Clive Cussler - Treasure

"Not just yet," said Pitt. "Are there any natural caves in the region?"

"None visible on the surface. But that doesn't mean they aren't down there. No way of knowing how many caves, formed by the ancient seas, are hidden under the upper layer. Go deep enough in the tight spot and you'll likely strike a good-size limestone deposit. Old Indian legends tell of spirits living underground."

"What sort of spirits?"

Garza shrugged. "Ghosts of the ancients who died in battle with evil gods."

Lily unconsciously clutched Pitts arm. "Have any artifacts been discovered near Roma?"

"A few arrow and spear flints, stone knives and boatstones. "

"What are boatstones?" asked Pitt.

"Hollow stones in the shape of boat hulls," answered Lily with mounting excitement. "Their exact on'gin or purpose is obscure. It's thought they were used as charms. They supposedly warded off evil, especially if an Indian feared a witch or power of a shaman. An effigy of the witch was tied to a boatstone and thrown into a lake or river, destroying the evil forever."

Pitt put another question to Garza. "any objects Turn up that confound the historic time scale?"

"Some, but they were considered to be fake."

Lily put on her best casual expression. "What sort of objects?"

"Swords, crosses, bits and pieces of armor, spear shafts, mostly made of iron. I also recall the story of an old stone anchor that was dug out of the bluff beside the river."

"Probably Spanish in origin," ventured Sandecker guardedly.

Garza shook his head. "Not Spanish, but Roman. State Museum officials were justifiably skeptical. They wrote them off as a nineteenth-century hoax."

Lily's hand bit deeper into Pitts arm. "any possibility of my having a look at them?" she asked in an anxious voice.

"Or have they been lost and forgotten, packed away in the dust of a state university basement?"

Garza pointed out the window toward the road running north from Roma.

"As a matter of fact, the artifacts are right down there. They've been kept and collected by the man who found most of them. A good old Texan boy named Sam Trinity, or Crazy Sam as he's known by the locals. He's poked around this area for fifty years, swearing a Roman army camped here. Makes a living by running a small gas station and store. Has a shack in the rear he grandly calls a museum of antiquity."

Pitt smiled slowly. "Can you set us down beside his place?"

he asked Mifflin. "I think we ought to have a talk with Sam."

The sign stretched nine meters in length behind the highway turnoft. The giant horizontal board was supported by sunbleached, weather-cracked mesquite posts that uniformly leaned backward at a drunken angle. Garish red letters on a faded silver background proclaimed SAM'S ROMAN CIRCUS

The gas pumps out front were shiny and new and advertised methanol-blended fuel for forty-eight cents a liter. The store was built from adobe and designed like the Indian mesa dwellings of Arizona with the roof poles protruding through the walls. The interior was clean and the shelves were neatly stacked with curios, groceries and soft drinks. It was an echo of a thousand other small, isolated oases that stood beside the nation's highways.

Sam, though, didn't match the decor.

No baseball cap advertising Caterpillar tractors. No scuffed cowboy boots or straw range hat or faded Levi's. Sam was attired in a bright green Polo shirt, yellow slacks and expensive custom lizard golf shoes complete with cleats. His evenly trimmed white hair lay flat beneath a sporty plaid cap.

Sam Trinity stood in the doorway of his store until the dust from the helicopter's rotor blades slowly rolled away under a light breeze. Then he stepped past the asphalt drive, holding a two iron Bob Hope-style and came to a halt about six meters from the opening door.

Garza dropped out first and walked up to him. "Hello there, dirt-kicker."

Trinity's dark calfskin face stretched into a big Texas smile. "Herb, you old taco. Good to see you."

He pulled up his sunglasses, revealing blue eyes that squinted under the bright Southern Texas sun. Then he dropped them again like a curtain.

He was very tall, skinny as a fence pole, arms slender, shoulders narrow, but his voice had vigor and resonance.

Garza made the introductions, but it was obvious the names were hardly absorbed by Trinity. He simply waved and said, "Glad to meet yaal.

Welcome to Sam's Roman Circus." Then he noticed Pitts face, cane and limp. "Fall off your motorcycle?"

Pitt laughed. "The short end of a saloon brawl."

"I think I like you."

Sandecker stood jauntily with legs apart and nodded at the two iron.

"Where do you play golf around here?"

"Just down the road in Rio Grande City," Trinity replied genially.

"Several courses between here and Brownsville. I just got back from a quick round with some old army buddies."

"We'd like to poke around your museum," said Garza.

"Be an honor. Help yourself. Not every day someone drops in by whirlybird to look at my artifacts (he pronounced it 'arteefacts'). You folks like something to drink, sody pop, beer? I've got a pitcher of margaritas in the icebox."

"A margarita would taste wonderful," said Lily, dabbing her neck with a bandanna.

"Show our guests around to the museum, Herb. The door's unlocked. I'll join you in a minute."

A truck and trailer pulled in for gas, and Trinity pau sed to chat a moment with the driver before entering his living quarters adjoining the store.

"A friendly cuss," muttered Sandecker.

"Sam can be friendlier than a down-Texas ranch wife," said Garza. "But get on his bad side and he's tougher than a ninety-cent steak."

Garza led them into an adobe building behind the store. The interior was no larger than a two-car garage, but was crowded with glass display cases and wax figures in Roman legionary dress. The artifact room was spotless; no dust layered the glass walls. The artifacts were rust-free and highly burnished.

Lily carried an attached case. She carefully laid it on a display case, unsnapped the latches and pulled out a thick book with illustrations and photographs that resembled a catalogue. She began to compare the artifacts with those pictured in the book.

"Looking good," she said after a few minutes of study. "The swords and spearheads match Roman weapons of the fourth Century."

"Don't get excited," said Garza seriously. "Sam fabricated what you see here and probably aged them with acid and the sun."

..He didn't fabricate them," Sandecker said flatly.

Garza regarded him with skeptical interest. "How can you say that, Admiral? There's no record of pre-Columbian contact in the gulf."

"There is now."

That's news to me."

"'The event occurred in the year A.D. 391," explained Pitt. "A fleet of ships ed up the Rio Grande to where Roma now stands. Somewhere, in one of the hills behind town, Roman mercenaries, their slaves and Egyptian scholars buried a vast collection of artifacts from the Alexandria Library in Egypt '

"I knew it!" burst Sam Trinity from the open doorway. He was so excited he almost dropped the tray of glasses and pitcher he was carrying. "By glory, I knew it! The Romans really walked the soil of Texas."

"You've been right, Sam," said Sandecker, "and your doubters wrong."

I-All these years no one believed me," Sam muttered dazedly. "Even after they read the stone, they accused me of chiseling the inscription myself."

"Stone, what stone?" Pitt asked sharply.

"The one standing over in the corner. I had it translated at Texas A and M, but all they told me was, 'Nice job, Sam. Your Latin ain't half bad." They've kidded me for years for dreaming up a firstrate fish story."

"Is there a copy of the translated message?" asked Lily' re, on the wall. I had it typed and hung in a glassed frame. I cut off the part where they panned it."