Maroon Rising (23 page)

“If they’s sinkholes, we got no chance of finding that pattern,” Keith said.

“Don’t be so negative,” Stanley said.

“Negative? That whole part of the island is constantly sinking! There’s new holes all the time, you can’t even map them—”

“It’s probably caves,” I said. “I can’t imagine anyone would hide valuables in a sinkhole.”

“Oh, there are plenty of sinkholes that produce new caves and all kinds of tunnels,” Keith said. “Fools get lost bad in those things all the time.”

“And what about caves?” Ray said.

I winced, already knowing the answer.

“The Jamaican Caves Organization estimates there’s over a thousand caves on this island,” Keith said. “You going to check every damned one?”

“That’s enough, Keith.” Stanley glanced at his watch. I’d looked at mine just a moment before—we had barely forty hours left. “We all want to find Nanny, but we need to use the information Buck’s found, not tear it apart.”

Keith grumbled under his breath, and though I was more optimistic by nature—hell, you had to be in the treasure-hunting business—I was equally overwhelmed by the number of potential stash sites.

“Those old petroglyphs at Blue Mountain crossing are Taino Indian, no doubt,” Keith said. “Maroons coexisted with the Tainos, and they certainly shared the same trails through the mountains. For different purposes, of course, but they could have easily shared information on the meanings of carvings, whether they be for gods, hunting grounds, or hidey-holes.”

Since when was “hidey-holes” an archaeological term? Keith had been Nanny’s stand-in at the committee hearing so she could avoid the spotlight, and as I recalled she thought of him as something of a buffoon. But at the moment he was our resident expert, and you could be a buffoon and still know your field.

Keith said, “My feeling is we should start at Green Grotto Cave, the best-known Taino cave—”

“It’s too far northeast, Keith,” Stanley said.

“You’re an archaeologist now?” Keith said.

I spotted people from neighboring tables glancing in our direction. I held my palms up.

“Gentlemen, please, let’s not attract attention.”

Ray leaned closer to me. “A
thousand
caves?” He rolled his eyes.

“The police haven’t had a single lead,” Stanley said. “Nobody on the whole damn island’s seen her. It’s unbelievable given that everyone
knows
her.”

The answer’s up in the air
. Could they have flown her off-island? A thought struck me. What about the big rocks at Isla Vaca where I’d been searching when Jack and Gunner flew over?

When I mentioned that, Stanley said he had contacts in Haiti who would know people at Isla Vaca—he’d have them go check the area in the morning.

“But Green Grotto Cave is so overrun with tourists, it’s hard to imagine it being a hiding place for anything,” Keith said. Apparently he was the type to debate with himself out loud.

“I’m convinced the symbols represent caves in Cockpit Country,” I said. “The Tainos were very active in that region in their heyday, and it’s where Njoni settled after leaving Moore Town. If he hid the booty, there’s a good chance it would have been around there.”

“If he
had
the booty, why wouldn’t he have taken it for himself?” Keith said.

I leaned forward and kept my voice low, hoping Keith, especially, would do the same.

“Among the notes in Morgan’s diary was a date, 23 June 1690. The rest was faded, but it was right after the mention of a friend’s son. Good chance that friend would have been Akim, father of Njoni, and my guess is the date was set for a future meeting when Morgan’s associates from the Panama raid would have given up on their accusations of him hiding the lion’s share of plunder. Hell, he was only fifty-three years old when he died in 1688, so he could have easily planned a meeting for when he was fifty-five—”

“But what would have prevented Njoni from stealing it?” Ray said.

“Steal from Lieutenant Governor Henry Morgan, the most ruthless and cunning privateer in history?” I said. “Njoni would have been hunted down and flayed alive.”

Everyone nodded.

“Besides, the plan must have been to cut him and his father in on the date they’d planned to meet—”

“What about the letter credited to Njoni?” Keith said. “The one that led to the offshore dig at Port Royal?”

I smiled. “Remember the date of the letter?”

Keith rubbed his nose between his thumb and index finger.

“Sometime in 1673 as I recall—”

“Right. We backtracked and confirmed that Morgan was still on trial in London for sacking Panama during the truce with Spain. Sure, he returned from London as the lieutenant governor, but when that letter was written he wasn’t even on Jamaica.”

“So?” Stanley said.

“So, I suspect Njoni forged the letter after Morgan’s death to draw attention away from his former privateer colleagues, who were tearing all of Morgan’s possessions to shreds searching for clues to the treasure.”

“So why didn’t Njoni collect after Morgan died?” Ray said.

“Now
that’s
a good question,” I said.

Keith leaned forward, a Cheshire cat smile on his face.

“If you’re correct, Njoni never would have had the chance to grab the treasure at that point.” He paused. “According to the records of the time, Njoni was arrested by the colonial government after presenting the letter, then shipped off to Nova Scotia with all the other Trelawney Maroons.”

“Damn!” Ray said. “Weren’t any cell phones for him to phone a friend in those days.” Ray’s smile was not reciprocated.

Silence fell over the table.

Keith’s information filled in a major puzzle piece. If he was correct, then there might not have been anyone left who knew where Morgan’s Panama treasure had been hidden.

“Cockpit Country’s sure big,” Stanley said.

“Right, but that’s where Nanny and I were when she was grabbed—”

“I have an associate there who’s a guide and spelunker—cave junkie,” Keith said. “He’s on the board of the Jamaican Cave Organization. I could get him to meet us—”

“Early tomorrow morning at the jerk shack just south of Accompong,” I said. “That’s where Nanny and I met with Kujo and his snarky little assistant, Clayton. If you superimpose the map from the Firefly mantelpiece over a modern map of Jamaica, it’s somewhere in that vicinity.”

