by Bill Craig
“Something bothering you, Kid?” Fortune asked her, watching the way her expressions had changed with her thoughts.
“No, nothing that you can do anything about, Jake,” Glory looked up at him.
“Don’t be too sure. I can do a lot.”
“So, you keep telling me. You were pretty handy dealing with those bandits earlier.”
“I only wish they were the worst things we’ll face out there, Professor. I’ve got a bad feeling about this place,” Jake fortune sighed. Before long they decided to call it a night. Fortune put three men on watch while the rest of the security detail slept. They would be awakened in four hours and it would revolve like that through the night.
According to their guide, Chac, they might be able to make another ten miles before they would have to abandon the trucks. Bad enough, they would have to use the machetes to cut a path for the trucks to travel. Once they reached the swamps, they would have to build rafts or carve dugout canoes from some of the local trees. Neither was an option that he was looking forward to.
Fortune entered his tent and tied the flaps closed. He had draped mosquito netting over his cot and climbed under it and removed his boots. A light blanket was folded on the end of the bed and he shook it out and covered up. Closing his eyes, Fortune was soon sound asleep.
Don Franklin was walking the perimeter of the camp. The howler monkeys had finally decided to call it a night, but the jungle was far from silent. In the distance, they could still hear the hunting cries of the big cats, Jaguars, Bosley had called them. The cats didn’t bother him that much; at least they were big enough that you could see ‘em coming.
What bothered him were the damn snakes. Slithery bastards could hide in the undergrowth or in the tree branches and drop down without warning. He had known a couple of guys that were killed while exploring in Africa when a big ass snake dropped out of the damn trees and wound around them and crushed them to death. Don shivered at the thought.
He wished that he could have a smoke, but Captain Fortune would kick his ass if he broke night guard discipline to light one up. Not to mention, the flame from his lighter would destroy his night-vision and render him helpless if attacked just long enough to get him killed.
Don reached the end of his walk and turned around, heading back the other direction. He would run into Cliff down there. Don froze and stopped and looked around. He should have met up with Sam. Why wasn’t Morris here? “Sam?” Franklin called, softly.
No answer. Don frowned. He started down the side of the camp that Sam was supposed to be walking. It was possible that Sam and Cliff had stopped to talk for a couple of minutes, but he didn’t see that taking this long. No, something was wrong. Don moved halfway around the perimeter and still no sign of Sam. Don turned and hurried back toward his section. He would talk to Cliff, or he would just go wake up the Captain and see what he thought.
Sam Morris was still sweating despite the sun having gone down. The bad part about being in the jungle in the tropics is that you couldn’t get the ocean breeze like you would on an island. What he could hear was the constant buzz of mosquitoes and the far-off cry of jungle cats as they hunted. Wild pigs snorted from the undergrowth surrounding the camp, but so far had shown no inclination to venture into the clearing.
Sam swatted at a mosquito, wishing that the repellent that they had brought from the states actually worked. He sighed as he reached the mid-point of his patrol zone when he heard something moving in the bushes. Sam froze and then dropped into a crouch, bringing his rifle to his shoulder as he scanned the area that the noise had come from.
Something was out there. Something much bigger than a monkey or one of the boars. Was it a man? Or was it a jaguar cat? His eyes narrowed as a coughing sound repeated itself, just a few yards beyond the edge of the clearing. Sam spotted a fist-sized rock and picked it up, judging its weight by the heft. He threw it towards where the sound had originated some. There was a large disturbance in the brush and the rifle reached his shoulder once more.
Morris thumbed back the hammer with a menacing click that seemed very loud in his ears. The jungle around the camp had gone suddenly quiet. Quieter than it had all evening. He felt a sharp stinging pain in his neck and then his eyes rolled into his head and he collapsed in a heap on the ground.
The bush parted and dark forms slipped into the clearing. Hands grasped Morris and his body was lifted up, along with his rifle, and carried into the jungle. Moments later, the normal jungle sounds returned . . .
