The Maya Bust

by E. Chris Ambrose

  So far, so good. He clipped himself and his bundle into climbing gear, then attached to the rope. Sitting on the rim of the well, he brought the bundle over, then began his descent.

  Around him, the well belled out into a cavern. A string of electric lights marched down the ceiling, looking like the same sturdy wiring style as the lights at the stash. Down below, a dock or landing platform awaited in the rippling pattern of murky light from the well above. A thick rim of gravel formed alongside the cenote proper. The pool spanned about forty feet with no obvious outlets. The snake’s path must be fully submerged at this end. With the volume of rain seeping through every crevice in the porous stone, it would get further submerged by the moment. The gear bag thumped to a stop on the rocky shingle, and Grant landed lightly, unhooking from the line.

  As methodically as he had time for, he tested both respirators and tanks. Gooney could dive, but probably hadn’t since leaving the Unit. If he were still alive. Grant shook that off. Keep doing the next right thing. Using the Velcro straps of the spare vest, Grant bound the extra kit into a compact bundle he could haul or push through the passages down below. Pull on the mask, and turn, walking himself into the water. He flicked on his dive light and clipped it to his shoulder strap. A few deep breaths, then on with the mask and regulator, and he slid into the cenote, the extra kit helping him sink. Bubbles moved past his face. The surface of the water pecked and rippled with the falling rain.

  A human skull loomed out of the darkness, grinning. Evidence of sacrifice, or of old trespassers. From a metal spike alongside, a yellow guide line aimed downward into darkness.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  * * *

  On the rough mound of gravel in their ever-shrinking domain, Lexi held Malcolm close to her and watched the water creep closer. The rainwater from above seeped down in little fissures, joining into rivulets, trickling into the pool all around her. Her father prowled the limits of the space, already wet to the knees as he tried to budge the rockfall that blocked the drug chamber, using a broken section of a beam that protruded from the mound of rubble. The lanterns’ light gave him a sallow complexion. He glanced back at her from time to time, his eye flicking from where she sat to the creeping edge of water. It rose too fast for just rain, and she suspected the collapse of the other chamber had also sealed or constricted the outlet of this underground pool. Assuming there was an outlet.

  She wanted to hope, but she didn’t know what to hope for. Eleiua and her mom knew they’d gone into the stash, and might understand about the other chambers. Would they start digging? Even if they did, how long would that take? One thing she hoped: that the porous stone around them also meant they wouldn’t run out of air before they drowned.

  To her right, the water seemed choppy. Maybe another channel drew even more surface water into their space. Her father took down one of the lanterns and made another circuit of the shrinking island, this time peering into the water. His lace-free shoes getting wet, he crouched down, staring, then rose quickly and replaced the lantern.

  She tapped his ankle. “What is it?”

  “Don’t know,” he signed back, then he replaced the lantern on its hook and lifted a large rock from the rubble, a slab with a pointed end. She watched him stalk back toward the place where he’d stopped. Don’t know, he said, but he suspected, or at least, he worried enough to arm himself.

  Lexi shifted her own position, lowering Malcolm out of her lap and preparing for whatever came next. Malcolm stirred, but didn’t quite wake. His moments of alertness grew further apart, a fact that knotted her stomach.

  Side by side, with her father, she waited. The rippling increased. Beneath the water’s surface, something pale moved, growing larger or closer. A thin line crossed the light, shivering slightly, then a shadowy hand thrust forward, tracking the line, an arm following. Lexi grabbed a rock of her own as the diver pushed toward them, then the hand broke water, and she saw the intricate designs that started just above his wrist. Ray. The illustrated man.

  She dropped the rock, hands pressed to her mouth. Her father tossed his stone to one side, dropping to a knee as the other man emerged from the water. His dark eyes gleamed behind the mask and he popped out the regulator, and flicked a salute, saying something to her father.

  Her father grinned from ear to ear, rocking back, and it took him a couple of tries before he interpreted Grant’s words: “Sorry I’m late.”

