Maroon Rising (31 page)

Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three—my chest was a cauldron of spent oxygen. Twenty-four, twenty-five—I felt something move and yanked my hand back. I reached forward again, slowly.

The pony bottle!

I grabbed the tank and felt for the line to the regulator—there. I pulled until the mouthpiece was in my hand—sucked hard—nothing!

Dammit!

The tank had been 35 percent full when we left it here, but the air must have leaked out. I hadn’t shut off the valve when we left it here.

My eyes fluttered—so dizzy. I rolled against the wall—was I facing up?

Was this how it ended? Left alone to expire in a submerged cave?

Hell no!

My eyes fluttered and I saw a silver glimmer above me—wait! If the air had leaked out of the tank, could that be an air pocket in the rocks above?

With what strength I had left I shoved my face up into the glimmer—yes! It was an air pocket—two deep breaths—then water!

My hands worked furiously now, pulling myself into the darkness, away from the muted light, forward—
crash
—I careened into the end of the perpendicular chute.

Turn now, kick off the bottom.

Rocks scraped at me as I ascended, but I was moving, buoyancy propelling me upward … the passage was so long—

Splash!

My head had burst out of the water—I sucked in air like I’d just sprinted five miles. Then crawled across the jagged edge of the chute, out of the water. I stood still and oriented myself, not easy to do since the cave was virtually pitch black.

The liquid chute I’d survived was on the lower side of the wall, which meant the cave exit was to the right.

I hurried, brushing against the walls, then tripped and was on the cave floor. I got up—there was faint light ahead.

In my panic I ran through the darkness, caroming into protruding rocks as I went, until I stepped on the broken glass from my flashlight that had shattered when I fell from the chimney last time I was here. I was close now—there, ahead!

Light!

I increased my speed and burst into the main cavern, oblivious to the screeching bats overhead.

Nobody abandons Buck Reilly!

I
ran from the cave and saw the four-wheelers were still there with the people mounted up and engines running.

“Buck?” Stanley was sitting on the lead vehicle. “Why’d you come through the cave?”

I stumbled forward, the light illuminating cuts and abrasions from my hasty exit through the liquid blackness. With my hands on my knees I scanned the area and tried to catch my breath.

“Buck!”

I heard Nanny call my name from what seemed very far away. I stood and looked up toward the top of the hill where we’d descended into the chamber. Nanny and Pierce were bent down staring into the hole, and Nanny was pulling the harness back around her waist.

“Down here!” My voice croaked. I yelled again, and this time Nanny and Pierce stood up—then held their arms up as if to say, how the hell did you get
there
?

Stanley walked up to me. “You okay, Buck?”

“I thought … what the hell took so long for them to come back for me?”

Stanley’s eyes opened wide. “You thought we
left
you there? Damn, son—no! An airplane flew low through the valley, that other seaplane—we had to hide.”

“Jack? Shit!” Johnny had obviously spilled his guts to him and Gunner.

“No doubt they saw the loaded trailers—but damn, Buck Reilly, you really thought we’d left you to die?”

By this time, Nanny and Pierce had scrambled down the side of the hill and were running toward us. Emotions coursed through my body—I felt both like a paranoid fool and relieved that I hadn’t been totally gamed, used and abandoned.

Nanny reached me first. “What are you—how did you—lord, you’re scratched and bleeding in a thousand places!”

“We need to get the hell out of here,” I said.

“Damn, Buck,” Pierce said. “That’s an amazing amount of shit you found in that cave.”

The men had loaded everything into the trailers behind the ATVs. All of the trailers were covered over with tarps and wrapped tight with ropes. My heart raced from the exertion, but also because I knew Jack and Gunner would be hot on our asses.

We needed to move.

“You, sir, have a golden touch,” Stanley said. “I can’t believe we did it.” He glanced back to the ATVs. “This will be tremendous news for both the museum and the Jamaican people. iPads for all schoolchildren!”

“Too soon to celebrate, ” I said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

And so we began the long circuitous journey through the hills toward the dead-end road where a lone truck waited—or so we hoped. The trip out was slow and painful, especially for the bigger men, with two of each crammed onto every ATV. Nanny had her arms around my waist, a necessity given the bumpy ride.

A small plane flew along the valley, straight toward us. It wasn’t Betty, but the pilot looked interested in us, given his drop in altitude and course directly overhead. Would Jack have additional spotters out to keep track of our progress? I would if I were him.

When there was a clear straightaway I accelerated to twenty miles per hour and passed Stanley, and everyone sped up. Nanny’s grip tightened as we bounced hard, dodged a boulder hidden in ferns, and splashed through shallow puddles that sprayed us with muddy water. Goggles would have been nice.

After a twenty-minute span that felt like hours, I heard a honk over the growl of the ATV engine. I braked to a stop and glanced back. Stanley pointed ahead toward two gray hills separated by a narrow valley. I responded with a thumbs-up, then lifted my arm until each of the other drivers had lifted their thumbs. All of them were muddy, none of them were smiling.

We continued forward—the route Stanley pointed to would have been invisible had it not been for the faint tire tracks through the grassy landscape. I followed the tracks straight toward the rocky gap between the hills.

To my surprise, the tracks cut to the right. I let off the accelerator a moment to scan the valley between the hills—it was an impenetrable crevasse of boulders.

A glance back to Stanley found him pointing up the hill.

