Hot on the Trail

by JoAnn Ross

Relenting, Davina returned his grin as she ran a finger down his jawline. "I'm holding you to that, McGee."

  He turned his head, catching her finger between his lips. "What would you say to a pool of sparkling fresh water, fed by a cool mountain stream?"

  Her eyes widened. "That's the surprise?"

  Sam's answering grin confirmed it. "Is it worth waiting for?"

  Davina tilted her head back, giving him a long, appraising look. Sam had never been so thoroughly mentally undressed by a woman before and was finding the experience admittedly unsettling. But rather nice, he decided. Actually, it was damn nice.

  "I suppose it is," Davina admitted at length, her eyes warming with provocatively sensual lights. "But just barely."

  The respite at the pool was everything Sam had promised. Taking time out from their tireless search for Naj Taxim and Jordan Lowell, they frolicked in the jade-colored waters like carefree children. Later, refreshed and renewed, they made lengthy, joyous love before continuing their journey down the river.

  They had been traveling for about an hour when a boatman approached them.

  "What does he want?" Davina asked, after Sam and the Indian had exchanged words. For all her knowledge of native dialects, the man could have just as easily been speaking Greek.

  "He's offering to guide us to some recently found ruins," Sam said.

  Although Davina could not understand the boatman's words, his furtive manner came through loud and clear. "What he means is that although the archaeologists haven't found the site, the looters have had a field day," she guessed.

  "I'd say that's a distinct possibility."

  Davina looked from the strangely guarded, waiting man to Sam, then back again. "I suppose we should check it out."

  "If you want." His tone was decidedly unenthusiastic.

  "It could be Naj Taxim."

  "And it could be just another plundered site."

  She combed her fingers through her curly hair. "Still—"

  Suppressing a look of frustration, Sam turned back to the man with a rapid string of unintelligible words. A moment later the boatman was tying up his canoe, Sam and Davina following suit as they beached their own raft.

  The silent Indian led them through a maze of thick underbrush to where, almost hidden under tangled vines and guarded by limestone outcrops and giant ceiba trees, they found the tumbled walls.

  "You're right," Davina said sadly. "It's a false alarm."

  Sam had taken Davina's hand to assist her over a fallen tree. He squeezed her fingers in a reassuring gesture. "Now that we've come all this way, we might as well see what the guy has to offer. If nothing else, you can go back to Boston University the first archaeologist in the field of Mesoamerican culture to describe this place."

  After their carefree, love-filled morning, his inadvertent reminder of Davina's imminent return to the States was decidedly depressing. She sighed a regretful little sigh, wondering why it was that life's problems never seemed to come with easy, textbook solutions.

  A very strong part of her wanted to blurt out that she didn't want to return to Boston; that her place was there, with Sam. But honesty forced her to accept the fact that such a declaration would be born of a romanticism she had been unaware she believed in. Besides, she assured herself, all such a display of feminine emotion would do would be to embarrass them both.

  "If these walls are all there is, I won't exactly go back a local hero," she muttered.

  She had no more than spoken when they came upon a thick limestone shelf. Underneath the shelf the enormous open mouth of a cave yawned blackly over them.

  "Sam!"

  Her fingernails dug into his skin and her hand was ice-cold. Sam stiffened, his free hand reaching for his pistol. As his eyes narrowed dangerously, Davina realized Sam was quite prepared to use whatever means it took to keep her safe. Including killing a man. When that thought gave her scant comfort, she refused to consider it any longer. Instead, she pointed at the figure carved in the limestone. It had the face of a monster, with coiling snakes for hair, and the tongue stuck out over the mouth of the cave.

  "Sam—I recognize that stela! It was described in detail in my father's text of Naj Taxim. It guards the entrance to the city!" She threw her arms around his neck. "It's the cave, Sam. The cave is the key!"

  "Davina—"

  "Please don't say it. I realize that you've simply been humoring me this entire trip. But Naj Taxim exists, and now I'm finally going to prove it to you."

