Skeletons Among Us: Legends of Treasure Book 2 Read online

  It was then she saw it. To Maria’s left, about ten feet west of Josh’s position, was a crack. It traveled up the wall in a way that would allow her to anchor herself often and travel more quickly. If she used it to reach Josh’s height, once there she’d find another way to traverse horizontally to reach him.

  Maria pulled out a cam to fit into a two-inch-wide crack and inserted it inside, making sure it would hold firmly. It was the right angle and a perfect fit. Up the cliff she moved, securing new cams about every five feet or so, using them to attach her carabineers to for safety. Each time she anchored, the crack became more narrow, forcing her to use small nuts inside the crack instead of cams.

  Maria was still below Josh, but she was getting closer. The sound of his sporadic, shallow breathing reached her ears. The boy was in panic mode. No doubt about it.

  At this higher perspective, Maria saw that the cliff wall had looked deceptively flat from below. An overhang blocked Josh’s path. He had found one decent sized handhold that hadn’t broken off, and his feet teetered on a small rock ledge about an inch wide. His body shook from exhaustion and adrenaline

  “Keep your eyes in front of you, Josh,” said Maria, in a calm, deliberate voice. She took another deep breath. The last thing Josh wanted to hear was that his rescuer was winded.

  “I’m going to be coming to you. It’s really important you don’t reach for me. You keep holding exactly as you are until I have a solid grip on you and I tell you to release the wall, okay?” Maria’s position was horizontal to that of Josh’s, ten feet too far to the left.

  Josh didn’t answer.

  Maria continued, “I will use those exact words. I’ll say ‘release the wall’ and then you’ll let go. But not before, even if I seem really close, okay?”

  Still nothing from the boy

  “I need you to let me know you heard me. Can you say ‘yes?’ ”

  Another moment of silence and then a cracked “y-yes” broke the air.

  “Okay, great.” Maria’s eyes scanned the distance between her and Josh while she spoke. There were a few jugs she might be able to use to make her way over to the teen. “You’re going to be fine. We’re going to make it down together just fine.”

  “I’m going to fall.” Josh’s voice shook. He was crying. Tears dripped off his chin, unable to be wiped. Hands clung to small rock formations that were the only thing between him and a violent death seventy feet below.

  “No, you’re not. You’re going to hold on and I’m going to come and get you.” Maria’s fingers fumbled to find the smallest nut she had in the equipment rack around her waist. After locating what she needed, Marie deftly used her hammer to insert it into the tiny crack, now no more than an eighth of an inch wide.

  “I can’t … I can’t feel my hands.” Josh gasped, trying to get air.

  “You’re going to keep your hands on the grips. They’re holding just fine. I can see them. You’re strong.” As she spoke her words of calm encouragement, Maria attached her carabineer into the newest nut she’d inserted. For a split second she let her gaze drop to the canyon floor. A woman with dark hair stood slightly behind Rod.

  Good grief. Don’t let the boy’s mother watch.

  Didn’t Rod have any sense? Why hadn’t he shooed her away? The next part of this rescue wasn’t going to be pretty. Of that Maria was sure. But without free hands to wave, there was no way to let Rod know to have the mother wait out of view.

  The last thing any mother needed was the memory of her son crashing to the earth. His body mangled. Lifeless.

  Maria knew too well what those kinds of memories did to a person.

  Pulling on her line attached to the small nut in the crack, Maria checked to see if it would hold. It wasn’t the best. Was that give she felt?

  Her eyes darted to Josh’s panicked frame. His white knuckles. His quivering legs. Closed eyes. Whimpering.

  She hated to do it, but she needed another nut. Quickly, she slammed another anchor into the crack and hit it with the hammer. She attached herself to it and checked it for stability. Pulling once. Twice. Three times.

  Was she being paranoid, or had she felt some give again?

  Could it hold both her and Josh?

  Maria wouldn’t be able to anchor again until she made her way over to the teen, got a hold of him, and they eased their way back to her established route.

  And she wasn’t sure if the second nut would hold.

