Chapter 36
Daniel sipped his coffee thoughtfully and sighed as he looked out the window of the terrace where they ate their breakfast. It was only a quarter after seven but the sun was shining brightly, causing the cerulean water to sparkle like a thousand aquamarine gems catching the light at just the right angle. He could tell already that it was going to be gorgeous day. A part of him felt bad that they, especially Sam, wouldn’t get much chance to enjoy it, as they’d be in the temple most of the day. His disappointment ebbed away as he reminded himself that this was something they had to do, that they might not get another opportunity like this. He also realized that they still had four days left of their honeymoon and he’d promised himself and Sam that they would spend the rest of the time doing more relaxing things.
As he finished his coffee, his gaze shifted over to Sam. She had been very quiet through most of breakfast and now she looked a bit preoccupied as she mashed the remainder of her home fries with a fork.
“Sam? You haven’t said two words. Is something on your mind?” he asked her.
Sam stopped mashing the home fries and looked up at him, blushing faintly. She smiled sheepishly and uttered a short laugh. “No, it’s … it’s just something silly,” she replied.
“What?” Daniel asked, leaning in toward her.
“I just had a strange dream last night,” she admitted. “We were at a temple that disappeared into the sky. That shopkeeper from yesterday was there. We had to pay him to go on a chairlift ride to the top. Uh … twisty mazes – there were twisty mazes inside, and a huge giant Mayan guy, a god I think, blocking our path. He offered us a timeshare.” Her blush deepened as she finished her description.
Daniel regarded her oddly and raised an eyebrow. “Um … okay. You sure you didn’t have anything to drink last night?” he asked dubiously with a hint of a grin.
Sam ducked her head and snickered awkwardly. “No … uh, I mean, yes, I’m sure! I swear, Daniel, that was my dream. I’m not making this up. I guess I was just excited about our expedition today.” She gave a small shrug.
Daniel studied her face and then nodded, a small smile forming on his lips. “I guess that could be it,” he said.
Sam returned the smile. “I really hope we find something interesting there.”
“You and me both,” Daniel said, his smile growing. “I have this feeling that today might be our lucky day, though.”
“Again?” Sam said lightly. “Yesterday was our lucky day, too, as well as the day before. How many lucky days can a person have?”
“Don’t ask that or you’ll jinx it,” he returned with a playful grin. He leaned forward and kissed her lips softly. “Ready to leave?”
Sam nodded and they headed for the front of the room to pay their bill before heading back upstairs.
One hour later, Sam and Daniel were not so safely ensconced in a small all-terrain vehicle with their affable guide, traipsing through a dense jungle area. The terrain was a bit bumpy and they were all getting a bit jostled around. Sam secretly hoped that they wouldn’t be knocked out of the jeep.
“About how much farther is it?” Daniel spoke up.
“Not much farther,” the guide returned. “Several kilometers tops.”
Sam nodded and inwardly breathed a sigh of relief that they were almost at their destination. A small smile graced her lips. “Daniel told me this temple was out-of-the-way, but I didn’t expect this!” she exclaimed.
The guide grinned and nodded. “Oh yes, Señora,” he replied. “This temple has not been excavated extensively due to its remote location.” He glanced over his shoulder at Daniel. “I have to ask what interests you about this place …”
He was cut off by a loud bang, followed by the jeep coming to a sudden stop. After being thrown forward, Sam grabbed Daniel and clung to him. “What was that??” she exclaimed, nearly out of breath, as the guide managed to pilot the vehicle several yards out into a bit of clearing.
“Flat tire, I believe,” the man uttered grimly.
Daniel and Sam regarded him incredulously as he climbed out of the jeep and inspected the right front tire. Its hissing sound confirmed that he had scored a flat. “Oh, boy,” Daniel said gravely.
“Do not worry, Señor,” the guide tried to reassure him. “I have a jack and a spare tire, so we should be moving again in no time.”
Daniel nodded.
Suddenly the memory of helping Walter Davis change his flat tire
up near
The guide reappeared and rested his folded arms on top of the front passenger side door. “No need for that. The spare tire is no good,” he said wearily.
