Orange Blossoms & Mayhem (Fantascapes)

by Blair Bancroft

  Time out for a half-hearted exploration of some Inca ruins, one of the tambos, or way stations, set up for Inca runners. Then up again through a second pass, leading to a blissful descent toward a small lake and our first spectacular Inca ruin, Sayacmarca. It means “town in a steep place,” and Hiram Bingham, the Yale archeologist who discovered Machu Picchu, wasn’t kidding when he named it. My lungs were so glad to be back down to the 10,000-foot level of Cuzco that they allowed me to explore a bit, once again admiring the durability of Inca stonework, even when it was just stone on stone, not the chiseled fittings found in their palaces and temples.

  A melodic hoot from Puma brought me scrambling toward the trail. Going down the narrow stone staircase, I rapidly discovered, was far worse than climbing up. A solid stone wall on one side, a sheer drop into the valley on the other, and an angle so steep I felt like a stumble would send me flying into sheer nothingness. Particularly with the weight of my backpack threatening to topple me forward with each step down. I paused, took a deep breath—or as deep as one can at that altitude—and put one hand to the wall for support. Mom and Dad didn’t raise me to break my neck on an obscure ruin in the Andes.

  Even Max groaned a half hour later as the trail started to climb again. “Nobody said anything about a third damn pass,” he muttered.

  “Not so high as Death Woman,” Puma assured us. “Good ruins. Phuyupatamarca—‘town high in clouds.’ Ancient Inca Baths.”

  “With water?” Hildy asked hopefully.

  “Ah, no, señora,” Puma replied with an apologetic shake of his head. “Once there was much water, coming down the mountain through channels cut in stone. Aqueducts, yes? But now, there is only a small bit of water. Enough to drink, perhaps, but that is all.” Hildy made a face, shrugged. We soldiered on.

  But not long after, Hildy stopped dead in her tracks. I pulled up beside her. “Is that what I think it is?” she asked.

  Oh, yeah, I remembered now. A tunnel. Another nice bit of Inca engineering, more an enlarged cleft in the rock, topped by slabs of stone, than a tunnel. Puma, Raymi, and Yanay had already disappeared inside. Max was waiting by the entrance, obviously a bit anxious about Hildy’s reaction. Urqu was bringing up the rear.

  “Now, honey,” Max said, “you follow right behind me. “Puma says it’s only twenty feet or so—”

  “Or so?” Hildy’s sarcasm practically dripped onto the stones paving the trail.

  For some reason I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. A habit of being careful, constantly scanning for trouble, I suppose. I heard Urqu draw in a sharp breath behind me. So . . . not a mistake. I examined the uneven slabs of rock ahead. Urqu’s hand pointed over my shoulder. “Allá.”

  Shit, double shit. “Hildy, Max, listen carefully. Do not move fast. Step back toward me. Back behind Urqu. Now.” I give them credit. Neither one of them even flinched. Three days on the Inca Trail can do that. We were all stronger, in mind as well as body. Honed to battle-ready.

  I keep a .22 in my jacket pocket for just such an emergency. The problem was, I wished it was my Lady Smith, a .38. Or, better yet, my 9mm Glock. But the .22 was lightweight, easily concealed, and on a Monday afternoon at the outfitters in Cuzco had seemed a sensible compromise for a four-day hike. Ah, well.

  The snake—a fer-de-lance, I thought—was a moving target as it made its way across the wildly tumbled rocky face of the cliff, now almost directly above the entrance to the tunnel. The .22 is a short-range gun, a favorite weapon of old-style mafia hitmen. Up close and personal. Two bullets to the head. So if I wanted to do more than make the snake mad, I’d have to move closer. Damn. I really don’t like snakes. Especially poisonous ones. If it were the more colorful coral snake or a nice fat anaconda, strayed up from the jungle below, it would be an easier target than this beast with its built-in camouflage coat.

  “Peligrosa,” Urqu warned as I inched my way forward, not wanting the blasted snake to slither away into the rocks when we had twenty-plus feet of tunnel to get through.

  Dangerous. No kidding. I raised my gun, holding it in both hands. The snake turned and looked straight at me. Sayonara, baby.