  Hurry.

  Hurry.

  Hurry.

  Seconds seemed like minutes as she placed a third nut in the crack.

  This was not the time for mistakes.

  Josh’s cries were getting louder.

  A pull on the new line felt solid. It was time to close the gap.

  “Hold on, Josh,” Maria said. “Don’t come to me. Remember, I’m going to go to you.”

  Slathering her hands in chalk, Maria looked for the strongest jugs she could find. They were spotty, but there were some. Enough. She could do this.

  Maria’s hands crimped onto a thin ledge of rock, the tips of her powerful fingers keeping her steady. Slowly. A deep breath calmed the rise in adrenaline she’d built while placing the nuts. She moved several feet closer to Josh. The whiteness of his knuckles wasn’t from holding onto the rock. His face was as white. And the small gag-like breaths he took were indicative of shock. She had to get him off the cliff.

  Maria used another hold to get another foot closer—she was within five—maybe six feet. However, the closer she got to him, the harder his body shook. Her presence wasn’t calming him—it exacerbated his panic.

  “Ahhh.” One of Josh’s trembling feet slipped off its hold. The other foot and two hands were still attached—but for how long?

  “I’m going to fall!” Josh screamed.

  Maria knew she only had seconds.

  If that much.

  And then Josh’s fingers slipped.

  One.

  By.

  One.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Over the centuries many have gone [into the Superstition Mountains], but none remained for long. Each was sure that he or she was the only person destined to succeed where all others had failed at their quixotic search for the mountains’ fabulous treasure. Most were doomed to fail, and nearly all would come to strange, tragic ends.

  —“Mysteries & Miracles of Arizona” by Jack Kutz. Rhombus Publishing Company, 1992, page 16-18.

  IN HER YOUNGER YEARS of rock climbing, it was Maria’s pride, her desire to show off, that drove her to perform her dyno move—the one in which she’d leap off the wall and travel to a new hold yards away.

  Today, it was instinct.

  Both feet pushed instantaneously off the cliff and she flew toward Josh, arms outstretched. She smashed into his body as she saw Josh’s last finger slip off its hold.

  Maria desperately grabbed at anything she could. She wanted a waistband or belt.

  Instead, she got a wrist.

  She clamped her hand around it, and she and Josh began to slide down the cliff wall … together. The ground was a blur. The world in slow motion. But gravity found them all the same. Maria felt its pull, tugging them downward.

  Her stomach lurched at the feeling of falling. Still, she held onto Josh’s wrist and wrapped her arms around him.

  There was only one question on her mind.

  Would her anchors hold?

  Maria leaned into the cliff, trying to slow their descent by hitting anything that might be poking out of the wall. Friction. They needed friction. Who cared that the cliff wall scratched at her arms like a herd of possessed cats.

  They fell several more feet and then—

  Wham!

  Josh screamed.

  The initial force of Rod catching them mid fall jolted Maria, pulling her harness even more tightly around her legs. From below Maria thought she heard Rod yell something. Her focus, however, was on keeping her hand around Josh’s wrist until she could attach a modified harness
to him.

  Hanging from her line, swinging back and forth, Maria’s worst enemy should have been gravity. But it wasn’t. Perspiration was. Josh’s wrist was hot. So was her hand. Why hadn’t she used more chalk?

  “Josh.” Maria said it loudly even though the two were only inches apart. You have to grab onto my equipment belt with your free hand. Can you do that?”

  Only whimpers.

  “You have to help me, Josh. I need to get this harness around you. Grab my belt and hold on. It will only be for a second.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You have too. Now!”

  He gripped her waist belt. Maria shoved one of the straps of the modified harness into his other hand, and awkwardly they moved, like one-handed twins fighting for space inside their mother’s womb.

  “Okay, wrap this around your waist and I’ll catch it on the other side.”

  Josh moved slowly. His hand trembled so badly, but even so he did as he was told. At last, the harness was around his waist. With him holding one end of the belt, and Maria the other, they attached one of the harness clips.

  A small success.

