Gold (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 4) Read online

  “Why not haul all around it?” asked John.

  “That would be best, but we have to hold back the well sides from collapse. If we take up on one side that integrity of the well may keep together a little bit longer. Also that slab might be a lot heavier than we figure. If so, pulling one side is going to be easier.”

  The slab took several tries to break loose, the arms of the wrecker bending with the load, the old diesel revving higher. When the slab finally moved, the edge of it pulled upward into the slanted wall and within a few minutes it stood almost on its edge.

  “You’re right. We have a hole underneath and it is much smaller than the stone,” said John as he worked his light.

  While the slab rested in the center supported by the hoist, John stood on the shelf of dirt that was revealed under the edge of its former cover. The shelf, as Mouse had thought, came out a few inches around the circumference of the smaller shaft going below, but it was not secure and was crumbling under his feet.

  “Keep back against the wall, John,” shouted Mouse. “That ledge may give way.”

  John shone his light over the slab and saw the encrusted earth on the bottom. He was amazed at the whiteness of the stone and its apparent hardness. “I’ve never seen rock so white,” he said. “The air smells like we’re at the ocean. Very salty.”

  “Salty?” called Andy.

  “Yes. Very much so.”

  “I’m coming down,” she called and as he watched, her legs came into view, bare feet followed by long legs and the edges of her light blue shorts. Then she was beside him with a grin, pushing her glasses up against her eyes.

  “Whatcha got here, John?”

  In the cramped space, he helped her maneuver to be beside the lifted slab of stone. She peeked around it and then looked down into the darkness below.

  “You guys are right about the hole below.”

  “Yeah, and what about the salt smell?” asked John.

  “It does smell like ocean air.” She worked the flashlight below. “I get the reflection of water.”

  John looked and agreed. “About five feet below.”

  Mouse, who had been listening, called down as he started the winch again. “Let’s get this slab out so we can go down there.” The winch strained as it pulled the heavy flat stone upward. The copper top was dull and did not reflect as John ran his light over its surface.

  Above, the Captain and Hoadley helped Mouse to pull the slab to the side. As they did Mouse examined its underside and then called out, “Andy. Come up here. We got some marking on the bottom of the stone.” He turned to the Captain, “You ever seen anything like this?”

  “I’ll look at it when I get back up,” she called. Then she took out a plastic sample bag, which she had brought with her, and, using a small piece of twine, dipped the bag down into the water below the ledge on which she was standing with John. She told him as she worked, “I want to sample this and get it tested.”

  When she retrieved the bag, she poured some on her palm and tasted it. “My land, I never thought of it. I didn’t realize it got up this far.”

  “What?” John said, looking at her and the water sample.

  “If it is what I think it is, this puts a whole new light on the matter. I’m not sure yet so I don’t want to say until I have it tested.” She attached the harness and called to Mouse, “Hoist away.”

  At the top of the hole they joined the others looking at the underside of the stone. Lines were cut into its surface. Andy traced her fore finger over them.

  “You are right about the whiteness. Rock like this doesn’t exist naturally a round here. Whoever put this here didn’t want it seen by anyone unless they had the know how to bring the slab up and look at its underside,” said Mouse.

  It was like a huddle with the five of them standing around the sides of the mud covered slab, five astonished people, looking at the design, a perfect trapezoid, its uncommon lines chiseled into the stone.

  John heard the music again, drumming through his mind, the same ballad over and over again.

  “I was a highwayman. Along the coach roads I did ride

  With sword and pistol by my side

  May and young maid lost her baubles to my trade

  Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade

  The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five

  But I am still alive.”

  Chapter 16

  Thursday July 18, 6AM

  The woodland barely resembled the wilderness chaos that it had presented to them only a few days before. Now in the morning light the mound seemed higher above them than it had before mostly because of the loss of the vegetation and the small pine trees, which had been removed to make room for Mouse’s equipment. The ground itself was cleared back from the hole, the rocks that had formed the root cellar having been marked and carefully staked off the on the side about a hundred feet away. Directly around the hole in the ground were sheets of thick plywood, already marked with mud and footprints from their walking back and forth while in the center of the plywood decking the sides of the hole itself rose. The sides were sections of the corrugated steel, which extended out from the hole about two feet into the air with cinder blocks as steps set up against the side for standing and entry.

  Perched above the hole were the hoisting struts of the converted wrecker. A cable was attached to a harness in which a person could sit or in which material could be raised and lowered. Running into the hole was the large tube used for the pump, which was working overtime behind them, especially with the newly uncovered water. Water was still coming in and Mouse was sure that a good third of the inlets had evaded all that he and Captain Penny could conceive to locate them.

  Mouse estimated that the hole was now about thirty feet down. With the diameter of only four feet in the new section of the dig, the walls were relatively unstable even with the siding. The water pressure, even though it was not presently enough to flood, might collapse the walls again. He wanted to hurry up the exploration as much as he could. Still, Mouse was sure that the hole was clear of as much water as possible and wanted John to travel down again to check out the bottom under the water in the newly opened section.

