Sarcophagus

by Ben Hammott

  He glanced toward the door-less exit where faint moonlight intruded partway into the gloom-filled room. He couldn’t wait to exchange this squalor for rooms in the best hotels. Beautiful women, who wouldn’t have wasted their spit on him before, would beg for his attention when he had the gold. Chico smiled in the darkness. After tonight life will be really good.

  Chico climbed to his feet, stepped across the sleeping forms, and slipped out into the courtyard. Clouds swept across the sky lit by a half-moon, leaving much of the courtyard shrouded in shadow, ideal for his premeditated act of thievery. First, there was something he had to do if he was going to escape unseen with the gold. He glanced across the deserted space toward the courtyard exit and saw no sign of Honoy, the man tasked with guarding the site tonight. Furtively, and with murder on his mind, Chico drew his knife and sought out the man. He found Honoy sitting on the ground with his back against a tree snoring in a deep sleep. Chico smiled cruely—perfect.

  A few stealthy steps brought him to the sleeping sentry. Chico crouched, stared at the dribble seeping from the corner of the Honoy’s mouth, and was about to stab him in the heart when he paused. Worried his victim might scream before he died and alert others to his foul deed, Chico moved the dirty blade to Honoy’s throat. The man’s eyes sprung open when the knife touched flesh.

  The surprise at seeing Chico looming over him transformed into fear when Honoy recognized the murderous intent in his eyes.

  Chico swiftly drew his blade across the man’s throat when Honoy opened his mouth to scream and dodged aside as blood spurted briefly. Chico stared at the warm fluid seeping from the wound as the man’s life ebbed away. He wiped the blood from the knife on the dead man’s shirt before heading back inside the ancient city.

  Chico crossed the courtyard to the temple and stepped inside. He headed for the room where the gold crates had been stored and ran his eyes over them as he picked out the first one he would steal. Though gold was as much a stranger to him as affectionate women he hadn’t paid to have sex, he was aware gold was heavy and would limit the amount he could carry if the crates were crammed with precious artifacts.

  To test the size of the crates he would be able to escape with, he moved to one about three feet square and two high resting on two smaller crates. When he slipped his fingers underneath and lifted, his back cracked loudly. Dropping the crate, Chico groaned painfully. Sweat ran down his brow as he put a hand to his spine where it seemed someone had stabbed him with a red-hot poker. Chico stifled a scream when he forced his back straight with a repeating crack of bone.

  Breathing deeply until the pain waned to a throb, he moved to a smaller crate that was two feet wide by one foot and three long. This time he gripped it under his arm and lifted it a couple of inches to check it wasn’t too heavy. Satisfied he could manage the weight, he picked it up and headed for the exit. When his movements shifted the objects inside, they slid toward one end. The unexpected weight shift caught Chico by surprise. The front tipped to the ground and smashed into his boot. Chico cursed as he dropped the crate and hopped around on his good foot. When he felt blood oozing into his boot, Chico sat on the dropped crate and slipped it off, grimacing with pain when the coarse leather scraped the wound.

  Taking deep breaths, he looked at the damage. It looked like his big toe had exploded. Black with grime, the nail, like the rest of Chico’s body, was a stranger to soap and water. It hung to the side and blood seeped from the crushed digit. After letting forth a string of whispered expletives that would have made Lucifer blush, his fingers gingerly approached the loose nail. He thrust his fist in his mouth as he pulled it free and dropped it to the floor. Chico panted rapidly while he waited for the pain to subside slightly, and then carefully, inch by inch, threaded his foot into the boot. He climbed to his feet and glared hatefully at the crate when he picked it up nearer the front this time. He kept it level so the objects inside wouldn’t shift again and limped toward the exit.

  Chico halted at the temple entrance and cast a furtive gaze around the courtyard. Satisfied he was the only one present, he grinned greedily, readjusted his grip on the crate and, careful not to put weight on his damaged toe, headed across the deserted open space. Excruciating pain shot up his leg when his wounded foot stubbed against the edge of a raised slab. Grabbing at the crate that threatened to slip from his grasp, Chico forced his lips tightly shut to halt the scream that had climbed up his throat. His features contorted into a pained grimace that turned his face red.

