Valley of Skulls (Fargo Book 6)

by John Benteen

  Fargo’s mouth twisted in a grin as he saw the blood streaming from Darnley’s face where nails like claws had raked it. Darnley came up the trail, holding her clear off the ground. “Blast it, Fargo, give me a hand with this she-cat, will you? I can’t let her go for fear she’ll take the hide off me.”

  Fargo stepped out of the brush. “You’re Nancy Telford.”

  Suddenly the girl stopped fighting. Her green eyes widened. “Yes. How’d you know?”

  “My name’s Fargo. Stoneman’s father sent me to you.”

  For a moment she was motionless, silent; and Darnley did not release her, as if he were enjoying holding her against him. Fargo could understand why. The tight, stained wreck of a white shirt was stretched tautly over full, round breasts; the pants she wore hugged curved hips and fantastic legs. Her hair was an uncombed, tangled, coppery mass, tumbling over her face; those eyes were huge fiery opals, her nose was straight, cleanly chiseled, her lips red and lush. She was a woman made for love, for enjoyment, and she looked out of place in this howling wilderness.

  Her gaze roved over Fargo. Then she said, angrily, “Why didn’t this big brute tell me that in the first place?”

  Reluctantly, Darnley released her. She stood there, magnificent in her fury, breasts rising and falling, eyes glowing. “You didn’t give me a chance,” said the Englishman. “We saw you moving in the brush, had no way of knowing if you were friend or foe, and I took you. From then on it was fight, not talk.” He stepped aside looking at her ruefully, rubbing the streaming claw marks on his face. “Some thanks, I must say, for coming to your rescue.”

  “Then you were the ones who drove off those bandits? You got here just in time! They hit us early this morning and we all fought them—I can handle a rifle, too. Then, when we heard more firing up there, we were afraid it was reinforcements and fell back and took cover. I was in the brush trying to make it back to camp, when the next thing I knew this big … whatever it is … landed on me.”

  “It’s named Darnley. Roger Darnley. Where’s the rest of your outfit? Your father, Stoneman, Norris?”

  “They’ll be back at the dig by now. That was where we intended to make our last stand. Come on, I’ll, show you the way—if somebody will get my rifle out of that bamboo.”

  Darnley retrieved her Springfield from the cane, and she led them down the jungle trail. “I hope you brought some supplies with you. We had just about run out. We were supposed to be re-supplied from Las Casas, but they say the revolution has broken out again and nothing can get through. We were wondering how we were ever going to get out of here.”

  Darnley smiled. “You can quit worrying. I’ve got forty armed men, some Indian arrieros, mules, and plenty of supplies not far behind.” Fargo did not miss the way his eyes lingered on the girl, and his lips thinned. He’d have to talk to Darnley about her; no point in stirring up premature trouble with young Stoneman by messing with his fiancée. This was going to be a tricky enough operation as it was, if Stoneman and Telford had indeed found the Golden Gun.

  Then Fargo stopped dead, swung up the shotgun. “Hold it,” he whispered.

  The others stopped, listened. Ahead, around a bend, there were footsteps on the trail running toward them. Then a voice called, softly: “Nan! Nan! Where the devil are you, Nan?”

  The girl smiled. “You can relax. It’s Father and Ned.”

  “Answer them,” Fargo said. “We don’t want them getting trigger-happy.”

  “Here I am,” she called. “I’m all right. I’ve got people with me. They came to help us.”

  Then the two men rounded the bend, stopping short at the sight of Fargo and Darnley with the girl. Both were armed. Instinctively, the younger one raised his rifle. “Who the hell are you?” he rasped.

  Like father, like son, Fargo thought. Ned Stoneman, Jr., was the old man with nearly fifty years peeled away. The same cold blue eyes, the same great hawk’s bill of a nose, the same small, pursy mouth. He was six feet tall, rangy, burnt dark with weather; and, Fargo thought immediately, altogether dangerous, a man to be watched. You could almost smell it—the utter ruthlessness, the arrogance, embodied in that muscular frame.

  “My name’s Neal Fargo,” he said; and he told them who they were and what they were doing here.

