The Cotten Stone Omnibus: It started with The Grail Conspiracy... (The Cotten Stone Mysteries)

by Lynn Sholes

On shaky legs, Billy Groves stood beside the hole that should have been his grave, unsure of why he was even alive. He heard the distant sound of water rushing over rocks and followed it until he found a nearby creek. He knelt and washed his face. As the spring water cooled his skin, the memory of what had happened continued to play out in his head.

  _____

  It had all started the previous day while he was on the run, coming up from Santa Ana after killing a man in a cantina fight. He figured he had lost the Mexican banditos tracking him and decided to bed down for the night on a high ridge overlooking a mountainous ravine called Renegade Pass. He remembered being jarred awake by the sound of hooves on the rocky floor of the wash below. Drawing his pistol, he crawled to the edge of the rock ledge and peered over.

  Expecting to see his pursuers in the pale light of daybreak, instead he spotted a dozen Mexican Federales riding into the pass, followed by at least twenty pack burros. Canvas tarpaulins covered the backs of the animals, and judging by the way they moved over the uneven terrain, he figured their loads were heavy.

  Soon the entire column had entered the narrow pass. As he watched the slow-moving procession snake through the ravine, the air sprang alive with the whoosh of arrows. The hair on his neck bristled.

  Apaches!

  Fierce yelps of the Apache warriors echoed off the rock walls drowning out the screams of the trapped Mexicans.

  Indians streamed into the pass from each end, attacking until every soldier lay dead or dying.

  He watched the Apaches dismount and move from body to body. Placing a knee between the shoulder blades of the victim, they sliced a long arc in the front of the soldier’s scalp. Even as the survivors begged for mercy, the Apaches pulled back the hair and ripped the scalp from the skull.

  Sickened, he turned and crept away from the ledge. Covering his ears, he waited until the shrieks finally faded. Warily, he crawled back for another look.

  One of the Apaches, a barrel-chested brave wearing a blue Union Army jacket that hung down to his knees, gave an order. Another moved to a burro and lifted the tarpaulin exposing leather saddlebags. He untied one and reached inside, pulling out a canvas sack, heavy enough that he seemed to need both hands to lift it. He slit a small hole in the bottom with his knife. A stream of gold dust spilled onto the blood-stained earth. The leader held out his hand and let the gold flow through his fingers, then made a bold gesture with his arm, and his fellow braves whooped.

  Before the blood of the Federales dried, the Apaches had the burro train moving. Soon the last pack animal disappeared around a turn in the pass.

  Mesmerized by the gold and the notion that he might be able to get his hands on some of it, Groves decided to follow the Indians. Watchfully, he led his mare down the side of the ravine into the wash, past the dead soldiers whose bodies were strewn about like broken dolls.

  Keeping his distance, he tracked the Apaches throughout the morning and into the afternoon, going from deep ravines to dense forest and finally into the rugged Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains.

  After a full day of shadowing the war party, he crested a hill and gazed down into a narrow valley with sheer rock walls on both sides and a small rapid-flowing river running through the middle. The Apaches had halted and were unloading the bags from the burros.

  He tied up his mare and proceeded on foot, working his way along a ridge protected by a line of Douglas firs until he cut the distance by half. Concealed in the shadows of the forest, he lay flat on the ground and watched the braves carry the saddlebags into a thick stand of trees at the base of a cliff. When they finished, the Indians remounted and started up the pack train again, passing out of the valley and into the mountains beyond.

  He waited for over an hour before retrieving his mare and riding down into the valley to where the Indians had unloaded the gold dust. He tied up his horse and explored the trees, finding a narrow path that led to a small opening in the rock, just wide enough for a man to pass through. Cautious, he drew his gun and listened. Drawn by the lure of the gold, he followed the zigzag passage until coming to the mouth of a cave. It was late afternoon and the sun had already dipped below the tops of the mountains. The inside of the cave appeared as dark as the coming night.

