Treasure dp-9 Page 44

  Only when the plane was airborne did he make his reply. "I'm not going to no damned hospital."

  "Over doing it a bit, don't you ?" think?" the Senator said with paternal concern, full knowing it was a waste of breath to preach to his independent-minded son.

  "How are you getting to the White House?" asked Pitt. The Senator nodded toward a waiting helicopter about a hundred meters away. "the President arranged my transportation."

  "Mind dropping me at NUMA?"

  His father looked at him slyly. "You're speaking figuratively, of course."

  Pitt grinned. "You never let me forget which side of the family my sadistic sense of humor came from."

  The Senator slapped his arm around Pitts waist. "Come on, you crazy nut, let me help you over to the helicopter."

  The tension built like a twisting knot in his stomach as Pitt stood in the elevator, watching the numbers rise toward NUMAs computer complex.

  Lily was standing in the foyer as the doors parted and he stepped out.

  She wore a big smile that froze when she saw the , bedraggled look, the long scab on his cheek, the hump of the bandage beneath a knit fisherman's turtleneck sweater borrowed from his father, the dragging leg and cane. Then she bravely broke out the smile again.

  "Welcome home, sailor."

  She stepped forward and threw her arms around his neck. He winced and groaned under his breath. She jumped back.

  "Oh, I'm sorry."

  Pin clutched her. "Don't be." Then he mashed his lips against hers. His beard scraped against her skin and he smelled of gin-and delightfully masculine.

  "There's something to be said for men who only come home once a week,"

  she said finally.

  "And for women who wait," he said, stepping back. He glanced around.

  "What have you and Hiram found out since I left?"

  "I'll let Hiram tell you," she answered airily, taking him by the hand and leading him across the computer installation.

  Yaeger charged out of his office. Without a word of greeting or sympathy for Pitts wounds, he came straight to the heart of the breakthrough.

  "We've found it!" he announced grandly.

  "The river?" Pitt asked anxiously.

  "Not only the river, but I think I can put you within two square miles of the artifacts' cavern."

  +"Where?"

  "Texas. A little border town called Roma."

  Yaeger had the smug, complacent look of a Tyrannosaurus rex that had just dined on a brontosaurus. "Nwned for seven hills, just like the capital of Italy. Pretty low, insignificant hills, I admit. But there are also reports of Roman artifacts supposedly having been dug up in the area. Scoffed at by accredited archaeologists, of course, but what do they know?"

  "Then the river is?"

  "The Rio Bravo, as it's called in Spanish." Yaeger nodded. "Better known on this side as the Rio Grande."

  "The Rio Grande." Pitt repeated the words slowly, savoring each syllable to the full, finding it difficult to accept the truth after dozens of missed hunches, wild guesses and dead-end speculations.

  "It's really a great shame," Yaeger suddenly said morosely.

  Pitt glanced at him in faint surprise. "Why do you say that?"

  Yaeger shook his head heavily. "Because there'll be no living with the Texans as soon as they learn what they've been sitting on for the last sixteen centuries."

  At noon the next day, after landing at the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station, Pitt and Lily, along with Admiral Sandecker, were driven by a Seaman First Class to NUMA!s ocean research center on the bay. Sandecker directed the driver to stop beside a helicopter squatting on a concrete pad beside a long dock. There were no clouds, the sun was alone in the sky. The temperature was mild but the humidity high, and they quickly began to sweat after exiting the car.

  NUMAs chief geologist, Herb Garza, gave a friendly wave and approached.

  He was short, plump, brown-skinned, with a few pockmarks on his cheeks and gleaming black hair. Garza wore a California Angels baseball cap and a fluorescent orange shirt that was so blasting Pitt could still see it after he momentarily closed his eyes.

  "Garza," said Sandecker curtly. "Good to see you again."

  "I've looked forward to your arrival," Garza said warmly. "We can take off as soon as you board." He turned and introduced the pilot, Joe Mifflin, who wore "Smiling Jack" sunglasses and struck Pitt as being about as animated as a door knob.

  Pitt and Garza had worked together on a project along the western desert stretch of coast in South Africa. "How long has it been, Herb?" said Pitt. "Three, four years?"

  "Who counts?" Garza said with a broad smile as they shook hands. "Good to be on the same team with you again."

  "May I introduce Dr. Lily Sharp."

  Garza graciously bowed. "One of the ocean sciences?" he asked.

  Lily shook her head. "Land archaeology."

  Garza turned and stared at Sandecker with a curious expression. "This isn't a sea project, Admiral?"

  "No, I'm sorry you weren't fully informed, Herb. But I'm afraid we'll have to keep the real purpose of our work a secret for a little longer."

  Garza shrugged indifferently. "You're the boss."

  "All I need is a direction," said Mifflin.

  "South," Pitt told him. "South to the Rio Grande."