  Though it was an impossible feat, Chico tried to ignore the pain that erupted with every limping, agonizing step he took toward the city exit and along the path that crossed the stream to the clifftop. Careful not to drop it on his foot again, he placed the crate on the ground and sat on it to rest for a few moments.

  Greed for more gold drove him back for a second helping. The sound of the gently flowing stream gave him an idea. Chico sat beside the stream, carefully slipped off his boot and dipped the wounded toe gingerly into the cold water. Though it hurt on first contact, the pain faded as the cold rush of water numbed his toe. Chico let out a sigh of relief and then screamed when something nipped at his toe. As he yanked it from the water, he noticed a fish swim away with a trail of blood leaking from something in its mouth. Chico looked at his toe and saw a chunk missing, then sobbed despairingly. Life really shouldn’t be this hard.

  After ripping off a piece of his filthy, sweat-stained shirt and bandaging what was left of his destroyed toe, Chico carefully slipped his boot on and headed for the temple.

  It took him two hours to carry three more crates to the cliff edge, ten minutes to tie them together and thirty seconds to stretch the rope near enough to slip the hook under the bindings. He walked to the cliff edge and peered down. In the gloom below he picked out a shape he assumed was one of the boats he planned to steal. He grabbed the end of the rope that fed through the block and tackle to the hook fastened onto the four boxes of gold and pulled; nothing happened. He tried again. When that didn’t work, he hung on the rope, but still the boxes stubbornly remained on the ground.

  Thinking something was jammed somewhere, he peered up at the block and tackle. Not being mechanically minded, the problem remained a mystery. Chico was determined not to be beaten and pondered the problem for a few moments before crossing to the crates and staring at them. Suddenly he had an idea. He let go of the rope, sat with his back against the crate bundle and shoved it toward the cliff. When the bottom edge of a crate overhung the cliff a few inches, he climbed to his feet and grabbed the rope. He passed it behind his back like he had seen mountain climbers do, and wrapped the rope around his wrist a few times. Satisfied his grip was secure, he used a shoulder to tip the crates over the edge.

  As soon as they disappeared from his sight, Chico backed away from the edge and prepared to take the weight of the crates hurtling toward the river below. The rope snapped taut and whizzed through the block and tackle wheels with a sound like a swarm of killer bees on the attack. Chico shot into the air with a twisting motion that wrapped the rope around his chest and neck and gave Chico the first hint that not all was going strictly according to his carefully conceived plan. His hand and arm were forced through the block and tackle and over the wheels, breaking fingers and wrist. Chico screamed. The friction of the rope pulled along his wedged arm, through his broken fingers and around his neck, caused his skin to start smoking and another terrified, pain-wracked scream erupted from its owner. The scream was cut short when the rope yanked tight around his throat. As his eyes bulged and he gasped for breath, he frantically grabbed for his knife with his free hand, but he fumbled it in his haste and it slid from his fingers.

  Chico watched the blade that could have saved him, fall. He stared at the crates of gold he thought were going to change his life for the better, but had instead brought it to an abrupt halt, swinging far below like the pendulum of a clock ticking away his final few seconds of life.

  *****

  Greyson ga
zed around the courtyard at the rays of early morning light penetrating through the tree canopy and thought what a magical place this was. While he observed the group of dark-skinned men waiting for Kramer to appear and inform them of their duties for the day, he wondered what they thought of the white men’s obsession with the past when their concern lay with the future—their tribe’s safety and wellbeing and enough food to eat.

  Kramer exited from one of the buildings. “Good morning, Greyson. How did you sleep?”

  “Morning, Kramer, better thanks, but I’m eager to get the artifacts loaded on the boats and be on my way.”

  “Let’s see how today goes. If all goes according to plan, you should be able to set off tomorrow.” Kramer scratched at his beard as he glanced at the waiting men. “I suppose, as it’s the largest item, the sarcophagus will have to be loaded first. We’ll head for the cliff, but to save going empty-handed, we’ll take some of the artifact crates with us.”

  Kramer issued orders to his workers before heading for the temple.