Daniel’s mouth dropped open. “What?”
The guide held his hands up in frustration. “The treads are all worn. If I put it on, we will probably have another blowout, maybe even before we reach the temple. It is too dangerous to ride with this tire.”
Daniel’s expression remained unchanged. Sam glanced at him worriedly and then back to the guide. “So, so what do we do?” she stammered.
“The nearest village is about five kilometers away,” the guide began. “I will go there on foot and get help.”
“Uh, then what should we do?” Sam asked, sounding almost frightened.
Before the guide could answer, Daniel cut in, “We’ll stay here with the jeep. We have supplies with us – some food, water – so we should be okay; at least for now.” He tried to sound reassuring, but he wasn’t quite cutting it.
The guide nodded and looked at them apologetically. “I’m so sorry, my friends.”
Daniel shook his head slightly. “It’s not your fault, Manny. We’ll be fine.” Sam glanced at him, hoping that he was right.
“I will come back here as fast as I can,” the guide promised them. He held up his cell phone. “I will have this with me at all times. You call my number if you need anything or if anything happens.” He gestured to the number on the business card he’d just handed to Daniel.
Daniel briefly looked at the card and then back at Manny and nodded. “Thank you,” he said.
He didn’t notice that Sam tensed up even more after Manny’s last sentence. Now she was gazing almost hopelessly at the other man’s retreating form. Once he was gone, she turned back to Daniel and looked at him fearfully. “’If anything happens’???” she said uneasily.
Daniel wasn’t exactly a picture of self-assuredness himself, but he didn’t want to make Sam any more upset than she already was. “I … I don’t think he really meant anything by that,” he said lamely.
“Daniel, we’re stuck here in the middle of the jungle,” Sam replied, her voice rising desperately. “We’re all alone with the bugs and the birds …” She stopped as she heard the cries of Macaws, which sounded almost like they were laughing at her and Daniel’s plight.
Worry briefly flitted across Daniel’s eyes but he bit it back. “Sam, everything will be fine. I promise.”
“You’re trying to tell me that there’s nothing to be worried about?” she asked dubiously.
Daniel sighed. “Okay, there are things to be worried about,” he conceded, knowing that it would just worry her more, but not wanting to lie to her. “There are black jaguars here –“
Sam gaped at him and looked as if she was about to have a coronary.
“But it’s okay. They won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt them,” he was quick to add. Sam looked like she wasn’t buying it completely. He continued, “There are two species of poisonous snake, but they’re very rare. Tarantulas are also common here, but they’re very shy and go out of their way to avoid human contact.”
Sam’s horrified expression subsided into one of bewilderment. “How do you know so much about the animals here?”
A brief grin flitted across Daniel’s features. “I’ve been here before, remember?”
Sam rolled her eyes, annoyed with herself for letting that fact slip her mind. She ducked her head and something faintly akin to a smile briefly appeared on her face. For the most part, though, her expression remained tentative.
Finally her gaze returned back up to him, her blue-gray eyes large and still tinted with fear. “How long do you think he’ll be gone?” she asked, though she was sure she already knew the answer.
Daniel shrugged, then pushed a strand of hair behind his ear and repositioned his boonie hat. “I don’t know. If it’s a five-kilometer walk, I would hope not very long. It all depends on whether he can find help.” He trailed off, realizing that he wasn’t really helping. “I’m sure he will, though,” he added, his expression brightening somewhat. “It’s not completely hopeless. At least we have our cell phones and a good supply of food and water with us.” He gestured to the bags containing not only their supplies, but canteens of water and energy bars as well.
Sam looked away from him and sighed, barely nodding. She still wasn’t entirely convinced.
“Hey,” Daniel began softly as he edged closer to her and tilted her head back toward him so she could see his face. “Sam, we’ll be okay, I promise. I would never let anything happen to you. You do know that, don’t you?”
She met his gaze and, although she was still a bit fearful, the strong grip that fear had on her was beginning to relax. Deep concern was reflected in Daniel’s eyes, but it was mixed with his strong love for Sam. Those two combined to inform Sam that Daniel couldn’t be more resolute in his statement. “I do,” she finally said.
