Frank narrated increasingly ridiculous possibilities.
“Bank safe.”
“Old cannon.”
“Spanish gold.”
“Your dignity.”
Hannah looked up.
“You three have chores?”
Wade smiled.
“We’re retired enough.”
“You’re not retired.”
“Emotionally.”
She pulled again.
Something beneath the mud moved with a deep sucking sound.
The men stopped laughing.
Hannah froze.
A line of bubbles appeared twenty feet away.
One.
Two.
Then nothing.
Frank stood.
“What was that?”
“Gas.”
Wade sounded less certain.
Hannah wiped sweat from her forehead with one muddy glove.
She remembered the notebook.
Stone shaft.
Circle.
Pull what they buried beneath it.
She dug her heels deeper.
“Help me.”
Wade grinned.
“Thought you didn’t need us.”
“I don’t.”
“Then why—”
“I said help me if you want to know.”
Frank came first.
Otis followed.
Wade remained on the bank.
Hannah tossed Frank the rope.
“Pull straight. Don’t jerk.”
Frank grabbed it.
Otis joined behind him.
They leaned.
Nothing.
Hannah repositioned.
Again.
The rope tightened until mud vibrated around it.
Wade called, “You’re all idiots.”
Frank shouted, “Come be an idiot.”
Wade muttered something and stepped down.
Four people pulled.
The rope snapped forward three feet.
Everyone fell backward.
Otis landed in mud.
Frank sat down hard.
Wade cursed.
Hannah laughed.
A heavy iron ring appeared above the muck.
Connected beneath it was the top of a wooden beam reinforced with rusted steel.
Wade’s face changed.
“What the hell?”
Hannah crawled forward.
She cleared mud with both hands.
The beam disappeared downward at an angle.
Frank knelt beside her.
“That’s built.”
“Yes.”
Otis wiped mud from his shirt.
“Built for what?”
Hannah looked toward the old men.
“Pull.”
They did.
The mechanism groaned.
Not rope.
Not wood.
Metal beneath earth.
A sound none of them expected.
Deep.
Mechanical.
Ancient.
Hannah wrapped the rope around her forearm.
Wade shouted, “Don’t!”
She leaned backward.
The wooden beam lifted another foot.
Mud cracked around it.
Then the entire pond bottom moved.
Not visibly at first.
They felt it.
A vibration through their boots.
Frank stepped away.
“Hannah.”
Bubbles erupted.
Dozens.
Across a circle fifteen feet wide.
Otis backed toward the bank.
“What did we open?”
Hannah released the rope.
The iron mechanism dropped slightly.
Then stopped.
The mud at its base split.
A thin stream of clear water appeared.
Hannah stared.
Not muddy water.
Clear.
Cold enough that vapor seemed to lift where it met the hot air.
Wade removed his hat.
“No.”