“Don, have you seen Sam?” Clifford Shaw asked. He had been waiting for Franklin to reach him.
“No, I haven’t, and he didn’t answer when I called,” Franklin replied.
“Go wake up the Captain and see what he wants to do,” Shaw commanded. Franklin nodded and hurried off to Fortune’s tent. Clifford Shaw glanced warily at the shadows in the jungle that surrounded them.
“Captain, you need to come quick!” Don Franklin’s voice and urgent tone roused Fortune from a deep sleep. He threw off his blanket and reached for his boots, making sure to shake them out good in case any spiders, centipedes, or scorpions had taken up residence in them while he slept, then he pulled them one and stomped his feet down to settle them in place. He was buckling on his gun belt as he pushed his way out of the tent.
“What is it, Don?” Fortune asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“Sam had disappeared from his watch, Captain. Cliff nor I could find him and we both checked,” Franklin explained.
“Did either of you hear anything?” Fortune asked.
“Not a thing, Cap.”
“Go wake up Tommy, Mike and Felix. I don’t like this one bit. Wake up Chac as well. Maybe he can shed some light on what happened.”
“Should I wake up the Professor?” Don asked.
“Not yet. I want to know more before we alarm the rest of the party,” Fortune replied.
Chapter Six
Fortune used his flashlight to scan the ground. He had bought the metal Eveready flashlight after arriving back in the States from the Great War in Europe. He used the light to study the ground around the area where Sam had been patrolling. It appeared that his bad feeling had been right. Now they were a man down and nobody knew where that man had gone. One thing Fortune was sure of, Sam Morris had not left under his own power.
Fortune was still examining the ground when the others arrived. Chac knelt beside him and studied the tracks. He reached down and touched the dirt, tracing the outline of the sandal prints left there. Fortune looked at him. “What does this tell you?” Fortune asked.
“I know of the warriors that took him. They are followers of Ba’lam, the Jaguar God of Terrestrial Fire. They will probably sacrifice him if they can at dawn,” Chac replied.
“That doesn’t give us much time,” Fortune said.
“No, it doesn’t,” Mike Rogers agreed.
“Go wake up the Professor. We need to let her know what is going on,” Fortune told him. Rogers nodded and disappeared; heading for the Professor’s tent. Some tough decisions were going to have to be made and made quickly. Because Jake Fortune was not about to leave a man behind if there was a chance that he could save him!
Sam Morris groaned softly, as his eyes fluttered open. He was surprised to discover that he was in some sort of ancient stone structure. A single flaming torch burned at the far end of the room, the smoky scent of burning pitch filling the chamber. It provided very little light; just enough for him to see that his arms and legs were bound by ropes woven from grass. He tested his strength against them and was surprised at how tough his bonds were.
He wished he had at least seen his attackers, had some idea of who they were. But he had been taken completely unaware, even as he had been stalking them. It galled the professional soldier in him to be captured so easily. He, at the very least, should have been able to put up a fight!
Glory Newkirk’s face was very pale as she listened to Fortune’s plan. “I don’t like it, Jake, it�
�s too dangerous,” she shook her head.
“I can’t let Sam be murdered by this Jaguar Tribe,” Fortune told her.
“It’s foolish for you to go alone, Jake. At least take Chac with you. He’s familiar with these people and where they live,” Glory pointed out.
“That is actually a pretty good idea,” Fortune nodded.
“Mike and the others can guard the camp and get us started in the morning. You and Chac need to go and rescue your friend.”
“Don’t worry, Glory. We’ll catch up. I won’t let you down. I promised your uncle that I’d protect you. I take promises like that very seriously.”
“I know that, Jake.”
“Thank you,” Fortune told her, meaning it. He reached out and clapped her on the shoulder then turned to look at Chac. “You have everything you need?”