Daniel pulled her into his arms and gave her a soft kiss on the forehead, reinforcing the notion that he loved her and would protect her. She beamed and kissed him back softly on the lips.
They stayed in each other’s arms for several more minutes before the hot tropical sun peeked out from behind a cloud and gently tapped them on the back, reminding them of its presence. They separated and Sam uttered a sheepish laugh. “I’m sorry if I sort of overreacted there.”
“You have nothing to apologize for,” Daniel said gently. “You didn’t overreact at all. Back when I was an undergraduate, we went on a field trip to the Yucatan. The grad student who was driving the jeep forgot to fill the tank up the day before and didn’t realize we were low on gas until we were in the middle of the jungle. Boy, was he in trouble.” He finished with a small chuckle.
“I can imagine,” Sam said quietly.
Daniel nodded, his grin growing. “You should have heard the professor. Anyway, a fellow student named Evie started getting all upset that we were stuck and was convinced a panther would eat us. She actually had a panic attack.” His grin faded.
“Wow,” Sam said thoughtfully. “What happened?”
“We were able to get her to calm down after a few minutes. The professor hiked back to the nearest village and was able to send help out for us. We continued on with our expedition, none the worse for wear. After we returned home, she decided she was in the wrong line of work and switched her major to Media and Communication.”
Sam’s brow furrowed in confusion but in the end she simply shrugged. Her gaze returned to Daniel and she noticed that his eyes were now intensely apologetic.
“Sam, I’m really sorry for getting us into this mess,” he said, his voice thick with regret. “If I hadn’t insisted that we seek out this temple, none of this would have happened.”
“Please, Daniel. You didn’t know this was going to happen,” she assured him, stroking his hair gently. She briefly looked away from him, trying to decide what else to say. “Maybe, in some totally preposterous way, this happened for a reason.”
Daniel looked at her intently and then shrugged slightly. “Everything happens for a reason, Sam. Sometimes it’s for the reason we want or expect, and sometimes it’s for the reason we don’t; we might not know how to explain it but it’s there.”
Sam’s lips lifted into a small grin. She realized that his statement applied to them, whether he intended it to or not. Her meeting and falling in love with Daniel certainly happened for a reason. It was a reason that she did not intend or expect, but she wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. She reached over and kissed him tenderly, burying her hands in his hair. In the process, she managed to knock his boonie crooked on his head.
“Oops, sorry about that,” she laughed softly after pulling apart from him.
Daniel gave her an amused grin as he fixed the hat and tightened the cord slightly. “You know, Manny said the temple is only a couple of kilometers away,” he said. “Maybe we can walk there.”
Sam’s expression was doubtful. “In which direction?” she asked. “Daniel, I know you want to see this temple, but we shouldn’t leave the jeep here. What if he comes back before us?”
Daniel nodded. “You’re right, I’m being totally unreasonable,” he said, reaching into his bag for his water canteen. He took a sip and looked at her ruefully. “I’d just like to get out of here and walk a little. The sun is really starting to beat down and there’s some good shade over there.” He pointed to a nearby area with more dense vegetation.
Sam nodded and wiped the sweat from her brow before readjusting the souvenir baseball cap she’d decided to wear. Daniel grabbed his bag and stepped out of the jeep. He looked back at Sam and gestured for her to follow him. She grabbed her bag and hurriedly climbed out. Unfortunately she overstepped and fell, cursing under her breath as she landed on her left side.
“Sam,” Daniel started worriedly, immediately making his way to her side. “Are you all right?”
Sam straightened up a bit and nodded. “Uh … yeah,” she said, a bit distressed. “I think I did something to my ankle, though.” She grabbed at her ankle and attempted to stand up. It didn’t appear to be swollen or worse, but she had twisted it a bit.
“Can you walk?” Daniel asked.
She tried to walk a few steps, wincing slightly in pain. Daniel noticed her limping a little and he frowned. They certainly wouldn’t be able to do much walking. He hoped she could make it to the sanctuary afforded by the trees and smaller shrubs from the hot sun. “You think you can make it over there?” he asked, pointing to the area once again.