  We were all still standing there, taking deep breaths, when Puma and the porters erupted from the mouth of the tunnel, skidding to a halt as they nearly stepped on the still wiggling snake in the path. “Ah, good meat,” Raymi pronounced in his schoolboy English, scooping up the twitching body. “Good for supper.”

  Hildy looked as if she were going to be sick. “Eat away,” Max said. “I think I’ll pass.”

  Puma pushed a pile of straight black hair out of his eyes and gave me an approving nod. “A bad snake. You have done well.” A trifle condescending, perhaps, but I took it in the spirit it was intended. Not bad praise from a descendant of the Incas to a gringa from Florida.

  I managed a twist of my lips that passed for a smile before I snapped the safety on, returned the gun to my jacket pocket. “Thanks.”

  “Laine,” Max declared in his best boardroom voice, “I want you to know I’ll be recommending Fantascapes to all my friends.” He tossed me a smart salute.

  “You think the snake has any friends left in there?” Hildy asked in a very small voice, eyeing the gaping opening in the rock wall. I noticed Max didn’t step in with quick re-assurances.

  “Come, señora, I will take you through myself,” Puma offered, holding out his hand. “Not to worry. Never before have I seen a snake here.” Which didn’t mean he hadn’t seen plenty of them elsewhere, I thought to myself. But if Puma didn’t have a store of the right words to say, he wouldn’t be a guide. I hoped Urqu was paying attention.

  We climbed to Phuyupatamarca on the adrenalin left from our encounter with the fer-de-lance. Puma was right. The “town high in the clouds” was worth the effort. Agricultural terraces hugged the mountainside, punctuated by stone staircases. The square baths, built of fitted stone and fed by water from a spring above, looked as if they were in daily expectation of being used. At the top, above the terraces, I could just see a U-shaped structure built on a promontory that appeared to look out over the valley of the Urubamba. And far below, we could see the ruins of Huinay Huayna, our goal for the night. Max and Hildy, still shaken from the encounter with the snake, said they’d be happy to take a rest, and hauled themselves up to sit on the first terrace while I checked out the view from the U-shaped ruin at the top.

  When I reached it, I found what might have been a large bath designed for the most noble of the noble. Threading my way through the narrow passage beside the bath, I walked out on the narrow promontory, which extended some twelve feet beyond the bath. Low stone walls rimmed the area, continuing down the sides of the U-shaped cliff to the ground, at least fifteen feet below. The view, as expected, was spectacular. Mountain peaks all around, with their steep sides plunging to the depths of the valley of the Urubamba thousands of feet below. I turned to wave frantically to Max and Hildy, hoping to coax them to join me. No one should miss this view.

  My hand dropped to my side. I paused, listening for the unexpected sound I was not quite sure I’d heard. Silence. Feeling like an idiot—the ghosts of the Incas were getting to me—I called out. “Hello. Anybody there?”

  A grunt. Did they have wild pigs in Peru? Or was it more like a groan? “Where are you?” I called, louder now.

  A definite groan. Human. “Again!” I shouted. “I don’t see you.” The ruins seemed designed to turn sounds into a maze of echos. I scanned the stone walls around me, peered over the edge to more ancient walls below. Nothing . . . Nobody . . .

  “Here. Down here.” Soft but distinct. Male. And almost beneath my feet. Now, how to get down the precipitous slope to the stone walls I could see below? Jumping off fifteen-foot walls on the edge of forty-five degree mountainside isn’t the wisest move if you don’t want to end up having to be rescued yourself, so I was forced into an aggravating detour back around the bath before I could move safely down the mountain, peering around and over a series of a
ncient walls as I went. Ten feet down, twenty feet, thirty.

  And there he was, lying behind a convoluted, almost snake-like stone wall. Staring at me from gray eyes filled with pain. All I could tell about him was that he wasn’t Quechua. And no simple fall would have left a man as much of a mess as he was. My find was battered and bruised from head to toe, with a bloody gash marring a head of thick brown hair.

  As much as all my instincts were flashing red, it wasn’t the time for questions. I knelt beside him. Under the black and blue flesh and torn clothing, he was about the size of my brother Logan—about six feet, whipcord lean, but well-muscled. No way was I going to get him out of there by myself. “Anything broken?” I asked.

