie was going down.

  Maria blocked Sherrie’s second kick with her hand and returned it with her own downward roundhouse. Sherrie doubled over. Maria swept the other woman’s feet, and Sherrie was on the ground. Her head knocked against a rock, and she cried out in pain. A gash above her eye spurted blood. She rolled onto her stomach and tried to push herself up. Maria put her foot on top of the backpack Sherrie wore and pushed the woman’s body back down onto the ground. Sherrie gasped for air. Maria kicked her in the head one more time, and Sherrie was silent.

  Maria scanned the ground for the gun. With the lighting as poor as it was, the chance of finding it was minimal. More important was getting Rod fresh air.

  She ran to him, calling his name, “Rod? Can you hear me, Rod?”

  He lifted his head up and then it sank it back down. He moaned and curled himself into a ball. The horrible fetal position. The one people naturally made as their body entered death.

  “You’re not going to die on me, Rod Thorton,” Maria yelled.

  As she got closer to him, she saw the bullet wound in his shoulder would make dragging him out by his armpits excruciating. Pulling his ankles wouldn’t work either. He’d end up with brain damage from the rocks on the ground.

  Maria propped Rod into a sitting position and leaned him against the cave wall. He tried to speak, but nothing coherent came out. Crouching in front of him, Maria placed his right arm, the one connected to his uninjured shoulder, over her own. Pulling his arm close to her chest, she leaned forward and to the left. She steadied her feet and from a squat, lifted him off the ground, using the wall behind Rod to give her support. Her thighs felt as if they might rip apart. He almost slipped off, forcin
g Maria to grab his other arm, which hung limp.

  Rod screamed.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I have to get you out of here.” He groaned in pain as she crossed both of his arms in front of her and grasped his wrists. Despite the shaking in her legs, Maria found strength. As she stood, she pushed her backside into Rod and bent forward slightly. All the time Maria repeated to herself that she could do this. She could carry, or more like drag him, the hundred yards to the exit. She had no other choice.

  Rod was slipping in and out of consciousness. His loss of blood did nothing to help his carbon dioxide poisoning. He would have one massive headache tomorrow morning. The image of Rod waking up in the morning, with his tousled hair and five o’clock shadow, pushed Maria on.

  The trick was leaning forward enough to distribute the weight across her back to give her legs a break, but not leaning too far that she couldn’t pick her feet up over the rocky, uneven ground. She took a few steps toward her digital watch that still shone in the chamber. Maria readjusted his body and moved forward again. Rod’s shins and feet scraped the rocks on the ground. Without meaning to, Maria began to count each labored breath he took.

  One. Two. Three. There was a long pause and then it came. Four.

  “Don’t take another step.”

  Maria turned around so quickly, she wrenched Rod’s injured shoulder. He howled.

  Sherrie was on her feet. Her face was covered in blood. Her backpack sat open on the ground. She held a miniature football in her hand.

  Maria took a double take at what Sherrie was holding. Nausea filled her once she realized what Sherrie really had. It wasn’t a smallish football.

  It was a grenade.

  A legitimate military grenade.

  Maria had been right. Sherrie’s family was the stockpiling type—with a storage of guns, gasoline, and, apparently, grenades.

  “If you move, I’ll detonate this.”

  Maria believed her.

  “Come back over here.”

  “No,” Maria said without hesitation.

  “I’m not bluffing. I’ll explode all of us to kingdom come.” Sherrie was unsteady on her feet, but strong enough to keep herself upright.

  They were at an impasse. Sherrie was more willing to give her life up than Maria was. But that was only because Rod’s life depended on Maria. To get him out of the cave meant she had to stay alive.

  “Come with me, outside,” said Maria. “You need air. So does Rod. Let me get him out of the cave and then you can do what you want to me. Okay?”

  “No.” Sherrie shook her head.

  The woman was not a negotiator.

  “I promise you,” said Sherrie, “I’ll pull this pin, and we’ll all be gone if you don’t put him down and walk toward me.”

  At that instant, the room grew brighter. It was a kind of light Maria had seen before.

  Sherrie’s eyes widened. “What is it?” Her gaze rested on something behind Maria.

  Turning her head, Maria saw Acalan walking toward them. His body glimmered like a phosphorescent light, illuminating the cave. He looked regal with the feathers poking from his elaborate headdress and spear in hand.

  “D-d-do you see that?” Sherrie backed up a few steps. “What is it?”

  Getting close to Maria, Acalan nodded his chin, as if to say hello, but he kept on walking. Sherrie was his target.

  “Who are you?” shouted Sherrie. “Is this some kind of trick?”

  The Aztec lifted his face to the ceiling, opened his mouth widely and shrieked. The next instant he was at Sherrie’s side. She screamed. Maria braced herself for the explosion, but there was none. Acalan held Sherrie’s hands apart. He’d prevented her from pulling the grenade pin.

  It was Maria’s chance to escape. Without another glance in Sherrie’s direction, Maria half waddled, half walked toward the passage that led to the outside, dragging Rod behind her.

  Behind them, Sherrie fought the Aztec ghost, calling him every horrible name Maria had ever heard.

  Rod’s breathing was even more sporadic. Maria had no time to lose.

