The Sean Wyatt Series Box Set 4

by Ernest Dempsey

  Reece led the way through the last bend in the trail. At the base of the mountainous rocks, the visitors were able to truly appreciate just how overwhelmingly enormous the formations were.

  "I can see why ancient people would have had such respect for these things," Adriana said. "They dominate the landscape."

  "Yeah," Reece agreed. "They're big 'uns." He pointed to the left. "Let's keep moving."

  They marched for another five minutes until they reached the wide gap between the center rock formation and the one farthest to the north. A dry wind rolled across the plains and kicked up spurts of dust.

  "I have to ask," Reece said, "do you guys have any idea what we're looking for? I mean in general, not just here. It's just that, I see why we're here at this place. We're looking for a treasure map or something. But what's the treasure?"

  Sean and Tommy exchanged glances. Sean answered first. "Honestly, we're not real sure about that. For that Mathews guy to go to so much trouble looking for it and set up this elaborate crumb trail, though, I'd say it's gotta be significant."

  "Yup," Reece agreed. "I was thinking the same thing."

  "Don't you think that's something we should start considering?" Adriana asked. "I've been wondering the same thing. What if we find it but don't know what it is we've found?"

  "I suspect," Tommy said, "that when we discover whatever it is, we'll know it."

  "I hope you're right," Reece huffed. He stopped at the opening. "This is where the clue said to go." He pointed into the chasm between the big rock formations. "So keep your eyes open."

  Tommy pulled out his phone and looked at the riddle again. "It says something about rivers marking the way. Are there any rivers here?"

  Reece's head slowly twisted back and forth. "Nope. Afraid not, mate."

  Tommy jerked back. "Wait. Then how is this the right place?"

  "Rock art, Tom. Be on the lookout for drawings on the stone. I suspect that's what the riddle means."

  "Oh. Yeah. I knew that," he lied. "Rock art and snakes. Got it."

  "Actually, even though Australia has some of the most venomous snakes in the world, it's pretty rare when they bite a human."

  "Pretty rare?" Sean asked with a twinge of apprehension.

  "Yeah. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. Usually when someone is drunk and showing off for a friend. Or sometimes when people are somewhere they shouldn't be."

  "Like a rock canyon in the middle of the Australian outback?"

  "Don't worry," Reece said. "We won't see any snakes. And if you do, just shoot it." He flashed a wink and loosened the pistol in his holster. He trudged ahead without looking back.

  "That doesn't exactly instill a bunch of confidence, does it?" Tommy asked.

  "Nope," Sean said.

  Adriana shook her head and walked by the two friends. "Catch up, you two. Want me to hold your hand?"

  "Technically," Sean said, "it's okay if she holds my hand." He followed close behind her, leaving Tommy alone at the mouth of the chasm.

  "Just being safe is all," Tommy said to himself. "I like to be prepared. Nothing wrong with that."

  Something twitched in the bushes twenty feet away. A shiver shot up his spine, and he hurried ahead to catch up.

  The visitors stepped into the shade of the huge sandstone. Within the narrow confines of the chasm, the temperature felt noticeably cooler—at least by two or three degrees. The opening between the two rocks was fifteen feet or so at its narrowest point, but widened to thirty or more at its broadest.

  The group stayed close together, especially Tommy. He nearly tripped on Sean's shoes several times as they walked deeper into the gap.

  When they reached a point where the opening grew much wider, Sean branched off from the group. "I'm going to check this side. There are some shrubs blocking the view of the rock. Reece, you and Tommy take the other side."

  "Good idea," Reece said. "Come on, Tom."

  "So we're just going off the trail. Perfect. Good things always happen when you veer off the path." He muttered the sarcastic words to himself.

  Adriana joined Sean on the right. They crept forward, carefully eyeing the base of the rock for any signs of what could be art. After a few minutes of looking, he stopped and shouted over at the other two.

  "You guys find anything?"

  "Pretty sure we would have let you know!" Tommy yelled.

  "No need to be a smart aleck!"