  “No. At least I don’t think so. I’ve been out . . . quite a while, I think.”

  I had to lean close to hear him. Obviously, he’d spent what little strength he had on answering my call. “Okay.” I nodded. “I’ve got to go back up to the top and signal for help. Hang in there a bit longer. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  “Like bloody hell,” he muttered. “Sorry . . . thanks. Go. I’ll be here when you get back.”

  I appreciate a man with a sense of humor. And he was tougher than he looked. I would have sworn he’d have to be carried off the mountain, but after Puma’s thorough check for broken bones, he managed it under his own power, with Urqu on one side and Yanay on the other. It wasn’t until we got him back to the trail that he hit us with the biggest surprise. When we asked his name, all Mr. Black and Blue could say was, “Now that would be a bit of a problem.”

  Chapter Five

  Uh-oh. I’d heard enough by now to peg our mystery man for a Brit, but he was my Brit, my discovery. He wasn’t supposed to be a dirty rotten lying scoundrel. No way was he going to pull the “So sorry, I can’t remember” bit on Laine Halliday. Hildy was lapping it up, all wide-eyed. Max looked almost as stone-faced as the Quechuas. Except for Raymi, who was young enough to betray excitement in the depths of his black eyes.

  Five seconds of silence as I gauged our vic and the reaction of our trekking team to his odd reply. I stared straight in his face, but his eyes were so swollen, nearly slitted shut, that any attempt to penetrate his thoughts was frustrated from the git-go. I could only hope he could see well enough to know that I wasn’t some naive turista who was going to go all goggle-eyed over a tale that should have been confined to a telenovela.

  “Problem?” I inquired.

  “I’ve had time to give it some thought,” he said, struggling for clarity past cut and swollen lips, “and at the moment I fear my name seems to elude me. And I haven’t the foggiest about where we are. Except . . . I doubt it’s anywhere the Queen reigns.” What I could see of his gray eyes regarded me questioningly.

  Okay, so I’d humor him. He did have a rather bloody bump on his head. “The Inca Trail in Peru. Near Machu Picchu.”

  His eyebrows shot up. He winced.

  “No one’s supposed to be on this trail alone,” I added coldly, “partly to protect the trail from hikers and partly to protect hikers from what could happen up here. Like high-altitude muggers.”

  He pressed the fingers of one hand to the side of his head, his battered face wrinkling with the effort to recapture what had been lost. If he was faking, he was an expert at it.

  Hildy knelt by his side, wielding a handkerchief she’d soaked from her canteen. “Leave him alone, Laine. Can’t you see he needs first-aid, not an interrogation.”

  “I’m not interrogating,” I sputtered. “He’s way out here in the middle of nowhere, all beat up, and claiming not to remember a thing. Now if you don’t find that odd—”

  “You are both right, ladies,” Puma pronounced, stepping forward, “but knowing his identity will no doubt ease the señor’s mind. “With his permission, we will search his pockets. Perhaps there is some ID, yes?”

  But of course there wasn’t. No wallet, no passport, no money. Nothing to justify the stranger’s groans as Urqu and Yanay lifted while Puma checked the back pocket of his chinos.

  Okay, I was willing to admit the man’s beating—or was it a fall?—was very real, but what was he doing here on his own? I watched while Hildy, with all the aplomb of a trauma nurse, cleaned the worst cut on his head, which turned out to have disgorged a lot of blood from a very small opening. The lump beneath it, however, was large. You were a nurse, right?” I asked.

  “Just a mother,” she replied.

  It was about then I realized Hildy couldn’t bandage the vic’s multiple cuts without winding strips of gauze over his face, which was still a surreal canvas of black, blue, blood, and dirt. I should be helping, but the feminine instincts gene for succoring the wounded seemed to have passed me by. Or maybe it was just lost in the prickles running up and down my spine. There was something wrong, all wrong, about this. But I couldn’t argue with our mystery man’s pain. It was real.

  Urqu, of all people, held out a second wet handkerchief, and I went to work on our vic’s face. He had to be a vic, right? One of the good guys. A wandering Brit tourist, not a coca leaf dealer caught in some internecine struggle. He closed his eyes, and I paused for a good look at the face I had just revealed. There was likely a handsome, perhaps even distinguished, man beneath the swelling. My gut instinct rejected drug smuggler, but there was something that screamed he wasn’t just another tourist. Maybe the cool attitude toward his predicament, his attempt at humor?