“Give me two minutes,” Chac said, vanishing back towards camp. Fortune watched him go.
“Jake,” Glory said softly. Fortune turned to look at her.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Be careful, please? I’d like you to be around to see this through.”
“Me too,” he smiled at her.
Sam Morris had managed to sleep, despite the discomfort of his bonds. He was awakened by the sound of drums beating outside the chamber. Morris blinked the sleep from his eyes. The drums sounded ominous to him. He had a bad feeling about what they meant.
Sam had managed to locate a rock with sharp edges and he was busy trying to use it to saw at the grass ropes that bound his hands behind him. If he could manage to get free before they came for him, he would at least have a fighting chance.
It didn’t take much imagination to realize that they were probably going to use him as a human sacrifice. That had been in the briefing that they were given in New York before heading south on this expedition. Sam had already decided that he would not be an easy kill. If they wanted to sacrifice him to their strange gods, he would make a fight of it!
He wondered if the others even knew that he was gone? Taken in the night. In his heart, he felt that they did. More than likely, Jake was searching for him. But how would he find him in the middle of an unknown jungle in the middle of the night? No, Sam thought. It would be up to him to save himself. He began to saw more furiously at his bonds.
He knew that the natives were working themselves up to something as part of their ritual ceremony. One that he was pretty sure that would end in his death.
Sam pushed against the rope and felt it as the strands strapped. He breathed a sigh of relief and reached for the ropes binding his legs.
Jake Fortune and Chac looked at the stone ruins that pushed up out of the jungle. “This is where they live?” he asked.
“Si, the Ba’lam tribe live here.” Chac nodded.
“The Jaguar People?” Fortune asked.
“Yes.”
“What will they do before they kill him? I’m guessing they have a ritual that they perform?”
They do,” Chac nodded.
“What happens first?”
“The priest will bring him out and then have him tied to the altar. He will then offer ceremonial prayers to the Jaguar God. Once that is finished, he will use a sacrificial dagger to cut out his still-beating heart and will drink the blood pumping from it as he crushes it in his hand. After that is done, both the heart and the body will be tossed into the sacrificial well.”
“We can’t let that happen,” Jake shook his head.
“I’m not sure that we can stop it,” Chac sighed.
“I’ll stop it, one way or another,” Jake fortune said. He pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket and bit of the end, spitting it out. He put the unlit cigar in his mouth.
“I don’t like this,” Glory Newkirk said.
“You liking it, is not my concern, Professor. Doing what Jake told me to do is,” Mike Rogers told her, as he made sure that the camp was struck and that the convoy was ready to move.
“I’m in charge of this expedition, Mr. Rogers.” Glory told him.
“The science part of it yes, but Jake is in charge of the security aspect of it and he wants us to push on,” Rogers told her bluntly.
“But—,” Glory started to say.
“You can move with the convoy or sit here and wait for Jake, Professor. That choice is entirely up to you!” Rogers told her. He started towards the front of the convoy and barked at the native workers. They began hacking their way through the underbrush, cutting a road for the convoy of trucks. Glory ran and climbed in one, looking exasperated.
Four men came to get Sam. He was ready for them. His right fist pistoned out and crossed the jaw of the first man through the door. Sam drew back a leg and kicked the second man in the middle, folding him over like an accordion. The third man swung a stone club that whistled over his head. Sam stepped forward and snapped an elbow into the guy’s chin, sending him crashing into a stone wall. The fourth man slammed into his gut with a running tackle, driving him back into the chamber and down to the floor.
Sam groaned as he hit the stone floor, but he protected his head. He raised his hips into the air, tossing the guy off. Sam rolled to his hands and knees. The man was already coming towards him when Sam launched an uppercut from the floor that caught the man on the point of his jaw and lifted him into the air. He was unconscious when he hit the stone floor. Sam climbed to his feet and started down the corridor to the lighted door.
