Atlantis Gold

Chapter 11

“You just like metal detecting, don’t you?” Jayden said as he pulled the two shovels from the rental SUV while Hunt took out the detectors.

“There are worse things to be doing, but I really think this is worth a try.”

Jayden wore a skeptical look. “So let me get this straight: you think there’s something up with the color blue-green, or cyan or whatever? Because the statue head contained a cyan rock, and these are cyan flowers…” He waved an arm at the riotous bush with its bluish-green blossoms a few feet away. “…that it means whoever planted that statue had some kind of color-coded secret message?”

Hunt put the metal detector headphones on. “It sounds pretty wild when you put it like that, I admit, but basically, yeah. And and kind of blue is extremely rare in plants, expecially flowers.”

“But these bushes might not have even been here back then.”

“But they might have. We don’t know, so we may as well take a few minutes and see if we get a signal.”

For the second time that day they set out with the metal detectors on the crater summit. Together they walked the perimeter of the large flowering bush without obtaining a signal. As they made their way around they suddenly heard light footsteps, and then breathing. Hunt tensed, but relaxed when he saw a mangy wild dog trot around the bush.

“Looks like a coyote,” Jayden assessed.

“Could be,” Hunt said, “because coyotes are pack animals, and here comes another one.” A second canine ran up to them, nose to the ground. It did not have a threatening demeanor, nor did it appear cagey or wary of the humans. Both animals sniffed around in the bushes, always maintaining a few feet distance from the humans without seeming to put too much effort into that positional awareness.

They stood and watched for a minute to see if more dogs were coming. When a third showed up but mimicked the behavior of the first, Hunt told Jayden they should get to work. “Maybe we should get this done before too many of them get here.” Jayden agreed.

Then Hunt made his way into the brambles, determined to cover the ground it hid beneath its thorny vines.

“You’re loony-tunes, Carter, you know that, right?” Jayden taunted from somewhere unseen inside the sprawling, cyan foliage. “I mean really, is this your idea of a vacation, because—”

But Hunt interrupted him with an excited shout. “Hey! I got something!”

“Yeah, I know, you got a case of the crazies, Hunt, because—”

“No, I’m serious. I’ve got a signal. Get over here and help me dig.”

By the time Jayden was able to hack his way through the bush to Hunt’s position, he’d already dug a six-inch deep hole, careful not to be too reckless about it lest he destroy something delicate if it was there.

“Probably just an old beer can,” Jayden said as he helped to dig, clearing dirt out of the hole after Hunt excavated.

“Ever the optimist, aren’t you?” Hunt said.

“Realist.”

“Who would drink beer in this thorny bush like this?”

“You probably would. But I don’t know, maybe this hedge is new, or—”

“Whoa, hold up! Here it is.” Hunt moved his shovel away from the now two-foot deep pit they’d dug. “What have we here?”

Something solid lay in the dry dirt. A pointed object, protruding up from below. Hunt reached into the hole and brushed some of the dirt away, revealing a glint of gold-colored metal, roughly in the shape of a finger. Around them they could hear the wild dogs shuffling around but they continued to work on extricating the item from the earth.

“There’s more to it than just this,” Hunt said, excitement creeping into his voice. At the same time as Hunt worked, Jayden began digging carefully with a hand trowel a couple of feet away from the golden finger, looking to see how far whatever the object was might extend.

“Got something here, too,” he said, dropping the trowel to hand-wipe dirt away from whatever it was he’d uncovered. “Same color.” They continued to sweep away the dirt, digging carefully with hand trowels where necessary. As they worked, more and more of the golden object was uncovered, as well as some black color.

“Seems pretty solid, whatever it is,” Hunt said. After continuing their efforts for several more minutes, Hunt was finally able to lift the find out of the hole.

“Wow!” Jayden exclaimed as Hunt cradled the object like a baby.

“Look familiar?” Hunt asked.

Jayden appeared confused. “Wait a minute, we’re not in Egypt anymore, right? We’re in the Azores?”

“Last I checked,” Hunt joked, looking around. The dogs still lurked nearby but he saw no signs of people. “So do you recognize this thing?”

It was a statuette of a man with a dog’s head. Around his neck, but affixed to the statuette itself, was an ahnk made of black onyx.

“It’s Anubis,” Jayden said. “The Egyptian god of the dead, right?”

Hunt nodded as he turned the work of art over in his hands. “Yeah. Some called him 'The Guardian of the Scales,’ and claim that his main function was to watch over the dead. It has to do with the belief that after death, a person meets the gods who would place his or her heart on a scale. Ceremonial acts of weighing the heart from the Book of the Dead depict Anubis judging whether the person deserved to live an eternal life.”

“So basically, this guy right here decided every soul’s fate.”

“Correct. But I wonder is….what’s he doing here, an Egyptian god, in the Azores, a Portuguese island chain?”

“It wasn’t always Portuguese.”

Hunt thought about this for a moment while he eyed the statuette of Anubis. “True. It was the Portuguese who took the statue of the horse and rider, though, so whoever put that there — maybe the Egyptians — left the Anubis here.”

“The Egyptians do seem connected to Atlantis.”

Hunt stood again and readied his metal detector. “Let’s see if there are any other finds around here.” With the golden statuette tucked under one arm, Hunt passed the detector’s circular disc over the same hole the Anubis piece had come out of, but it gave no more signals. Then he and Jayden proceeded to cover more of the surrounding area, including deep into the thorny cyan bush, but again, the detectors were silent.

“Looks like Anubis is it for this site,” Hunt concluded, hefting the golden statuette.

“Wonder if it’s really gold, you think so?” Jayden wondered.

Hunt hefted the find in one hand, testing its weight. “Feels heavy enough, but we’ll have to have it tested to say for sure. The black rock looks like onyx.”

Jayden nodded as he eyed the decorative ahnk. “I wish Maddy could see this.”

At the mention of their friend, Hunt became somber. “Me too. We need to find her. I really wonder where she is now.”

Jayden looked up from the statuette. “I wish there was some way to find out.”

Hunt held up the statuette. “I have a feeling this might lead us to her.”