Indiana Jones and the Hollow Earth

by Max McCoy

  "I'm stuck," he called.

  "Hang on," the voice called.

  The light began bobbing urgently toward him.

  Soon the figure had set the lantern down and a pair of strong, suntanned arms reached down and grasped the straps of his pack. In one motion Indy was pulled free from the hole and set on his feet.

  "Thanks," he said.

  Then as the lantern was picked up and the beam played briefly over his rescuer, Indy saw a shock of blond hair and a figure that, although clad in denim and flannel, was unmistakably feminine.

  "You're a woman," Indy blurted.

  "No time for talk," she said.

  There was a great rushing and rumbling sound, as if someone had suddenly pulled the chain on a gigantic toilet. Behind him, he could hear boulders crashing against the sides of the corridor as they were driven by the force of the water.

  The woman grasped Indy by the hand and together they made their way back down the corridor. At a spot that he could hardly distinguish from the rest of the passage, she found a high opening and pulled him up after her.

  Below them, a torrent of water, mud, and gravel thundered past.

  "Flash flood," the woman told him.

  "You saved my life," Indy said.

  "Nonsense," she replied, brushing some wild strands of hair from her blue eyes. "You saved yourself. I just showed you the way."

  "But who are you?" Indy asked. "How do you know my name? And how did you know I was in here?"

  "You Americans," the woman scoffed. "Always asking rude questions. And we are not out of the woods quite yet, as your countrymen say."

  "You're the Danish spelunker," Indy said, finally making the connection. "Bertha mentioned you, back at the cafe."

  "Please, I prefer to be described as a caver," she said. "Spelunker has such a grotesque ring to it, don't you think? Like some kind of freak that lives underground. Here, I believe this belongs to you."

  From beneath her belt she took his fedora. It had obviously been soaked with rain, and it had been crushed mercilessly by the pressure of the belt.

  "I found it on the stick outside," she explained. "I have been searching for you since. My name is Ulla Tornaes. By the name inside your hat, I know that yours is Jones. That is your last name, correct?"

  "Correct," Indy said as he unfolded the hat and tried to put some shape back into it. Then he stuck it on his head. "Thanks a lot."

  "Come," she said, stooping down as the passage narrowed. "We have one more challenge before we are free. The Apaches say these caves are guarded by the rattlesnakes who live in the rocks. Now I am inclined to agree with them. Just how much treasure did you take, Mr. Jones?"

  "It's Dr. Jones," Indy said testily.

  "A medical doctor?"

  "No. A professor. And how—"

  "That knapsack of yours seems unusually heavy," she explained. "And, you have obviously refused to release it even when it could have meant your life. Is wealth that precious to you?"

  "No," Indy said. He was crawling along behind her. "At least, not wealth for wealth's sake. I took only what I needed."

  "Your needs must be quite exorbitant," she said. "The Apaches say that if your heart is pure, you will pass the test. Is your heart pure, Mr. Jones?"

  They had reached the point where the grooves were cut into the floor of the passage. Except this time there was something strange about their feel to Indy—warm and dry and occasionally moving.

  "Shine the lantern back for a second," Indy told her. "There's something strange here."

  "Better to keep on going, Mr. Jones," she said. "We must go forward. We cannot go back."

  Indy kept crawling.

  When the passage opened wider again, and Indy emerged, the woman shone the lantern back. Dozens of reptilian eyes reflected the light, accompanied by a chorus of telltale rattles.

  "Snakes," Indy whispered. He could barely get the word out.

  "Congratulations," the woman said. "You passed the test. I rather thought you wouldn't."

  "You believe in those old superstitions?" Indy asked, trying to appear brave.

  She shone the lantern in his face.

  "Then you explain it," she said.

  Then she scrambled up the rubble pile, wiggled through the opening, and stretched in the open air like a cat. Indy followed. It was still raining, but the worst of the storm had passed.

  From within the cave they could hear rumbling and the crashing of rocks.

  "I would say that's the end of the treasure cave," the woman said. "Or at least of the entrance which you found."