“What do you plan on doing?” Chac asked; a worried look on his face. He knew how fierce that the Jaguar Tribe could be.
“Just be ready,” Jake told him.
“Okay,” Chac said, nervously.
Jake kept an eye on the doorway where the four men had disappeared. He lifted his rifle and aimed at the door. Then he saw Sam Morris emerge and slip around behind a wall. “Change in plans,” Fortune said, as he swung the rifle towards the High Priest. His finger caressed the rifle’s trigger. The Priest flew backwards, blood blossoming on his chest. Fortune worked the lever and fired again, taking out another man. The men around the alter froze, in shock at what was taking place. They had never seen death strike like this, with the sound of thunder!
Fortune jacked the empty cartridge out of his Winchester and loaded a fresh one. He upped the safety on the rifle and motioned for Chac to follow him. He had a pretty good idea of where Sam would run to and he wanted to meet him there. Chac hurried along behind him.
“You are a man who is not afraid,” Chac observed.
“Says who?” Fortune shot back over his shoulder as they ran, dodging their way through the jungle.
Sam Morris ran through the underbrush. Branches and plants ripped at his face and arms while he ran. He knew where Fortune would want him to go. With luck, Jake would be waiting for him.
He could tell which way he was going by the slashing diagonal beams of sunlight slanting down through the green canopy overhead. The camp had been pitched to the east and north from where he had been held, he was certain of that. So that was the direction he ran. Soon, he came across a well-used path. He could see footprints and realized it had to be the one that he had been carried over from the camp to the ruins where he had almost been sacrificed. This was something Jake hadn’t warned them to expect! Of course, there was a better than good chance that Jake hadn’t known either!
Jake and Chac were waiting when they saw Sam come charging up the trail. Jake stepped out to where could see him before he saw Chac, because, frankly, after being kidnapped by some of the indigenous people, he wasn’t sure how Sam would react if he saw the young Maya first.
“Jake!” Sam gasped. “Thanks for coming!”
“You know my motto, Sam, never leave a man behind!” Jake told him, as he began leading the trio back towards the camp.
“One of these days, the armed services are gonna adopt that motto,” Sam told him.
“They could do worse,” Jake called over his shoulder.
The convoy had stopped at noon for a lunch break. Glory Newkirk kept looki
ng back down the trail that they had cut through the jungle from the previous camp. There was still no sign of Jake Fortune or Chac and Sam Morris. The sandwich she was chewing on had little taste for her, and she knew it was because she was worried about the three men.
Jake Fortune both excited and infuriated her. He was certainly handsome enough to make any girl take a second look, but his attitude towards her made her want to hit or kick him every time he contradicted her. And he did that a lot. While Uncle Peabody had made her the nominal head of the expedition, he had charged Fortune with keeping them all safe. Not an easy job when headed into possibly very hostile territory.
She knew that she should probably cut him some slack, but part of her rebelled against doing so. Possibly, because she hated the idea of letting anybody else be in charge. It had almost got her kicked out of classes in school, but she had learned to control the urge.
The swamps were ahead of them, and she knew they would be the most dangerous part of the trek, because they could not use the trucks to traverse them. They would have to make canoes or rafts to cross them. Between the poisonous snakes and the crocodiles, it would be especially dangerous. And of course, she could not forget the Maya tribes they would encounter that had no contact with the modern world. Hopefully, Chac would be back with them before that happened. The young man was very intelligent and, also very knowledgeable about the region that they were going into.
Chac had told her that he felt that the people in this region needed to meet the modern world if they were ever to advance. Glory agreed with that. She took a drink from her canteen and thought about her first meeting with Jake Fortune back in New York . . .
Chapter Seven
New York City.
Professor Gloria Newkirk was just putting the finishing touches on the list of personnel that she wanted to hire for the expedition when a knock sounded on the front door of her uncle’s penthouse apartment. She didn’t see Jeeves anywhere about, so she headed to the door to answer it.
