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“I found something!”
“On my way!” Sam yelled as he moved toward her.
“It’s overgrown, but it looks like part of a wall.”
Lazlo joined Sam and they hacked their way toward Remi, Maribela and Antonio approached from the inland side, and soon they were all standing by a rise from the natural terrain.
She tapped it with her blade and the steel clinked against rock.
“I scraped away a foot of soil in a couple of places and it’s stone underneath. Looks like it rises about fifteen feet above the surrounding area.”
“Which would be more than enough for a small temple,” Antonio confirmed. “After a thousand years of storms and runoff and soil buildup, you’d expect it to be a big lump—exactly like this is.”
Sam stepped forward and dug at the dirt after pushing away the tangle of plants growing out of the sloping face. “We’re going to need those shovels and picks from the trucks.”
Antonio and Lazlo went for the tools while Sam, Remi, and Maribela hacked at the thick foliage with their machetes, trying to clear the perimeter of the mound. All three were exhausted by the time Lazlo and Antonio returned and they took a break as the cooling breeze blew from the edge of the cliff only a few short yards away.
“Approaching ships would definitely have been able to see this from the sea. What do you want to bet that those left behind lit a signal fire every day as part of their duties?” Sam asked.
“That would make sense,” Remi agreed. “It might also explain the cloud over the pyramid in some of the depictions. That could have been a smoke cloud—a veiled reference to this temple.”
Maribela eyed Remi. “Perhaps you can tell us what it is that we’ve found?”
“Lazlo was able to translate a rune stone from the Viking longship,” Remi explained. “It spoke of a marker on the shore—a temple that would lead the Norsemen back to the New World to colonize it in the name of their leader who was buried there. There’s probably a trove of historical data we can glean from it.”
Sam rose from where he’d been crouched and hoisted one of the shovels. “Let’s get some of this dirt off and see what’s underneath it, shall we?”
Antonio joined him with a pick, and they began working on the center of one side of the mound while Maribela and Remi dug into another. After an hour of hard work, Sam stepped back and examined the cleared area he and Antonio had created.
“Remi? Come check this out. It looks like an entry. But it’s been sealed off.” Sam tapped the area with the tip of his shovel. They’d managed to expose a rectangular opening with a stone lip, but their way was barred by a mixture of rock and crude mortar. “And you’ll want to get a picture or two for our scrapbook of the depiction carved into the rim.”
Remi joined him and leaned her shovel against the dirt. Maribela arrived a moment later and gasped when she saw what Sam was pointing at.
Etched into the granite frame over the doorway was a death’s head—wearing a war helmet adorned with the head of a snake, its fangs exposed, its feathered wings spread wide, as it prepared to strike.
Maribela looked at Antonio with astonishment.
“I don’t . . . understand. That’s unlike any of the Toltec images we’ve ever come across.”
“Yes, it’s more typical of the sort of thing the Vikings were known for,” Remi said, her camera clicking as she captured multiple angles. “Look at the skull. It’s got a beard. I think we’re seeing the first example of Viking iconography ever found in Mexico.”
“The juxtaposition of the indigenous art and the Viking is . . . striking, to say the least,” Maribela said.
“Not particularly welcoming, is it?” Lazlo commented.
“It definitely makes you stop and think twice,” Sam agreed. “I wonder why they sealed the temple entry?”
“Perhaps they got tired of waiting for the ship to return?” Lazlo said.
Sam nodded. “There’s only one way to find out what’s inside. Might as well see if we can break through this while we’ve still got some light to work with.” Sam turned to Antonio. “What do you think? Do you have any problem with us creating an opening here?”
“I’d say your instincts have been quite good so far.”
“All right, then. Let’s see what this mud is made out of, shall we?”
The mortar had hardened to the consistency of rock, and the sun was sinking below the mountains by the time their picks had punched the first hole. The sight of the gap widening encouraged them, with mortar crumbling away in large chunks, and within minutes they’d cleared the entire entryway.
Maribela had brought flashlights from the SUVs and she flicked one on and handed it to Sam. He squinted and peered inside. Remi edged next to him, bringing her beam to bear on the interior.