The Mayan Secrets

“Saves you having to send out a lot of invitations,” he said.

“That’s right,” she said. “This is hard enough with you alive. Just stick with me and curb your generosity.”

They swam on along the curving tu

They sank, and found themselves in a long passage that looked exactly like the stretches they had first passed through. As they swam, Remi wished she had looked at her watch before they had submerged. She had timed their arrival at the air pocket at sixteen minutes, but how much time had gone by? And did their tanks actually hold nine more minutes of air? She and Sam had never tested the limits before. Letting their air get this low would have been risky and stupid on any day when they could have simply surfaced and gotten fresh tanks from the dive boat.

There was nothing she could do but swim. As the minutes ticked away, the passage opened into another, wider space. The bottom of the river was oddly uneven, with loose chunks of rock instead of the smooth-worn riverbed they’d seen before. Then she realized she was seeing these things outside the perimeter of their flashlight beams — real light was filtering down from above. They swam upward. As the light grew brighter, Remi laughed and heard herself make a squeaky noise like a dolphin. She saw Sam huff out a big flurry of bubbles in an answering laugh, and they broke the surface smiling.

But Remi’s laugh caught in her throat. There was light in this dome, directly above their heads, coming from a circular hole that opened to the starry sky. But the hole was at the center of the dome, beyond their reach, at least six feet above the surface of the river.

“Now, there’s a problem,” Sam said.

“What can we do?”

“I’m going down to take a look around. Stay here for a minute.” He lowered his mask again and submerged. Remi waited until he surfaced again.

“Well?” she said.

Sam swam over to the side of the stone riverbed. It seemed to rise in the water, then rose partway out of it, so he was only up to his waist. “I’m standing on a pile of rock. At some point, a pretty big chunk of wall came down right here. There’s also a pile in the center, right below where the roof collapsed.”

“Very dramatic,” she said. “Does this mean we’re not going to the great beyond?”

Sam looked up at the hole in the dome. “I think it does, but we’ll have to work pretty hard to get out. Get ready to move some stones.”

They dove to the bottom, where Sam had been standing, and began to move chunks of stone from the pile along the wall to the spot just below the opening. Sam moved the largest chunks he could, rolling them end over end, to add to the pile in the center. Soon he took off his fins and worked in his booties. It was clear that at some point part of the wall had collapsed to make the pile, and stones gradually falling from the ceiling formed the cenote, with even more stones coming down as it enlarged. Sam and Remi both were free diving and they had to stop occasionally to catch their breaths.

When they had moved the whole pile of stone from the place where it had fallen to the place they wanted it, they stopped at the surface. “We’re ru

“I think we’ve got to bet the rest of our air on finding more and building higher.”

“I’m for risking it,” she said. “This is the only chance we’re likely to get.”

They put on their tanks again, swam in a wider radius around the pile they’d built, and brought back chunks of limestone that must have been left by other collapses. They didn’t bother to pile the rocks high, just brought them and then went back for more, knowing the air in their tanks must be nearly gone. After a few more minutes, Sam surfaced and took off his tank. Within a short time, Remi surfaced too and took off hers.

“All out?” asked Sam.

She nodded.

“All right. Let me arrange what we’ve got as well as I can.” Sam ducked under the water and moved a large stone and added it to the pile. Remi went under and did the same. Each time they submerged, they held their breath and moved one stone before they came up for air. It was a slow and exhausting process, and their rest periods grew longer, but, little by little, the pile rose nearly to the surface. Sam even built their empty tanks into the pile to add height.

Finally, after hours of work, Sam sat down for a moment. “Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“I’ll lift you up. You’ll stand on my shoulders. You should be able to get your hands up on the rim of the cenote.”

“I’ll certainly try.”

Sam bent his knees. Remi took his hands, stepped lightly on his knees, then stepped up to his shoulders. He straightened his legs, and Remi rose. He could feel her clawing and scrabbling with her hands, trying to pull herself upward on the uncertain surface and failing.

“Step on my hands,” he said. He held them, palms upward, just above his shoulders. Remi looked down, placed a foot on one hand and then a foot on the other.

“Try again,” he said, and she pushed down with her arms while Sam pushed up to straighten his elbows. And then her upper body was on the ground above. She clutched at clumps of plants and dragged herself forward onto the surface.

She looked down at Sam. “I’m up, Sam. I’m out.”

“That’s good news, of course,” Sam said. “I look forward to your weekly visits when you come to drop sandwiches down to me.”

“Very fu

“I’ll use my wet suit,” he said. “I’ll cut it into strips while you look for something solid we can tie it to.”

“All right.”

He couldn’t hear her anymore and knew she had moved off a few feet. He took off the top of his wet suit, took the dive knife from his belt, and began to cut. When he reached the sleeves, he cut each into several strips and tied them together, then tied these each to the long corkscrew shape he had cut from the torso. He took off the bottom of the wet suit, cut it into strips, and added it to the corkscrew.

Remi looked down over the rim of the cenote. “Throw me the rope when it’s ready,” she said. “I’ve got a tree up here.”

“Take this first,” he said. He removed the waterproof pack from his dive belt, held it in both hands, and performed something like a basketball jump shot to sail it up through the opening to the surface. He tied his neoprene rope to his belt with its one remaining weight, then called, “Ready?”

“Ready,” she said.

He swung the rope back and forth a couple of times, then swung it up toward Remi.

“Got it.” Then she disappeared again, pulling the rope with her. After thirty seconds, she came back to the edge. He could see she had her dive knife in her hand. “We need some more. This will take a minute.”

Several minutes later, Sam could see Remi’s face, looking down at him again. “It’s tied on. Time to do it.”

Sam climbed the rubber rope upward. Initially, it stretched as it took his weight, so the first two or three feet of climbing got him nowhere, but then the stretched rubber remained taut. He climbed it to the cenote, then used it as a handhold to drag himself up onto the ground. He rolled on his back, looked up at the sky, and then at Remi. His eyes widened. “Nice to see you used your wet suit too.”

“Stop staring, naked boy,” she said. “At least blink once in a while.” She opened the waterproof bag and tossed a pair of khaki shorts and a T-shirt on his chest, took out her own clothes, stepped into her shorts and pulled her T-shirt over her head. “Put on some clothes so we can start hunting for civilization.”