  Greyson fell in step with Kramer. “Where are the boat captains?”

  “They slept on their boats. I sent a message down to them to inform them we’ll be loading the sarcophagus first and to maneuver one of the boats below the improvised crane.”

  With the men following, Kramer and Greyson entered the temple.

  When they entered the room where the crates had been stored, they noticed they weren’t as they had left them the day before.

  Greyson crossed to the crates now separate from the neat stack. “Someone’s been here,” he stated worriedly.

  Kramer moved along the crates. “I’m not sure, but I think some of the smaller crates are missing.”

  Greyson’s suspicious gaze fell upon the men waiting by the doorway. “Where’s Chico?”

  “I haven’t seen him today, but that’s not unusual as he often lies in until he is roused.” Kramer asked his men and turned to Greyson. “They haven’t seen him either. He was gone when they awoke.”

  “Damn!” cursed Greyson, convinced Chico was responsible. He wondered what precious items had been stolen. “He can’t have gone far even with one crate, and it looks like a few are missing.”

  “Even so, there’s not a lot we can do about it at the moment, so let’s start moving the crates down to the crane and we can search for any signs that might give us a clue us which way Chico headed. As you said, he can’t have got far humping the crates he stole, so maybe we’ll be able to catch up with him.”

  After the workmen had been loaded with crates, Kramer and Greyson went ahead to look for any tracks Chico may have left for them to follow.

  When they came across the murdered guard by the entrance, they realized how desperate and dangerous Chico was. Kramer drew his revolver and carried on. They reached the cliff top and stared up at the flies swarming around Chico’s suspended corpse. It was obvious what had happened. The crates had been too heavy for him to hold and had pulled him into the block and tackle mechanism. The rope that had somehow wrapped around his neck had strangled him.

  “I can think of more pleasant ways to die,” said Kramer.

  Tutankhamen’s curse popped into Greyson’s thoughts. He hoped this wasn’t a sign they had one of their own and Chico was its first victim. He walked to the cliff and peered over the edge. The crates were on the end of the rope about fifty feet above the boat moving in position below it.

  “Chico stole four crates. No wonder the idiot couldn’t stop them from falling.” He glanced up at Chico’s gruesome corpse. “We’ll have to wait for the men before attempting to free him.”

  Kramer glanced back along the path. “Here they come.”

  Chico’s body fell to the ground when some of the men pulled the rope back through the block and tackle. Chico smelt bad enough when he was awake, but he spelt far worse now. Feasting insects had already started consuming the flesh and others had burrowed inside to lay their eggs for the soon to hatch offspring to enjoy their first meal. Kramer and Greyson moved the corpse far enough away so they couldn’t smell its decaying stench; they would bury it later. After they had checked the boat was in position, Kramer signaled Tembi they were going to lower the crates already attached to the rope.

  When the load came into reach, the two captains guided them into the boat’s hold.

  A second block and tackle was rigged to a stout tree to reduce the strain on the men. The contraption creaked alarmingly when the heavy sarcophagus was raised off the ground, but it held. It was slowly swung out over the cliff and lowered onto the boat without any mishap. For the next few hours, the men brought the crates to the cliff top, and Kramer and Greyson lowered them to the boats. When one boat had sufficient crates aboard but not so much that it was overladen, the boats exchanged places.

  After the last of the crates had been brought to the cliff top, Greyson returned to the temple and selected the best of the six warrior corpses. He measured them for crate sizes and two men went to build them. He also had the Xibalba stone brought up from below and taken to the boat. Aware it was his last chance to pick out anything he wanted to take back to England for his exhibition, Greyson wandered around the temple, snapping off more photographs as he went.

  He would have liked to take all the large statues that stood in the temple’s entrance hall, but their size made them heavy and awkward to move. Also, if he wanted to catch the ship leaving for England in three days, he couldn’t afford the delay of transporting them all. He chose four to be taken to the boats and hoped when his superiors at the museum saw them and his photos of the statues that remained, they would send a better prepared team out to collect those he would leave behind. It was also a good bet that Kramer would find more artifacts as he explored the rest of the small, amazing city.