  Andy stood by the side cheering John on as he was strapped into the harness. Captain Penny and Mouse manned the hoist motor and they lowered him away with large smiles on their faces. The light dimmed and the square of light over his head shrank as he went lower into the hole. He was listening to the squeal of the winch as it took up the strain of his weight when suddenly he heard a snap and felt himself falling.

  Above him, the Chesapeake dog began barking.

  His head entered the water. It was warm as it enveloped his body. He put his arms in front of him and felt his feet sink into the mud bottom. The salt in the water stung his eyes. Some advice of the Chief rushed through his mind.

  “You got to remember, if something happens to you, Neale, this whole thing goes into the courts and God only knows who will end up with the property after the lawyers get through with it. You got to stay healthy if you want to make sure the old man’s wishes are carried out.”

  The harness fell near him in the water. He turned upward and put his feet below him, struggling in the mud, then pushed upward. He needed fresh air; his lungs were about to burst. The salt water was stinging his skin. He cleared the surface and at the top of the shaft he could hear Mouse calling his name. He tried to answer but he was stunned from the fall. He blacked out.

  A few minutes later he woke up, feeling the Chesapeake licking his face.

  “You all right?” asked Andy, concern in her voice.

  John tried to sit up, fell back, then tried again and made it. “I guess I am,” he managed to say, his mouth tasting like salt.

  “Mouse went down and brought you up.”

  “The cable broke, that’s all,” said John.

  “No. It was cut,” said Mouse, holding a strand of thick wire. “I think there’s no doubt about it. Somebody wanted
you dead.”

  The words of the Chief pounded through his consciousness again.

  “You got to stay healthy.”

  “Who would do it?” Andy asked.

  “Someone could have got in here,” Mouse said. “I’ll show the cable to the Chief. Maybe he can have his people examine it for clues.”

  “That’s right,” said the Captain. “Jesse and Hoadley can’t see everything. The swamp is too big.”

  John nursed his bruises as he sat on the ground, thinking. The killer had come pretty close to killing him this time and was here in River Sunday. He looked at Andy. She was not safe either because she was with him. He would have to be more careful and watch out for her. After all it was his fault she was involved. His heart raced. He knew that he would be even more devastated if anything should happen to her now that he was aware of how warm and special she was.

  Mouse went down again to test the newly installed cable. When he came back, he said, “It gets firmer beneath the mud bottom. Lots of small rocks down in that mud. I don’t think it goes anywhere. I think we are at a dead end.”

  John said, “I’m going back down again. I want to see for myself.”

  When he got to the bottom, more of the water had been pumped. Only about a foot remained and he could see some of the stones that Mouse had lifted up from the bottom. He felt around and had to agree. This stonework was fill. However, the fact that they thought it was not hiding anything, seemed unlikely given that a slab had been put above to hide this area. Something was eluding them.

  He carefully examined the walls. When he went down this time he had brought a stronger light. He noticed the side of the hole that was toward the mound. The east section of the wall was firmer than the other sides as if it were made of something more solid than earth or clay.

  He looked at it and called for Mouse to send down a shaper instrument than he had with him, something tougher and wider than a knife. A shovel came down and next behind it sitting prettily on the cross bar attached to the line was Andy herself, her bare feet swinging.

  “What have you found?”

  “I don’t know. The wall is harder here. Let’s see what the shovel will uncover behind the surface.” He picked up the shovel and began to dig with its pointed edge. She had a trowel in her waist pack and began to work alongside him.

  “When will you get the water tests back?” he asked.

  “Soon I hope.” Her trowel and his shovel were producing results. He found a thin crease running straight across from side to side and about halfway up from the bottom.

  “That’s not natural,” she said. She took a small hammer and chisel from her pack and struck at the edge. A piece of the material broke off. John, meanwhile, began to uncover another crease running upward from the first line.

  She looked at the rock, first washing it off in the brine at the bottom of the hole and then turning it around and around in her fingers. “It’s more of that white rock, carefully cut to fit,” she finally pronounced.

  They worked faster now, clearing the wall. More creases were found which extended to a single shape.

  She finally said, “Stand back from the wall, John, and tell me what you see.”

  John realized what she meant. “It’s the same rectangle as we saw in the underneath of the rock.”

  “The trapezoid. I think it’s a doorway.”

  Mouse called, “Anything you guys need?”

  “Come down,” said John. “I’ll go up so you can see what we have found.”

  Captain Penny was waiting for John with a cup of coffee when he got to the surface. “What did you find?” he asked with a look of intense anticipation.

  “A wall of large stones around what might be a door.”

  The Captain looked at the hole and said slowly, “Something to carefully hide the entrance to whatever was hidden? It would be secure that’s for sure. It would also explain the reason for building all these inlets.”

  The four of them gathered around the pump engine after Mouse and Andy had returned to the surface.

  “Only two reasons for a wall and a door,” said Captain Penny.

  “To keep us out,” said Andy.