  Crouching to slip beneath the low ceiling, he moved forward, bumping his foot in the process. He reached down to discover a torch, still warm. Striking a match, he lit the tightly packed reeds, throwing orange light across the walls. Centuries of the Apaches and their ancestors’ footfalls had packed the sandy floor hard, and the ceiling was black from their torches.

  A few paces farther, his light fell on a large chamber, the contents causing him to gasp.

  What he saw was gold piled upon gold. And what appeared to be an equal amount of silver.

  Like cordwood waiting for the fire, bars of bullion were stacked four and five feet high. Chests of coins marked with names he recognized like Carson City Mint, US Army, Confederate States of America, and others lined the walls, sometimes two and three deep. Many bore the crests of Spain and what had to be those of various Spanish families. There was Aztec turquoise and Mexican silver jewelry. His eyes found the forty or so bags of gold dust from the pack train. What had appeared like such a great amount now paled in the vastness of the treasure trove.

  It must have taken the Apaches a hundred years to amass such a fortune, he thought. Slowly he moved from pile to box to crate to bag, feeling, smelling, even tasting the precious metal. Unable to resist, he dropped a handful of gold coins into his pocket.

  Scattered among the treasure were swords, muskets, rifles, shields, many decorated with the signs of a Spanish army long gone from the Mexican countryside.

  He opened a small silver chest but was disappointed to discover it contained only a folded swatch of cloth about the size of a bandana. Propping the torch nearby, he lifted the cloth and examined it, wondering why it deserved to be among such an immense amount of treasure. In the flickering light, he saw that it bore the face of a man with long hair, mustache, and short-cropped beard, wearing what resembled a crown with a plume of feathers. The image was faint, almost as if it was part of the threads rather than painted on.

  A creaking noise jolted him. He froze—his heart feeling like it had come to an abrupt halt, too afraid to beat. Then he realized it was only the trees groaning in the wind outside the cave. Nevertheless, the fleeting scare made him break a sweat—the interruption shook him back to reality. If he was going to get any of the treasure, he’d better hurry. The Apaches would not leave this place unguarded.

  He wiped the perspiration from his face with the cloth before dropping it back in the chest. He had to make a quick decision on what to take. The gold dust would be the easiest to convert into cash, and he figured the Indians would never notice one or two bags missing. Plus he had already pocketed a few coins.

  He grabbed a bag and headed out of the cave. If the torch lasted long enough he’d go back for a second, but only one more. He didn’t want greed to get him killed. As he emerged from the cave, a voice startled him.

  “Ah, Señor Groves, we were beginning to think you would never come out of the mountain.”

  He stared into the big .44 gun barrels of the three banditos from the Santa Ana cantina. Perhaps he should have been looking over his shoulder as he tracked the Apaches.

  “What have you got there, amigo?” one of them asked, his gaze falling on the bag. “Have you brought us a—”

  A sudden series of thuds in quick succession caused the bandits’ bodies to go rigid, then limp. They drooped over their horses before dropping to the ground, arrow shafts protruding from their backs.

  A small band of Apaches emerged from the trees. They glared at their next victim with cold indifference.

  A searing pain in Groves’s chest caused him to look down. Shocked, he reeled backward. Buried in his chest was the stub of an arrow—its eagle feather
fletching sticking out a few inches. His knees buckled and he collapsed, coming to rest on his back.

  As he lay staring at the Apaches, feeling his warm blood pool beneath him, a low rumble filled his ears. Distant at first, it built to a roar.

  Was this the sound of death?

  The earth moaned and the cliff wall leaned out as if breathing. The ground vibrated, then rippled and formed waves passing like ocean swells.

  The Indians’ horses struggled as if standing on the swaying deck of a ship.

  _____

  Now, as he knelt by the stream splashing water on this face, he remembered it all—the wrenching sound racing across the floor of the valley, the fissure slithering over the ground like a snake, swallowing everything in its path.

  First the Apaches, then him.

  wall of skulls

  2012, mexico city

  Seneca left the protective tent covering the excavation to stand in the sunlight. She focused her camera at Zócalo Plaza and the gigantic Mexican flag flying in the center. Daniel came to join her.