  Greyson exited the temple and explored the buildings around the courtyard. The first few were empty and one had a tree growing inside that stretched two floors and protruded from its caved-in roof. When he crawled between the roots of the large tree that almost blocked the opening, he had better luck. The building contained a collection of jade artifacts to rival any previously discovered. There were necklaces, earrings, small statues depicting gods, deities, plants and animals. Blocks marked with glyphs, mosaic pendants and belt buckles formed of small pieces of varying shades of jade, a carved wooden chest full of jade beads and ornaments. After Greyson had photographed everything, he went to inform Kramer of the discovery and have some new crates constructed to store them in.

  When Kramer was informed of the new discovery, he returned with Greyson to see the jade artifacts for himself. The crates arrived, but wouldn’t fit through the gap between the roots, so Greyson passed the objects out and Kramer wrapped them in grass and packed them in the boxes.

  Night had fallen when they had loaded the last crate aboard the boats. It had been a long and tiring day, and all were glad it was at last over. After a meal and a few celebratory beers, the tired archeologists and workforce retired to their beds. All slept soundly.

  The following morning, Greyson waved a final goodbye to Kramer standing on the jetty as Tembi coaxed his boat away from shore, and with his cousin’s boat following, they entered the mist rolling across the river and disappeared.

  The river journey would last two days.

  *****

  After Greyson had supervised the unloading of the crates from the two boats and had them transported to the quay to be loaded aboard the Amazongas, a cargo ship with twelve crew and room for thirty passengers leaving port for England the next day, he watched as one of the quay workers stenciled PROPERTY OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM OF ANT, ARCH, ZOO, LONDON on every crate. When that had been completed, he stood aside as they were placed onto loading pallets, hoisted aboard and stowed in the ship’s cargo hold.

  Greyson relaxed only when the last load had disappeared into the bowels of the ship. He had made no mention of the golden artifacts on the ship’s manifest, describing the contents as statues, pottery, mummified remains,
a stone sarcophagus and other miscellaneous artifacts. Tomorrow they would start their journey to England. In a few days, they would be safely deposited in one the Museum’s storerooms to be catalogued, cleaned and readied for their grand unveiling in a few weeks’ time. With one last glance at the ship, Greyson headed for his hotel a short distance away.

  *****

  The following morning, Baraz Mumfi approached the dock and moved through the bustling crowd of dockworkers, seamen and passengers. Avoiding dock officials, he furtively weaved a route through the piles of luggage and cargo shortly to be loaded aboard the waiting vessels that lined the docks. When Baraz spied the ship he was seeking, he concealed himself behind a pile of stacked loading pallets. From his hiding place, he observed the officials at the top of the gangplank checking passengers’ tickets and boarding passes before allowing them onboard.

  Though unable to afford the fare and lacking both documents, Baraz knew there were other ways to get aboard the ship. His shifty eyes followed the pallet of grain sacks swinging from a loading crane being maneuvered over the ship and lowered into the cargo hold. He moved along the quay toward the loaded cargo pallets that would soon be lifted aboard and observed two children, a boy and girl, moving sneakily amongst them. The boy freed a corner of the tarp covering a stack of heaped wooden crates and started rearranging the load. A mirthless smile appeared on Baraz’s thin lips when the boy and girl slithered beneath the cover and disappeared. It seems he wasn’t the only one who sought free passage on the vessel.

  Eleven-year-old Penny Frobisher and her twelve-year-old brother, Sam, were parentless and on the run. Two days previously they had absconded from the dismal orphanage ruled by the strict hand of Griselda Grimstyne, a German immigrant and suspected communist. When first one parent and shortly after the other, had succumbed to malaria, the children found themselves alone in the strange land employment had brought their parents to. They had pleaded with the authorities to contact their aunt in England, so she could come and collect them, but after a lackluster attempt by unconcerned officials to contact their aunt had failed, they were placed under Grimstyne’s cruel care. After two months of enduring Grimstyne’s harsh regime, inedible food, damp beds and cold rooms, they had fled as soon as the opportunity had presented itself. Their plan was to somehow get to England and find their aunt so they could live with her.