  Taking even larger steps, she entered the final tunnel. Another thirty yards, tops, and they’d be out. But what if Rod didn’t make it despite her efforts? What would she do? Could she stand to see another person she loved die?

  The opening was in sight. Twenty feet. Fifteen feet. They were almost there. Five, four.

  An explosion like Maria had never heard before knocked her off her feet. Rod slammed against the dirt floor. The earth swayed. The cave walls rumbled, like the sound before an avalanche.

  The pounding of falling rocks behind her was all encompassing. And it grew closer. And closer. The mountain was coming down. She and Rod would be smashed if they didn’t make it those last few feet.

  Maria rose to her knees. The ground shook. Noise was everywhere. It was everything, both inside her head and out. She scooped Rod’s unconscious upper body off the floor and dragged him by the armpits. So much for not hurting the bullet wound.

  Maria took a step toward the opening.

  Then another.

  And then the last one.

  Fresh air had never tasted and smelled so good. A chunk of the cave opening fell off, almost landing on Maria’s foot. She had to put more distance between the two of them and the collapsing mountain.

  Maria’s body was exhausted. She fell on her hands and knees. She draped Rod across her back and crawled like a baby. The palms of her hands and her knees stung, covered in cuts from the rough terrain.

  Behind her, the mountain rumbled, as if it were throwing a temper tantrum with Mother Earth and was winning the fight.

  Maria kept moving forward. Every time she moved she was a few more inches, a few more feet, closer to safety.

  Just keeping going.

  The earth moaned in defeat.

  Maria crawled faster despite the pain. Rod whimpered.

  With an earth-shattering boom, the cliff, where the opening to the cave had been, fell into itself. An explosion of dirt rose into the sky.

  Maria choked on the dust. Her ears rang. Her muscles shook. Scratches and gashes covered her arms and legs. But none of it mattered. She had gotten Rod out alive.

  Montezuma’s millions still lie entombed … beckoning those with the spirit of adventure and the will to overcome the obstacles.

  –Argosy. “White Mountains $10,000,000 Secret” by Steve Wilson, March 1966.

  Chapter 33

  MARIA HAD NEVER LIKED hospitals, but now that Rod had taken up residency in one for the last several days, she’d practically lived there. In addition to the surgery to remove the bullet from his shoulder, Rod had been fed pure oxygen through a mask for three straight days. The doctors had given him pain meds and sleeping aids through his IV so he wouldn’t fight the oxygen treatment. But yesterday, after the hospital staff had forced Maria out of his room and made it off limits to her so the doctors could consult on his condition, the mask had been removed and the medicine decreased.

  Today would be the first time Rod would be Rod. At least Maria hoped so. The doctors said the carbon dioxide could have caused permanent brain damage. But fate wouldn’t do that to her, would it? After everything Maria had been through, couldn’t she be given just one little miracle?

  A miracle of Rod being well and whole?

  The lonely last ten years weighed on Maria. She had chosen the life. She blamed no one. But everything was different now.

  Now she chose Rod.

  While waiting to get news—any kind of news—about Rod’s condition, Maria had kept her mind busy with details of the case. Whitney’s charges had been significantly lowered. She was now charged with being an accessory to blackmail. Emily Hayward had been charged with the same crime. However, the attorney general’s office had already offered both of them plea bargains by testifying in the trial of Senator Emerson.

  The deceased Sherrie Mercer was named as the number one suspect for Mayor Hayward’s death. However, with
her demise in the cave came the inability to try her for the murder.

  As for the treasure, both Sherrie and the mayor had been only children. Their parents were deceased. No one had even come forward to claim Sherrie’s personal effects. If other family members were alive who knew about the gold, they were staying low at the moment.

  A search party had been sent to the “Arden Compound.” They’d come away empty handed. The place had been gutted. When or by whom was unclear. It seemed the last two keepers of the “cave of gold” had taken the secrets they knew to their graves.

  As Maria parked her car in the hospital parking lot, her phone rang. It was Ryker. He had been beyond himself, bemoaning that the most amazing archaeological discovery of the twenty-first century was now a mountain-sized pile of rubble.

  “Hi, Ryker.”

  “Maria, any news about Rod?”

  “Not yet. I’m going to see if I can bribe the doctors to tell me something.”

  “Well, let me know as soon as you do. I’m on my way out of town. Jim’s coming with me. I’ve had a call from a fellow who says he knows where there are other Aztec glyphs in Utah. You don’t suppose those Aztecs hid their gold in a couple of different spots?”

  “As a matter of fact, they could have. The affidavit from Lance Arden said something about a third part of the treasure being taken to a land northern.”

  A rush of air escaped Ryker’s lungs. “Then I still have a chance.”

  It was good her old professor wasn’t giving up. Maria loved his determination, but truly, Aztec gold was the last thing on her mind right now.

  “Travel safely and keep it touch,” Maria said. “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to talk with Jim since the mountain collapsed. I’ve had too much going on. Please tell him … please tell him that Acalan saved me and Rod in the cave. I don’t know if ghosts die, but if they do, then Acalan died a hero.”

  “Will do,” said Ryker. “And best of luck with Rod. We’ve all got our fingers crossed.”

  “Thanks.” Maria grabbed her purse off of the front seat and opened her car door. “Bye now.”