by Liz Dodwell
I bounded to port and rested my hands on the gunwale. “Are you OK?”
“Yes. I’m coming aboard.”
He swam to the boat where several pairs of hands pulled him up. His mesh bag looked suspiciously heavy.
“Don’t tell me…” I said.
“OK, I won’t.”
By now the others had crowded around and were urging him to disclose his find. He pulled an object from the bag and, with a flourish, lifted it skyward.
The Maya head.
There were cheers and back-clapping and general euphoria.
“I knew you would do it,” I grinned.
We were heading back to the dock where Russell Longsworth was to greet us. Finn and I were watching the salvage site recede.
“There’s a Spanish wreck down there,” Finn said.
Startled, I turned my head to him. “Are you sure?”
“I saw the outline of a cannon, and some other scatter.”
“Do you think the government will give us a salvage permit?”
“I doubt it, but it’s worth a try. Maybe they’ll feel like rewarding us for finding their national treasure.”
As it was, the Belizean government expressed their eternal gratitude to us, but they weren’t sufficiently grateful to allow us to recover any other wreckage. Amazing, isn’t it? We spend months, sometimes years, carefully searching for shipwreck history without success. When we find something by accident we’re not allowed to touch it.
The End
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Author’s Notes
Well, here we are again. Captain Finn has solved his fourth mystery.
You should know there really is a sculpture of the Maya Sun God, Kinich Ahau at the Museum of Belize. It was thought by many to have been stolen shortly after its discovery though is, in fact, safely under lock and key. None-the-less, it was my inspiration for this treasure tale.
Although “The Game’s A Foot” is a work of fiction, I do try very hard to be factual in much of the detail and I hope you appreciate that authenticity. If you ever read anything that is glaringly wrong, please do let me know. You can always reach me on my facebook page: facebook.com/LizDodwellAuthor. And, hey, go ahead and give me your thoughts anyway. Maybe you have a great idea for a new treasure mystery. I’d love to hear it.
Once again I need to send out a big thank you to Carl Fismer, shipwreck treasure hunter and friend of the first order. He puts up with my phone calls requesting clarification on all kinds of stuff and is an absolute mine of information. Why not check him out at CarlFismer.com?
And, always, thanks to my husband, Alex, who is a rock. Most of all, thank you, my wonderful readers. You’re the reason I do this.
Read on for an excerpt from the next Captain Finn adventure.
The Boneyard Murder
“Are there killer whales in the Gulf of Mexico?”
Finn gave me a look that said, Now what? But the words he voiced were, “Some have been spotted in deep water.”
“But not where we are now?”
“No.”
“Then what’s that swimming over there?”
His eyes followed the direction of my pointing arm, then narrowed and two creases appeared between his brows.
“Jafet,” he called out to our diver who was driving the boat, “toss me those binos.”
Jafet pulled the binoculars from their perch and threw them to Finn. For some minutes he gazed across the water.
“Turn ten degrees to port,” Finn directed, “and keep it slow and steady.”
“What is it?” I was on tenterhooks, snatching the binos from Finn’s grasp. It took me a few moments to focus them. “Oh my god. It’s a dog!”
As we got closer I began calling to the pooch, “Here boy, come on. Good puppy, you can do it.” Either he didn’t hear or it didn’t register.
“He’s probably in shock,” Finn said. Still I kept up a constant jabber of encouragement.
“Get the inflatable ready,” Finn said. “I don’t want to get too close with Time Voyager.”
My eyes were riveted on the dog and I was about to jump to Finn’s bidding when I realized the animal’s hindquarters were beginning to sink. I saw his front legs lift out of the water in frantic motion and his head pull back to keep his nose up. “Too late, he’s in trouble,” I yelled and in the next instant was over the side.
There was a slight chop on the water but I powered towards the struggling hound. I heard Finn’s voice, “Come up behind him. He might panic and try to bite.”
I did just that; put an arm around him as he was about to go under. His body instantly went slack and I quickly rolled on to my back, pulling him on top of me. By now Finn and Enos – our second diver - had the inflatable in the water and were heading my way, which was a good thing because the dog was a dead weight and I was struggling to keep his head out of the water.
Soon, hands reached out and plucked the dog from my chest and hauled me into the inflatable with him. I pulled myself into a crouch; the half dead beast just lay there.
“Is he breathing?” I asked.
For answer, Finn held the dog upside down and I watched water drip from his nose and mouth. As Enos zipped us back to the boat Finn lay the dog on its side and pressed his fingertips gently on the back of one of the front paws.
“There’s a faint heartbeat.” Then he lay his hand on the animal’s chest to feel for movement and placed his cheek next to its nose. “He doesn’t seem to be breathing.”
By now we were at the boat. Finn carried the dog into the salon, laying him on the sofa. He pulled the mutt’s tongue forward so it wouldn’t form an obstruction then, holding the mouth closed he blew into the snout. He did this several times before taking a break to see if the dog would breathe on its own. Nothing; so he repeated the exercise. This time when he stopped we watched the dog’s chest continue to rise.
“You did it!” I clapped Finn on the back. “You’re brilliant. What should we do now?”
“Get him dried off and then wrap him in a blanket. We need to keep him warm or he might go into shock.”
In an earlier part of his life Finn had been a paramedic, so it was no surprise he knew what to do to save a dog’s life. He’s also a big softie and would do everything he could to help a creature in need. Anyway, I hurried to gather up the supplies and as I re-entered the salon Jafet stepped in beside me.
“I came to meet the new guest,” he said.
Jafet Quintana and Enos Donnell were best friends who worked with us from time to time. Both competent divers, they were also experienced boatmen and between them could fix just about anything. When they weren’t on Time Voyager they worked for themselves doing a variety of construction jobs.
Jafet looked past me to the sofa and a startled look crossed his face. “I know that dog.”
In unison Finn and I turned his way.
“He belongs to a couple who have a booth at the Red Barn.”
We nodded in understanding. Jafet’s wife, Elodia, sold homemade candles every weekend at the Red Barn flea market in Bradenton, just north of Sarasota. It’s an enormous place but Elodia had been set up there for years and knew many of the vendors.
“Who are they?” Finn asked.
“Umm, Mark is his name, I’m pretty sure. His wife is Katy...Kaylee…something like that. I do know they both dive. I’ve talked to them a couple of times when I’ve been there to help Elodia pack up.”
“Any chance they could have been out diving today?” Finn’s voice had an edge to it.
“You mean the dog could have fallen overboard?”
“That’s one possibility.”
Liz Dodwell
…was told so many times that she really knew how to spin a yarn, she finally decided to put that talent to good use. Taking inspiration from her good friend and real-life treasure hunter, Captain Carl Fismer, she created the Captain Finn Treasure Mystery series.
For several years Liz worked with the Captain, operating his w
ebsite and arranging talks and treasure exhibitions. “I would dive when I got the chance, but only on a hookah,” she says. “I never found anything of real importance, but just knowing I was getting even a microscopic glimpse of history and adventure was truly exciting.”
Fueled by an occasional cup of grog, Liz writes from the home she shares with husband Alex and a crew of rescued dogs and cats. For a change of pace she pens stories in cozy mystery and romantic suspense. For relaxation she likes to yodel. (Just kidding).
www.LizDodwell.com