  “Josh, I need you to take this strap in between your legs and snap it in the clip by your belly button. Do you see it?”

  “I think so.”

  “Okay, do it now.”

  Panting, her own hands numb as she held onto Josh in the air, Maria waited for him to clip the second strap. At last she heard the click of his harness. Josh was attached to her. Wherever they went, they went together.

  “Okay, you’re good,” Maria said. “You can let go of my belt and let’s get down this—”

  Maria felt the faintest release on the line. Most people would not have noticed it, but something in Maria’s mind did. Or was it in her gut?

  It didn’t matter. The point was, her line wasn’t going to hold. The anchor above them had come loose. They were going down. And this time … there was nothing to stop them. Rod’s belay was useless.

  The nut holding them popped out.

  In that moment—the one between not falling and falling—a feeling roller coaster junkies know well—Maria jammed her foot and hand into the crack as far as they would go and twisted. Hard.

  Wrenching.

  Every.

  Bone.

  Her arm and leg shrieked in pain. It shot up into her shoulder and waist. Josh flailed.

  “Stop it!” Maria shouted at him.

  Below, Rod frantically shouted. But between the wind and her adrenaline, Maria heard nothing. It was a matter of seconds before her hold inside the crack would give. Even now the pain was overwhelming—she had to think.

  And fast.

  With her free hand, she grabbed for a cam out of her rack. She needed the right size on the first try. She didn’t have the luxury of going through her equipment for the right one. Her hand found a medium sized cam and she pulled it out.

  Rod was yelling still, but everything she had left inside her was intent on getting the cam into the crack and securing herself to it.

  One-handed, she pushed the cam in and snatched the hammer from her belt.

  Just then, Josh threw up.

  Luckily, he faced away from her, but the stench filled Maria’s nostrils. She hated that smell. Like she hated the men in Tehran who had made her sleep in her own vomit night after night. The hatred bolstered her will to live—to get off this cliff, like she’d gotten out of Tehran.

  She pounded the cam with her hammer with three direct hits and then, with a steady hand, clipped in. It was a strong anchor, plenty to hold both of them.

  “We’re in!” she yelled down to Rod. “We’re in and it’s tight.”

  She leaned into the wall and took a deep breath. They were going to make it. Rod could belay them down safely to solid ground.

  Maria breathed in deeply one more time and then looked down at Rod. The dark-haired woman was still there.

  Why hadn’t he sent her away?

  Now that Maria had a second to look more closely, the woman below didn’t look at all like Linda Erickson, the boy’s mother who had been hyperventilating in the high school auditorium.

  “Search and Rescue should be here in a few minutes!” Rod shouted up toward Maria.

  Maria nodded and gave him the thumbs up, yelling, “This anchor will hold. Bring us down.”

  The moment her foot hit solid earth, Maria felt the searing pain in the leg she had jammed and twisted into the crack. She’d almost forgotten the way she’d contorted her body to buy her those precious few moments she needed to anchor herself to the wall. But it was nothing that wouldn’t heal with a week’s worth of ice packs and ibuprofen. Within seconds, a team of search and rescue members who had arrived detached Josh from her and were treating him for shock.

  Maria’s hands were steady and no longer sweaty as she slipped her harness off and let it fall to the ground. Instantly Rod was at her back. His cedar and herb cologne now mixed with adrenaline and sweat.

  Quite manly, actually.

  “Don’t ever do that again,” he growled into her ear as he enveloped her from behind.

  Maria let her body relax in his, letting his strength take some of the ache standing up caused.

  “I mean it,” he whispered forcefully. “No more Spiderman moves.”

  “Spiderman, nothing.” Maria turned and looked into Rod’s worried face. “That was all Superwoman.”

  Rod held her even tighter, and she breathed him in. This was unlike her to be cutesy in front of everyone. She almost didn’t care.

  Maria peeked out from Rod’s chest to see who was looking at them. No one was. Everyone was focused on Josh … except for the dark-haired woman, beautifully composed with dark eyes and milk-chocolate skin. The same woman who had watched Maria’s ascent up the cliff. The two stared at each other for a moment. Each as silent as a statue. The woman gave no expression on her face. A fuzzy glow around the edge of her silhouette.

