by Lyn Hamilton
“He’s gone to pee in the woods,” Pablo said, pointing to faint footsteps in the sand that headed in that direction, and it seemed the obvious conclusion. I waited several minutes, but Steve didn’t return. “Maybe he got lost in the woods,” Pablo added.
Lost in these woods? “I don’t think so,” I replied. Where I come from there are woods to get lost in. These woods did not qualify. You’d have to reach either the highway or a side road in fifteen minutes max. And you’d see the mountains or the sea right away to get your bearings.
I drove back to the hacienda to get the rest of the team, watching for Steve as I went. There was a little concern about Steve but nothing serious. By about ten in the morning, however, I could feel a little buzz of anxiety in the group. Hilda sent me back to the hacienda to make sure he hadn’t walked back. I was tempted to point out that the easiest and fastest route between the site and the hacienda was the road, and I’d traveled on it three times already. Back I went again. No Steve.
Hilda then sent a small team into the woods, and I went with them. There were lots of footprints in the sandy soil: It was obvious these woods were well traveled, but any discernible footprints stopped at an adobe brick wall. There was evidence someone had had a sort of picnic lunch there recently, but that was all. It could have been one of the workers, or just a passerby. It wasn’t Steve: He’d only taken a bottle of water with him. Beyond that was a much-used trail with so many footprints it would be impossible to follow any one of them. We called Steve’s name time and time again, and listened carefully for a response, however faint. There was none.
About noon, Hilda pulled me aside. “I don't want to create a panic here, so would you do me a favor? Drive over to Montero’s place, the Fabrica Paraiso, and tell him about this. Ask him what he thinks we should do. If I go, it’ll look as if I’m really concerned, which I am, incidentally, I will tell you. But you travel around all day, and it’s almost time for you to go and get Ines…” Her voice trailed off. She looked at me almost beseechingly.
I nodded. It was exactly where I was planning to go anyway. “Do you think we should call his family?” I whispered.
“Not yet,” she replied. “No need to worry them unnecessarily. Maybe tonight, if—” Her voice caught for a second. Pablo and one of his team approached us.
“I’m off to get Ines,” I said loudly enough that those nearest us could hear. “I’ll take the long way and watch out for Steve as I go.” Hilda looked relieved.
Now Montero returned from his phone calls; two of them I’d strained to hear but couldn’t. “I don’t think we should call the police just yet,” he said. “I have contacts, you know, and I’ve spoken to them, and they’ll be on the lookout. They’ll make enquiries. Let’s wait until tomorrow before we go to the police. Come back and see me again if there’s no sign of him.”
On the surface, I suppose, that made sense. Steve had only been missing a few hours, and Montero’s advice would be considered rational under normal circumstances. But these weren’t normal circumstances, as I knew only too well. I fully intended to come back to Paraiso, but not perhaps when Montero was expecting me. I had two plans for the Montero family when everyone at the hacienda had retired for the night: I was going to search Lucho’s room, since lately he hadn’t been sleeping there, and I was going to take another look around the Paradise Crafts Factory.
Judging from his room, Lucho was a grown man developmentally stuck in his teens. The place was a mess, clothes tossed everywhere, particularly the floor. Posters covered every available spot on the walls, the only difference from the teenagers I knew being the content. Instead of rock or rap groups, Lucho’s tended to military recruitment posters with a somewhat fascist bent.
I began to systematically search the room, checking under the bed, lifting the pillows and bedding and then, nothing found, lifting the mattress as well. No gun.
Next I went through the closet and dresser. It’s unpleasant going through someone’s underwear drawer when they aren’t there, but perhaps it would be worse if they were. Still no gun.
I went through his desk, and even pulled the furniture away from the wall as quietly as I could to check behind it. I shook out the carpet, causing a bout of sneezing that I strained to muffle, but not much else.
Just as I was about to give up my search, I saw the edge of an envelope sticking out slightly from behind one of the posters on Lucho’s wall. It was not the gun I was looking for, obviously, but I wondered what someone would choose to store behind a poster. The envelope was addressed to me; Rebeca, the childish scrawl said.
I turned it over to find it sealed, but with the wrinkled look of an envelope that has been steamed open.
Dear Rebeca, the letter began. First of all you got to excuse my writing. I didn’t do very good at school. I was sick alot and got behind. That was an understatement: The writer, whoever he or she was, was the worst speller I had ever encountered. After momentarily pondering the inadequacy of the education system, I read on.
I no my speling is bad. But please read all of this any way. Your my only hope.
What was this? I wondered.
I no I shoulda told you before, but for a couple years I grew very high grade marigana. Mainly I smoked it myself, altho from time to time I gave it for a small donation to freinds. The police dont no the diference between selling the stuff and acepting a donation, so you could say I am some times on the wrong side of the law. I am not proud of this. I only tell you so you no I am a person who tells the truth, so you will beleive what I have to tell you.
I am not sure how to make you understand but here goes.
