also coated in fauna of the moist woodland. Leaves, vines, and lichen hung off the shelf.
“So?”
“There’s a natural chunk of quartz above that shelf that has attracted people for eons,” Nanny said. “More petroglyphs, too. But we never connected the quartz to the flash from Blue Mountain.”
“ Eons ?” If the area was that well trampled, the odds of us finding anything here seemed slim. And if they already knew about the quartz and the petroglyphs, why had Nanny and Stephen waited until we were here to mention them, even if they didn’t get the connection? Maybe it was all the silent, significant glances they kept giving each other, but I was getting more than a little agitated.
I glanced straight up—there was no direct climbing route to the ledge—then walked forward around the corner of the wall. There were crevices and enough exposed jagged edges for a climb, so I started up.
“Be careful, Buck,” Nanny said. “No way to get you out of here if you fall and break something.”
Her voice already had a distant sound as curiosity drove me up the wall like a spider monkey. I zigged and zagged my way toward the southeastern-facing shelf. The final several feet required me to grab hold of the rock outcropping and pull myself up. The rocks dug into my fingers—my arms shook, my face scraped against the damp wall—
“Buck?”
With my arms still shaking, I finally hauled myself onto the shelf and pushed my back against the wall, taking a moment to catch my breath. My feet dangled some twenty-five feet above Nanny and Stephen. She looked frightened, and even Stephen was staring up at me with his mouth open.
A big exhale nearly caused me to slip off the front of what was not that big a ledge. I edged sideways—carefully—and spotted a dinner-plate-sized chunk of rose quartz embedded in the wall and surrounded by matte-black rock, which accounted for the beacon that had caught the sunlight. So much for its being Morgan’s stash site.
“What do you see?” Nanny called up.
“You mean you haven’t been up here before?”
“No …”
“You didn’t seem very excited about the petroglyphs.”
“Of course I was. Why else would we have come down here?”
Stephen said nothing.
I pulled the sharp flat rock from my pocket and started scraping at the moss, which peeled off like dried wallpaper. I could make out what looked like a curved edge. I scraped at it—then another, and another. After several minutes I’d uncovered a carving—several carvings–of symbols. They were circular and oval and all connected.
“What have you found?” Stephen said.
“I don’t know.”
My voice must not have carried, because Nanny called up with the same question. From my breast pocket I removed a pencil and piece of paper and tried to copy the symbols as accurately as I could. I dug at the moss around them in a wide radius but uncovered nothing else.
Satisfied I’d found everything there was to find, I reversed course and dropped below the shelf. My fingers caught the edge and I hung until my right foot caught a toehold on the edge that allowed me to reach around, grab an indentation in the wall, and swing over until I could shimmy my way down.
Ideas ricocheted around my mind, drawing on past experiences with Mayan and other wall carvings.
“Buck!”
BOOM!
Gunshot ?
My ass slipped, everything spun, my shoulder bounced off rock—sharp pain, then a branch cracked, pine needles brushed past my face, my shirt ripped—
THUD!
I hit the ground and saw stars through the pain.
I lay there a moment, taking a quick inventory. Nothing felt broken, but blood flowed from multiple gashes. The sketch of the wall carving was clutched in my hand. Looking straight up at the massive pine tree I’d careened through, I saw broken branches that had softened my fall.
“What you got there, Reilly?”
No way!
I turned to face the only man on Jamaica likely to be shooting at me.
“W hat the hell are you doing
“So?”
“There’s a natural chunk of quartz above that shelf that has attracted people for eons,” Nanny said. “More petroglyphs, too. But we never connected the quartz to the flash from Blue Mountain.”
“ Eons ?” If the area was that well trampled, the odds of us finding anything here seemed slim. And if they already knew about the quartz and the petroglyphs, why had Nanny and Stephen waited until we were here to mention them, even if they didn’t get the connection? Maybe it was all the silent, significant glances they kept giving each other, but I was getting more than a little agitated.
I glanced straight up—there was no direct climbing route to the ledge—then walked forward around the corner of the wall. There were crevices and enough exposed jagged edges for a climb, so I started up.
“Be careful, Buck,” Nanny said. “No way to get you out of here if you fall and break something.”
Her voice already had a distant sound as curiosity drove me up the wall like a spider monkey. I zigged and zagged my way toward the southeastern-facing shelf. The final several feet required me to grab hold of the rock outcropping and pull myself up. The rocks dug into my fingers—my arms shook, my face scraped against the damp wall—
“Buck?”
With my arms still shaking, I finally hauled myself onto the shelf and pushed my back against the wall, taking a moment to catch my breath. My feet dangled some twenty-five feet above Nanny and Stephen. She looked frightened, and even Stephen was staring up at me with his mouth open.
A big exhale nearly caused me to slip off the front of what was not that big a ledge. I edged sideways—carefully—and spotted a dinner-plate-sized chunk of rose quartz embedded in the wall and surrounded by matte-black rock, which accounted for the beacon that had caught the sunlight. So much for its being Morgan’s stash site.
“What do you see?” Nanny called up.
“You mean you haven’t been up here before?”
“No …”
“You didn’t seem very excited about the petroglyphs.”
“Of course I was. Why else would we have come down here?”
Stephen said nothing.
I pulled the sharp flat rock from my pocket and started scraping at the moss, which peeled off like dried wallpaper. I could make out what looked like a curved edge. I scraped at it—then another, and another. After several minutes I’d uncovered a carving—several carvings–of symbols. They were circular and oval and all connected.
“What have you found?” Stephen said.
“I don’t know.”
My voice must not have carried, because Nanny called up with the same question. From my breast pocket I removed a pencil and piece of paper and tried to copy the symbols as accurately as I could. I dug at the moss around them in a wide radius but uncovered nothing else.
Satisfied I’d found everything there was to find, I reversed course and dropped below the shelf. My fingers caught the edge and I hung until my right foot caught a toehold on the edge that allowed me to reach around, grab an indentation in the wall, and swing over until I could shimmy my way down.
Ideas ricocheted around my mind, drawing on past experiences with Mayan and other wall carvings.
“Buck!”
BOOM!
Gunshot ?
My ass slipped, everything spun, my shoulder bounced off rock—sharp pain, then a branch cracked, pine needles brushed past my face, my shirt ripped—
THUD!
I hit the ground and saw stars through the pain.
I lay there a moment, taking a quick inventory. Nothing felt broken, but blood flowed from multiple gashes. The sketch of the wall carving was clutched in my hand. Looking straight up at the massive pine tree I’d careened through, I saw broken branches that had softened my fall.
“What you got there, Reilly?”
No way!
I turned to face the only man on Jamaica likely to be shooting at me.
“W hat the hell are you doing
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