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She winks at him.
No, Munro couldn't have…
"Give me a moment to confer with my clients," Munro says to Ranger Williams. When she nods, he waves for me and Ashley to follow him to the far corner. "Best tell me your fake names."
"John and Maureen McLintock."
"You turned Ashley into a Maureen? That's a travesty, Errol."
"What's wrong with the name? I got it from a movie that starred John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara." I roll my eyes in the direction of Ranger Williams. "Did you shag her, Munro?"
"Aye. Several times, long ago."
Ranger Williams whistles. "Hey, guys, where are the six other suspects? I only see one."
"They're in the catacombs," I say. "They ran away, though I have no idea why. The doorway over there takes you into the passageways."
"All right." She starts for the doorway while gesturing for the other rangers to follow. "Let's go catch us some suspected looters."
Chapter Thirty-Six
Ashley
Munro goes with Ranger Williams and her colleagues as they enter the caverns, because she had asked him to go along. She suggested that Munro could help identify Frisk's men. But I think Williams just wanted to hang out with her former lover for a while. I don't blame her. Munro is a fascinating man.
But no one intrigues me more than Errol Murdoch.
The actual event of watching the rangers handcuff and take away Frisk and his men feels like a bit of a disappointment. The perp walk happens incrementally, two bad guys at a time, and they disappear into the crevice that leads to the beach. Another raft of rangers has arrived by the time the first bad guys reach the rocky shore. Ranger Williams had told us they'd need to transport the men via raft because the terrain here doesn't provide a good landing spot for a helicopter.
After all the lackeys have been taken away, it's Frisk's turn to do the perp walk. Naturally, he can't stop himself from complaining. The idiot knows he can't prove we did anything wrong, but as Ranger Williams drags him out of the entrance cavern, Frisk starts mouthing off about how Errol and I blasted our way into the caverns and planned to steal the artifacts housed inside. He labeled Munro as our "monster sidekick who murders grasshoppers for fun."
Yeah, I think Frisk has lost his marbles. The shock of losing out to Errol pushed him over the edge. He even starts babbling about selkies.
Ranger Williams and her team had already found the bag of explosives long before they took Frisk away. When Errol and I had moved our backpacks out of the cavern, he had wiped down every item inside his special bag, then left it in the cavern with all those hard plastic boxes Frisk's men had carried inside. It turns out those boxes were designed to protect the artifacts Frisk intended to steal, so they would survive the journey out of the Grand Canyon.
He will go to prison, for sure. Looting an ancient treasure is a serious crime in the United States of America.
Ranger Williams wants to take a photo of me, Errol, and Munro so we can get credit for stopping the biggest antiquities theft scheme in history. But Errol talks his way out of that, saying that we prefer to remain anonymous. Williams understands, and she doesn't try to change our minds. We watch from the rocky shore as Williams and three of her coworkers climb into their raft, heading down the river with Frisk in their custody.
Williams waves goodbye to us. But before she had gotten into the raft, the tough ranger kissed Munro goodbye. On the lips. And she didn't pull away for at least a minute. Then she slapped his ass and walked away.
Now, the last remaining rangers offer to give us a ride to a spot a little further down the river where a helicopter can land to take us back to the Marble Canyon Airport, where our adventure had begun. But first, we need to get through the Tuna Creek Rapid. After everything we've gone through on our epic journey to reveal the truth of the Grand Canyon treasure, a measly class six rapid doesn't bother me at all. I enjoy the bumpy ride.
Then we reach a wide, sandy beach, and the rangers pull the raft onto the shore. They had used Errol's satellite phone to call for a helicopter to meet us at the edge of Willie's Necktie, a class four rapid. Within minutes of reaching the beach, we're in the chopper and on our way back to Marble Canyon.
It's over.
My gaze wanders to Errol, who sits beside me in the backseat with his arm curled around my shoulders. Are we over now too? He came with me on this journey because I paid him to do it. We've shared a lot since then, more than just a desire to uncover a lost treasure, more even than a shared love of history. I've fallen for Errol Murdoch, but I have no idea if he feels the same way.
As we climb out of the helicopter, Munro announces that he's going home to Wyoming. Errol and I will rent a car to get back to Flagstaff. But as Munro turns to walk away, I speak up.
"Don't you want your money?" I ask.
He smirks at me over his shoulder, then saunters back to me. "Aye, lass, give me what I'm owed."
I pull out a single bill and hand it to him.
"That's it?" Errol says. "You're paying him one dollar? I thought the Wild Man demanded twenty thousand dollars. And you mentioned giving him piles of money."
