Part 1
Old Bill shucked his backpack and set it in the shade, “This is good a place as any.” He regretted the bother of the pack, “If it wasn’t for that mess of tortillas, we wouldn’t need anything but the halizone tablets.”
Betty wanted to spend all day in the country, “We will be glad to have them if we are out here very long.” She dropped her canteen belt under a palm and sank to the ground. Not a glimmer of sunlight penetrated the tree’s canopy, and yet the sun bore down on the clearing. Looking upward, she appraised the giant leaves. “We could make a palapa out of this kind of leaf, couldn’t we?”
Bill approached and bent to kiss her forehead. “I have the feeling we could do that or just about anything else we wanted. I’m going for a swim and spend the rest of the day doing nothing. I repeat, nothing.”
She eyed the stream, splashing gently over rocks into a nearby pool. From her angle, the water was silvery — she had noticed, as they approached, that it appeared azure blue. It seemed deep, and yet one could see the gravel-paved bottom. “I wonder how deep it is . . . I’d like to go wading.”
Her hand trailed down his arm as Bill turned his attention to the swimming hole. He kicked off his shoes and nearly toppled in an effort to strip his socks. “Well, its too deep to simply roll up my pants.” and he unhooked his overalls. Wearing only a dirty T-shirt, he poised as if to dive, hesitated, and straightened. “Don’t have the nerve. Ain’t dove into water for . . .” he tried to remember, “thirty years.”
“clu. . .uck, cluck, cluck” Betty made chicken noises and impulsively began to disrobe. As she pulled her own shirt over her head, she glimpsed her man, sinking to the waist. (Bra too? Sure, why not.) Regaining her feet, she gingerly trod the expanse of hot rock to the water’s edge. Easing into the pool, she lamented, “I have the choice of blistering my bottom on the rocks or freezing in there.”
“Splash some water where you want to sit.” he suggested.
She continued the climb down to submerge herself, head and all. Immediately, she shot upward, splashing through the surface. “I haven’t done that in thirty years.”
Bill had removed his T-shirt and was busily rubbing and squeezing it. As he tossed it to the bank, the woman caught his attention. He stood quietly in contemplation of her figure, exposed from the knees up. His thoughts were probably not so pure, but he stated aloud, “You’re beautiful.”
“What you looking at, old man?” she gave a little body shake to set her breasts in motion. She knew very well what he was looking at. Betty thought, (I bet I can make him wade over here.) and stood, defiantly grinning, hands on hips.
And here he came like Pavlov’s dog, splashing straight to her. The couple held one another close with encircling arms, the way hairless teddy bears might do it. The woman ran a hand over his chest and lifted her face for a kiss. She was pleased to know she could arouse him anytime she wished.
“Uh . . . this isn’t the right place. Let’s bird-watch or something to change the subject. Do you hear that sound coming from upstream?”
“Just water splashing. It sounds louder up there. Want to take a look?”
In fake fear, “We’ll have to go through those tree ferns. There are snakes and tarantulas and . . . ” More seriously he suggested, “We can play like we’re primitive people. Let’s go.” and they waded, splashing to the top end of the pool.
Betty supported her breasts over one forearm while waving the other about to retain her balance on the uneven footing. She noticed his ludicrous display of nudity and was glad he was no longer self-conscious about it. tee hee
Bill noticed her smiling to herself and guessed what it was about, “Don’t make fun.” He steadied her by the elbow as they climbed ashore and began to find a way through the thick, semitropical foliage.
“I feel like an Indian . . . but they wore breech clouts, didn’t they?”
Bill launched one of his pedantic lectures about a subject of which he knew little. He gave his opinion why aprons were a good thing in society. He finished, “We will never know if those early Spanish renderings, showing natives nude from the waist upward, was fact or merely the fantasy of men who had been at sea too long.” He stopped speaking as they pushed aside a palm frond to gaze upon an idyllic scene.
Several cascades fed a dark pool. The largest waterfall struck a projection of rock, halfway down, and noisily splashed out into the sunlight. Free of the earth, the shower threw brilliant rainbows, sparkling in every direction.
“Oh Bill, it’s beautiful.” She grasped his arm.
The vision was breathtaking. “Oh my! If it were mine to give . . . I dedicate this place to my girl. Hey, look over there. There’s our shower stall.” he indicated one of the cascades.
“The cliff is hollowed out so we can stand under it.” Droplets, from her recent dip, still stood sparkling like diamonds on her body, now cooling the skin to tightness. Her hair lay wet and plastered to her scalp, crowned by twigs and dead leaves. “I need to shower off this leaf litter.”
“Watch, it might be slippery in the shade.” he cautioned.