Sam nodded. “I think so. I have the first aid kit in my bag and there’s a sports bandage in there.”
Daniel studied her face and nodded. Taking her bag and slinging it over his shoulder with his own bag, he guided her over to the shady area just on the outskirts of the clearing. They both breathed a sigh of relief as they experienced the slightly cooler temperature and the wisp of a breeze moving between the trees. Daniel spread out a towel he had in his bag for Sam and helped her sit down. She went through the first aid kit until she found the bandage. She removed her shoe and secured the bandage over her injured ankle.
“I wish I had an ice pack,” she said.
Daniel took another swig of water from his canteen and then looked at it thoughtfully. “There are some ice cubes in here,” he said. Before she could say a word, he unscrewed the top and reached inside. Producing an ice cube, he handed it to her.
Sam grinned in amusement as she took the cube from Daniel and held it against her bandaged ankle. A short time later, it had melted away. Sam turned to Daniel and gave him a playful, mock “now what?” expression.
“Want another one?” he asked without hesitation.
Sam snickered softly and shook her head. “No, I should be okay now. The bandage will help. I just have to take it easy.”
“Okay,” Daniel nodded. He sat up against her and leaned his head back, taking in the lush scenery around them as well as the myriad of jungle sounds. In addition to the Macaw parrots, there was the occasional cry of a howler monkey. Daniel began to tell Sam all about the different animals that were indigenous to the jungles of Belize – skipping over the more worrisome ones he’d already mentioned, of course.
As he scanned the area behind him, something suddenly caught his eye. It appeared to be some sort of structure, or part of one, peaking out from between the dense vegetation. “Sam?” he said tentatively.
“Hmm?” she said, turning in the direction in which he was looking.
“What does that look like to you?”
Squinting, Sam took a good long look and came up empty. “I don’t know,” she shrugged. “It looks like some kind of … overgrown structure, or something.” She turned and noticed Daniel’s eyes were now sparkling with curiosity. He edged up off the towel and took a few steps in that direction. “Whoa. Daniel, what are you doing?” she asked.
“I just want to see what this is,” he said absently, not bothering to turn around. He forged a path through the overgrown foliage, silently thanking his lucky stars that he’d applied and reapplied bug spray to practically every inch of his exposed skin. He edged closer to the mysterious thing and got a good look at it from almost all sides. He realized that it was indeed larger than it seemed.
The decaying stone structure featured an entryway to a small corridor that led into a large main room. Daniel removed the small flashlight from the pocket of his cargo pants and cautiously ventured down the corridor. As he reached the entrance to the main room, his mouth dropped open. Part of the structure’s domed roof had crumbled away, allowing a ray of sunshine to dance upon the ground. That wasn’t the source of his amazement, however. Located at the far right end of the room was a small set of stairs, carved from the stone, leading down into a darkened sublevel.
Daniel ventured curiously over to the stairs and shone his flashlight down into the dark crevice. From his vantage point, he couldn’t really make anything out. He wanted to explore it, but the reality that he would be going down there alone – which was never a good idea during an excavation – and that he’d left Sam out there tapped him gently on the shoulder. He wanted to be quick so he could get back to her. He hoped that her ankle was better and that she might be able to join him in exploring this place.
He moved away from the stairs and was about to make his way back outside when pictographs etched into the limestone wall of the structure caught his eye. As he looked them over he found they were astronomical in nature and almost resembled star charts. His eyes widened in realization. These markings, coupled with the domed roof, made him think it was some sort of observatory. Such structures among Mayan ruins undoubtedly existed and were fairly well known, but the fact that this one was previously undiscovered was quite exciting to Daniel. He was now more curious than ever about what lie in the mysterious sublevel.
He snapped out of his reverie when his ears picked up the sound of footsteps, followed by a familiar voice. “Daniel?”
Daniel turned around and drew in a quick breath when he found Sam standing at the entrance to the corridor, carrying both of their bags. “Ah … Sam,” he blurted out. “Um …” His eyes traveled down to her foot. “How’s the ankle?”