  “Yeah,” said John, “And to keep something in.”

  “That wall was cut by someone very skilled in stonework,” said Andy, thoughtfully.

  “Point is, can we try to open what looks like a door without bringing the whole wall down on top of us?” said John.

  “I think so,” said Mouse.

  “How would you do it,” asked the Captain.

  Mouse said, “The stones of that wall are self-supporting, offset like a well-constructed dwelling.”

  “Yes, the wall seems well engineered,” said Andy.

  Captain Penny added, “They didn’t find a wall like this at Oak Island that I know of.”

  John said, “Can you pull out the stone?”

  Mouse replied, walking back and forth as he thought, “Yes, I’d put eyelets into it, drill and sink them, then pull on them to extract the stone. Of course, I’d consult with experts first.” Mouse winked and called his father from his guard post at the gate. They conferred and the older man climbed into the cab of the wrecker. He descended to the ground holding a large portable drill.

  “I’ll have the eyelets bolts installed in a jiffy.” he said.

  Mouse helped him get into the harness and they stood around the hole as the older man went down. Then they listened to the shriek of the drill bit as it tore into the rock. “Drill is overheating but we’re making progress,” Jesse called.

  Then the whine of the drill became faster. “We’re through,” Jesse yelled. “Hard stuff to drill but I got it. Send down the iron.”

  Two large eyelets of steel were hoisted to the old man and twisted into the drill holes in the white stone door panel. Cable was then attached and Mouse brought his father up from the hole for safety. “Even though I’m figuring it’s secure, that wall may still come down.”

  “I think it’s meant to come out,” said the Captain. “That’s the only thing that makes any sense.”

  Fortunately the doorway was easier than they had thought to pull loose. In a few minutes, the cable brought to the surface a carefully chiseled trapezoid shaped piece of stone.

  “Behold a door,” said Mouse with a smile.

  “It was meant to come out all right,” John said.

  The smell of the air that was coming up from the bottom of the hole had become musty, overcoming the once stronger smell of salt.

  “I can smell an opening down there,” said John.

  All they could see from the surface using their lights was a black space outlining an opening on the surface of the wall.

  John rushed down grabbing a flashlight. After a moment at the bottom, he called up. “You better come down, Andy. It looks like two more dead bodies in the space.”

  After she arrived she spent several minutes examining the figures John had discovered. They were lying side-by-side, heads to the back in the newly opened side. They were half covered with earth, what John thought was part of the ceiling that had collapsed on them. The one on the left was wrapped in the remains of a quilted fabric while the one on the right showed near his skull large circular pieces of metal, probably silver or gold she could not be sure.

  “These are different costumes or uniform. Maybe different tribes,” she exclaimed as she probed the skeletons.

  She sat back on her legs and said, “What puzzles me is the use of the trapezoid and the type of stonework. It’s like what I have seen at Inca ruins. Yet the costumes may not be Inca.”

  “We need to go into the chamber and look around,” said John.

  “Shine your light in here,” Andy called, as she half straddled the body on the left.

  She pointed to the back of the chamber and John saw that a tunnel sloped upward.

  John felt water moving against his legs. “Water is trickling back in and it’s time for us to go up again,” he said. “Speed up the pu
mp,” he called to Mouse.

  “You better come up until we get control of this water,” Mouse called back. “The pump is running as hard as it can.”

  They moved back to the hoist. She said, “I’ll do some research on these figures. There’s something about those round pieces of metal on the skeleton that rings a bell in my memory.”

  Up at the top again, they stood around in huddle, talking about what they had seen. John said, “That tunnel slope is toward the mound.”

  “Yes,” Andy said and added, “I don’t think the tunnel comes from the local Nanticokes though.”

  “Why is that?” Mouse asked.

  “Costumes of those dead people are not Nanticoke. Besides, no Native American would violate something that had the remains of dead humans in his path. I know that would be taboo,” answered Andy.

  John knew what all of them were thinking. They had found something far bigger than a pirate lode. He looked at the others. He looked again at the fence where Jesse and Hoadley stood and wondered how long that would hold back outsiders once they found out about the doorway. They would find out, too, of that he was sure.

  He said to Andy, “Do you think this has anything to do with the legends of the children that your father worked on?”

  She looked back at him, then said, “I don’t know. Anyway, we might be closer to answering that question.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Whatever it is down there, I think those Spanish explorers knew more than we do about what it was. I’d bet that was what they were after before the water stopped them.”

  Chapter 17

  Thursday, July 18, 9 AM

  It was the twelfth day since the old priest had died.

  When John had read his Baltimore Sun earlier this morning he had noticed a small article in an inner page. The Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore had announced the halt of Cathedral reconstruction. He wondered if his lack of enthusiasm for the Monsignor’s plea for some of the treasure proceeds had anything to do with this decision. Perhaps the churchman had noticed the homeless across the road and that had played into his report to his superiors, although he doubted it. The Monsignor seemed dedicated to building his structure and unlikely to bend to anything but lack of funds.