  No, it wasn’t fuzzy as much as it was … translucent.

  Exactly like …

  The realization sunk into Maria’s soul like it was caught in quicksand.

  … a ghost.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Apaches were probably the first people to set eyes on the Superstition Mountains centuries before the Spanish conquistadors saw its awesome cliffs and crags.

  —“The Story of Superstition Mountain and the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine” by Robert Joseph Allen, Pocket Books (Simon and Schuster Inc.), 1971, page 3.

  EVEN THROUGH THE COMPUTER monitor, Maria could tell her CIA-mandated psychologist was exhausted. Maria’s kitchen clock read 10 p.m., making it midnight for Dr. Roberts.

  The fact was they were both tired. Maria’s unconventional rock climbing had left her sore and unable to sleep well the last couple of nights. In addition, the ghostly woman she’d seen had been unsettling. She hadn’t been one of Maria’s hallucinations. She’d been real—at least as real as any other paranormal phenomenon was.

  “How long has it been since you’ve seen any?” asked Dr. Roberts. “Ghosts, that is.” He held his glasses in one hand and rubbed furiously at his eyes with the other.

  “Now how many of your patients do you get to ask that?” Maria laughed.

  “Don’t avoid the question, Maria,” he answered.

  “It’s been a long time,” she answered. To herself she added, If you don’t count the woman ghost at the Cracks, that is.

  “So you feel you’re still making progress forward?” The psychologist yawned.

  “Definitely.” Maria had decided to not tell Dr. Roberts about the dark-haired ghost because she’d been so benign. She hadn’t scared Maria. Not in the slightest. The silhouette of the woman had had the same “look” as Acalan—the Aztec ghost who had helped Maria solve the murder of Kanab’s mayor a few months back. And real ghosts were much better than the crazy, made up post-traumatic apparitions from which Maria suffered after her incarceration in solitary confinement.

  To top it
off, the woman standing behind Rod at the Cracks had been beautiful. An exotic looking creature with straight black hair and petite, distinct features on her face. Like an artist had painstaking created her visage with perfectly shaped bits of clay.

  “Nope,” said Maria to Dr. Roberts. “I haven’t seen Acalan in more than two months. Almost three.”

  “No relapses of any other kind of ghostly apparitions?” Dr. Roberts asked.

  “No, not really.” Maria looked down at her bare feet, noting the turquoise nail polish that had begun chipping off of the little toe on her left foot. Was she feeling guilty? It was the same toe that had almost been cut off by Joe on the red cliffs in the Moquith Mountains. The toe that was to have been her sacrifice to overcome her guilt. Her fear. Her self-loathing.

  “Honestly, I’m doing really well.” Maria smiled at him through her monitor.

  The relief on Dr. Roberts’s face seemed to awaken him from his very-long-workday slump. “I’m seriously so glad to hear it, Maria. You really are doing great. We could probably change our visits to monthly.”

  “Or not at all.” Maria jutted out her chin and opened her eyes widely, as if to ask, How do you like them apples? Kanab’s small-town vernacular was definitely catching.

  To keep himself alert, Dr. Roberts scratched at his scalp through his thick hair. “No, I think monthly chats would still be helpful.”

  Maria frowned. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Dr. Roberts. In fact, as far as shrinks went, he was probably one of the best. But having to talk to him reminded her of Tehran. Of the prison. Of the one-by-one slaughter of her entire black ops team by terrorists. He reminded her of the horrific secrets that had almost been published to the world—or at least to the entire town of Kanab—by Sherrie Mercer, local journalist and murderer.

  But that was months ago. A lifetime ago. Things were so much better now.

  “Listen, Maria,” Dr. Roberts said. “I’ve never yet met someone with PTSD who didn’t have a few relapses. They’re normal and to be expected. And we’ll get through them. You need to watch for signs—big or small—that the anxiety is coming back.”