Maroon Rising

by John H. Cunningham

  “The valley of the caves is below.” Our guide was pointing down from the hill we’d climbed. I managed to get myself atop a large boulder and lifted the binoculars to my eyes.

  The valley—maybe two hundred yards wide—was a wasteland of sunken limestone holes, some of which held water. It would be a bitch to cross. I raised the binoculars a bit to scan the hill behind it, starting from the far left and working my way along its length.

  A cave filled my vision—then another, and another. Then yet another cave!

  The binoculars fell from my hands, the strap yanked at my neck.

  “See anything?” Ray yelled up to me.

  I turned to hoots and cheers from every one of them. My smile said it all.

  We nearly lost Keith to a brush-hidden sinkhole as we crossed the valley, but we made it to the caves in one piece. Everyone now knew we were after Henry Morgan’s treasure, and that time was working against us. I hoped we’d have enough light to make it back to Stanley, but that would depend on what we found—or didn’t find—ahead.

  The broad karst hill ahead stairstepped in plateaus of stone, and carved at the base was a near exact replica of the circles and ovals I’d first found at the Blue Mountain crossroads.

  It took several deep breaths to absorb the breadth of the caves—from here it looked like the second and third had eroded into one, so I concentrated my focus on what would have been the second from the right—the one that had been etched in and was different than the others on the mantle’s etching at Firefly.

  As we closed the distance I went over my mental checklist of notes I’d made from the archives Nanny had shared with me. Though the main texts had been largely undecipherable, there were some key words and phrases I counted on being relevant here—details I had yet to share with anyone. I recalled the symbols:

  III =III ^III 0

  I hoped these were some type of directions, like maybe: third passage or tunnel, third pipe up or chute, third tunnel or pipe or chute. No way to be sure until we checked, but that’s what I’d translated the drawing and words to mean.

  We walked past each of the other caves—a huge pile of rubble lay in the middle of the second and third cave, confirming my assumption that two had become one. My brain didn’t seem to know quite how to react. We had located the mystery caves, but was there anything in them to find?

  Outside the fourth cave, we dropped our gear. There were sinkholes on both sides of the cave entrance, and one held water.

  “Ray and I will go in—”

  “What?” Ray said. “Why me?”

  “I can go,” Pierce said.

  My glare at Ray, at an angle the others couldn’t see, caused him to purse his lips.

  “No,” he said. “I’ll go.”

  “The ground inside isn’t stable,” the guide said. “All these sinkholes and the collapse of the other two caves. There have been several earthquakes in the past few hundred years—inside may be totally impassible.”

  “Great,” Ray said.

  A distant sound echoed through the canyon. Was it wind? It sounded again, three times, in fast succession.

  “That’s the abeng,” Keith said.

  “Stanley?” I said.

  “Or ghosts of the Maroons who fought and died here,” the guide said.

  What message was Stanley sending us? Had the kidnappers called again, or worse? While I hoped he wasn’t in danger, I knew he’d agree we needed to press on, so I picked up the pace.

  The sun was dropping fast.

  “If you’re following old Maroon directions, ” the guide said, “you must know that they often reversed meanings on maps in case of capture or discovery.”

  I stared at him for a long second, then turned to Keith. The professor nodded.

  With that, I pulled the big duffel bag over my right shoulder and with my flashlight in hand and Ray right behind me set off into the cave.

  The space inside was tighter than the one we’d checked this morning—God, was that just today? The roof was lower, too, and the cave itself far deeper.

  “Do you think what the guide said was true?” I said. “That the Maroons reversed directions on their maps?”

  “You’re asking me?” Ray said.

  Morgan wasn’t a Maroon, but what about the notes from the archive? If Njoni made them, would they be reversed? His Port Royal letter had been a total fabrication—another form of reversal.

  Damn.