  The feeling he had experienced at the Well of Sacrifice suddenly settled back over Sam like a cold gray fog—a sense of unearthly evil that sent a chill skimming down his spine.

  "We're getting out of here," he said, yanking her back toward the river. The feeling escalated when he turned around to find that the boatman had vanished.

  "We can't." Davina struggled desperately to hold her ground. "Don't you see, Sam, we can't give up now. Not when we're so close."

  "Goddammit!"

  The oath exploded from him, sudden and harsh in the verdant solitude of the jungle. Birds screeched, a cloud of black and yellow butterflies filled the air from some unseen hiding place and somewhere the ominous roar of a jaguar added to the animals' complaints.

  Unreasonably frustrated, Sam reached into his pocket for a cigarette, forgetting for a moment that he had lost them that first day on the river. Strange that he hadn't thought about smoking in all this time—until now; until forced to come face-to-face once again with Davina's blasted Lowell obstinacy.

  "I thought you'd quit smoking," Davina said, taking in his futile gesture.

  "You frustrate me, Davina."

  She appeared to be considering that as her soft eyes grew thoughtful. Finally she nodded, accepting the accusation. "As you do me."

  "This isn't a game any longer."

  "I wasn't aware that it ever was." Her voice was stronger now, more assured. "How could you possibly believe that my search for my father was a game?"

  "What made you think that I'd put up with all this damn heat and the insects and mud if I considered it to be nothing more than a game?"

  The more she thought about Sam's arrogant attitude, the angrier Davina became. Her eyes blazed, her cheeks were stained scarlet and her chest rose and fell under her T-shirt. She was furious. And more beautiful than he'd ever seen her.

  "And you," she continued, lifting her chin defiantly as she jabbed a finger into his chest, "how dare you think that I consider what we've shared a game? What kind of woman do you take me for?"

  "A live one. And I'd like to keep it that way."

  His quiet, understated tone had its desired effect. Davina's shoulders slumped wearily. "I hate it when you make me lose my temper. I'm really a very calm, very restrained individual. Ask anyone who knows me."

  "Of course you are," he said soothingly, draping an arm around her shoulders. "And once we get back to our hotel room, you can demonstrate exactly how restrained you can be."

  She stiffened. "Hotel room?"

  "With a warm, deep bath," he coaxed. "And sheets. Crisp, clean sheets that feel cool against your creamy skin. And ice. You can't tell me that you wouldn't like a nice, icy margarita right now."

  Davina stared up at him. "You haven't heard a word I've said."

  Sam's lips grazed her ear. "Of course I have. We were talking about how I make you lose control," he said huskily. "Let's go home, sweetheart, and drive each other crazy."

  Shaking her head violently, Davina broke free of his light embrace. "You can do whatever you want, McGee, but I'm going into that cave."

  Muttering a particularly pungent oath that had a family of squirrel monkeys chattering in heated remonstration, Sam had no choice but to yank the lantern from his backpack and follow her.

  12

  Slipping and sliding, they entered the cave. Despite the fact that Sam was holding the lantern above his head, the black walls seemed to absorb the weak yellow beam of light, and when he turned a sharp corner before Davina, she
experimentally lifted her hand blindly in front of her face until her index finger touched her nose. Darkness enfolded her like a shroud.

  "Sam, this is eerie. I can't see a thing," she whispered in the direction where she could sense, rather than see, he was standing.

  "What did you expect? There's no way the sun could shine down here."

  Davina didn't like to think about being underground, experiencing for the first time a phobia of being buried alive. She brushed something away from her face, hoping desperately that it was only a stray hair. A moment later, her hand encountered something spongy on the blackened wall and she recoiled.

  "Ugh. This place is like something out of Poe."

  "The Cask of Amontillado… 'The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could,'" Sam quoted. '"But when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.'"

  Goose bumps rose on Davina's already chilled skin as Sam's words ricocheted about her worried mind. It's only this place, Davina assured herself. In the Mayan view of the cosmos, the universe was a giant square of earth where men walked. At the center of the square was the Sacred Ceiba, the giant tree of life, whose limbs extended upward to the heavens and whose roots reached into the underworld.