  “Thank God,” the older man beside Stoneman said. He was in his early fifties, his hair silvered, his handsome face lined, his body leaned down by the hard work of excavation and the privations of the jungle. He was a strong man, too, Fargo guessed; had to be to venture into regions like this, live and work in them. There was none of the hard, self-centered willfulness in him that made Stoneman so dangerous. “We were at the end of our string. We’ve done all we can this season; now the important thing is to get what we’ve uncovered safely out. This is the most valuable archeological find anyone has made so far. Fargo, I think we’ve found the key to the ancient Mayan language!”

  “Oh?” Fargo realized the significance of that. He had seen plenty of Mayan picture writing in his time, knew that until now it remained a mystery; locked up within it was a key to an entire lost civilization, a whole era of history. More than that, if a way could be found to translate the hundreds of examples of it already known, what undiscovered cities and hidden treasures of gold, silver, jade would be thus revealed? Somewhere in the jungle, doubtless, were hidden Mayan caches that would make the Golden Gun seem worthless by comparison! But, “Good,” was all he said.

  “We’ve got to get it out,” Telford went on. “Back to civilization where it can be studied. You’ve got mules?”

  “Two dozen of them,” Fargo said.

  Telford looked disappointed. “We could use a hundred, but two dozen will have to do. We can take out the most important objects, anyhow. The stone tablets that hold the key to the Mayan language.”

  “It’ll take all the mules to haul those?”

  “Every one of them.” Telford turned. “Isn’t that right, Ned?”

  Fargo’s eyes shuttled to Ned Stoneman. The man’s face remained impassive. “Yes,” he said. “That’s right.”

  “Wait a minute,” Darnley said. “You mean you haven’t—?” Just in time Fargo nudged him into silence.

  Stoneman looked at the big Britisher. “Haven’t what?” he asked tonelessly.

  “Nothing,” Darnley said. “I was just surprised that a few bloody pieces of rock were considered so damned valuable.”

  “They are to science,” Telford said. “To the science of archeology, to historians, those ‘few bloody pieces of rock’ are worth a hundred, a thousand times their weight in gold.”

  Darnley looked at Fargo with something of dismay. Almost imperceptibly, Fargo cautioned him with a motion of his head. He thought he knew what was happening here, but until he was certain, he intended to play his hand cautiously. “Look,” he said. “All that can wait. I’ve got a bullet hole in my shoulder. It don’t take long in this climate for a wound to go bad. You’ve got first-aid supplies, Dr. Telford?”

  “Yes, plenty.”

  “Then suppose we get along, down to the Valley of Skulls. We’ll make our plans to get out of here later on.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Ned Stoneman said, looking at Darnley and Fargo inscrutably. “Come on.” He took Nancy Telford’s arm and turned and struck out down the path.

  A quarter of a mile along, it dropped steeply, widened. Then they turned a corner and Fargo stopped short.

  He had been in a lot of places in his time and he had seen many things counted marvels by ordinary men. But not even he had ever seen anything like this before.

  Below them, the ground was scooped out in a huge, natural bowl a mile across. All that area had been cleared of jungle with an immensity of labor that staggered Fargo. But it was not that feat of incredible work and hardship that made him suck in his breath. It was what stood in the center of that clearing.

  The pyramid was broad at the base, a full quarter of a mile square, stepped up gradually to a height of nearly
a hundred feet; and the stone building on its flattened crest was enormous, sprawling, of heavy blocks of granite. In its center was a granite tower nearly fifty feet high. Even from this distance, looking down upon that huge structure, Fargo could see the carvings on nearly every surface: fantastic figures of thick-bodied men and women, serpents, even things that looked like elephants, all done to great scale. This, he thought, with a prickling of the short hair on the back of his neck, was a ghost city, the remnants of what had been a thriving metropolis in the very heart, the gut, of impenetrable jungle.