  I scratched the symbols from the archive into the dirt:

  III =III ^III 0

  “I’m thinking this could be some type of code for this cave,” I said. “I’m hoping the IIIs are Roman numerals for three, and if that’s the case, the equals sign could be a tunnel, the carat a turn or chimney, and the zero some kind of chute or other tunnel.”

  Ray scratched the stubble on his chin. “I read aircraft specs and diagrams, not ancient codes, so okay, if you say so.”

  I walked deeper into the cave, where the footing consisted of loose gravel and large rocks. The sound of trickling water echoed through the brown stone, and some of the walls dripped with moisture, lichen, and ferns.

  “Do you know where you’re going, Buck? Should we leave markers?”

  “It’s okay, Gretel, so far there’s just one direction—”

  Just then a swarm of bats blew past us. Ray and I ducked.

  “Damn bats!” he said.

  A whisper of the abeng filtered into the cave, then—

  BOOM!

  “Was that a gunshot?” Ray said.

  BOOM!

  Shit!

  Could someone be shooting at our team outside the cave? The shots sounded far away, and if it was the kidnappers or Gunner, if not one in the same, the best leverage we’d have would be finding the damn treasure. “Let’s move,” I said. “We’re running out of time.”

  I picked up the pace and we came to a tunnel leading down. It was narrow and turned to the left, where my light lit the wall.

  “What do we do?” Ray said.

  I sucked in a deep breath. This could be the first pipe, but did the symbol mean up? And if so was the meaning reversed, in which case we should go down?

  There was a chimney just past the turn, leading up. Was that the first of three “^”? Or was it in reverse? I exhaled a deep breath and continued forward—the cave was getting narrower.

  We came to another fissure leading down and away. Number two? Or was the chimney number one? We kept going until our lights met a pile of rocks ahead thirty feet away.

  There was another shaft above our heads, and the main tunnel was only about seven feet high now.

  Ray pointed forward. “Is that the end?”

  “Look,” I said. There was another chute going down just where the pile of rocks blocked whatever was left of the main tunnel.

  “What’s so special about that one?”

  “It’s the third one.”

  I dropped the duffel.

  BOOM.

  The shot was muffled, but we were deep inside the cave now.

  I shined my light into the hole leading down and saw it was full of water. Good grief.

  I thought about the chimney we’d passed. Was the archive written opposite or not?

  Damn!

  “Okay, we need to dive this hole.”

  “Are you crazy? Dive with what?”

  From the duffel bag I removed a small twenty-PSI pony bottle with an octopus regulator and two masks.

  “I’m not going down there,” Ray said.

  I handed him the mask, turned the knob to release the compressed air into the regulators, and pushed the purge button—a loud rush of air blew Ray’s hair back. I handed him the octopus, or second regulator.

  “Come on.”

  I climbed into the water—cold, maybe sixty-five degrees—with the mask on my face and the pony bottle in my right arm, tugging on Ray’s shirt with my left hand.

  He mumbled, grumbled, and groaned, but he eased in.

  “Jesus!” he
said. “Is this thing spring fed from the South Pole? I can’t believe you’re dragging me into this death trap.”

  We kept moving forward.

  Up to my waist now, I let go of him and took the light from my pocket. I eased myself into the water and convulsed from the cold. I shined the light forward.

  The passage was narrow but clean of debris. It went down fifteen feet, then seemed to either dead-end or turn to the right. The positive buoyancy caused by breathing compressed air, along with my hands being full and the narrowness of the passage, made progress difficult. I had to pull myself ahead and kick off the rocks. Ray—who had to stay close so the second regulator wouldn’t pull out of his mouth—pushed me from behind.

  The water got colder.

  At the bottom—it was a turn, not a dead end—something caught my eye.

  The passage seemed lighter ahead. I pointed, but Ray’s mask was fogged and I couldn’t read his face. I pulled him forward. The tunnel narrowed and the pony bottle clunked against the rock. I held my breath—if the nozzle sheared off, we’d not only have no air, but the tank would explode inside the tunnel. I hugged it close to my chest.