  "Just as well, I suppose." Indy sighed in exhaustion.

  "If I hadn't stumbled on your hat—and realized that you had foolishly entered the cave system despite the threat of storm and flash flood—you might still be in there. A permanent resident, in fact, like the skeletons and the snakes."

  She paused and regarded him with a practised, professional detachment.

  "Say," she ventured. "You're not the famous archaeologist Indianapolis Jones?"

  "No," Indy said. "My name's—"

  "Quite right," she said. "My mistake. You're just a common fortune hunter."

  5

  Ghost Stories

  "Look here," Indy said. "My name is Indiana Jones, not Indianapolis."

  "Of course," she said. "What do your friends call you?"

  "Indy," he said. "But you can call me Dr. Jones."

  "I would prefer that," she said, walking away. Over her shoulder she called: "If, as you say, you are indeed a doctor. Do you have any proof?"

  "I'm not in the habit of carrying my diplomas with me."

  "Pity," she said. "In that case, it's still Mister Jones."

  The woman led the way on an arduous three-mile hike across rugged terrain to a mesa above Bell Canyon. As they reached the modest camp—consisting of a single canvas wall tent, some simple cooking utensils, and a stone circle for a fire—a shaft of sunlight broke from the clouds and the landscape glimmered, as if diamonds instead of raindrops had drenched the little valley.

  "Amazing," the woman said, "how quickly these storms pass."

  "And how wet they can leave things," Indy said as he sat down on a rock and examined his fedora. He massaged the misshapen mass with his fingers. "Do you think this will ever regain its shape?"

  "You're lucky to be alive," she asked incredulously, "and you're worried about your hat?"

  "It was a nice hat," Indy said sadly. Then: "I'm sorry. I'm really very grateful for your climbing down into the hole and pulling me out by the scruff of my neck. Thanks."

  "It was an interesting problem," the woman said as she began unlacing her boots. "I didn't know if I could find you in time." She paused. "I mean, you're welcome. Besides, you seemed like you were doing a pretty good job of saving yourself when I found you."

  Indy put the hat down.

  "Where are you from?"

  "Copenhagen."

  "What has brought you to the American southwest?"

  "The karst," she said, and indicated with a boot the rugged landscape around them. "This magnificent, exposed karst is the mother to a network of caves that reaches from here to Kentucky."

  "How do you know that?" Indy asked.

  She smiled at his schoolboy question.

  "Mr. Jones," she chided. "We tag the cave fish."

  "Right," Indy said. "So you are a scientist?"

  "No," Ulla said with a wry smile. "I am an adventurer, Mr. Jones. An explorer. But instead of the predictable topography of the earth's surface, I am interested in the unknown, the land beneath our feet."

  "Right," Indy said.

  "You sound incredulous."

  "It is rare that I meet such a rugged, strong-minded woman," Indy confessed.

  "Oh?" Ulla brushed her blond hair from her eyes and then tugged off a wet sock with a satisfying slock! "I would imagine that it is rare that you meet anyone, male or female, who is as strong, confident, and capable as I am."

  "Well, y
es," Indy admitted. "Not to mention modest."

  "Do you feel threatened, Mr. Jones?"

  Indy laughed.

  "Too bad," she said as she unbuckled her belt. "I would have rather hoped that you would feel just a little threatened. After all, my friends in Denmark often say that my apparent lack of modesty reminds them of that famous archaeologist Indianapolis Jones that we read about in the papers."

  "You mean me," he said, jerking a thumb at his chest. "Indiana Jones."

  She regarded him with cold detachment.

  "I suppose I should be flattered," Indy grumbled.

  "I'll let you know," she said, "when you should reach that happy state of mind."

  She took off her belt and her mud-stained denim pants fell, revealing the tails of her man's flannel work shirt.

  "What are you doing?" he asked.

  "Getting out of these wet things, of course," she said as she stepped out of the jeans. "Oh, I keep forgetting how prudish you Americans can be about such things."

