He caught the implication -- that I was warning him off -- and chose to ignore it. 'For anyone to interfere between man and wife is very serious,' he said.
I drove the cork into the bottle of antiseptic. 'I'm not interfering; Halstead just thinks I am.'
'I have your word for that?'
'You have my word -- not that it's any business of yours,' I said. As soon as I had said it I was sorry. 'It is your business, of course; you don't want this expedition wrecked.'
'That wasn't in my mind,' he said. 'At least, not as far as you are concerned. But I am becoming perturbed about Paul; he is proving very awkward to work with. I was wondering if I could ask you to release me from my promise. It's entirely up to you.'
I pounded at the cork again. I had just promised Katherine that I wouldn't get Halstead tossed out on his ear, and I couldn't go back on that. 'No,' I said. 'Other promises have been made.'
'I understand,' said Fallon. 'Or, at least, I mink I do.' He looked up at me. 'Don't make a fool of yourself, Jemmy.'
That piece of advice was coming a bit too late. I grinned and put down me antiseptic bottle. 'It's all right; I'm not a home wrecker. But Halstead had better watch himself or hell be in trouble.'
'Pour me another whisky,' said Fallon. He picked up the antiseptic bottle, and said mildly, 'We're going to have trouble getting that cork out again,'
The Halsteads had another quarrel that night. Neither of them appeared for supper and, after dark, I listened to the raised voices coming from their hut, rising and falling but never distinguishable enough to make sense. Just raw anger coming from the darkness.
I half expected Halstead to stomp over to my hut and challenge me to a duel, but he didn't and I thought that maybe Katherine must have argued him out of it. More probably, the argument I had put up had a lot of weight behind it. Halstead couldn't afford to be ejected from the expedition at this stage. It might be a good idea to pass on Fallen's attitude to Katherine just to make sure that Halstead realized that I was the only person who could prevent it.
As I went to sleep it occurred to me that if we did find Uaxuanoc I'd better start guarding my back.
III
Four days later there was only one site to be investigated. Fourteen out of the fifteen in Fallon's original list had proved to be barren; if this last one proved a bust then we would have to extend our radius of exploration and take in another forty-seven sites. That would be a bind, to say the least of it. We had an early-morning conference before the last site was checked and nobody was happy about it. The cenote lay below a ridge which was thickly covered in trees and Rider was worried about the problem of getting in while coping with air currents. Worse still, there was no possible place for a man to drop from the winch; the vegetation was thick and extended right to the edge of the cenote without thinning in any way.
Fallon studied the photographs and said despondently, This is the worst I've seen anywhere. I don't think there's a chance of getting in from the air. What do you think, Rider?'
'I can drop a man,' said Rider. 'But he'd probably break his neck. Those trees are running to 140 feet and tangled to hell. I don't think a man could reach the ground.'
The forest primeval,' I commented.
'No,' contradicted Fallon. 'If it were, our work would be easier. All this ground has been cultivated at one time -- all over Quintana Roo. What we have here is a second growth; that's why it's so goddamn thick.' He switched off the projector and walked over to the photo-mosaic. 'It's very thick for a long way around this cenote -- which is archeologically promising but doesn't help us in getting in.' He laid his finger on the photograph. 'Could you put us down there, Rider?'
Rider inspected the point Fallon indicated, first with the naked eye and then through a magnifying glass. 'It's possible,' he said.
Fallon applied a ruler. Three miles from the cenote. In that stuff we couldn't do more than half a mile an hour -- probably much less. Say a full day to get to the cenote. Well, if it must be done, we'll do it.' He didn't sound at all enthusiastic.
Halstead said, 'We can use Wheale now. Are you good with a machete, Wheale?' He just couldn't get out of the habit of needling me.
'I don't have to be good,' I said. 'I use my brains instead. Let me have another look at those photographs.'
Fallon switched on the projector and we ran through them again. I stopped at the best one which showed a very clear view of the cenote and the surrounding forest. 'Can you get down over the water?' I asked Rider.
'I guess I could,' said Rider. 'But not for long. It's goddamn close to that hillside at the back of the pool.'
I turned to Fallon. 'How did you make this clearing we have here?'
'We dropped a team in with power saws and flame-throwers,' he said. They burned away the ground vegetation and cut down the trees -- then blasted out the stumps with gelignite.'
I stared at the photograph and estimated the height from water-level to the edge of the pit of the cenote. It appeared to be about thirty feet. I said, 'If Rider can drop me in the water. I can swim to the edge and climb out.'
'So what?' said Halstead. 'What do you do then? Twiddle your thumbs?'
Then Rider comes in again and lowers a chain saw and a flame-thrower on the end of the winch.'
Rider shook his head violently. 'I couldn't get them anywhere near you. Those trees on the edge are too tall. Jesus, if I get the winch cable tangled in those I'd crash for sure.'
'Supposing when I went into the water I had a thin nylon cord, say about a couple of hundred yards, with one end tied to the winch cable. I pay it out as I swim to the side, then you haul up the cable and I pay out some more. Then you take up the chopper, high enough to be out of trouble, and I pay out even more line. When you come