Keith nodded. “I’ll go along with it—”

“We don’t have any choice,” Stanley said.

“No, but based on the proximity to the north and south coast once you overlay that map, it could easily reflect a twenty-mile radius.”

Stanley sighed. Ray, along with Pierce—who had yet to say a word—both stared at me. I read the questions in their eyes, and while I didn’t have answers I did have a tickle in my stomach—the same tickle I felt the day before our expedition into the Guatemalan rainforest, the hunt that led to my largest archaeological find ever and precipitated my photo on the cover of the
Wall Street Journal
.

That detail soured the tickle, but I’d learned long ago to study the facts, tighten the circle, and go with my gut.

“A twenty-mile radius is damn good progress, now we just need some luck.” We’d fly around the area again if we had to, but we’d start on the ground. Wheels and feet are a lot slower than propellers, but we needed to turn rocks over, not fly above them.

A
fter reading the text, I dialed Johnny’s number. It only rang once.

“Damn, Mr. Buck, all hell busting loose out here.”

“What’s wrong?”

“The police crash your old friends Jack and Gunner, and after they left our neighbors start making all kinds of threats, shooting guns—they chased off their observer from JNHT. Our men are scared!”

I took a couple breaths. “You were supposed to have returned the boats by now, Johnny, that’s costing me—”

“Been too damned rough, mon, worse than when you left yesterday—and the police come out here with an official from the Heritage Trust to ask about our license, too—”

“We never even did anything! Now pull anchor and get those boats—”

“You need to get back out here, mon. Too crazy for me. Police and crazed salvage hunters, unh-uh, no thank you.”

“Okay, Johnny. I’ll come out later, but we have some other things we have to do first. Get the constables to protect you.”

I glanced at Ray in the Jeep’s rearview mirror. He shook his head.

“Well, make it quick as you can, Mr. Buck. Not taking a bullet from these guys.”

I hit end and put the phone in my breast pocket. Then gave Stanley the gist of what Johnny had said.

“I’m going to make some calls.” He stepped outside with his cell phone, then slammed the door shut.

“What exactly did Johnny say?” Ray said.

“Problems out on the water. Says I better come quick.”

“We really going through with this?”

“Yep.” I popped the door open.

“Wish I had better shoes.” But he stepped out with me.

Keith was there as were Pierce, the Rasta bodyguard/pack mule, and a trail guide for a local outfitter that Keith had arranged through his friend at the Jamaican Cave Organization. A pile of backpacks was heaped into the open bed of the guide’s red pickup truck.

Since Keith had vouched for the guide’s skill, reliability, and discretion, Stanley and I had agreed to show him the sketch of the circles and ovals. They weren’t popular caves to explore, he said, but they were in the vicinity of some others he knew well. The guide was one of the top spelunkers in Jamaica—if the petroglyphs were indeed a series of caves, then this was our best shot.

“Are we ready?” I said.

“Lets take a look at the map.” The guide unfolded a worn-looking map onto the opened gate of the pickup’s bed and smoothed it gently with his palms. “We are here.” He pointed to a spot on the two-lane road, just south of Accompong, near the jerk shack where Nanny and I had met Kujo and Clayton. “Based on the drawing you showed me, I think we follow this road.” He dragged his finger up the main road and then to a dotted line and off sharply to the left. “We can drive a few miles into here.” He tapped an area where there were some tight topographic lines. “We have to park vehicles there and hike to caves. Halfway up this mountain, on a plateau.”

“Dear God.” Ray’s voice was a whisper behind me.

“There are many sinkholes and caves over all the area,” the guide said. “So we need to be bloody careful so nobody breaks their neck or disappears for good.”

Nobody said anything for a long moment.

“Is there a vantage point where we can visually survey the scene?” I asked.

He dragged his finger up to where the topographic lines formed tight concentric circles.

“Up here. You can see many of the formations from here.”

Stanley chose that moment to walk around the Jeep to the back of the truck, his lips pursed. Our eyes caught.

”I’m going to keep digging,” he said.

“Okay,” I said, “let’s load up.”

Keith got inside the truck with the guide, the rest of us followed them in the Jeep. While trying to avoid potholes I pictured the guide’s map in my head. The jerk shack was just ahead when the guide took a sharp turn to the left onto a dirt road. So much dust exploded into the air that I had to drop back to keep from being blinded.

The trail was so narrow that brush scratched at the Jeep’s sides as we passed, and bushy branches poked leaves through its open windows. The road—more of a hiking trail—was washboard bumpy, rocky, and crossed over some wide streams we had to drive through slowly, unsure of their depths.

Taillights suddenly appeared through the brown cloud ahead—I jammed on the brakes. We skidded on the loose gravel and dirt, coming to a stop only feet from the back of the guide’s pickup.

“Damn, Buck!” Ray hollered from the backseat. “Scared the crap out of me.”

The guide materialized from the dust, walking toward us with his eyes squinted. I hung my head out the window.

“End of the line,” he said. “We walk from here.”

Pierce jumped out. Ray grimaced, then opened his door. Stanley crossed his arms.

“I’m too old for this. I’ll wait here.” He checked his phone. “I have three bars, should be able to make calls.”

Every instinct I had told me that we were getting closer to the treasure now. I glanced back at Stanley. Would I live to be too old to hunt for it?