She quickly looked down at her ankle and back up at him. “Oh, uh, it’s a lot better, actually. The bandage helped.”
Daniel’s startled expression faded and he gave her a little smile. “Good,” he replied. “Are you sure you can walk okay?”
Sam nodded and began making her way up to him, the remnants of a small limp still present as she walked. “Sorry that I startled you like that. I just got bored sitting out there and,” she said as she drew very close to him and met his eyes, “I didn’t want to be alone anymore.”
Daniel’s smile widened and he embraced her, giving her a small kiss on the top of her head. Sam beamed and a quiet chuckle escaped her lips. “So,” she started, “find anything interesting here?”
Excitement began to color Daniel’s eyes once again. “Oh, absolutely,” he began a touch overenthusiastically, earning an affectionate grin from Sam. “Actually I was just about to find you to tell you about this place. I think it’s an observatory of some sort.”
Sam’s brow creased. “Really?”
Daniel nodded. He led her over to the markings on the walls and pointed to them. “Most of these pictographs have an astronomical theme, one that’s quite similar to the ones seen in some temples as well as a few of the well-known ancient observatories. See, these are star charts. They would often chart the position of the stars and the planets. Over here, for example, are the planets Venus, Mars, and Jupiter.”
Sam nodded thoughtfully. “You can tell which planets they are by their relative size and the shape of their orbits,” she pointed out, starting to get a bit more interested.
Daniel looked at her. “Oh … ah, I could tell which ones they were by the way they were referred in the hieroglyphs,” he chuckled awkwardly. “Not that I’m saying you’re wrong or anything,” he hastily added.
Sam just grinned at him before directing her eyes back to the multitude of pictures. “Is there anything that makes these drawings stand out in some way?”
Daniel sighed. “Well, I didn’t get much of an opportunity to study them closely. I wanted to get back to you and bring you over here if you were up to it.”
She smiled. “Well, I’m here now.”
Daniel smiled back before he proceeded to cover every square inch of the walls, studying the pictographs and hieroglyphs intently. Every so often, he would ask Sam for his notebook or the camera and would take notes or shoot a picture. A short time later, they had looked at almost everything and really hadn’t found anything out of the ordinary. They were about to give up when Sam suddenly called out to Daniel, who was on the other side of the room. “I think I found something!” she said.
Daniel whipped his head around and looked at her inquisitively. “What?”
“Come here,” Sam continued, excitement creeping into her tone.
Daniel raced over to where she was standing, pointing to a group of pictographs with one hand and shining a flashlight on them with the other. Daniel glanced at her expectantly, but she didn’t say a word. She merely gestured toward them, wanting him to see what they were for himself.
Daniel took a closer look at the drawings, his brow furrowing in confusion. Finally, his eyes widened and his mouth dropped open, revealing that he now had an idea of what they were.
“Look familiar?” Sam smiled.
“Oh, my God,” Daniel murmured. The drawings turned out to be quite similar to the ones found on the jar she’d found in the shop, but were much more detailed. “Sam, this is … this is incredible!”
Sam only nodded and smiled, pleased.
“I-I mean, this is just …” Daniel’s excitement left him at a loss for words. He went over the pictographs again, this time attempting to translate them and explain them in detail to Sam. “Here, the Mayan people are in servitude to Zipacna. These glyphs over here are just retelling the story of how the warriors were sent to kill him but were unsuccessful.”
Sam waited a bit impatiently for Daniel to get to the drawings in question.
“And here we see Zipacna, looking to the stars from which …” Daniel trailed off and sighed, disappointed. “The hieroglyphs are incomplete.”
Sam’s face fell and she briefly looked away from him. She really thought she’d found something that might correlate to their findings from Egypt. Instead, it was a bit of a dead end. Over time she’d come to expect that through her own studies, but this time she thought they actually had something.
“But, we do have the pictographs showing Zipacna and the planets in that familiar alignment,” Daniel suddenly added, sounding a little more optimistic. “And we still have that sublevel over there to check out.” He gestured to the stairs on the opposite side of the room from them.