Up untill a while ago, I cant remember ecaxtly, I thought all this stuff about recarnation was bull shit, just like you do. But then one time when I was laying on my bed, trying out some of my own home growed product if you take my meaning, something realy amazing happen. I beleive what happen was I got in touch with my spirit self. A bright light arked through my mind like a comet and then I was able to go back and forth through all my lives. Realy.
It was the most amazing mind trip of all time. Do you no what I learnt? I will not keep you in sespense. In all ages I was the prophit. I could always tell what woud happen next. When I opened my mouth, words about the future woud roll off my tounge. It surprised me at first, but now I'm used to it.
First I was that lady—Casandra—who told the Trojins about the big wodden horse. How stupid can you get of course it was full of Greek soldiers. Then I stood on a street in Rome and told Julius Ceasar to beware the Eyes of March. He didnt listen and we no what happened to him. Also I told Napoleon not to go to Russia but he didnt listen either.
It is not a good job let me tell you being a prophit. Becuse they never listen. And if they do, usully they dont like what you say. If your lucky they only put you in a deep dark dundgeon. Maybe I am now thinking that is why I have spent time in jail, bad karma from another life or something. But it gets worse. Sometimes they put out your eyes with red hot pokers other times they burn you at the stake. Like it is not good.
Another nutbar. I sighed. Whatever had I done—in another life, of course—to deserve this? But I read on.
The person I was that was closest to what I am now I think was a freind of Atahualpa (speling?) the Inca king. This freind was called Wayna and my name now is Wayne. Dont you think that is amazing? I told Atahualpa that the Spanish were not gods, just bad guys looking for gold and treasure and in the end I think he beleived me but it was to late.
At the end of this experience which I beleive took several days I came back to the present, but not the same. People dont beleive me tho. I tried to tell them, but what did they do. They called the police and they put me in the hospital for two weeks.
I told the doctors too. They didnt beleive me neither. I also told them all about histry. Even tho I didn’t like school much, I always liked histry. I watch all those programs on TV about ancient mysterys and stuff. I always wondered why I liked it so much but now of course
I no. It is on account of my former lives as a prophit.
By now, of course, I knew who had written it. But was there a point to this? I wondered. And if there was, would I ever be able to figure it out?
When I got out of there the police were still pretty interested in me, the writer went on. So I desided to come to Peru to see if I coud get closer to this Wayna the freind of Atahualpa which as I have explaned to you is me. I borrowed some $$$ from my brother, I didnt tell him tho so I guess hes mad at me too like every body else.
Its worked out good tho. I have the lady freind her real name is Megan. She was Joan of Ark in another life so she nos what its like.
The thing is the realy important part is that since I can remember all these times in histry I no where the treasure is. I have seen cities of gold that you get to thru cracks in the rock. And most especialy I no where Atahualpa hid the most fabulus treasure ever so as the Spanish coudnt find it. You no how I no? Because I helped him do it. And I have seen it with my own eyes I mean in this life time. And it is near here. I found it once but I was on a bit of a bad trip so I have to find it again. I could pay my brother back so he woudnt be mad any more but also I coud pay off the deficet for every country in the world. I coud build houses for those refujees and feed all those kids you see on TV with those big bellys and sad eyes.
The trouble is Megan is mad because I used the $$$ I earnt to buy marigana. She doesnt realy understand I need it to fuse with my former life as Wayna so I can find the treasure. Shell get over it but right now she is gone and I am alone.
To make things even worse I think the Spanish are after me. Like if I can go back to my former lives then may be they can come forward to now if you no what
I’m getting at. I think they mean to kill me good this time. Please help me.
Your freind Wayne, who you no as Puma, the letter ended.
What was one to think about a letter like this? I didn’t know whether to just forget it—and perhaps congratulate Pachamama, or Megan, should our paths ever cross again, for having the foresight to leave her somewhat deranged boyfriend when she had a chance—or, on the other hand, to try to find a thread of reality in all the madness.
Ever since Puma had disappeared, I’d wondered if he was connected in some way to Moche artifacts. I know where the treasure is. I have seen cities of gold that you get to thru cracks in the rocks… the most fabulous treasure ever …and it is near here. It sounded like the words of a madman, but was it possible Puma had indeed seen something, in this lifetime, drunk or drugged though he might have been at the time? To make things even worse I think the Spanish are after me. If he had, then he might well be right about the Spanish being after him, not, as he maintained, from a different time, but right here and right now. Pachamama—Megan, that is—had left because she didn’t believe him. I didn’t know what to think, but with all the strange things that were happening, I was beginning to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I was sure about one thing, however, and that was that I was more than a little annoyed with Lucho. I was waiting as he came shuffling back through the main door heading for his room, having chosen tonight of all nights to stay here. I was so irritated, in fact, that I didn’t care if he knew I’d been searching through his belongings.
“What were you doing with this letter?” I demanded. “It is very clearly addressed to me!” Lucho looked wary but said nothing.
“When did it arrive? Did someone deliver it? Well?” I demanded, one foot tapping the floor impatiently. “Answer me!”
“I don’t know,” Lucho whined.
“It was in your room,” I said. I could hear a dangerous tone in my voice.
