Canyon of the Sphinx (36 page)

“A few things,” he admitted.
“I’ll see if I can find some of the reference material when we get back to
camp. There are some ancient Zapotec glyphs that I can recall off-hand that you
might find interesting.”  He had to use his machete to cut away a branch that
had fallen into their path. “So what happened in Iraq a couple of years ago
that lent truth to legend?”

“Are you sure you want to know?”

He looked at her, a smirk on his
face. “How bad can it be? I just told you about man-eating monsters.”

“Betcha I’ll scare you.”

“Betcha you won’t.”

Kathlyn’s ghost story was better
than his.

***

Christopher was still up past
midnight. He was normally a light sleeper, but this was ridiculous. Thoughts of
his unfolding dig filled his mind and he was already planning things to go over
with Adam in the morning.  He sat outside of his cabin, listening to the sounds
of night all around him. Truthfully, he was listening for a strange howl
somewhere in the distance, los diablos, but he hadn’t as of yet heard anything
suspicious. He would have laughed at himself for being so stupid had Dr.
Trent’s tales of Iraq not put the fear of God into him. He’d always had a
fairly open mind. Maybe myths and legends really did exist…

The big cigar he had been smoking
was nearly gone. So was the bottle of Tequila next to his chair. When both were
finished, he promised himself he would at least try to get some sleep.
Footsteps in the darkness caught his attention and he turned to see who
approached.

“Good cigar?”

Debra Jo’s pale face came into
view. Christopher flicked the ashes to the ground. “Not bad. What are you doing
up so late?”

“I’m a light sleeper.”

“Me, too.”

“Besides, who can sleep with
Burton and La Coste snoring like chainsaws? I don’t know how Kathlyn does it.”

Murphy snorted. “My ex-wife
listed that as one of her primary complaints against me. I guess it can be
pretty upsetting to some people.”

Debra Jo grinned, shoving her
hands in the pockets of her jeans. Her excuse was that she was on the way to
the outhouse; truthfully, she was on a mission. Murphy was always surrounded by
one person or another during the day, so much so that she never had a chance to
talk to him. Now, it was her move. She had waited for this moment like a spider
waits for a fly.

“It doesn’t normally bother me,”
she said. “My husband used to snore, too. Seems strange, but I’d give anything
to hear him snore again.”

Christopher took a big puff. “You
spend a lot of time away from him?”

She shook her head. “Too much
time. Forever, in fact. He was killed in a car accident six years ago.”

Murphy blew the smoke from his
nostrils. “Oh, sorry,” he said, his voice gentle like it was when he talked to
Kathlyn. “I didn’t mean to be insensitive.”

She waved him off. “You weren’t.”
She sighed, gazing up into the canopy of trees. “To tell the truth, we were
having problems at the time. We were probably headed for divorce court, anyway.
Spending months away from him was taking its toll.”

Christopher stuck the cigar in
his mouth and reached behind him to grab another chair, propped up against the
side of the cabin. He set it down next to him and Debra Jo took the hint.

“This kind of career can wreak
havoc on a marriage, that’s for sure,” he said. “My ex and I were college
sweethearts. She knew what my profession was, but still, the marriage only lasted
five years. We just never saw each other and she ended up having an affair.”

“Sorry,” Debra Jo said softly.
“Any kids?”

“No. You?”

“One. A son.”

Christopher looked surprised.
“You don’t stay in the States with him?”

She shook her head. “He was born
with severe cerebral palsy and mental retardation. I had to institutionalize
him when he was very young. He doesn’t even recognize me. I work this job so I
can have the good medical benefits that the university provides to pay for the
special care he needs. I also work to be with Kathlyn. She’s been my family for
twenty years.”