  For, all across the clearing and on into the forest beyond, the remains of the huge settlement around the temple on the pyramid were clearly visible: roofless houses of the same granite blocks, some with stucco facing, molded, carved in the same fantastic ornamentation. Once, perhaps fifteen or twenty thousand people had lived here in pride and glory, considering themselves invincible and immortal, their race the greatest ever created by the Gods. Now they were gone, all gone, their vaunted civilization with them. All that remained of their prideful lives were these mute, carved stones. It was incredible, somehow eerie and wholly fascinating. Fargo understood at once Telford’s obsession with it, what had brought him to risk his life on such an expedition. It was not so much the drive for scientific knowledge as the impulse that drives treasure seekers. This was indeed a treasure that Telford had uncovered: something the world had never seen since the days of the Spanish conquest. For a moment, looking down at all that, Fargo forgot the Golden Gun. Compared to that spectacle laid out before him, it became a thing of insignificance.

  “My God,” he said. “You cleared all this yourself?”

  “With Indians, yes. Until...” Telford glanced at Stoneman, “... they ran off, deserted us.” He smiled. “It wasn’t as difficult as it looks. Mostly, we had to cut back the jungle. In a few places—there was no help for it, though I abhor doing it—we had to blast. But time was short, and fortunately we had plenty of powder. But, you see. You see now why it’s so important to get the stelae, the great stone tablets with the secret of the writing on them, back to civilization, where scholars can study them. Fargo, this is only one of many cities like this. The Mayan language holds the clue to perhaps ten, fifteen, a hundred more; who can say? And who knows what else lies buried in them? Down there, believe me, are sculptures of men riding elephants. And yet, we have no record of elephants in America at that time. Where did they come from? Why did they cut elephants into stone here in the Mexican jungle? The whole history of man in North America may be revised and altered by what we’ve discovered here.” His eyes shone with a fanatical gleam. “Thank God you’ve come; thank God for Mr. Stoneman’s interest, so we can take a record of all this back. You’re not only serving us, you’re serving the entire scientific world by coming to our rescue.”

  “Yeah,” Fargo said. Darnley, who shared his awe, was staring open-mouthed at the fantastic spectacle of the lost city below. “Well, when can we load and start?”

  “At once,” said Telford. “As soon as your men and mules get here. Our work is finished; now there’s not a moment to waste in getting its results back to the outside world.” Suddenly he laughed. “I’m an idiot, standing here rattling while you’ve got a bullet hole in your shoulder. Come on, we’ll fix you up right away.”

  A curl of smoke rose from one of the roofless buildings. They threaded their way through the streets of the lost city, in which vines were already beginning to grow again, the incredibly lush jungle already reaching out to reclaim its own. Then they turned through a carved doorway into the shell of what had once been a kind of palace, its rooms, corridors, one upon the other, stretching out with seeming endlessness. Within, tents had been pitched, canvas flies spread to shield equipment and mosquito-barred hammocks.

  “The Maya never learned the secret of the arch or the vault,” Telford said as they entered. “Consequently, they built their roofs of wood and thatch, and they’ve all long since rotted.” Then, as a small, middle-aged man with a pot belly arose from the fire he had been tending, he went on: “This is my assistant, Mr. Norris. He’s been with me for years. He’s invaluable.”

  Norris took Fargo’s hand as Telford explained who the newcomers were. Fargo dismissed him instantly as inconsequential; he was no fighter. More, Fargo guessed, camp flunky and general handyman. Then Telford got out his first-aid kit. “Let me see to that shoulder.”

  They stood around him as he peeled off his blood-sodden shirt. Telford went to work on the wound. Though it hurt, Fargo stood silently and did not flinch. He was more interested in the way Nancy Telford’s green eyes ranged over his muscular, battle-scarred torso as her father wrapped gauze. Something gleamed, swirled, deep within those eyes; and her breasts rose and fell beneath her shirt; and he knew then that though she might be engaged to Ned Stoneman, she was not in love with him. Not enough to keep her from grabbing something better if it came within her reach.

  He glanced covertly at Stoneman. He had noticed, too, how Nancy’s eyes raked over Fargo; and his lips were pursed, his blue eyes even harder. He did not like that, Fargo thought; he did not like that one damned bit. He was a man who, like his father, bought and paid for things and then possessed them wholly with no intention of sharing. Fargo’s dislike for Stoneman grew. He had already gleaned from Telford’s conversation that the Golden Gun might be here, but Telford had no idea that at least six of the precious mules would be used to haul it out. Apparently Stoneman had not made an issue of that as yet. But, now that the mules were here, he would. Then Telford would learn that he had been betrayed.