  "Sorry," Indy said. He looked away, but could not help but notice how tanned and athletic her legs were. "It's just that I'm—"

  "Don't apologize." She sighed as she gathered the wet jeans around her and made for the tent. She paused at the flap. "I am a naturist, so I really don't think twice about such things. But I can see how it might make you uncomfortable, so I will honor your provincial wishes. When in Rome, as they say."

  The tent flap snapped shut.

  "I've been in Rome," Indy commented, "and nobody there acts like you."

  The flap snapped open again.

  Ulla threw a blanket at him.

  "Instead of putting your energy into wisecracks," she suggested, "you might want to find some dry branches with which to make a fire. You will need to dry your clothes, and I wouldn't mind some coffee. You'll find everything you need in the mess kit."

  Indy stared at her.

  "You do know how to make coffee, don't you?" she inquired archly.

  As the sun disappeared in the west Indy drew the blanket around his shoulders and sipped coffee from a tin cup. The modest meal of beans and jerky had mellowed him somewhat, but he still was rankled at Ulla's refusal to believe that he was indeed Indiana Jones; the real Jones, she said, would never be so thickheaded as to become lost in a cave.

  Ulla sat a few feet away, brushing her blond hair and humming contentedly to herself. She paused, then pointed the brush at the horizon around them.

  "All of this," she said, "was once underwater."

  "I know," Indy said.

  "During the Permian period of our geologic past, this area was covered by a vast tropical sea, and the mountains here were a huge limestone reef system not unlike the Florida Keys," she said. "This canyon was once an underwater canyon, and the formations we see here were carved by the waves over the course of millions of years."

  "Later," Indy said, picking up the story, "the water receded and the entire plain was thrust upward by earthquakes. Ironically, the forests that remain at the highest elevations in the Guadalupes were created during the Pleistocene Ice Age, and remain today much as they were then."

  "Ironic," Ulla mused. "All of this is part of a giant jigsaw puzzle, the edges of which we are just now beginning to discern. Nobody knows the true extent of these vast cave networks. The link between places like the Guadalupes and Kentucky may only be a small part. For all we know, the entire inner earth may be honeycombed by such interconnected passages."

  Indy smiled.

  "You think I'm mad, don't you?"

  "No," Indy said. "I think you are a fantasist."

  "The earth is a living being, Mr. Jones." Ulla leaned forward and placed her palms on the ground. "The rock beneath seems dead to us only because of our inconsequential life spans and our equally limited imaginations. But there is life surging beneath my hands, even though it may be a thousand years between heartbeats. The rain that drenched us today is the lifeblood of the planet. The limestone continues to be dissolved by rainwater, which becomes mildly acidic during its journey through the earth's atmosphere, and it eats away at the karst and gradually forms new arteries and veins—which we call caves and sinkholes. They are designed for a purpose, to carry the water which the ground cannot absorb. That is why it was so dangerous for you to go stumbling into the caves before the storm."

  "I thought I could beat the storm," Indy said defensively. "If I had waited, it might have been days—if ever—before I could penetrate the cave."

  "What difference could a day or a week make?" she asked. "For that matter, what difference would a year make? Are you in that much of a hurry to be rich—or dead?"

  Indy dragged the knapsack over to him and removed one of the bars of gold. He held it toward the fire, studying the mint marks.

  "This was worth risking your life for?" she asked.

  "No," Indy said. "But what it represents may be."

  "And what is that?"

  "Look." He pointed to the line of stamps and marks. "You call me a thief, but this gold was stolen originally by the Spanish, probably from the Incas in Peru. The Incas may have ripped it from the earth themselves, but more probably they took it from other tribes, either as spoils of war or as tribute. Only God knows how many irreplaceable works of pre-Columbian art were melted down to make this one bar. From this mark, we can tell the Spanish cast the ingots in Mexico City in the sixteenth century. Here is the name of the captain who was entrusted with hauling the gold from Mexico City to Spain—Don Pedro Juan Garcia. Somewhere along the line he failed, either losing his charge to bandits or helping himself to a little of the loot and taking off. And here is a little warning added by the church that the gold is the property of God and King, and nobody but a Catholic who has recently made confession should carry it, and that the fires of hell await any pagan whose hands it should fall into."