“I forgot,” Lucho said. He was practically sniveling.
“When did it arrive?” I asked again.
“Yesterday,” Lucho said hesitantly.
“Are you sure?” Manco Capac had said yesterday that the kids had left one or two days before.
“Maybe the day before,” he conceded. This was the second person—Manco Capac being the first—who’d had a serious lapse of memory where Puma’s whereabouts were concerned.
“Who brought it?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. I glared at him. “I don’t!” he repeated stubbornly. “It was on the floor inside the front door when I came in. I didn’t see anybody.”
“But you opened it,” I said very quietly.
“No way,” he said, and that was the last I could get out of him. I stomped upstairs and told myself to sleep. But I couldn’t, unbidden images of Lizard and Edmund Edwards, and most of all the Spider, haunting me. Very late, I decided that I should go to plan B, back to the Paradise Crafts Factory and look around one more time, to see if I’d missed anything. Lucho’s door was closed and there was no sign of a light on, as I eased my way out the front door.
I hoped, as I started the truck, that Hilda had been well into the scotch and thus sleeping soundly. I pulled the truck off the highway several hundred yards from the factory, concealing it behind an old abandoned hut, and went the rest of the way on foot, thankful, for once, for the covering blanket of the garua.
Montero’s little industrial complex was in darkness except for one light over the front door of each of the buildings. I headed around to the rear of the factory building, hoping that one or other of the doors had been left ajar to help cool down the work area after the tremendous heat from the kiln.
All were closed and locked, but I had a fallback.
I’d noticed during my tour of the place that the back door was old, with a very poor lock of the bathroom door variety, where you simply push a button on the inside doorknob. Montero was not overly worried, it seemed, about intruders. If he’d really been up to no good I’d have expected better locks, for some reason. Having had some experience getting locks of this sort open, I figured I’d be able to get in reasonably easily. In the absence of a credit card, I’d brought a couple of tools from the lab that I thought would do the trick. They did, and with very little effort I let myself in. I locked the door from the inside.
The room was stifling, and I stood for a moment or two, waiting until my eyes adjusted to the dark, as sweat began trickling down my back from the heat and
my fear.
I made my way to the end of the room where Antonio’s drafting table was located, and, turning the shade down as far as I could, switched on the light. In another minute, I’d unlocked the filing cabinet next to the table.
The top drawer was filled with drawings, the second with photographs. It took me a moment or two to see how the files were organized: in large sections by year, and then within that, by type of artifact.
My purchases from the auction house had been abandoned in customs, and A. J. Smythson, to whom they’d been sent, had died between two and three years earlier. I went back three years in the file and started to search.
There were several bulging files for that year, quite a few for stirrup vessels done by subject, one file for portraits, another for animals, still another for birds. What I was looking for wasn’t there. After checking every file for that year, I went back four years, and started working through those files as well. At the very back of the drawer I found a file marked miscellaneous and opened that.
Midway through the file, I almost exclaimed out loud. I’d found what I wanted. Before I could look further, however, I heard the sound of a car engine very nearby. I stuffed the file back into the drawer, closed it, pushed the lock shut and extinguished the light, almost in one motion. Footsteps crunched on the sand and gravel that surrounded the building. Then the back door rattled, and the glare of a flashlight swept the upper windows. Night watchman, I thought, checking the doors and windows. I hoped his patrol did not include searching the interior.
The steps moved on, then the two doors by the kiln were tried in succession.
I waited, barely breathing, until the footsteps died away. The check of the property must have been fairly thorough, because several minutes went by, and I
still hadn’t heard the sound of the car engine starting, a signal that this inspection was at an end. Did this mean, I wondered, that the watchman was permanently stationed there for the night, or was he checking out the other buildings more carefully? I waited several minutes more, then, deciding I couldn’t wait all night, I plotted in my mind a route back to the truck that would take me away from the main buildings.
I remembered the old ruin of a building out back, and after looking carefully about me, and pulling the locked door shut behind me, I headed across the sand in its direction. It was quite a distance away, but I made it, then stood behind it to listen. Absolute silence greeted me. I kept close to the walls of the building and went around to the back where a door was located. That’s strange, I thought, but at that moment, a flashlight came around the corner of the main building once again, and I pulled back into the darkness. As soon as the guard, or whoever it was, had made his circuit, I looked again.
Two things caught my attention. First of all there was a padlock on the door of the ruin. That shouldn’t have been necessary, I thought. Secondly, an electric cord had been threaded under the door. As unnecessary as a padlock might be on a ruined building, electricity was even less useful, I’d have thought. I picked it up. I couldn’t slide under the door, of course, but I decided to follow the cord back to see if it was actually plugged in somewhere. The cord snaked its way along the wall of the building farthest away from the factory. I came to the corner of the building, and followed the cord around it. It was very dark, and I stumbled over an object in my path. A large object. I switched on the flashlight I had brought with me. Carlos Montero was dead. Shot. It was all I could do to keep from screaming.
I thought for a second or two what I should do. Carlos was beyond help. They’d find him soon enough. I angled away from the building and made a large circle back to the truck.