  Fargo’s mouth twisted slightly, but not with the pain of the wound. Currents and crosscurrents. Telford; Stoneman; Darnley; the girl; and himself. Trouble in the air like the tang of gun-powder …

  Then it was done. As Telford tied the gauze they heard sounds up the trail. “My men,” Darnley said. “I’ll go meet them.” He went out of the shell of the place.

  Fargo pulled the bloodstained shirt back on, picked up his bandoliers, started to sling them. “That won’t do your wound any good,” Telford said.

  “I’d rather have a wound than be caught short of ammunition.” He looped them into place, then lit a cigar. The smoke tasted good after the ordeal of the treatment. “All right,” he said. “We’re agreed we’re not going to linger here. We’ll rest tonight, pull out tomorrow morning. I want to see exactly what we’ve got to load.” He shot a glance at Stoneman. Might as well force the man’s hand now and get it over with.

  “We’ve got a lot of stelae. We’ve built carts to transport them with. They’re too heavy for one mule to haul. Come, I’ll show you.” Telford gestured and Fargo followed. Stoneman remained where he was, face impassive. That baffled Fargo. Was Darnley wrong? Maybe they had not found the Golden Gun. All right, it made no difference; not if these stelae were what Telford claimed them to be. They would reveal the secret of other treasures …

  Telford led him through the labyrinths of the palace. In one great topless room, the stelae were spread out—great stone slabs, dozens of them, carved, embossed. Telford’s voice rang with pride, excitement. “There, you see? Each divided into two parts. Above, the Maya inscription; below, the translation. Every one of these is a potential Rosetta Stone, Fargo!”

  “What’s a Rosetta Stone?”

  “It was the stone inscribed in both Egyptian hieroglyphics and Greek that enabled a French scholar to decipher the old Egyptian picture-writing. This is the same.”

  Fargo looked down at the slabs. “That’s not Spanish on the bottom.”

  “No. Latin. The priests. They always moved out first, even ahead of the Spanish soldiers. Some Franciscan must have penetrated this jungle, gained the confidence of the Maya, learned their writing, persuaded them to inscribe these monuments both in their own language and the language of the Church. That’s why they’re so invaluable, Fargo: absolute treasures of science. And only two dozen mules. We’ll be able to haul out nothing but the bare minimum ...�
� He shook his head.

  The question rose on Fargo’s lips then: “What about the Golden Gun?” But he had no time to voice it. Outside the ruined palace there was the jingle and squeak of gear, the clop of mules’ hooves, the sound of many voices. Darnley’s Raiders had come in.

  Chapter Seven

  With the arrival of the men, Darnley, needing no instructions from Fargo, put out strong guard details around the ruined city. Then, in the gathering twilight, he joined Fargo, Telford and Stoneman in the room of the ruined palace. The girl cooked them supper. All around them, as twilight settled, the jungle literally howled. Monkeys and birds screamed. In the distance a female jaguar in heat unleashed a ghastly cry of yearning that was like the agonized lament of a lost soul. Fargo drank coffee, savored his cigar. The others sat around him on blocks of stone.

  “First,” he said, “I want to know what happened to all your Indians. You must have had a swarm of ’em to uncover this city. Now they’re all gone. You say deserted. Why?”

  Telford frowned, hesitated. “Is that important?”

  “You’re damned right it is. Everything’s important in a deal like this. We can’t go back out through Chiapas. We’ve got to haul through the Lacandon, then on through Guatemala into British Honduras. Stoneman’s yacht’s to meet us there. That forest is full of Indians, and their attitude toward us is damned crucial. Why did they run out? Didn’t you pay ’em? Or was it superstition?”

  “We paid them,” Telford said. “Quite promptly and fully. Superstition—yes, we had some trouble about that. Most of them were latter-day Maya. This was a sacred place to them—especially the Temple up there. They were ... reluctant to work and—”

  “And they had to be forced,” Stoneman said harshly.

  Fargo looked at him. “Forced?”

  “I had to make examples out of some of them, the lazy bastards!”