  "Are you a pagan?"

  "No."

  "Damn," Ulla said. "I would have thought you were."

  "Are you?" Indy asked.

  "Of course," she said. "I worship the sun. And, on some days of the week, the Aesir."

  "The old ones," Indy translated. "The Norse gods."

  "Exactly. I don't actually believe they hear me," she continued. "But it makes as much sense to me as being a Protestant or a Catholic or a Muslim. At least I'm not out killing people who don't agree with me."

  "It wouldn't be much of a leap," Indy grumbled.

  "Go on with your story," she said. "How did the gold get here, in the mountains?"

  "Only the gold knows that," Indy said. "It was stolen, and stolen again. Eventually it came into the hands of the Apaches, who stored it here to keep it out of the hands of the Europeans."

  "And it has been stolen yet once again," Ulla observed. "And what will you do with your wealth, Mr. Jones? What is your heart's desire? A big house? An estate, perhaps? With dozens of servants that make you coffee and say, 'Yes, Mr. Jones, right away, Mr. Jones'?"

  "What, do you want a cut?"

  "Absolutely not." She looked shocked at the very idea. "It is tainted, and I will have no part of it. Only a fool would believe that it could bring him happiness."

  "Then I am a fool," Indy admitted, "who is trying to buy a miracle."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I don't want to talk about it," Indy said as he replaced the ingot in the knapsack.

  "Why not?"

  "I'm used to risk," Indy said. "Most of the time it is for a shining bit of history that I can hold in my hand and then stick in a museum so other people might get the same feeling of awe that I had when I first saw it."

  "What is different now?"

  "This time it's personal," he explained. "I have brought myself down to the level of the Belloqs of the world."

  "What is a Belloq?"

  "A special sort of little monster," Indy said. "Except that what he does for money, I'm doing for love."

  "I don't understand."

  "I said I didn't want to talk about it."

 
; "Please."

  "It's a long story, and I'm not sure I would even tell a friend about it. You seem not to like me very much."

  She moved closer to him and placed a hand on his arm. "I am not sure that we could be friends," she said, "but I am disliking you a little less now that I am hearing your story. Please, if you feel any small debt of gratitude toward me for pulling you out of that hole, then tell me the rest of your tale. The world has so few great love stories that you shouldn't keep this one hidden."

  Indy cleared his throat.

  "How do you know it is so great?" he asked. "Love found and lost—that is rather a common tale, don't you think? It happens to kings and paupers with the same unremarkable regularity."

  "Trust me," she said. "And keep talking."

  Indy closed his eyes. He felt as if he were about to pull his beating heart from his chest for Ulla to see. He told her about how, deep in the jungles of British Honduras, in the lost city of Cozan, he had found a skull made of quartz crystal.

  "It was patterned after a female skull, and of the purest quartz rock, beautifully articulated, a cult object that some lost generation must have revered as both inspiring and terrifying. But there was a curse, as there usually is with such treasures. But this one was a little more diabolical than most: that the finder of the skull would not die, but would kill what he loves most."

  "And what is it that you love most?"

  "Not what, but whom," Indy corrected. "Her name is Alecia Dunstin. Red hair, blue eyes. Clairvoyant. She was the sister of an alchemist the fascists captured in the hopes of turning lead into gold."

  "She died?"

  "She lived, but no thanks to me," Indy said. "I was bad for her health."

  "She became ill?"

  "I was nearly the death of her," Indy said. "Peculiar things would happen when we were together, usually involving somebody attempting murder. The closer we became, the worse it got. In the end the plot to turn lead into gold failed. Her brother died, as did many others. She survived, but narrowly. It was too much for both of us. I have not seen her in some time."

  "Where is she now?"

  "I don't know," Indy said. "England still, I suppose. We no longer speak."