Nanny nearly slid off the back of the seat when I added power up the incline. We leaned forward, and her fingers dug into my rib cage. What seemed like a goat trail—narrow, rutted, chiseled by erosion—looped around the left side of the hill on a contour approximately halfway up, which afforded a good view of the valley.

I started to feel a ray of hope.

W
e rounded the side of the green mountain at the closest point to the hill on our left—it was the final hill from our previous trip here. Sure enough, the dead-end road was below. The huge truck Stanley had driven to tow in the ATVs was there and partially hidden under the forest canopy.

I followed the tire tracks through tall grass, accelerating once out on the dirt road. Nanny held tight until we screeched to a stop behind the truck. The other ATVs pulled up behind us and came to a stop. Everyone climbed off and stretched, muddy messes each of them.

“My butt is killing me,” Stanley said.

The truck had a sturdy canvas top supported by rings over its bed, with an enclosed cab in front. I dropped the tailgate and rolled the canvas up, then removed the ramps they’d used to unload two of the ATVs. I glanced around and spotted the trailer in the tall grass, covered over with branches and leaves. That must have carried the other two ATVs.

“Won’t be room for ATVs with all this treasure,” I said.

“Who cares,” Pierce said. “We’ll come back for them.”

Nanny sat on the lowered tailgate with a pad of paper and pen and took inventory as the men carried over armload after armload of precious metals and jewels. Everyone worked at top speed to hasten our departure. Inside the truck, I secured the booty with ropes so it wouldn’t bounce around.

“That’s a lot of buying power for Jamaican schoolchildren,” Stanley said.

“And a fine collection for the National Maritime Museum,” Keith said.

Nanny’s face was serious. “We’ll set up a nonprofit—”

“Which Nanny will run,” Stanley said.

“And use our Maroon heritage of independence and self-determination to revolutionize Jamaica’s future,” she said.

All the men stared at her with smiles on their faces.

Whether part of her heritage, her own drive, or her DNA, Nanny was a bold visionary—just like the original Mother of us all.

Once we’d unloaded everything, the men stashed their ATVs and trailers in the tall grass, then climbed inside the truck. I closed the tailgate and secured the canvas flaps. Since he promised to drive fast, Stanley took the wheel for the first leg of what would be a long trip, Nanny sat in the middle, and I was on the passenger side keeping watch. Our destination was Moore Town, via Albert Town, Ocho Rios, and then Port Antonio.

The big diesel fired up. In the back, the men laughed and hollered. Stanley hooted and hollered right along with them.

“I’d hold off on the celebration until we’re safely back in Moore Town,” I said.

Nanny reached down and squeezed my left thigh.

“You two did a hell of a job,” Stanley said. “I never thought there was any truth to the legend, much less that you’d be able to find—”

The truck lurched forward, the brakes locked up—Whoa!

The wheels slid on the gravel—toward—uh-oh…

A huge crash sounded behind us and the men yelled. I knew the heavy piles I’d tied down neatly were now a massive jumble after Stanley’s screeching stop.

Based on what I saw through the windshield, he’d done a heck of job halting the big truck at all.

“Do you have 9-1-1 in Jamaica?” I said. “If not, somebody better call the police.”

Five men, multiple dirt bikes, a black Land Rover, and a pickup truck blocked the road. The men held a combination of shotguns and automatic weapons. As soon as we stopped they rushed us, surrounding the truck, shouting for the men to exit the back. Some jammed their guns inside the cab toward us.

“What’s going on here?” Stanley’s voice quivered.

“Get out—all of you!”

Cuffee stood in front of the truck, a handgun pointed at the windshield.

“Too late,” I said.

Nanny shuddered next to me. “What do we do?”

“Exactly as they say,” I said. “These men won’t think twice about killing us.”

I popped the door open and slid out, followed by Nanny. Stanley did the same from the driver’s side. There was shouting—a gun butt hit the side of the truck’s back bed—until Pierce, Keith, and the other men climbed out of the truck.

“How dare you—” Stanley’s admonishment was greeted with Cuffee’s handgun pressed into his cheek.

“Don’t shoot anybody!” The loud voice came from behind me.

I spun to find Gunner stepping out of the black Land Rover, his square teeth yellow in the bright sunlight, his nose taped from my breaking it. The other men stepped back and made way for him.

He stopped in front of me. The knife on his belt and the pistol in his holster were not lost on me. My fingers wiggled at the end of my arms, which trembled with rage.

“Didn’t I warn you, Reilly?”

“You’ve got no right—”

“
I
got right!” The voice came over my back shoulder. I glanced back at Cuffee, his eyes bulging wide.

“As Njoni’s distant relative?” I said.

His mouth fell open, but he recovered quickly.

“Damn straight, mon. He was the one who hid whatever you found—”

“Damn, Cuffee!” A voice came from behind the truck. “Look at all this!”

Cuffee’s teeth were white, and he was as big as Gunner, maybe even bigger.

“Njoni’s father was Akim!” Nanny shouted. “
He
sailed with Morgan, who entrusted the treasure to—”

“Shut up,” Gunner said. “Spare me the semantics.”

Nanny stepped toward him. I grabbed her arm and pulled her back—hard—as Gunner exploded in laughter.

“Pointless to argue provenance,” I said.

She pulled her arm out of my hand, which made Gunner hoot with more laughter.

“This is Maroon property!” said Stanley, who had hurried to our side of the truck.