  "Then don't ask obvious questions!"

  "You two are like a married couple sometimes," Adriana said.

  Sean smirked. "Jealous?"

  She shrugged. "Maybe a little." The corner of her mouth creased up the right side of her cheek. "Back to work, mister."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  They moved forward, scouring the stone for any signs of ancient drawings, but nothing appeared. It was only another three minutes before they heard a shout from the other side of the chasm.

  "Sean?" Tommy shouted.

  "Yeah!"

  "I think we found it!"

  "Be right there!"

  "No, wait!"

  Sean and Adriana exchanged a surprised expression and then ran out from the bushes and rocks, across the path and to where Tommy and Reece hovered around something on the rock wall.

  "What is it?" Sean asked as they approached.

  "See for yourself," Reece said and pointed at the wall.

  They followed his finger to a point on the rock about waist high. The drawings were subtle, barely noticeable compared to most they'd seen in the past—probably due to exposure for a few thousand years. They were definitely man-made designs, though, and two of them stood out more than others.

  Figures of people were etched into the rock, all standing around a bunch of squiggly lines. Again, there were several circles within circles, just like they'd seen with the last clue at the Baiame cave.

  "What are they doing?" Adriana asked, putting her hands on her hips.

  "From the looks of it," Sean said, "it's a bunch of people standing around water." He motioned to the wavy lines. "I mean, I'm just guessing those represent water. My expertise on Aboriginal drawings is a bit meager."

  "No, that's a pretty common thing," Tommy said. "While their art may differ in many ways, if I was Mathews, that's what I would have thought it meant. Keep in mind, we're tracing his steps, not the steps of the people who left these here."

  "Good point. Now my question is, what is that?"

  At the base of the monolith, the flat surface of a creamy white stone poked out of the ground.

  The other three looked where Sean pointed. The foreign rock almost blended with the color of the sand surrounding it, but not perfectly. It was shielded from the path by a few large bushes, and even if someone had noticed it, they likely wouldn't have thought anything of it.

  Sean and the others knew better.

  "Where light turns dark," Tommy said in a low tone.

  Everyone took another moment to gaze at the odd rock before Reece spoke up. "So, dig it up?"

  "Definitely. We'll need something to dig out the packed earth around it." Tommy bent down and then crouched to get a closer look. He shifted his feet to the right and brushed his back against a nearby bush.

  A sudden hiss and crinkle of dried grass behind him froze Tommy in place. "Guys? What was that?"

  The other three looked behind him and immediately saw the danger. A long snake with blended black and light brown scales coiled next to the bush only four feet away from where Tommy crouched, terrified.

  "Is that what I think it is?" Tommy asked. His legs were already burning from being in a baseball catcher's position.

  "Tommy," Reece said, "stay perfectly still."

  "Easy for you to say. My quads are on fire."

  "Don't move," Reece ordered in a deeply serious tone. "That's a fierce snake."

  "Fierce snake? That doesn't sound good."

  "It's a Liru. Locals call them Mulgas or King Browns. If you stay still, he won't come after you.
Most of the time they don't bite people."

  Tommy's voice trembled. "Yeah, you said most of the time. That means some of the time they do bite people."

  "Don't you worry about that, mate. I got this one." Reece unbuckled the button on his knife sheath and flipped it to the side. Inch by inch, he carefully drew the knife—the whole time keeping an eye on his prey.

  "Would you mind terribly hurrying it up a little," Tommy hissed. "Just shoot the thing."

  Sean and Adriana had initially had the same thought, but Reece wasn't drawing his pistol for a reason. In the rocky chasm, a bullet could ricochet in unpredictable ways. They saw Reece's reaction and trusted the more experienced man's wisdom.

  Just in case, however, Sean had his weapon at the ready.

  Reece pinched the knife tip with his thumb and forefinger. The blade was a long hunting knife. Tommy remembered thinking it was a tad excessive when he first saw it. Now he wished Reece carried a long sword.