Sam turned back to Daniel, her eyes widening. “You think there could be something down there?”
“It wouldn’t hurt to look,” Daniel replied. He picked up his bag and gestured for Sam to follow as he made his way toward the downward-leading staircase. He pulled a larger flashlight out of his bag and shone it down into the dark recesses of the sublevel.
Sam removed a flashlight from her bag and readied it. She looked uncertainly at Daniel, her eyes tinged slightly with fear. “Wow. It’s really … um … dark down there. I hope we don’t run into anything – or anyone – particularly nasty.”
Daniel squeezed her arm and gave her a look of reassurance. “Don’t worry, it’ll be okay. I promise.” He turned back to the staircase. “I’ll go down first.”
Sam regarded him tentatively for a moment and then nodded. She watched as Daniel carefully made his way down the small stairs, never keeping the beam of her flashlight off of him despite the fact that he had his own.
Once he hit bottom, he turned around to look back up at her. “Ah!” he exclaimed, the beam of light nearly blinding him.
Sam quickly turned the flashlight off, her cheeks flaming. “Oh, God, sorry!” she said, flustered. She looked down at him with apologetic eyes.
Daniel smiled up at her, a hint of teasing in his eyes. He stuck the open palm of his right hand in front of him, as if to confirm that he hadn’t been permanently blinded. “No, I’m okay,” he said impishly.
Sam’s blush eased up, only to return once again as she laughed sheepishly. “I’m really sorry, Daniel.”
Daniel nodded. “It’s okay.” He gestured for her to make her way down the steps.
Sam nodded uncertainly and then switched her flashlight back on, careful not to shine it in Daniel’s face. She slowly made her way down the steps, Daniel’s encouraging stance and expression guiding her the entire way. Once she’d made it to the bottom, he reached out and put his arm around her, pulling her close to him and giving her a little kiss.
“See? You made it,” he confirmed with a smile.
Sam returned both his kiss and smile. Pulling apart just a bit, they shone their flashlights around the area. They took a few steps further and found it to be a subterranean tunnel of sorts. As they followed it, Sam began to be plagued by the same creepy feeling she had when she and Daniel were exploring the burial chamber in Egypt. This one was a bit more intense, despite the fact that Daniel was very close to her the whole time. Perhaps it was due to the fact that this tunnel was not as expansive as the corridors in the burial chamber, or the fact that the latter was more elaborate.
Whatever the reason, Sam couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being followed. Every so often, she’d shine her light behind them to makes sure they were the only ones there. Sensing her fear, Daniel edged closer to her and held her hand. It seemed to make her relax, if only a small amount.
After several yards, the tunnel took a sharp turn to the right and opened up somewhat into a large room. The beam of Daniel’s flashlight caught some very elaborate pictographs etched onto the wall behind what looked like an altar.
“Wow,” Sam remarked as she followed Daniel’s gaze.
Daniel approached the altar and his eyes widened upon finding reddish stains on its surface.
“What do you think that is?” Sam asked.
“I think I might have an idea,” Daniel muttered. He made his way around to the back of the altar and stopped dead in his tracks. “Whoa.”
Sam’s brow furrowed in confusion before she noticed what Daniel’s foot was brushing up against. It was a part of bone – definitely human and most likely a collarbone. Sam suddenly remembered reading about Mayan sacrificial ceremonies in one of the books in the library. “Human sacrifice?” she asked.
“It’s possible,” he replied after a beat. “The Mayas did hold sacrificial ceremonies deep in caves during the late terminal classic period, but I didn’t expect to find anything like this underneath an observatory.”
After studying the bone for several moments, he directed his attention to the drawings behind the altar. “Wow, look how intricately done these are,” he said, sounding almost mesmerized. “You can tell a lot of time and effort were put into them. It looks like Zipacna is widely featured again …”
Sam nodded as Daniel ran his hands over the pictographs, muttering softly to himself as he translated them. A few minutes had passed before he suddenly turned to her, pure excitement in his eyes. “Sam!” he exclaimed. “We’ve found it!”
Sam looked at him curiously. “Found what?”
“What we needed!” he continued. “And, quite possibly, a whole lot more.”