Christopher nodded, understanding
her position. The woman had been put through some tragedy in her life. At
second glance, she was quite lovely with her long, slender legs, white skin and
rich red hair. He’d never said much to her because his attention was always
focused on Kathlyn. Debra Jo just stayed quietly out of the way. With Kathlyn
and her radiant beauty overshadowing everything, the tall redhead was content
to be in her shadow. He thought, at the moment, that she didn’t deserve that.

“So you’ve been hanging with The
Myth Chasers for a lot of years?” he teased gently.

Debra Jo smiled. “Too many. But
it’s been worth it. Oh, the tales I could tell you.”

Christopher puffed on his cigar.
He reached down beside his chair and pulled forth the remains of the tequila.
“Got any ghost stories?”

She took the offered bottle of
amber liquid. “I might.”

His pale blue eyes glittered.
“Are they scary?”

She took a long swig. “Hell yes.”

“Then do tell.”

Debra Jo never made it back to
her bed that night.

***

“Son of a bitch,” Christopher
propped his head on his hand, steam from his morning cup of coffee vaporizing
into his face. “Dr. Trent’s stories kept me up all night. Had Burton not
validated them as absolutely true, I might not have believed her. They were
like a bad Hollywood horror movie. But… crap! I was scared all night.”

That wasn’t entirely correct.
He’d been occupied all night, that was true, but not with thoughts of ghost
stories. Adam and Kimberly sat across from him at the old picnic table they
used for their one and only mess table. It was just before sunrise and the
temperature was quite pleasant at this time of the morning.

As was usual, the archaeologists
congregated at this time to prepare their pre-flight, or punch list, for the
coming day. In spite of his complaints, Christopher seemed to have an
inordinate amount of energy and was oddly jovial. Adam had already been hard at
work for an hour, trying to keep up with him.

“It was pretty amazing,” Kimberly
agreed with Christopher’s statement. “Who knew that demons actually existed? I
mean, the mere thought is astonishing. But if she says she saw them….”

Christopher took a sip of his
dark, strong coffee. “Damn her. I’ll never sleep again.”

“Oh yeah?” Kathlyn and Marcus
came up behind him, having heard most of the conversation. Kathlyn made a face
at him. “Then I’ll tell you some of the other things I’ve seen first-hand. I
swear, you’ll lock yourself in a room and never leave.”

He returned her expression, one
of fear and loathing. “I’ve decided I’m not talking to you anymore. You give me
nightmares.”

Marcus went to the old plastic
table at the edge of the tarp that held the coffee and other breakfast items.
He grinned as he listened to his wife and Murphy banter back and forth. Three
months ago, he would have snapped the man’s neck, but with time and experience,
and getting to know Murphy, he was as comfortable with their repartee as he
would have been with conversation between his wife and Tony. Well, almost.

“You’re just a big baby,” Kathlyn
was saying to Christopher as Marcus came over to the table. “You’d never make
it with my team.”

“I don’t want to make it with
your team,” Christopher insisted vehemently. “I like it here in my nice, safe
little jungle. You’re too scary.”

She smiled triumphantly, taking
her coffee from her husband. “Extreme Archaeology, baby!”

“Extreme insanity, you mean.”

“You said it.” Kathlyn held up
her coffee cup to her husband, who clinked his own against it as if they were
toasting with champagne. She gave a silly, cackling laugh as she sipped the
heady brew. No sooner had she taken a taste than she almost spit it out.

“Sheesh!” she exclaimed. “Doesn’t
anyone know how to make coffee around here? This is like cough syrup.”

“This is local coffee,”
Christopher said. “It’s not too bad once you get used to it.”

She took another long gulp and
set it down. She gnashed her teeth together, quickly, like a wild-eyed cartoon
character. “Wow. Just got my caffeine allotment for the next three days. Are we
ready to hit the road?”

Christopher took a last drag from
his coffee cup and set it on the table. Adam and Kimberly were already
standing, rousing the troops. The sun was just coming up and it was a bit
steamy already. Dressed in her usual attire of big black boots and her old
duster, Kathlyn was ready to roll. She hadn’t been plagued with the nightmares
Murphy had experienced, or at least claimed to have experienced. She was
excited about what they might uncover this day.

