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Chapter Twenty-Six
Ashley
Trudging up the gorge proves a bit less strenuous than when Errol and I climbed up the path that brought us to Kincaid's mini cavern. Now we're searching for the real thing—the "big kahuna" as Errol likes to say—where we should find the most incredible hoard ever. A mishmash of eastern cultures in one cavern? Nobody has found anything like this before. I don't care about the glory. I only want to see the smile on my father's face when he learns he was right all along, and those jackasses who belittled him were wrong, wrong, wrong.
About three hundred feet up the gorge, Errol stops us. He's been dragging his mystery bag, but this time it doesn't seem to bother him as much, possibly because we're scaling a more gradual grade. We've halted here because Errol wants to compare the Kincaid map to the surrounding terrain.
He points to the left side of the gorge. "We need to go there. A narrow path will take us through to the other side, where we can access the cavern."
A tingle of excitement sweeps over me as I realize the import of his statement. We are actually going to do this. Find the hoard. Prove my dad was right. Maybe I should stay circumspect about all of this, but I can't do that, not anymore. Knowing I'm so close to the truth…I want to jump up and down while shrieking like a crazy person.
I'll save that for when we step into the cavern.
Errol guides us out of the gorge, down a very narrow opening in the cliff. It's so narrow, in fact, that we need to remove our backpacks and carry them in our hands, by the straps, to fit through the space. I feel a teeny bit claustrophobic, but then I glance up at the sliver of sky visible overhead, and my anxiety lessens. It completely vanishes, though, when Errol winks and smiles at me.
Munro sidles through the crevice behind me. Both he and Errol have more trouble shimmying through it than I do, a side effect of having way bigger muscles. Errol exits the crevice first, and by the time Munro and I have wriggled out, Errol is already surveying the box canyon we've wound up in. Unlike some box canyons I've seen, this one has no way out on the other side. The vertical walls rise high above our heads. Our only entrance or exit is the narrow crevice we shimmied through to get here.
Errol drops his bags and trots toward the far side of the canyon. Since it's a hundred feet in width and length, at most, he doesn't need to run far. He stops where a very low overhang almost touches the ground.
"Underground spring," he says. "I think that's what it is, anyway. Get over here, you two."
Munro and I dump our packs and race over to Errol, who hands me the Kincaid map.
"What am I supposed to be looking at?" I ask. "The map doesn't show any underground spring, and I don't see how that relates to the cavern we need to find."
"Look more closely." Errol moves beside me to tap his finger on the map. "It shows that we come out of the narrow trail—Kincaid's words—and step into an amphitheater with the entrance to the cavern in the northeast corner."
"But that would place the entrance…" My words trail off as I realize what he's telling me and what he intends to do. "No, Errol, we can't do that. It's too dangerous."
Munro glances between me and Errol. "Do you two have your own secret language now that only dolphins can hear? Because I have no bloody clue what you're havering about."
"The cavern is in there," Errol says, pointing at the overhang. "And it's underwater. Ashley thinks it's too dangerous to try to get inside because it would require swimming through an unknown length of underwater caves."
"You're just barmy enough to try it."
"Not without having a clue what I'm getting myself into." Errol leans over my shoulder to study the map. "Kincaid described the flooded section of the cavern as 'a brief interlude' with 'breathing space.' I can handle that."
I slug his arm. "This map is a hundred and twenty years old, Errol. The conditions in there might've changed drastically. Did you bring any scuba gear?"
"No."
"Then it's too dangerous. You can't go in there."
He lodges his hands on his hips and bows his head. "Ashley, I've done things like this before. You have no idea how many risky situations I've walked or swum into voluntarily. It doesn't fash me."
"But it 'fashes' me, Errol."
He lifts his head, gazing at me with surprise in his eyes.
"No way am I letting you go in there alone," I say. "If you get into trouble, nobody will be there to save you."
"What are you suggesting? That we give up on finding the hoard? It's the reason we came here."
"I know that, and I'm not saying we should give up." I lift my chin and swallow hard. "I'm going in there with you."
"Oh no, you are not."
I bar my arms over my chest. "Yes, I am, Errol. Either we go in together, or nobody goes in there."