She regarded him expectantly before he began his explanation of the drawings, “Okay, here we see the Mayan people in service to their god Zipacna. They serve him dutifully and present sacrifices to him. Ah, this next part here is a bit muddy – I can’t really translate it without some of my reference books – but it seems to be about the selection process for sacrifices. Okay, now here is the amazing thing: we see that same alignment of the planets directly above Zipacna. The hieroglyphs depict this formidable god originating from the stars. He and his kind needed the Mayan people to survive.”
Sam furrowed her brow in confusion. “What does that mean?”
Daniel shook his head in frustration. “I don’t know. It’s very cryptic. I’m going to have to study it a bit more to make heads or tails out of it. But,” he continued as he gestured back to the drawings, “look at this. It’s a different system from the Egyptian one, but it tells a very similar story. The fact that two different cultures at different times during Earth’s history produced something like this with such remarkable similarities … it’s incredible!” He briefly turned toward her, his eyes aglow with excitement.
Sam took in his expression and laughed inwardly. He reminded her of a little boy and she found it very endearing. Her smile faded and she nodded thoughtfully.
After a little more than one hour had passed, Daniel decided that he and Sam had all they needed. They had taken notes, snapped pictures, and taken as much film footage as they could to go over after they arrived back at the hotel. Daniel had also done some rubbings of the hieroglyphs. He realized that quite a lot of time had passed since their guide had taken off and he didn’t know when he would be back.
They gathered up their equipment, secured it in their bags, and began making their way down the tunnel and up the stairs. Daniel took one last fleeting look at the structure as Sam noted its location via handheld GPS and they headed back in the direction of the clearing.
They had just reached the shady area in which they’d been sitting previously when they heard the faint sound of a motor running. They hastened their pace and, once they hit the familiar clearing, they noticed another jeep exiting the lush area just beyond and slowing to a stop next to their jeep. A feeling of intense relief washed over Sam and Daniel when they noticed Manny exiting along with two other men.
“Manny!” Daniel exclaimed.
The other man made his way up to them, his eyes intensely apologetic. “I am sorry I took so long, Señor. These guys have found me a spare tire for the jeep. We should be out of here quickly.”
Daniel and Sam nodded. “No problem,” Daniel said. “We’re just glad you were able to find help.”
Manny nodded, grateful that his clients weren’t going to give him a hard time. “What did you do all this time?” he suddenly asked, curious.
“Oh, ah … we just spent a lot of time in the shade,” Daniel began awkwardly. “We took a little walk and I told Sam all about the flora and fauna of this place.”
“Ah,” the other man replied. Daniel inwardly breathed a sigh of relief that Manny seemed to buy his story.
After several minutes, the new tire had been secured onto the jeep and the other two men drove back to their village. Manny repeated his apology to Sam and Daniel and offered to drive them to the temple anyway. They were about to decline after all the excitement they’d just had in the previously unknown observatory, but decided it was still relatively early and didn’t want the guide to have driven them into the jungle for nothing.
They spent a relatively short time at the temple, quite disappointed to find hardly anything out of the ordinary, as well as many parts blocked off. They returned to the hotel at half past noon and decided to have some lunch in the restaurant downstairs after a shower.
“So, it’s possible that Zipacna could have been an alien?” Sam asked Daniel as he emerged from the bathroom, rubbing his damp hair with a towel. “Would that shed some light on the whole ‘he and his kind’ thing?”
Daniel’s lips lifted into a content smile, glad that he and Sam were on the same wavelength. “That could very well be it,” he replied as he went through the top drawer and pulled a light blue shirt on over his head. “We need to study it closer.”
Another thought struck Sam and her eyes widened. “If it is, do you think the beings depicted in the Egyptian pictographs could also be aliens?”
Daniel’s smile broadened. The potential support that this find might give their theory was another catalyst behind his overly happy demeanor. “We’ll see,” he quietly.
Sam met his gaze and returned his smile as she pondered the likelihood that they might have found something really big – something that might earn Daniel more respect within the academic community as well as something that could very well be the archaeological find of the century.