She thrust her head into the column of water, “Ouch ! That’s coming down hard enough to hurt.” She peered into the grotto behind the torrent, “Bill, come look at this. There’s a cave back here.”
“How deep does it go?”
“Not very, as far as I can tell. I can see inside pretty well . . . it’s high and dry . . . there’s stuff back in there.”
“You mean like rocks?” Bill tried to see past the column of water.
“No, I mean real stuff, like furniture. I’m going in. Mercy, I’ve found us a treasure cave.” The woman’s nude figure passed into semidarkness as she stepped beyond the opening.
“No, wait ! What if it’s dangerous? What if you are jaybird naked? What if somebody lives here?”
She raised her voice so that he could hear her, “Not much chance, this stuff is too old.”
Bill shouldered past the torrent, shielding his eyeglasses from spray. He focused on a number of clay pots, “Golly damn, old Indian digs. There is another room off to this side.”
“Not Indians.” she thrust an ancient, rusty rifle into his hands to prove her point, “ˇ Viva Zapata !”
“I don’t know, these look like pre-Columbian designs.”
Sarcastically, “Sure, and they had lever actions.”
Their eyes were adjusting to the light. Bill examined a mural in the side room. The back wall had been laid with large plates of limestone on which was painted a scene of half-naked savages walking on water away from an island. They were heading toward, what appeared to be, the Promised Land. He pronounced, “Nope, this is definitely pre-Columbian.”
“Okay, here is what happened — ” Betty guessed, “Some Indians stayed here long enough to settle in. Then a hundred years ago . . . how old is that rifle?” she condescended to his expertise.
“Not a Henry because it has a loading gate.” He turned the piece over in his hands. “Here you go, it’s a model 1873 Winchester.”
She continued, “A hundred years ago, Pancho Villa used it for a hideout.”
“The archaeology might be important — we’ll want to report it . . . but let’s look around first.” He felt chilly, thought his lady might also, and put an arm around her.
“Let’s see what’s in these boxes.” There were two wooden crates in the first chamber.
Bill leaned over one of the chests and jumped back reflexively, “Ah geez ! This guy has lost a lot of weight.”
Betty saw the skeleton, with its clothing rotted to rags, reclining against the dark wall. “He looks awful dead. Only things in one piece are his boots and hat.”
Bill poked around with the rifle barrel, “Look here, his knee and upper leg are shattered . . . Aha, a rifle bullet — big like a 45-70.”
“The poor guy died right there because he couldn’t move.”
Probing the crate, the lid was found to be loose, and Bill flipped it off. The exposed underside was crawling with scorpions that scurried in all directions. That was enough for Betty, “I wish I had shoes on at least. And it’s cold. Let’s get some clothes and come back.”
“Before we do, I want you to peek in that box.” The crate was only a third full, but what was there gleamed in the dim light like Spanish treasure, which is exactly what it was, valuables looted from homes and travelers long ago.
Before the sun went over the mountain and with the dirty work of inventory finished, the couple bathed in the swimming hole. Idly splashing a handful of water at Betty, Bill said, “I can’t believe how nuts the Spanish were for crosses. That one looks excellent, hanging right here.” he touched the crucifix at her throat. The one Betty had chosen to wear weighed a pound. It was five inches long, of cast gold, and studded with pearls. This item would be insured for 15,000 American dollars.
“Can’t we keep just one piece for a souvenir? How about some of the twenty-dollar gold pieces?” she recalled the two leather sacks, conveniently sorted between gold and silver. She calculated to herself, (Current value of a $20 double-eagle is $450, exclusive of collector value. This stash makes the contents of Bill’s motorcycle boot look puny.)
As the impact of their situation hit Bill again, he laughed, “I can’t believe this. By golly, we’re going to at least get a keepsake out of it. We have to report the archaeological site of course — it might be priceless.”
“Let’s move the recent . . .” she giggled at the comparison, “hundred year-old stuff and hide it somewhere else first.”
“Maybe wait until we’ve thought about how to smuggle.” He moved close to embrace her, “Sweet girl, this is fun ain’t it?”
She hugged him tightly and felt a subtle change to his body, “You are awful — this is not my fault what’s happening to you.” but she continued to press against him.
“I’ll share the blame.” He leaned back to admire her, as water lapped at the under side of her breasts.
Betty felt a familiar disorientation and surrendered to it. Some time later, she threw her flushed face forward to touch noses, the way a mamma bear does with her mate. Briefly removing an arm from around his neck, she wiped a tangled mat of wet hair from her eyes. Her eyes sparkled like the droplets on her body, “You said, earlier today, this wasn’t the right place.”
“I meant, that wasn’t the right time.”