  MI-5 on vacation? MI-6, not on vacation?

  Hildy’s bandaging wasn’t as skillful as her cleansing. When she was finished, Mr. Black and Blue looked more like a burn victim, more than half his face swathed in gauze, with just a slit open for his eyes. But since neither eye was functioning well at the moment, the problem seemed moot. I helped him lean back against one of the rolled-up sleeping bags. “Take it easy,” I told him, “while we figure out how we’re going to get you out of here.”

  “I’ll walk out.”

  He’d seemed only half-conscious while we worked on him, yet now he was saying he’d walk out of here. And in the strongest voice we’d heard from him yet.

  “Short rest, and I’ll be fine.”

  Sure he would. Leaving Hildy to sit with him, the rest of us went into a huddle about a dozen feet down the trail.

  “He is strong, this one,” Puma said. “By morning he will be able to do as he says.”

  “How far are we from Huinay Huayna?” I asked.

  “Two hours, maybe less.”

  No doubt in my mind about what had to be done. No matter what my suspicions, we couldn’t go off and leave him. Yet we were already behind the schedule we had to meet in order for the Arendsens to see the sun rise over Machu Picchu from the Intipunku, as guaranteed in the Dream Plan created by Fantascapes.

  “Here’s what we’ll do,” I said to Puma. “You take the Arendsens on to Huinay Huayna, as scheduled. I’ll stay here with Mr. No-Name. Hopefully, he’ll be able to walk out in the morning. There’s a hostel, a visitor center there, right? So there’s got to be someone in authority to leave him with. Then I’ll hike on to Machu Picchu, only another couple of hours, if I remember correctly. Where you,” I said to Max, will be enjoying the luxury of your room with a view of the ruins and getting ready to explore the most beautiful place on earth.” I smiled. I, the Fantascapes troubleshooter, had decreed it. Let it be so.

  Puma, a wise man, made only a token protest. Max, ever the chivalrous mid-westerner, was more vocal. He could not possibly leave me alone with a perfect stranger in the middle of nowhere.

  And I could not possibly allow him to miss his reservation at one of the most solidly booked hotels on earth. At six hundred a night.

  “Urqu will stay,” Puma declared. With food and three sleeping bags. Raymi, he said, sacrificing his boss’s child without a qualm, could do without his bag. He was young and tough and could sleep in the hostel at Huinay Huayna. And the next night they would be back in Cuzco, having taken the train from Agua Calientes at the foot of Machu
Picchu mountain.

  I thanked Raymi, who seemed quite cheerful about his sacrifice, adding, “Just don’t leave the snake,” I added. He flashed me a white-toothed grin that reminded me that while the Incas may have been the Romans of South America, ruling a vast empire that stretched from the top of the continent to the bottom and creating buildings of enduring beauty, they were also very human.

  I thanked Puma, Yanay, and Raymi from the bottom of my heart, for it was unlikely I would see them until my next trip to Peru. Their generous tip was included in our contract, so that was one thing I didn’t have to worry about. And no doubt Max would add something extra. After solemnly promising the Arendsens I would find them at Sanctuary Lodge the next day, I returned to our wandering Brit to tell him the news. He was out. Oh, God, wasn’t there something about keeping concussion victims awake? Too late. I should have paid more attention to my first-aid classes. A natural nurse, like Hildy, I most definitely wasn’t. My bedside manner was nil.

  While Urqu searched for a space wide enough to set up two tents and build a fire to ward off the mountain chill, I sat beside Mr. Black and Blue and wondered where I’d gone so wrong that I could be suspicious of a man found bruised and beaten on a trail high in the Andes mountains. And yet . . . so much had gone askew lately. What if Arlan Trevellyan wasn’t behind the glitches in the Arendsen’s schedule? What if . . . No, couldn’t be. Why would anyone want to get me to Peru? This could not possibly be a set-up. If my unconscious vic was part of a conspiracy, he’d hadn’t managed it very well. Or else something had gone badly wrong. No one would set themselves up for such a beating.

  Pretty damn depressing that my Halliday upbringing forced me to think like this.