  The temperature had me shaking uncontrollably—or was it fear—but the tunnel had ceased to descend and turned perpendicular. Since we were no longer going down, I could lean forward and crawl. My knee tore against a jagged rock—I screamed out a burst of bubbles.

  Ray clutched my right bicep and I felt his hand shaking.

  The angle of the tunnel canted upward and the light was now definite. I turned off the flashlight, which made Ray shriek bubbles behind me, but then he must have seen the light too, because he started to press on my back. I turned the flashlight back on and we continued toward the light.

  A glance at the air gauge on the pony bottle revealed we’d already used over half the air. I picked up the pace, pulling Ray after me. I didn’t want to get stuck with no air, no matter what we found ahead. The guide’s warning about Maroons reversing directions, along with the pile of rocks that blocked our progress in the tunnel, made me wonder: had there been another chute upward on the other side of that pile? Or were we in the wrong cave altogether? My worries had me breathing faster than I should.

  The light became brighter.

  Ray pulled at my shoulder and pointed.

  The surface of the water refracted the light into an orange glow. Were we back out to the surface of the valley, coming up from a sinkhole?

  We would soon find out if this was the wrong hole or not.

  I climbed upward toward the light. The weight of my wet clothing, icy limbs, and the pony bottle caused me to move awkwardly—I smashed my head into the roof of the chute. Stars shot across the backs of my eyelids and I bit down hard on the regulator.

  A shove from behind and I was pushed up out of the water with a splash. Ray pressed past me, his flashlight in my eyes, blinding me.

  Heavy breathing followed the sound of him spitting out his regulator.

  “God, that was terrifying! I’m claustrophobic, remember?”

  “You mind getting the light out of my face?”

  We were pressed together in the small opening of the chute, and with the pony bottle wedged between the rocks and me, I couldn’t turn to see anything. It was a cavern—so we weren’t back outside—and it was filled with dim light. I heard the steady sound of water splattering on rocks.

  Ray pulled his arm up from between us. His light just missed my nose, and since I was facing the rock wall, I couldn’t see—

  “Holy crap,” he whispered.

  “What? Bats? Are you—”

  “Look.”

  I shoved the pony bottle behind me, then pushed down on the rocks with both my palms and swung around to sit on the edge of what I immediately realized was a huge underground chamber.

  “There,” Ray said.

  I followed the beam from his flashlight and caught a dull glow of bronze—no, not bronze.

  Gold.

  A heaping pile of gold, mixed with reds, greens, silver …

  “Holy crap,” I said.

  We scrambled out of the water. The cavern was twice the height of the cave, and there was a hole in the middle of the domed ceiling where water poured in along with a narrow cone of light that spotlit gold, silver, rubies, and emeralds that shot a rainbow of illumination shimmering across the stone walls.

  Ray ran to the pile, his light flashing around the stone room.

  I watched him, reliving the many finds I’d made in the past, the joy of discovery, the pride in connecting the miniscule details that led to the find, the rush of unearthing what no other person had been able to find. All the years of failure washed away as I stood in the beam of light and let the trickle of water from above cleanse me of the taint of self-doubt—no more years of wondering whether I could do it again. I pumped my fist silently in the air—redemption!

  And with it came negotiating power to get Nanny back.

  I ran to join Ray.

  With both our lights illuminating the pile, we stood silent, stunned by the gold and silver bars, piles of silver cobb coins, gold plates, jeweled goblets, a wood bin the size of a baby’s cradle filled with gold doubloons.

  I scanned the chamber with my light. There was no other way out except through the top, which was twenty feet high. Ray was sifting through the edge of the pile, calling out items like a child under the most lucrative Christmas tree in history.

  “We need to get out of here, Ray.”

  “This is a ton of stuff. How are we ever going to—”

  “We’ll have to come back. Remember those gunshots?”