  Her father replied, then trapped his head with both hands as if he were holding something inside, before he finally interpreted for Lexi. “Jesus, Casey, I thought you were dead.” His joy needed no interpretation.

  Casey knelt in the water, pulling a bundle up behind him, and she almost missed the sharp and brilliant flash of his smile. “Same.” His glance lit on Lexi. “Nice work back there. Appreciate the assist.” He tipped his head toward the sealed room as her father signed his words.

  As Casey unwrapped the binding on a SCUBA rig, her father said, “Malcolm first. Compound fracture, lower leg. I did the best I could.”

  “Copy that. Has he ever done any diving?”

  Her father relayed the question, and she shook her head.

  Casey spoke as he worked over Malcolm, setting up the regulator, but her father filled her in. “Too bad we don’t have any more of that tranquilizer. Unconscious is easier than struggling.”

  Malcolm’s eyes peeled open, focusing on the man trying to help him, and his hands formed, “Ray.”

  “I’m hooking you up with oxygen. Need you to just relax and take it, okay?”

  Her father interpreted, then added, “That’ll go for you, too, Lexi, on the next trip.”

  Malcolm opened his mouth to accept the regulator, his glance darting toward her. She caught and squeezed his hand, offering a smile of encouragement.

  Watching Malcolm’s face, Casey said something, then demonstrated breathing. “You got it. Breathe out. Keep your hands together.” He interlocked his own fingers, and Malcolm imitated the action, again, her father made sure she knew.

  Water lapped at Malcolm’s arm, and Casey didn’t wait any longer. He bit his own regulator and backed into the water, taking Malcolm’s head against his shoulder. Lexi and her father lifted and bundled Malcolm into the water where Casey secured the Velcro, then sank back into the water, drawing Malcolm down with him, pulling him under. Malcolm’s eyes flared with fear, his hands clutching each other, and that strong, tattooed arm holding him close. Bubbles, ripples, the fading light … and then nothing. Gravel or bit of bone dug into her knees, then her legs chilled.

  Her father touched her shoulder, and beckoned her to stand. His hand hovered, then flinched back from her.

  “Chief is a great diver. Malcolm will be okay,” he told her, his fingers curling around the letters of Malcolm’s name.

  She didn’t know what to answer. The rescue looked too much like drowning.

  Water rushed in around their ankles, and her dad glared down like he could stop it from happening. His hands kept balling into fists, and he finally looked back at her. His hands moved. “We finally have a chance to talk, and once the water gets high enough, we’ll lose it.” He mimed treading water.

  How much had he even used her language in the years since they’d been apart, and his hands still moved gracefully through the signs. Her throat ached. She nodded, and started to sign back to him, but her hands were already shaking. They were in the tropics, right? Shouldn’t it be warm?

  “I would hold you to keep you warm,” he told her, his hand cupping and clinging to something, then moving past his mouth like a breath of heat. “If you let me —” his hands slipped aside into a shrug.

  Already, her calves were soaked, her torn and ruined pants clinging to her skin. She shifted her feet, making ripples that distorted the bones down below. The hole where Casey had disappeared seemed like black mouth into nothingness. She hoped Malcolm would be alright. Somehow, he would be. Please, God, he would be. She stuffed her hands under her arms. The wat
er rippled, and she glanced up to find her father standing for once so very close, his hands held out to her.

  “I don’t have much to offer,” his hands said. “Let me do this. It’s been so long since I held you.” His words hesitated, and she thought of all those books where someone’s words stuck in their throat as they fought off some emotion.

  Now her eyes burned, and he was blinking too much. Had her mother been lying all those years, or at least, hiding the truth? Had he ever been who she thought he was? When she was small, he seemed so large and strong, able to carry her to bed all through elementary school, able to lift her upside down to pretend she could walk on the ceiling, their faces on a level, her hair hanging down, both of them grinning. When had missing him so much that it hurt become hating him to the same degree? She finally freed her hands to say, “Okay. Yes.”

  “I won’t be able to talk to you, though.” His eloquent hands spread apart into a shrug.