  She clicked off two shots before turning to him. Hand in hand, they took a stroll. “It’s incredible to look around and realize we’re only a few hundred feet from the Metropolitan Cathedral. Like we’re standing between two worlds in the middle of a time warp.”

  Daniel squeezed her hand, then pointed to the remains of Templo Mayor behind them. “Over there is what’s left of the Wall of Skulls—a wall literally made of human skulls and covered in stucco. That tells you how much blood was spilled down the steps of that temple. I have to keep in mind that it was just a different culture—a culture ruled by its religious beliefs.”

  “You don’t think what Montezuma did was wrong?”

  “I didn’t say that. Only that we need to try to understand the why as well as the what and the how. We have to understand the customs and belief system of any civilization.”

  They paused as he studied the ruins. “Sometimes I feel like I’m almost able to step through some fine filament of time and space and be right in the middle of their world. I’ve even touched artifacts that speak to me. Sounds weird, I know.”

  “Not at all.” Seneca always marveled at his enthusiasm. His excitement was contagious and stirred her soul. “How do you put up with me? I’m such a boring purist at heart. It’s my nature to rely on the facts—the data. Sometimes I’ve wished I were less analytical.”

  “Ah, but that makes for a good journalist.”

  She rested her palm on his cheek and tilted her head to the side. “God, I love you, Daniel Bernal.”

  He covered her hand with his. “So, before I indulged myself by climbing up on my soapbox, you were asking what could have happened to Montezuma’s remains.”

  “What do you think?”

  He shrugged. “It was a chaotic time. The Spanish might have forbidden them from cremating the emperor. After all, cremation and the Church don’t mix well. Right now, it’s a five-hundred-year-old mystery. We’ll probably never know. I wish I could run the missing funerary jar discovery by my old mentor, Professor Flores.”

  “Why don’t you? Isn’t he still here in Mexico City at the university?”

  “He’s retired and moved off to some jungle island somewhere.”

  “Can’t you talk the government into letting you dig up the temple and do a complete excavation? There’s no telling what else you might find.”

  Daniel shook his head. “The Spaniards built right on top of Tenochtitlan. They covered up the entire Aztec city with their own. The historical value of the Spanish buildings prohibits destroying them, which is what we would have to do. We’re lucky we’ve been allowed to do this much.”

  “What’s next?” Carlos, the technical assistant came to join them.

  Daniel rubbed his lips with his index finger. “I’d like to make some notes before we continue exploring the tomb with the camera probe.”

  Carlos and the video tech were on loan to the Mexican dig team from TV Mexicali, and unlike most of the others, Carlos spoke fluent English. He seemed to Seneca to be anxious and a bit nervous.

  “Dr. Bernal told me that you might be a descendent of Montezuma?” Seneca said to Carlos.

  “Yes. My family still carries the last name.”

  “Montezuma?”

  “Moctezuma.” He emphasized the slight difference in pronunciation. “Here.” He handed her his TV Mexicali card. “See how Moctezuma is spelled.”

  Seneca looked at the name, then pronounced it slowly. “Easy to understand how it morphed to Montezuma.”

  “The Spanish wrote what they believed they heard,” Daniel said.

  “I’ve thought about taking a different first name—a Nahuatl one, but everybody knows me as Carlos.”

  “Then you must have a special interest in this site,” Seneca said as she slipped his card into her pocket.

  “More than you know.”

  Daniel said, “Why don’t we stop for lunch. I think everybody needs a break. We’ll gather back here in an hour and continue the video documentation.”

  “We could go as a group.” Seneca nodded to Carlos. “I read in my guidebook that there’s a famous cantina a short walk from here called Bar La Opera. Pancho Villa supposedly rode in on his horse and demanded service by firing his pistol into the ceiling. It said that the bullet hole is still there.”

  “It’s for tourists,” Carlos said.