  "Stay still," Reece reminded. He raised the knife over his shoulder and eased his right foot back to get a steady position. "It's still there, Tom. He's lookin' at you. Just relax."

  "My legs are about to give out." Tommy said. Sweat poured down the side of his horrified face. His legs began to tremble violently.

  "Steady." Reece sized up the snake one last time. "Steady, Tom. If I miss, it will just piss him off."

  "Not helping, Reece. Can you just kill it already?"

  Reece's arm whipped forward like a catapult. The shiny blade flashed through the air, only turning over once before the tip sank through the snake's neck just behind the head. Tommy fell forward against the base of the monolith, his legs still quivering.

  "Did you get it?"

  Reece swallowed and then gave a nod. "Yeah, I got him."

  Tommy looked over at where the other three were staring. Reece's knife stuck out of the ground with a writhing serpent between the handle and dirt. Tommy got up and staggered over to where his companions watched the dying snake trying in vain to wiggle free.

  It took nearly four minutes before the reptile stopped moving. When it finally appeared to be dead, Reece took a deep breath and stepped over to retrieve his knife.

  "Wait," Tommy said. He put out a hand to keep his friend from getting too close. "You sure it's dead? I mean, give it another minute or two."

  Reece flashed him a toothy grin. "He's a goner, Tom. Won't be bothering anyone again."

  He reached down and pulled the knife out of the ground and kicked the dead serpent several feet away. It didn't move other than a few nerves in the tail causing it to flick around now and then.

  Reece eyed the blood on his blade and then wiped it off with some leaves from the bush.

  As he put the knife back in its sheath, Tommy stared at him with silent admiration. "You know, for a second there I thought that thing was going to get me. Is that a very poisonous snake?"

  "Mulgas? Sure. That snake has some of the deadliest venom in the world."

  "You said they don't bite people very often. Were you just saying that?"

  "Nah. They don't. Only a handful of blokes die from Mulga bites every year. That being said, their venom can kill ya in about forty-five minutes if they do get ya."

  "It's a good thing you're so experienced with that knife," Sean said.

  "This thing? I've never used it like that before."

  Tommy's face grew instantly concerned. "Wait. What do you mean, like you've never killed a snake with it like that before?"

  "Nah, Tom. I mean I've never even thrown it like that before. Much less to kill a venomous snake. To be honest, I wasn't sure if I could do it or not. I'll have to remember that little trick. Now, you blokes want to get something to dig up this piece of rock, or are we going to stand around here all day talking about snakes?"

  Tommy stared in disbelief at Reece. Sean bit his lower lip to keep from laughing.

  "It's not funny, man. I could have been killed," Tommy said.

  "Oh don't be so dramatic," Sean said. "You heard Reece. It would have taken you forty-five minutes to die."

  "Thank you. Very helpful. Now can we please just try to not talk about the snake anymore and dig this thing up?"

  17

  Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park

  Finding anything useful in the way of digging tools was a chore in and of itself. Sean offered to run back to the vehicle to get some things, but Tommy insisted they didn't have time. The setting sun to the west wasn't slowing down, and dusk would be on them soon.

  They still had a good ninety minutes of daylight, but Sean decided not to chase the point. Instead, they found some sticks and small rocks that served the purpose albeit slower than actual tools.

  As they cut away at decades of packed dirt, the group realized the white stone was almost a perfectly shaped rectangle. It measured about two feet in length and eighteen inches across. Fortunately, they didn't have to dig very deep to figure out what it was.

  Almost twenty minutes into their work, Sean stopped and pointed. "It's a lid," he said.

  Adriana leaned over his shoulder and spied the inch-thick stone top. "And a matching box underneath."

  "Would be nice if we had something to pry it off," Sean said, casting an accusatory look at Tommy. "Like, I don't know, a crow bar?"

  Tommy sighed. "You may have to go get one of those," he resigned. He ran his finger along the seam between the stone container and the lid. This seam is too tight for us to use our fingers."

  "And I don't feel like breaking my knife," Reece added.