  She mastered her trembling and said, “I will feel you talking —” a movement with her open hand, fingers flared over her heart — “If you want to. It won’t matter what you say.” Both hands, shifting together.

  He nodded, his throat working. “When you were small, I held you to my throat to feel me talking. Used to sing you to sleep.”

  “I remember.” She drew a shuddering breath, then added the simple sign she hadn’t used for so very long. “Dad.” After seven years without him, seven years believing he’d left her and never looked back, Lexi stepped once more into her father’s embrace.

  He gathered her against him, as powerful as ever, wrapping her in his arms, her cheek pressed against his chest, instantly warmer. He stroked her back, pressing her tight, then said something over her head as her shivering subsided. She couldn’t understand him, but the rumble of his voice moved through his chest, a soothing vibration. A drop of water hit her nose and the sense of safety fled in an instant as she glanced up. Not now, not the roof as well! But no, there was no rain.

  Her powerful, distant father was crying, tears collecting on his chin, falling gently to her hair and face. Her father had tattooed friends and was a dead-eye marksman. He’d been in special operations and come home to them — until he wasn’t allowed to any more. Her mother expelled him, as if she had used up whatever he had to offer, but Lexi knew now that he still had more. He gave and gave and his reward had been silence.

  Keep talking she wanted to tell him. Make believe they’d both be alright. She must have shifted in his embrace because he spoke again. She felt his voice, but in a different pattern lower and more halting. It didn’t matter what he said, she told him. He wasn’t talking now — he was singing.

  The water reached her waist, and he lifted her up. His arms gathered her higher, shifting her to rest her head on his shoulder, as if she were a child again, and his at last, all his. She burrowed her face against his throat, taking in his heat, and the whole time, he never stopped singing.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  * * *

  Two passages fully flooded, with a chamber between where Grant could breathe for a moment before pulling Malcolm back under. The young man’s muscles felt like iron, clamping down on his shivering, on his fear. In the chamber, Grant spat out his regulator and kept kicking, guiding them both toward the next channel. “You’re doing great, Malcolm. One more dive.”

  Then he bit his mouthpiece and hauled them back under, Malcolm straining to relax, probably blowing through too much oxygen. The second passage was longer, deeper, with a narrow span just before the cenote where a slab of stone jutted down from the roof like a whale’s jaw, set to strain out the humans.

  Light grew ahead of him. Kicking strongly, Grant broke the surface, hauling Malcolm up with him. He rolled to his back, the scuba tank dragging at his shoulders. Bringing Malcolm across his chest, he reached the shallows, then stripped the kit, Malcolm trying to help with shaky hands. Grant carried him higher onto the verge. Check his pulse, check his breathing. Don’t check out, kid.

  If he didn’t get back to Lexi and Gooney fast, they were goners. He moved fast, kicking hard, then pulling himself into the passage with his hands. The tank banged and scraped until he pulled it off and pushed it through before him along with the spare. Then the chamber, and finally, he expected to pop up into the air around their island — any minute — but the air was too high up. Shit.

  Grant broke through at last, and the water splashed against Gooney’s chest, his daughter clinging and shivering. Grant popped his regulator. “Come on!”

  She had turned at the change in the water, or the relief that flooded her father’s features. Gooney was already handing her over, helping her with the regulator, but she had trouble taking her eyes off of her father. He looked haggard, his face streaked with tears, hair spiked with the damp. Suppressing his own shivering so violently that he barely breathed.

  “You take care of her,” he managed through bluish lips.

  “You got it, Gooney. The cave opening is close — I’ll come back for you.” Grant checked the air. Close to the red zone. Double shit. Could he free dive all the way back, saving the air for Gooney?

  Gooney nodded — or just shivered more fiercely. “Go on.” His eyes squeezed shut. “Go.”

  “Gooney.” Grant slid his hand into Gooney’s, squeezing hard, and Gooney returned the grip.

  “Next time you visit the Lazarus Club, look for me,” Gooney said. “I might be staying a while.”