  I flashed my light back toward Ray and saw his eyes wild with treasure-fever, something else I remembered well.

  “We have to take something!” He dug his hand into the pile. “Some gold coins—did you see these emeralds?”

  “We need to leave—now, Ray. If Nanny’s captors find us before we can negotiate her release, it may never happen. This is the only leverage we have.” I turned and walked back toward the flooded passage to the main cave. Then glanced at the air gauge on the pony bottle.

  35 percent remained.

  It would have to be enough.

  I sat on the edge of the water. It didn’t even feel cold anymore. I was numb with discovery yet sick with mounting concern.

  What awaited us outside?

  Was Stanley okay?

  Nanny?

  I glanced back. “Ray!”

  He jumped up and ran over, his eyes still wide.

  “Drop the goblet, Ray.”

  He glanced at it, then set the gold chalice down carefully.

  I picked up the pony bottle.

  Before we got in the water I gave him some worst-case instructions, made him repeat them, then discussed the plan for the immediate next steps. He didn’t like it but got in the water ahead of me, his light out in front of him like a weapon, his regulator in his mouth, and when I wrapped my arm around his waist, we descended and pressed ahead.

  The gloom of the passage darkened the further we got from the treasure chamber. I felt the rocks tear at my skin, and Ray flinched when he cracked his shoulder on one of them. Once we arrived at the turn, which led up into the main cave, I had to pull on his arm to keep him back from ascending.

  He glanced back, his eyes wide inside the fogged mask.

  I held up three fingers.

  His chest lifted with a deep breath, followed by a heavy plume of bubbles.

  I held up two fingers.

  His arms lifted with the deep breath, then fell when he exhaled hard.

  I held up one finger. He sucked in a massive lungful of air, pulled the regulator from his mouth, ripped the mask off his forehead, threw them toward me—then kicked hard off the floor of the stone passage and shot up toward the surface.

  My light caught his bubbles—good, he’d remembered to exhale as he went. I couldn’t see all the way to the top, but the water settled after a minute, so I repeated the same process he�
�d just gone through.

  When I sucked in my last breath, I secured the pony bottle and regulator to a rock, tucked my mask under another rock with Ray’s, and kicked toward the surface. The light and rock walls were blurry ahead.

  As my lungs started to burn, I saw the circular opening into the cave—was that Ray standing above it staring down at me?

  I broke the surface like a cork. I was breathing heavily—my light flashed up into a face.

  Ray’s face.

  I pulled myself out, put my hands on my knees and caught my breath, then shined my light back down into the hole.

  Dammit!

  One of the masks had slipped off the ledge and was visible where the chute curved up toward the chamber.

  “Crap!”

  “What?” Ray said.

  I pointed the light down the hole and after a moment, he groaned.

  “Is that mine? Sorry—”

  “Not your fault, I thought I had them secure.” I heard distant voices outside and quickly weighed my options. “Forget it, let’s go. The odds are that nobody will spot it, but if they come in here and we’re crawling out of the water, game over.”

  We started back through the cave.

  “That was the scariest thing I’ve ever done,” Ray said. “But, man, it was so worth it!”

  I squeezed his arm. “Remember, Ray. We found nothing, okay?”

  A devilish grin bent his mouth into a half circle.

  “Got it.”

  We made our way back through the cave, but I stopped at the first chimney, which was the widest and appeared to go the highest into the hill above. I shined my light around the perimeter of the opening and saw a handhold.

  “I’m going to go take a quick look—”

  “Why? I thought we were in a—”

  “Trust me, okay? Now, give me a boost.”

  He bent down and cupped his hands together. I put my foot in his palms, counted to three, and he lifted me as I jumped. The rock ledge was there—I grabbed—my wet hand slipped, but then my forearm caught on the other side. I clawed and pulled myself up into the hole and caught my knee on the small ledge. With my light out of my pocket, I shimmied and climbed onward, up into the chimney, which curved left, then up again.