Mark, Otis, Larry and Andy joined
the group as it prepared to move out. They had been cleaning up some of the
gear they’d brought, including the ‘deadhead’. Larry and Andy were in charge of
the Ground Penetrating Radar device, while Otis took the computer used to
interpret the data. They had decided last night, with Christopher’s blessing,
to bring the GPR to see what kind of reading they could get off of the
courtyard site. Marcus also wanted to use it for the avenue of the sphinxes to
see if they could get any depth readings. It might give them a clue as to what
really lay beneath the worn images. Christopher was more than happy to let them
use the toys that Kathlyn’s sponsorship provided her.

Debra Jo joined the group just as
they were preparing to head down the path. She hadn’t been in her bed when
Kathlyn awoke and she assumed that Debra Jo had hit the shower early. But
catching a glance between Debra Jo and Christopher smashed that theory to bits.
There was something in the way he had smiled at her. Kathlyn began to wonder if
Debra Jo had slept in her bed at all. She made a mental note to interrogate the
woman when they were alone. Until then, she would bide her time.

Tony took point down the path to
Site B. He was used to taking point. He hadn’t slept all night, in fact; he had
been up, lingering in the shadows and watching the camp for any signs of a
threat against Dr. Trent. It wasn’t unusual for him to go a couple of days
without sleep, but he would try to catnap this afternoon when Dr. Trent was
surrounded by people; if Jensen Elder was going to make a move, it wouldn’t be
with a bunch of people around. He knew that Marcus would keep a watchful eye
while he napped. Marcus was even more of a paranoid for Kathlyn’s safety than
he was.

The mud from the rains had almost
dried up completely. The path through the jungle wasn’t as dirty or treacherous
as it had been. It smelled like mold and dirt. Kathlyn was directly behind
Tony, charging through the jungle right behind him. He hadn’t seen her this
healthy or this animated in months. At one point she tried to push past him to
take the lead but he cocked an eyebrow at her and threw out an arm to stop her forward
progress. Burton grabbed her by the shoulders before she could do the usual
push-to-the-front tactic. Corralled for the moment but never contained, she
punished Tony the rest of the way by literally walking close enough behind him
to step on his heels.

By the time they reached the
site, there were already a number of local workers on-scene. They were opening
up the shed and cleaning up the instruments to be used for the day, and
breaking out the big sifters they used to extract finite matter from the dirt that
they removed from the dig site. The little Bobcat had been unchained and the
smell of burning oil was heavy in the air as they warmed up the engine.

Descending the trail into the
site, Christopher and Marcus headed for the avenue of the sphinxes. They wanted
to do some excavation around the base of one of the statues to see if they
could get any indication of what Kathlyn said was true. They tried to
commandeer the GPR, but Kathlyn wouldn’t hear of it. It was her toy and she was
going to play with it first. After a good-natured argument, the men finally
surrendered to the Queen of Everything.

While Mark and Debra Jo went with
Marcus and Christopher, Kathlyn moved to the base of the Pyramid of Dreams with
Adam and Kimberly and the rest of her team to watch over the continued
excavation of the courtyard. As the Bobcat started up and resumed where it left
of the previous day under Adam’s close eye, Kathlyn had Otis and the boys set
up the GPR. She was trying to ignore the buzzing sensation that had started up
the moment she set foot on the site, distracting herself by helping Otis set up
the computer. They had a busy day ahead and she had no intention of slowing
down.

The Bobcat dug into the earth.
The buzzing in Kathlyn’s body grew stronger. With every scoop of rich, dark
dirt from the little bulldozer, the sensations grew. She finally stopped
working on the computer altogether, watching the Bobcat and feeling her
vibrations heighten. Tony, having been standing over Otis’ shoulder and
watching the man work, came over to stand next to her.