  Xibalba, the Mayan underworld, was an evil place inhabited by brutal gods of death and sacrifice, among them the Jaguar God of the Night. Rivers of abomination, choked with the stench of blood, formed the borders of this realm of dread and terror; caves were the entrances.

  It's your imagination, nothing more, Davina assured herself without a great deal of success. That's all.

  "Bad choice, huh?" Sam murmured, sensing her discomfort.

  "Don't you know anything a little cheerier?"

  "From Poe?"

  Davina was forestalled from suggesting he switch writers when the penetrating half-light revealed a steep, boulder-strewn slope terraced with high flagstone walls. Near the base of one of the walls was a fragment of brightly painted pottery.

  "Looters." Sam's tone was scathing.

  A cursory glance around showed that the archaeological pillagers had also pried some of the walls apart. Through the gaping holes, they could view rectangular cavities.

  "Tombs," Davina suggested.

  Sam nodded in agreement. "Which way?"

  Davina glanced around, choosing her direction at random. "That way," she said, pointing toward a broad tunnel that would allow them to continue in a standing position.

  Sam checked his compass. It wouldn't do for them to get lost; some of these caves went on for miles, underground labyrinths of limestone.

  "East it is."

  After several twists and turns they came to a wall covered with hieroglyphics. Davina stared in awe at the elegant glyphs left behind by some ancient artist. She could almost imagine the glow of Sam's lantern to be the flickering light of the scribe's ocote pine torch. In her mind's eye she envisioned the Mayan artist, wielding his animal-hair brush with delicate, precise strokes as he carefully recorded his message for posterity.

  "There are some names," she murmured, peering closely at the glyph. "And a date."

  Davina struggled to decode the complicated calendar, based on a continuous procession of gods who marched along an eternal trail that had no beginning and no end.

  "Sam," she said excitedly, "it's dated after Guerrero's fatal battle."

  His voice counseled restraint. "That doesn't prove anything, Davina."

  "I know." She ran her finger over a painting of a seated figure holding a ritual bloodletting instrument. "But you have to admit it's interesting."

  "It's a lot more than interesting," Sam said in an undertone. "Congratulations, sweetheart. I think you've stumbled across a fifteenth-century predecessor of Playboy magazine."

  Her curiosity piqued by the laughter in his tone, Davina left off her study of a panel depicting some ancient battle and turned to the piece of wall Sam indicated.

  "Oh, my… Well, yes…This is highly unusual, you know," she murmured distractedly as she stared up at the vividly detailed drawings.

  Sam cocked his head in an attempt to gain a new perspective on what appeared to be an orgy in progress. "Not only unusual, but highly uncomfortable. Did any of your studies ever reveal these people to be contortionists?"

  Davina's eyes narrowed in speculation as she took in the particular amorous couple Sam was studying so intently. "Not at all; the Maya were normally quite decorous."

  "So I see." Sam handed her the compact camera from the backpack. "You're going to be a real hit on campus when you return home with these dirty Mayan postcards, Professor."

  Fighting her own answering smile, Davina ignored his teasing tone. "I'm taking these photos for posterity," she insisted firmly. "Erotica was extremely rare in Mayan art; this wall will make an extremely interesting paper."

  In the beginning Sam had become irritated whenever Davina slipped into this stiff, professional behavior, but he now found the facade fascinating. The contrast between the proper Bostonian professor and wildly wanton witch was not only delightful but highly arousing, as well. He bent down to nibble provocatively on her ear.

  "I'll warn you right now that your dirty paper will probably be banned in Boston."

  "Sam!" Davina jumped as his teeth closed on her ear-lobe. "You're supposed to be holding the lantern up for extra light. This camera flash isn't all that strong."

  His lips moved down her neck, but he did as she requested. "Can I help it if this stuff turns me on?"

  "Everything turns you on," she muttered, trying out a different f-stop as she sought to illuminate the wall as much as possible.

  He ran his free hand from her shoulder to her hip. "Complaining?"