  “I think I’ll stay behind,” Daniel said. “I need to spend more time on my notes. I’ll grab a bite with the rest of the team.”

  The video tech came out of the tent and gestured as if to ask what to do next.

  “They want to stop,” Carlos said.

  “Is it safe for me to leave my gear?” Seneca held up her camera.

  “All of Mexicali’s gear is here.” Carlos motioned to the handful of soldiers stationed just beyond the roped-off perimeter of the excavation. “And there are the security guards.”

  The Mexican authorities had provided them to keep the curious at a distance from the dig site.

  “Come on and go with us, Daniel.” She pulled at his hand. “It’ll be fun.”

  “I need this time to finish up my work. And the sooner we finish, the sooner we can be on our way to the Yucatan.”

  “Want me to stay with you?”

  “No, you go on.”

  “Then go have fun with your notes. But promise you’ll eat something.” To Carlos, she said, “Let me put my camera away and grab my purse. Don’t leave without me.” Hooking her arm in Daniel’s, they headed back to the tent.

  A few moments later she reemerged and glanced around.

  The video tech waved as he stood near the Wall of Skulls.

  Seneca joined him. “Where’s Carlos?”

  He shrugged. “Él no está aquí.”

  “He left? Well, that’s strange. We had talked about going to—”

  The shockwave from the explosion slammed into her with enough force to lift her into the air and toss her twenty feet across the ancient stone pavement. Crumpled and dazed, Seneca lay motionless. Finally able to open her eyes, she found herself sprawled at the base of Templo Mayor, staring at billowing black smoke that blotted out the sky.

  Her eyes drifted to the body of the video technician several feet away, his head at a peculiar angle like it had relocated from the center of his spinal column and twisted atop his shoulder. His glare was frozen and fixed in her direction.

  The sound of sirens and shouts of panic filled the air. As the heaviness in her lids forced her eyes to narrow slits before finally closing, the smoke cleared long enough for her to gaze upon the Wall of Skulls.

  dead silence

  2012, mexico city

  Seneca’s eyes fluttered open. How long had she lain there? A few moments, she guessed—maybe only a second or two as no help had yet a
rrived and the sky was still black with smoke. Every muscle, every joint, every bone felt aflame with pain. She struggled to sit up, coughing from the stench of smoke. Blood trickled into her eye and she wiped it away. Her fingers probed to find the source. A gash on her scalp, wet and sticky. Everything hurt. Her body shook, her lungs fought for air, her hip burned where she had slammed into the ground, her eyes refused to stay open, and her ears rang with a high-pitched squeal that matched the screaming sirens and calls for help.

  “Daniel!” She tried to shout, but what came from her throat was a weak and garbled wail.

  Her first attempt to get to her feet failed. She plummeted back to the ground.

  “Please, someone help me! Daniel. Where are you?”

  Straining and grunting, Seneca drew herself up to stand, then staggered toward where the tent had once stood.

  Scorched debris swirled about in small eddies and cascaded over the stone pavement. The distance she struggled to walk seemed measured in miles. Bits of paper drifted down from the dirty sky like black confetti.

  “Daniel!” This time her cry had some volume. She felt as if time had been reduced to a reluctant slothful beat, and everything around her was out of focus. In that sluggish Seneca-time she trudged on searching for Daniel, but seeming not to make any progress getting there. The distinct odor of seared flesh and singed hair permeated the air, dominating even the smell of the smoke. “Daniel!” The sound of her voice was warbled and distorted.

  Slivers and chunks of metal, cardboard, wood, stone, and other unidentifiable rubble littered the ground. Then to her right she spotted what appeared to be a human form. She stumbled closer. Her stomach retched as she recognized it was a torso, dangling fibers and threads of tissue the only vestiges of what was once a person. Wisps of smoke drifted up from burnt cloth and skin.

  Then just ahead, she saw what might be another victim. She fell to her knees beside the mangled body. “Daniel.” As she took his head and shoulders into her lap, he made a thin, tinny whistling noise, and a wet sucking sound accompanied his shallow breaths.