  They dropped down the coast along the Intercoastal Waterway, passing over the hotels and condominiums of South Padre Island. Then Mifflin ducked the green helicopter with the NUMA letters on the side under a layer of popcorn puffed clouds and swung west below Port Isabel where the waters of the Rio Grande spilled into the Gulf of Mexico.

  The land below was a strange blend of marsh and desert, flat as a parking lot, with cactus growing amid tall grass. Soon the city of Brownsville appeared through the windshield. The river narrowed as it flowed under the bridge connecting Texas to Matamoros, Mexico.

  "Can you tell me what we're supposed to survey?" asked Garza.

  "You grew up in the Rio Grande Valley, didn't you," Sandecker queried without answering.

  "Born and raised up river at Laredo. Took my undergraduate courses at Texas Southernmost College in Brownsville. We just passed over it."

  "Then you're familiar with the geology around Roma?"

  "I've conducted a number of field trips in the area, yes."

  It was Pitts Turn. "Compared to now, how did the river flow a few centuries after Christ?"

  "The stream wasn't much different then," answered Garza.

  "Oh, sure, the course has shifted during earlier flooding, but seldom more than a couple of miles. Quite often over the centuries it returned to its previous course. The major change is that the Rio Grande would have been considerably higher then. Until the war with Mexico the width ran from two hundred to four hundred meters. The main channel actually was much deeper."

  "When was it first seen by a European?"

  "Alonzo de Pineda sailed into the river's mouth in 1519."

  "How did it stack up to the Mississippi back then?"

  Garza thought a moment. "The Rio Grande was more akin to the Nile."

  "Nile?"

  "The headwaters begin in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. During the spring flooding season, as the winter snows melted, the water swept down the lower reaches in huge surges. The ancient Indians, like the Egyptians, dug ditches so the high water ran to their crops. That's why the river you see now is a mere trickle of its former self. As the Spanish and Mexican settlers moved in, followed by the Texas Americans, new irrigation works were built. After the Civil War, railroads brought in more families and ranchers, who siphoned off more water. By 1894, shallow and dangerous shoals put an end to steamboating. If there had been no irrigation, the Rio Grande might have been the Mississippi River of Texas."

  "Steamboats ran on the Rio Grande?" asked Lily.

  for a short time traffic was quite heavy as trade developed upland down and on both sides of the river. Fleets of paddle steamers made regular runs from Br
ownsville to Laredo for over thirty years. Now, since they built the Falcon Dam, about the only craft you see on the lower river are outboard boats and inner tubes."

  Could sailing vessels have navigated as far as Roma?"

  asked Pitt.

  "With room to spare. The river was easily wide enough for tacking. All a ship with sails had to do was wait for easterly offshore breezes. One keelboat made it as far northwest as Santa Fe in 1850. "

  They fell quiet for a few minutes as Mifflin followed the meandering turns of the river. A few low, rolling hills appeared. On the Mexican side, little towns first settled nearly three hundred years ago sat in dusty seclusion. Some houses were built of stone and adobe and topped by red tile, while the outskirts were dotted with small primitive huts having thatched roofs. The agricultural part of the valley, with its citrus groves and fields of vegetables and aloe vera, gave way to and plains of mesquite trees and white thistle. Pitt expected a muddy brown river, but the Rio Grande pleasantly surprised him by running a deep green.

  "We're coming up on Roma now," announced Garza. "The sister city across the river is called Miguel AlemAn. Not much of a town. Except for sonic tourist curio stores it's mostly a border crossing on the road to Monterrey."

  Mifflin pulled up and soared over the international bridge, and then dropped low on the river again. On the Mexican side men and women were washing cars, mending fishing nets and swimming. Along the bank a few pigs wallowed in the silt. On the American side a yellowish sandstone bluff rose from the riverbank up to the main section of downtown Roma.

  The buildings appeared to be quite old and some were rundown, but all seemed in sound condition. One or two were in stages of reconstruction.

  "The buildings look very quaint," said Lily. "There must be a lot of history behind their walls."

  "Roma was a busy port during the commercial and military boating era,"

  Garza lectured. "Prosperous merchants hired architects to design some very interesting homes and business structures. And they've lasted quite well."

  "any one more famous than the others?" asked Lily.

  "Famous?" Garza laughed. "My pick would be a residence built in the middle 1800s that was used as 'Rosita's Cantina' when the movie Viva Zapata was filmed in Roma with Marlon Brando."

  Sandecker gestured for Mifflin to circle the hills above the town. He turned to Garza. "Is Roma named after Rome because it's surrounded by seven hills?"

  "Nobody really knows for sure," replied Garza. "You'd be hard-pressed to pick out seven distinctive hills. A couple have noticeable peaks, but mostly they just run into each other."

  "What's the geology?" Pitt inquired as he stared downward.

  "Cretaceous debris for the most part. This whole area was once under the sea. Fossil oyster shells are common. Some have been found that measure half a meter. There's a nearby gravel pit that, illustrates the various geological periods. I can give you a quick lecture if you care to have Joe set us down."

  "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 d
rops 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."