  Sean didn't put up an argument. He turned and trotted back toward the path and a minute later was out of the chasm and back on the main trail. The sun dipped low on the horizon, much lower than he believed it to be when he checked the time while digging.

  It was getting late.

  He picked up the pace and jogged back to the car. There were only a few tools in their gear bags for doing any sort of excavation: brushes, some small spades, nothing that would really help to lift the stone lid. The car's tire iron, however, did have a nice flat edge to it that would make getting leverage on the heavy object a little easier. Lifting it up enough, on the other hand, might prove impossible."

  Sean grabbed one of the spades—just in case—and the tire iron, and started back for the chasm. Something glinted on the eastern horizon, and he froze in place.

  "What's that?" he muttered. He kept staring out into the growing darkness to see if he could figure where the burst of light came from. His eyes narrowed, and he put the bridge of his hand against his forehead to shield it from the waning sun. "Must be seeing things."

  From time to time, Sean's instincts were a little too on edge. He heard noises in the night that turned out to be nothing. That didn't keep him from staying awake for another hour on those nights.

  He started back toward the gap and stopped again to give one last look. He searched the horizon close to where he'd seen the glint. Still nothing. Maybe it was an animal, a stray dog with a shiny collar, perhaps. Sean shook it off and hit the trail.

  It took him less than eight minutes to get back.

  "What took you so long?" Tommy asked.

  Sean decided not to bring up whatever it was that had distracted him. No need to worry the others over nothing. "Thought we had more digging supplies than this."

  He handed the tire iron to Reece. "Care to do the honors?"

  "Sure."

  "Why not me?" Tommy protested.

  Sean's eyebrows knit together. "I don't want you to hurt yourself. And that stone looks heavy."

  "It can't be that heavy." He crossed his arms and did his best to sound offended.

  "I didn't say it was."

  Adriana covered her mouth to hide the laughter.

  Reece pressed the iron against Tommy's chest and stepped in front of him. "Excuse me."

  Reece bent his knees and shoved the iron's sharp edge against the tight seam between the two pieces of stone. He had to wiggle it back and forth before it
worked into the opening. Tommy and Adriana watched with intense anticipation. Sean, however, kept looking over his shoulder back toward the entrance to the chasm, just in case.

  Reece tried to pry the lid up, but the iron's edge slipped out. He grunted in frustration and started over again, working the slim piece of metal back into the gap. The second time, he shimmied it back and forth in a wider arc until the flat piece was deep into the seam. He looked over at the others. "Be ready when I get this thing up," he said. "Brace it with your spades if you can. Then we can all get a grip underneath it and lift it up."

  The others nodded. Sean and Adriana crouched down to the lid and held the little tools close.

  "Ready," Sean said.

  "I feel useless," Tommy said, still sounding pouty.

  "You are. Okay, Reece, do it."

  Before Tommy could retort, Reece lifted the tire iron. He used as much leverage as he could and—at the same time—kept shoving the thing forward so it wouldn't slip out. As soon as the heavy lid was a few inches off its seat, Sean and Adriana wedged the flat ends of their spades under it. Reece pulled the iron out and dropped it on the sand. The lid stayed elevated, propped up at a tenuous angle.

  "Should probably go ahead and get this thing open all the way," Reece said. "Don't know how long those little shovels are going to hold."

  Tommy stepped in next to him and grabbed the underside of the lid. "What are you waiting for?" he asked.

  Reece grinned and gripped the lid. The two grunted and lifted the flat stone. Moving it was slow at first, but when they got it high enough, Sean had room to grab a corner and help. With his assistance, the thing went up easily, and a moment later, the lid reached its zenith and toppled over, crashing to the ground on the other side.

  Dust erupted on all sides and sent up a cloud around the immediate area for a minute. The visitors waved their hands around to clear the air faster. When the dust finally settled, they all leaned in a little closer, staring into the white stone box. It was empty.

  For a few seconds, the group didn't believe—or didn't want to believe—there was nothing in the chest. The drive, the effort to lift the lid, all the time they'd wasted, and for what? To find nothing?