  Davina could feel something inside her coming to life. Warm, insistent. Familiar. He could make her want him so easily, she thought with an inward sigh. Still, it appeared to work both ways. Despite an admittedly rocky beginning, from the start there had been no ambivalence between them.

  "Not at all," she answered, "and as soon as we get to Naj Taxim, I'll show you exactly how you make me feel."

  "I'm holding you to that, sweetheart,"

  Approximately ten minutes after they had resumed their exploration of the cave, they came to a fork in the tunnel.

  "Which way?" Sam asked.

  Davina's decision was based solely on whim. "Right," she said. "No, left." She shook her head. "Right," she reconfirmed.

  "It'd probably help if you could make up your mind."

  She crossed her fingers behind her back. "Definitely right."

  Sam shrugged. "You're the boss."

  After more twists and turns, the underground tube came to a dead end.

  Sam's skeptical gaze raked the walls adorned with drawings depicting a legendary ball game pitting men and gods in a life-and-death contest. One noble player was seated on the sidelines, taking an everlasting time-out from the brutal game.

  "Where to now? Straight up?"

  Davina ran her hands over the solid stone wall, forcing herself not to be distracted by the art. She was momentarily saddened at the vandalism marring the torso of one of the players. It seemed that every increase in Mayan knowledge was matched by a commensurate loss.

  A moment later her fingers located the dark crack. "I've found a hidden crawlway," she said excitedly.

  "A crawlway?"

  She tried to overcome the refusal she could hear in Sam's voice. "We've already come this far," she coaxed prettily.

  "I thought I was supposed to be a guide," he grumbled. "All right," he agreed with obvious reluctance when she didn't immediately back down. "But I'm going first."

  Davina was not about to argue that point.

  The ceiling of the crawlway was no more than eighteen inches over their heads, and as they crept on their stomachs over the rough, damp terrain, their clothes growing wetter by the inch, Davina was beginning to doubt her own intuition. Sam had probably been right all along: it was nothing but a wild-goose chase.

  Although Sam held
the lantern in front of him as he shimmied along the floor of the tube, the low ceiling didn't allow for effective diffusion of light.

  "Hey! Wait until you see this!"

  A moment after his voice echoed through the cave, bouncing against the damp limestone walls, he disappeared from view. In her eagerness, Davina rose abruptly, hitting her head on a stalactite.

  "Ouch!" she exclaimed, followed by a more heartfelt "Damn!" Stars swam on a background of black velvet behind her eyes. Even her teeth hurt, and she could still hear the resounding clunk ringing in her ears.

  "You okay?" Sam asked.

  "Sure. I've always wanted to be a couple of inches taller." Davina rubbed the lump that was rapidly building on her scalp. "Actually, I'm more mad at myself for doing such a dumb thing than I am hurt."

  Her voice trailed off as her gaze circled the huge chamber. The ceiling rose at least twenty feet over their heads, and a fringed curtain of white stone hung from the distant ceiling. The sparkling dome resembled a blackened sky lit with countless twinkling stars, the brilliant illusion created by droplets of moisture decorating the tips of the stalactites. Three high walls rimmed a clear, calcite pond, and as Sam moved the lantern in a wide arc, the muted yellow glow revealed the frescoes.

  The brilliant paintings were magnificent, and could be considered unrivaled among Mayan archaeological finds.

  In rich reds, yellows and a particular pastel shade known as Mayan blue, artists had portrayed life among Mayan elite. One series of paintings depicted a raid against another Mayan community, from the battle to the final ritual sacrifice, the scenes so realistic that Davina could easily envision the warriors as they appeared over the hill with the first rays of rising sun.

  She could hear their shouts and war cries filling the air as they displayed their banners. She could see them advance in columns down the hill to the edge of the river. The clash was horrible, the screams and shouts deafening. A din of flutes, drums and conch-shell trumpets resounded as the chiefs vainly sought to save themselves by divine magic.

  "Davina?"

  Belatedly she realized Sam had asked her a question. Shaking her head to clear it of the brutal battle scene, she turned toward him. Her emotions were in as much turmoil as her thoughts.