  Lexi lifted her hand for a question, but her father didn’t have the control to answer right then.

  “No. Fucking. Way.” Grant stuffed the regulator between his teeth and locked Lexi’s hand to his, drawing her close — no time to tell her what to expect. Hopefully the instructions Gooney had interpreted earlier would be enough. She stared at him with those sharp green eyes. Shit. He tipped his head toward the tunnel, and she nodded. He drew her under, feeling the jolt of her surprise. Cold all over now. Like her father soon would be. Grant fought the urge to rush. She was barely grown, and Gooney was counting on him to save her.

  Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Slow is smooth — and taking too fucking long. At the narrows, he paused, pushing the tank through, taking a deep breath, then letting go of the regulator while he guided her through, following after and finding his air. As the water lightened, her fingers dug into his arm and he kicked faster, both of them kicking now and surging out of the water.

  She grabbed the regulator from her lips and flung it back toward him. Fumbling with the Velcro, she stripped off her tank, pushing him away, pointing back. “Go,” her voice harsh and her eyes brimming. She started paddling her own way to the broken shore.

  No need to tell him twice. He grabbed the tank and dove, checking the gages in the low light from the shoulder lamp. Redlining for the main tank. For the spare. Oh, shit. Empty. Grant dumped it: no need to carry extra weight and have that much more trouble squeezing through the narrows. He forced himself to breathe carefully, not to let the tension burn through his oxygen that much faster. One regulator, one tank, two men.

  Grant emerged from the second passage, or so his hands told him. The light flicked over bones and offerings glimpsed through the silt kicked up by his quick passage. Not far now. One hand traced along the wall, then followed the rough mound of debris rising up from it, higher and higher, not finding the air, not seeing the light of those two lanterns. Suddenly, dark shadows, emerging before him, very still. Gooney’s legs. Grant pushed upward, reaching.

  His hand broke the surface, then almost immediately struck the ceiling. Gooney grabbed his arm, guiding his emergence. He popped up into a narrow layer of air, his hair brushing the stone, his chin still in the water. His legs beat a rhythm to keep his head above water. Gooney clung to the hook embedded in the roof where one of the lanterns had been, his face turned upward, gasping for breath. His lips looked all wrong in the feeble yellow light, and they trembled.

  “Christ, Chief, took you long enough.” He failed his smile.
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br />   Grant spit out the regulator and held it out. He shifted the tank, keeping one strap over his shoulder. “Let’s go.” Gooney released his hand to grab it. He missed, their hands both wrapping the rubber tubing.

  Gooney’s eyes narrowed. “Where’s yours?”

  “Empty.” Grant tried to release his grip, but Gooney’s hand enclosed his, pushing back at him.

  “One damn tank for both of us? You want us to buddy breathe in a cave? Won’t work.”

  “The tank’s for you; we can’t buddy breathe in the narrows.” Grant focused on his breathing. In, out, even and long. “We’ll make it.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Casey! We’ll both die. You had to know that — What the Hell did you come back here for?”

  “You.”

  Gooney’s fingers tightened in the metal loop.

  “You and Lexi have a lot to talk about.”

  Gooney swallowed. “Still only one tank, Chief.”

  “I was the base free diving champion. I can go four minutes, easy.” The longer passage so far had taken closer to six while he was assisting, but Gooney didn’t need to know that. “I’m a marathoner, I have lung capacity to spare.”

  Gooney looked down at the water surrounding them, their faces close together in the shrinking air pocket. “Chief.” His voice came out gravelly. “I might panic. Total freak-out down there.” He took another hitching breath. “It’s too much like dying. I don’t know what was worse the last time. The fight or the surrender.” He met Grant’s gaze. “I don’t want to take you down with me.”

  “I won’t let you.”

  “It’s like you’re not even listening to me!” Too loud for the small space.

  “When have I ever? Come on, we’re wasting air.”

  Gooney’s eyes squeezed shut, his voice shutting down as well. “Even odds if you try to get me out of here, Chief, we’re both dead.”